Chapter 95 Honored
After two hours of magic assisted collecting and storing, the quartet managed to acquire most of the gold dust and all of the gold chunks. Apparently Alexander had an additional Bottomless Bag in the form of a pocket in his robes. It was a bit more awkward stuffing thousands of gold pieces worth of gold into it but it did the trick. Combined they managed to bring with them a literal ton of gold. Finally, all that was left was the golden rod that had triggered the entire mess and an ornate stone throne filled with platinum engravings that had been buried under all of the gold.
“Do you think that the rod was what triggered the golem or the act of touching the gold?” Isaac wondered.
“It was definitely the act of touching the gold. Golden rods are prone to being turned into traps though, so be careful.” Alexander warned.
“Because they can be filled with golden runes and you wouldn’t be able to tell unless the runes were actively pulling in power?” Isaac wondered.
“Exactly.” Alexander replied.
Isaac shrugged and picked up the rod. “Do you think this is the kind that adding mana to it would trigger them or is it just a regular rod of gold?” He asked while inspecting the item that could have been used as a bludgeon due to its weight alone.
“If it was, then an Identify would trigger it.” Alexander told him. “Honestly, it would be safer if you just mangled it beyond all recognition.”
“Unless it has a way to turn impacts into mana that would then set off the runes causing it to go off like a wagon load of explosives.” Isaac replied casually. “Only one way to find out.”
“Wai-” Alexander tried to say with terror in his eyes but it was too late. Isaac spun and whipped the rod as far as he could, which wasn’t nearly far enough if it were to explode after a heavy impact. They watched as the rod sailed through the air with the grace of a cargo ship. It hit the stone ground with a heavy clanging thud. “Oh,” Alexander said with obvious relief in his voice but the widened eyes on Isaac told him he had spoken too soon. Unfortunately the rest of the words were already on their way out of his mouth: “I think w-”
A light so bright it threatened to permanently remove the vision of all of those who witnessed it was accompanied by a sound so loud that all of their eardrums ruptured at once. All four of them hit the ground with their hands over their ears at the same time as vertigo and pain removed any notion of standing from their minds.
Isaac was the first to recover as his death flames cleansed him of his recent experience. Isaac looked around with clearing vision and wobbled on his hands and knees for a moment as his inner ears tried to right themselves. He looked around to find nothing but his three companions still collapsed on the ground. He half stumbled, half crawled, over to Lenna and started healing her.
“That was… I don’t even know where to begin.” Lenna told him with a scowl. “You need to stop speaking bad things into existence.”
“What do you mean?” Isaac asked defensively. “It was one time.”
“You spoke the golem into existence too.” Lenna accused him.
“Oh, shit, you’re right.” Isaac replied. “Okay, from now on, I’ll keep those comments to myself.”
Lenna sighed and shook her head. “Let’s get the wizards moving again, and Isaac,” Lenna began.
“Yes?” Isaac replied.
“no more touching potentially magical items.” She scolded him.
“Yes ma’am.” Isaac replied like a child who had just been told they could not sword fight their sibling with a real sword.
Lenna healed Alexander the best that she could without sending into a fever induced coma. Alexander was then able to grab some healing potions for himself and Karthen to at least get rid of the pain. Both of them would still be hard of hearing for a while and the ringing was not going away any time soon but at least they were mostly recovered and could see again. “I say again, I am never doing field work, ever, again.” Karthen grumbled for the seventh time. “The throne is intriguing, yes, however, I will have no more part of this madness. If you are all ready to leave then I can teleport us all to the exit, if not, I will wait for you all outside where at least I will have an easy time teleporting back to civilization.”
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“How much do you think the throne weighs?” Isaac asked Alexander.
Alexander hummed in thought. “Too much for us to take with us for now, unless you plan on carrying it.” He replied.
“You think I can carry it?” Isaac wondered.
“I watched you beat a Tunnel Horror to death with your hands recently, I believe you should be fine.” Alexander told him. “Why do you want it?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” Isaac replied. “But it is the last valuable thing here. Shamsha really only had gold on hand for some reason.”
“To replace all of the rituals and to make more animated skeletons.” Alexander surmised. “Well, if you are going to take it, you should take it now. I do not wish to walk back and the Grand Magus is offering us a free teleport back.”
Isaac paused. “Hold on, dimensional space inside of a dimensional space is supposed to be catastrophic right?” He asked the pair of wizards.
“It depends on how stable the spaces are and how far removed from reality they are as well. A demidimension like this one is both incredibly stable and a pseudo reality in and of itself. The demidimension acts more like another plane of existence than a conjured space, otherwise, yes, it would be incredibly catastrophic.” Karthen explained. “Now, may we go?”
“Can you teleport us and the throne back?” Isaac wondered.
“If Alexander empties his mana pool in dispelling magic on it first, fine, as long as it gets us out of this place.” Karthen grumbled his assent.
“Good enough for me, Alexander?” Isaac replied.
Alexander sighed. “As you wish.” He replied and then proceeded to do as his former mentor had instructed. Once they were completely positive that nothing was going to happen, Karthen teleported all of them back to the entrance. Once they were there an invisible force, from Shamesh, picked up the throne and brought it outside for them.
“Is this a ‘gift for Izen’ or a ‘gift for my study’ kind of gift?” Isaac asked Lenna.
“I can inquire with his grace once I have regenerated sufficient mana.” Alexander told him. “Grand Magus, do you have enough mana to teleport us back to the city from here?”
Karthen sighed. “No, I do not.” He replied. “I have enough mana remaining to teleport myself back to the city and I am incredibly inclined to do so.”
“Do you not want to study the portal and demidimension now that it is open?” Alexander asked.
Karthen sighed again. “I do.” He agreed. “Very well, I will remain here, with you all, until I have finished compiling the degradation information on the demidimension and adequately archived the space as a whole.”
“Should we make camp or just sit around?” Isaac asked the ancient space mage.
“It should not take me more than a few hours, do with that what you will.” Karthen replied and started pulling something that looked oddly like a telescope out of his odd amorphous storage space.
Eventually the group managed to make it back to Safeharbor and they even succeeded in not having any more hiccups. After all of the gold was dumped in a back room in the Adventurers Guild, Karthen rapidly made his escape. “I bid you all farewell and I pray to Lady Luck that we never physically cross paths again. I will be available for physical or magical correspondence during any time that the sun is visible in the sky, in the capitol, where it is safe.” He said with a deep nod towards Isaac and Lenna and a brief one towards Alexander. “Return.” Karthen ordered magic itself and with that he was gone.
“He totally made us wait longer than we needed to.” Isaac commented.
“Most definitely.” Lenna agreed. “Not that I blame him. People like that are not meant to leave their libraries. I am surprised that he was as useful as he was. That would have been incredibly difficult, if not impossible, without him.”
“Agreed.” Isaac said with a nod. “It might do him some good to get out and touch grass some more though, did you see how pale his skin was?”
“Lord Wexler, have you seen how pale anyone who-” Alexander cut himself off as he looked at Lenna. “almost anyone who lives underground looks?”
“Fair point.” Isaac conceded. “Thanks for finding him.”
Alexander nodded deeply. “It was my pleasure. Knowing how cowardly he is, I doubt you have anything to worry about with him.”
Isaac sighed. “I’m just not quite ready for everyone in the capitol to know everything yet.” He confided in Alexander. “Once we have a better foundation, and actively moving against us is obviously a bad idea, then and only then, will I be fine with Shamesh and a few other select abilities being spread around.”
Alexander nodded in understanding. “Once you have reached level twenty.” He surmised. “Who knows when that will be though.”
Isaac shook his head. “Not level twenty but twenty levels worth of political weight and leverage.” Isaac explained. “I need to wait until either we are summoned to the king or have an open meeting with another demigod, specifically one that people recognize, like Judgment. Even then, I will have to wait until knowledge of that gets spread around for a bit.”
“You said an ‘open meeting’.” Alexander brought up. “I did get some odd readings the other day but it was around the time Judgment was here so I wrote it off.”
“Time stopped by for a visit and dinner.” Isaac explained. “Those readings were probably accurate.”
Alexander’s eyes widened slightly. “So the streaks across the map that were moving at speeds beyond my comprehension were just her moving around?” He questioned.
“Where did the lines go?” Isaac wondered.
“Down from the fortress, through town, a lot in town, out towards the portal area and back into town, towards Ben’s End a few times and back, then finally it started following you around for a little while and then it streaked away out past the fortress again.” Alexander explained.
Isaac’s eyes widened in realization. “She was following every path we had taken.” He said and then paled. “She was following my path the entire way to the beginning.” He added in a whisper.
“At least now we know how she knew so much about you.” Lenna offered him. She then said with such a sudden change of topics that Isaac and Alexander both just looked at her owlishly for a moment: “I don’t know about you boys but I think it’s time for hot food.”
“I, uh, yeah.” Isaac said. “Some hot food sounds nice. Alexander?”
“The Celestial Dawn?” Alexander questioned.
“Of course.” Isaac and Lenna replied in unison.
Alexander smiled. “Then I’d be honored to.”