20. Go Fish Pt. 1

For a few brief moments, darkness swirled around him. Isaac felt his hairs rise and goosebumps form along his skin as he struggled to step forward. It was difficult to move his limbs, as though some invisible force was tugging them in different directions. Still, he grit his teeth and, with a surge of motion, barreled through.

A flash of light blinded him. Isaac blinked, his eyes struggling to adjust, and he turned his head, finding himself standing in the center of a throne room. Large glass mirrors lined the stone walls where one might typically expect paintings or carvings. Tall pillars made of that same shifting grey stone extended high above, reaching towards a ceiling lying far beyond what he could see. A few glowing red jewels decorated the walls, casting a warm glow over the room as the light was reflected off the mirrors in different directions. On closer inspection, the reflections in the mirrors were slightly distorted, some a little long, a tad crooked, too blurry. The result was a strange, surreal experience that made Isaac feel a bit disoriented as he looked around.

Beneath his feet, a long, plush violet carpet led towards the throne itself, which sat on an elevated platform of stairs, noticeably empty. Instead, at the foot of the stairs, a familiar angel and demon were seated on the ground playing cards, a basket of something that he couldn’t make out from the distance sitting nearby.

“I see, so if I do not have the card, I say ‘go fish,’ correct?”

The angel scrunched his face as he stared intently at his own hand of cards. “Yeah, I think so.”

“I see, how interesting. Would you happen to know why the phrase is go fish?”

Casimir scratched his head, and on the floor of the grey, red, and violet throne room, his large white wings looked especially comical. “Uhh, Fable never got that far. Oh, hey!” The angel’s voice suddenly rose to three times its previous volume, bouncing around the walls and echoing over and over again as the angel spun around to face Isaac, a wide grin on his face. “Hey Isaac! Why’s it called Go Fish?”

Isaac stared at the two of them. “I think,” he said, very slowly, “I’m gonna need some more context.”

At that moment, Isaac felt the air ripple beside him and turned just in time to see one of the mirrors warp as Mortimer conveniently appeared beside him. Huh, so that’s what it looked like from the outside.

Isaac watched the half undead man blink a few times and look around, eyes tracing the mirrors and pillars before they landed on the two beings seated on the floor. He blinked a few more times and Isaac bit his lip to hide a snicker.

As usual, Casimir was the one to break the silence. He gasped dramatically, the motion knocking over the deck of cards in the center, which Lucius calmly caught and straightened.

“Isaac, is this a friend? Do you have a friend? I’m so proud of you!”

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“Casimir, please shut up.”

The angel threw his head back and laughed, somehow even louder than before. The throne room really was an echo chamber with how endlessly it reflected noise. Lucius took the opportunity to turn to the two of them, smiling.

“It’s good to see you again, Isaac,” he said. “And to meet you—Mortimer, is it?”

Mortimer bowed slightly in greeting, expressionless and unreadable as usual. Isaac might’ve imagined it, but his bow was a bit stiffer than normal. By this point Casimir seemed to have gotten over his laughing fit and was grinning at the man.

“Hey Mort! The shoes’re great!”

Mortimer nodded very seriously, and Isaac stared between the two of them with a combination of disbelief and betrayal.

“He bought some Heelys,” Mortimer said by way of explanation.

“They’re really cool,” the angel piped up. “You should get some!”

“Yeah no. Not fucking happening.”

“What brings you here?” Lucius calmly interrupted the quickly devolving conversation. Bless the one sane person in the room. After the ordeal with the tunnels and Olzu, Isaac had almost forgotten why he was even here. He grabbed his tablet, clicking open the rough “notes” he’d made, if they could even be called that. He was sure they would be a deep insult to his high school English teacher, though she hadn’t liked him very much to begin with. At least, that was the impression he got from the few days he’d actually showed up to class.

“Lilith’s adding a charisma stat,” he said. He squinted at his notes. “I need to figure out how to measure it, so I’m doing a survey test run. And I dragged Mortimer along.”

Mortimer nodded. “I thought it looked amusing.”

Lucius hummed in understanding. “I see. I assume you came to ask me because I have a charisma based skill?”

It was so nice talking to normal, intelligent people, even if said person was an extremely high level demon who could probably kill him without trying. “Yep.”

Lucius looked thoughtful. “I’m a bit surprised she’s adding another stat,” he remarked. “I didn’t think any more additions were necessary after the instinct stat.”

“That’s what I said, but apparently some people were complaining about it or whatever.” He scowled. “She wouldn’t listen.”

Lucius and Casimir exchanged a brief look that Isaac couldn’t decipher. He frowned, glancing between the two of them, but Lucius spoke up again before he could ask what that was about. “Do you mind if I take a look at the questions you have so far?”

He would very much mind, but considering he was supposed to be asking them anyway, he supposed he’d just have to suck it up and face the humiliation. He pulled out the tablet and made to hand it over, but Lucius held up a hand to stop him.

“I can read it from here,” the demon said. Isaac nodded, standing awkwardly as he waited for the demon to finish contemplating the list of haphazard, vaguely charisma related questions. His eyes wandered over to Mortimer, who appeared to be inspecting the architecture of the place with mild interest, though he remained standing nearby and didn't move any closer to the walls or mirrors. Isaac would’ve expected him to have walked up and started poking at them by now. Maybe he found the architecture disappointing.

Finally, Lucius nodded and Isaac drew the tablet back. “I see,” the demon said. “This is a decent start, but the answers seem rather subjective. It may be difficult to achieve concrete results with them.”

Isaac deflated, sighing. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“You can still test them out if you like, I don’t mind.”