Darkness and Hellfire

Chapter 11 What They Are For.

Isaac and Lenna arrived at the Adventurers’ Guild Hall to meet with their favorite receptionist early in the morning. Neither of the pair had gotten much sleep but the quiet time together, to talk and process everything that had happened, was much appreciated.

Lenna’s feelings on the death of her uncle were a little more complicated than her thoughts on it, unfortunately. In her mind, he needed to be put down. He was a powermad ancient monster who took pleasure in crushing everything he didn’t like under his boot without a shred of mercy. He was both impulsive and cunning which made him an unpredictable opponent who, thankfully, was also easily baited. He was driving Contantis, Lenna’s birthplace, into the ground with reckless spending and, recently, an ill prepared city assault. For the benefit of her homecity, all of those living in it, her new home, and everyone she cared about, he needed to be stopped.

The complicated part was that he had helped her a lot. He had given her everything she asked for and hired the greatest tutors for her. It was because of him that Lenna spoke so many languages, could wield every weapon in the world, see through most people’s lies and masks, and run a city. Most of those things were still useful for her and she appreciated it. That, however, did not mean that she ever actually liked the man.

Jallen V’Nova had been, and still was, the only person that she was truly afraid of. She feared Fable’s power but that fear was mostly squashed by her anger at him for killing many of her old friends and anger at herself for not being strong enough to save them. When Lenna was finally honest with herself about how she felt about Jallen’s death she was relieved but she had one regret: She wished that she could have said thank you to the man, for all of the help he had given her, over the centuries. She felt this way even though she knew that the only reasons she had been chosen were because Jallen hadn’t had any children and she had the highest stats among her cousins.

Lenna shook her head to clear it as Isaac pushed the doors open for the pair to head inside. She smiled a bit at the sight of one of the Alice twins sitting behind the desk. Even after all of this time she had trouble telling which was which.

“I’m surprised, I didn’t see you yesterday to receive your payment.” Alice commented almost as soon as they were inside.

“Payment?” Isaac questioned and glanced back at Lenna for answers. In all the chaos surrounding the battle, the open bounty on drow military personnel had slipped his mind.

“She was credited with four infantrymen and one knight-paladin kills.” Alice explained. “Should I sell the gear and have it deposited into your account or do you want any of it?”

Lenna glanced at Isaac but he didn’t comment so she shrugged. “Just sell it.” She told the receptionist.

Alice nodded. “Okay, do you want the reward deposited directly when it arrives or should we send a messenger for you to pick it up?”

“Just deposit it.” Isaac replied. “Why the delay anyway?”

“The payout is way out of budget for the city. Fifty nine infantrymen, and seven knight-paladins is a total payout of forty seven thousand gold not accounting for all of the gear that is being sold to the dukedom to outfit the important guards.” Alice explained.

“Important guards?” Isaac asked.

“Sergeants, ducal guard, maybe the captain too.” Alice quickly replied. “Long story short, the duke is out of money and the Adventurers’ Guild doesn’t have the gold on hand to foot the bill so everyone is stuck waiting until a shipment arrives from Sapphirestone.”

“So a few days to a week?” Isaac questioned.

“Exactly.” She affirmed. “If there isn’t a riot before then.” She added under her breath.

“We weren’t actually here for money at all.” Isaac informed her. “We need our double platinum tags.”

Alice’s face lit up. “Really!” She asked and stood up in her seat with her hands planted on her desk.

“Yep. Lenna’s sixteen and there is no point in me pretending that I can’t handle the same level of threats.” Isaac replied.

“So what should I put as your level?” Alice questioned Isaac. “Sixteen? Twenty?”

“Can you-” Isaac started to answer but was cut off by Edward who had just walked in behind them.

“Put two question marks.” Edward said with a yawn. “I’ll approve it.”

Alice nodded quickly. “Understood, Guild Master.” She said. “What about bounties completed? Should the ones directly from the duke be added?”

Edward nodded. “Yes. Add two more to the official number. I already talked to the Duke about it. We saw this coming a while ago.”

“On it!” Alice exclaimed and jumped down before she hurried into the back.

“They will have to be shipped in from the capital. There is only one set of dies in each country because of how few of us exist at a time.” Edward explained. “Alice is ordering them now but I wouldn’t expect to see them anytime soon.” He sighed. “And that isn’t even considering the telepathic communication I am going to have to deal with later.” He grumbled. “There are so many question marks on your badges that an official might show up with your tags to test you before they hand them over.”

“It’s that bad?” Isaac asked.

Edward nodded wearily “Yes.” He yawned again. “Is that all you needed?”

“Yeah.” Isaac replied. “How should I get the Lets of Quickness and Gambeson of the Guarded Soul back to Izen? Should I just walk in the front door with them? Drop them on his desk?”

“Just go to his office, I doubt anyone will try to stop you at this point, don’t go waving them around though.” Edward instructed.

“Thanks.” Isaac said and gave him a wave. “I think it’s time I give Izen one less thing to stress about.”

—

Isaac knocked on Izen’s office door for the first time. Every other time he had been in that specific room he had just appeared. His entrances had been rude to say the least but Izen always seemed more exasperated than angry so Isaac continued to see it as a valid way to drop by without any rumors spreading. This time, however, he had Lenna with him so teleporting wasn’t an option. “Come in.” The pair heard from the other side of the door and Isaac opened the heavy wooden door into Izen’s cozy office.

As usual Izen was sitting behind his old hardwood desk in his, just as old, plush comfortable chair. The swords on display against the wall looked freshly polished in the relatively dim light in Izen’s office. “I figured it was about time I gave you one less thing to worry about.” Isaac said by way of greeting as he and Lenna walked in. Lenna closed the door behind them and Isaac saw Izen press something under his desk. A familiar magic washed over the walls and hardened in place. The magic sealed all sound inside of the room and provided a high resistance against most spying magics.

“Isaac, Lenna.” Izen greeted them and gestured for them to sit in the cushioned chairs on their side of Izen’s desk.

Isaac pulled the borrowed magical gear out of his Inventory as he walked over. “I figured you would want these back.”

Izen nodded and Isaac saw the slightest smirk creep onto the corner of his mouth beneath his full beard. “Yes. Though I assume you are prepared to pay for damages, correct?” The Duke questioned with eyes fixed on the discolored line stretching across the front of the gambeson.

“Only if the water relic in Ben’s End is for sale?” Isaac continued joking with the duke.

Izen chuckled and shook his head. “I have tried, believe me.”

“Oh?” Isaac questioned, suddenly quite curious.

“As it was put there by a previous king, it is property of the royal family and only the royal family can legally touch it. Even the workers that built the bathhouse around it had to be very careful not to even bump it.” Izen explained. “Sera asked for it as a birthday present once. I tried to find even the smallest loophole to allow me to bring it into Safeharbor but there is not a single one.”

“Damn.” Isaac swore and Izen nodded solemnly. He then noticed the pile of identical letters on Izen’s desk. There was a stack at least a dozen high and another three were laid out to let the ink dry. “Are those?”

“Letters to the families of the fallen, yes.” Izen answered.

“How many?” Isaac asked.

“Forty one dead, five will never fight again, one will never walk.” Izen explained. “Seven adventurer casualties, twenty four guards, sixteen soldiers.”

Isaac nodded. “That is better than I expected considering the drow casualties.” He said emotionlessly. “What is going to happen to them?”

“We will wait another six days for their families to come up with the money for a resurrection ritual. If they cannot then we will cremate them.” Izen explained. “Luckily for some, the payout their families will receive should be enough to enable resurrection.”

“How many, if you had to guess?” Isaac asked.

“All three of my personal guards who died should have enough, but only barely. Their families might not resurrect them however.” Izen said solemnly.

“Why not?” Isaac demanded.

Izen sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Unfortunately, you and I are the lucky ones. If we died we know that our loved ones would pay any price to get us back. Some would rather coast on the payout and their savings for the rest of their lives instead. I have seen a few families ruined over the years because of such greed and heartlessness.” He sat up straight in his chair. “I think one of the Adventurers will be resurrected and the two with missing limbs should be able to come up with the gold to get their limbs regrown. The garrison members are stuck on the wrong bank of The River Styx as it were.”

“I see.” Isaac replied. “On a somewhat similar but mostly unrelated note, is the prisoner available to be seen yet?”

“The drow knight-paladin?” Izen requested clarification.

“Yes.” Isaac replied.

Izen shook his head. “I cannot say for certain but I think you will have to wait another day or so until Sir Michael allows visitors, you are free to ask him but I ask that, whatever his response, you abide by it for the time being.” He informed them.

“As long as he doesn’t make us wait for too long, otherwise I will have to check on him myself. As easy as that would be, I want to trust Michael and this is his opportunity to prove that he deserves it.” Isaac replied. Izen and him locked eyes before nodding slightly to each other. The silent conversation amounted to the assurance that if Macken was being tortured despite cooperating with Michael’s questioning that Michael would be getting replaced, forcibly.

“Very well.” Izen said. “If that is all, I must really get back to these.” He gestured to the written and not yet written letters to the families of the fallen.

“Of course, see you around Izen.” Isaac said.

“Thank you.” Lenna said to the duke.

“For what?” Izen asked curiously while Isaac placed the borrowed gear onto the seat he had just vacated.

“For not being like my uncle, for caring about your subjects as people. I can see it in your eyes, how much this weighs on you.” Lenna replied. “Once those are done, regardless of what else you have to do, spend some time with Sera.”

Izen looked slightly surprised at Lenna’s words but nodded. “I will, thank you for the kind words, and, for what it is worth, I am sorry that you had to fight and kill those you once fought alongside. Not counting you three in the middle, the rest of the line had a two to one casualty rate. You saved a lot of lives on our side and for that I can never thank you enough.”

Lenna nodded but didn’t reply. Isaac nodded towards the door. “Thanks for letting me borrow those.” Isaac said as he got the door for Lenna and himself.

“That is what they are for.” Izen replied with a nod and Isaac shut the door, leaving the duke alone in his office in silence to get back to his morbid but necessary task.