Darkness and Hellfire

Chapter 37 They Are Too Thick To Cook.

“Any ideas?” Isaac asked Lenna as they watched their only way out of the mushroom kingdom. ‘Gods forsaken mushroom forest of sleep deprivation and torment.’ As Isaac referred to it.

Lenna stared at him. “You just said, that I only go in a straight line. My idea is for you to hide. I will carve and burn a path. Then you follow.” She replied flatly.

“Would that work?” Isaac asked while thinking up more elaborate plans of chaos and destruction.

“It should. Yes.” Lenna answered.

“What about the spores? There’s bound to be a lot of them. Do you have some spell that would keep them off of you like I did?” Isaac questioned.

Lenna thought for a moment before shaking her head. “Not really.”

“Can you keep that cone of flames up longer than a second?” He asked while rubbing his chin.

“Yes and no.” She replied. “I can but it’ll start to burn my hand very quickly.”

Isaac put his hand on her shoulder and ran death flames down her arm. “Now it won’t actually burn you right?”

“It will but I don’t mind.” She then countered his suggestion: “It won’t be enough to kill the soldiers.”

“Why not?” Isaac asked before thinking about it for a second. “They’ll block it with their shields.”

“Yes.” Lenna agreed. “Also they are too thick to cook.”

“Oh. You killed the other ones with concussive force, not heat. Right.” Isaac thought out loud. “But…” He raised a finger. “It will burn up all their spores so you and I can just kill them normally.”

“It should. Yes.” She agreed.

Isaac nodded to himself with a smile growing on his face. “Okay here’s the plan…”

—

Lenna ran forwards. Her armor was silent due to Isaac’s shadows and her arm was covered in his flames. As the pair approached the mushroom soldiers guarding their escape Lenna raised her already flaming hand. “Let my flames consume all before me.”

Lenna focused on her internal flow of mana and forced it to keep flowing out of her hand and through the spell array blazing on her palm. Her hand heated up but she ignored the pain. She swept her flames over both soldiers and the exit. The smaller mushrooms were gone in an instant. The larger two raised their shields against the flames but not before the soft vents under their caps were thoroughly scorched.

Lenna dove for the one on the right with her sword raised and already coated in flames. That was when she felt Isaac’s hand let go of her shoulder. She closed the gap and drove her blade down in a heavy chop. Her sword and its flames cut through the shield like it was butter. Her followup swing saw her sword lodged halfway through its trunk right in line with its eye. She poured even more mana into her blade and the flames erupted from inside the monster. It collapsed dead at her feet.

Isaac had disappeared as soon as he let go of Lenna’s shoulder. He closed the distance towards his target. He coated his sword in death flames much like how he had covered Lenna. The only real difference was the mana expenditure. Coating his sword barely made a dent in his mana compared to covering Lenna with it from head to toe.

He kited around the monster’s shield on its shield arm side. He slashed through its arm and the shield fell. He stepped in and slashed its eye. His blade cut six inches deep with on the single slash as his death flames disintegrated the mushroom. It turned and thrusted at where the pain was coming from. Isaac turned his body slightly and blade skipped off his armor.

Isaac sliced upwards and decapitated the mushroom’s sword arm. Now that it was disarmed, both literally and figuratively, Isaac was safe to finish it off. He took a second and built up a large amount of death mana in his free hand. He placed it firmly on the monster’s trunk and focused the mana to cover the mushroom as quickly as possible. The monster melted in just over a second. Two seconds after he had placed his hand on it the mushroom was little more than dust.

The paladin of wrathful flames and the mage of shadow and death turned to look at each other. They locked eyes and neither of them could hold back their smiles. They were free. The two of them raced out of the cavern and down the first tunnel that wasn’t covered in mushrooms that they had seen in almost two full days.

Not even twenty feet down the tunnel Isaac started laughing. “Thank the gods. We are out of there.”

“Yes” Lenna replied while chuckling and running alongside him.

The two of them stopped two hundred feet farther as Isaac was breathing heavily with his hands on his knees. “Is this far enough to be safe from the mushrooms?” Isaac asked after he had caught his breath.

“It depends. If we are his biggest problem then no.” Lenna replied, referring to the mushroom king.

“Good enough for me.” Isaac replied and tossed his backpack onto the ground. “We are not going back that way.”

“Agreed.” Lenna replied and also dropped her pack onto the ground.

“I don’t care if we have to hire a wagon.” Isaac continued.

Lenna nodded and sighed as she sat down with her back against the wall. “I don’t care if I have to push it.”

Isaac snorted a laugh. “Agreed.” He said as he collapsed onto his backpack like a lizard on a warm rock.

Lenna shook her head. ‘That can’t be comfortable.’ She thought and then shrugged. She was sitting against a stone wall in full gear. Her position wasn’t exactly a feather bed either.

Sleep took Isaac within a minute of the tunnel falling into silence. Lenna, much to her own disappointment, followed soon after.

—

Isaac awoke to the tightest hug he had ever had. It felt like Claus was trying to kill him via bear hug. Actually now that he thought about it he felt like he was dying to this hug. He couldn’t breathe. His eyes shot open and he grabbed whatever was crushing him. He felt smooth scales as they wound around him tighter. He coated his hands in his flames and pushed them through the snake’s body. The reptile fell off of him in three parts and he started coughing while trying to refill his lungs.

Lenna shot up and took in the scene. “Shit.” She ran to him and put her hand on his back. She sent a light pulse of healing magic into him. He was fine. Barely. He was winded but she could tell that he had been only a second away from having his own ribs turn him into a pin cushion. “I fell asleep.” She stated.

A hundred things were running through her head at that moment. She almost let her charge die not even two weeks into traveling with him. If she would have positioned herself better the snake would have gone after her instead. Should she apologize? Ask for punishment? A drow noble would have their guards beaten if they had failed in their duty this badly.

Isaac rolled onto his back after pushing some snake pieces to the side. He was still breathing heavily. He closed his eyes and focused on deep and regular breaths. “We’re good. I’m alive.” He gave her a thumbs up. He could feel the anxiousness wafting off of her the way she was hovering over him.

“I’m… I’m sorry.” Lenna eventually said. She couldn’t think of anything better to say. She felt responsible. It was her job to keep him safe after all.

“It’s alright. Sleep in shifts next time.” Isaac responded with his eyes still closed.

“Yeah.” She said quietly.

“How long were we out?” Isaac asked. He didn’t really expect a very accurate answer but was pleasantly surprised when he got one.

“It feels like six hours.” Lenna replied back to her usual steady self.

Isaac sighed. “That’s it?” He opened his eyes and the two made eye contact. “I feel like I could keep sleeping for a week.”

She smiled under her helmet. “We’d run out of water.”

He smiled back upon hearing the smile in her voice. “A day then.”

“We can do that. We should do that somewhere safer.” She replied and stood.

Isaac groaned and sat up. “Yeah… you’re right.”

Lenna offered him her hand and helped him stand. It took him a second to be steady on his feet again. She put on her backpack and he put on his. “I’ll lead.”

Isaac was too tired to want to lead or to argue with her so he just nodded. The two continued on their near lethal odyssey to Safeharbor.