Darkness and Hellfire

Chapter 51 Here Goes Nothing.

“The plan is simple.” Alexander called over all of them. “Darkness will pull them towards us and we will keep them busy in shifts while they sneak around and remove the problem at its source. If we are lucky we will actually be able to gain some ground from these monsters”

Esk raised his hand. “Why just the two of them?” He asked.

“How many are there?” Bartholomew asked in the same way at the same time.

“I’ve got this.” Isaac said to Alexander and the wizard nodded towards him to go ahead. “Because as long as it’s just Lenna, I can keep us both undetectable.” He answered the first question and then nodded towards the other wizard present. “As for how many there are? A shit load. Too many for me to count without getting a headache. No Walls of Flames though, they got wise to it earlier and stopped attacking. Stick to active spells.”

“Are you leaving the dragon?” One of the garrison called out.

“No.” Isaac replied simply. “He’s going back in my shadow until I need him.” He emphasized the point by sucking Kahtesh back into the void. “Any other questions?”

“How long will this take?” Fina asked with her arms crossed. “I don’t want to miss dinner for this.”

“Dinner is in an hour.” Esk replied like she was the stupidest person he’d ever seen.

Fina tsked. “I should have stayed in town.” She grumbled.

“Eight to twelve hours… we’ll have a lot of ground to cover.” Isaac answered her question honestly. “The sooner we can get this done the sooner we can all go home and eat.”

“Enough questions.” Alexander cut it before anyone else could ask another stupid question. He floated over to Lenna and grabbed onto the back of her collar. He whispered something imperceptible and Lenna felt weightlessness take hold of her. “Ready?” He asked her.

“Yes.” She replied and he drug her through the air up to where her and Isaac’s entrance would be.

Once at the location, Alexander pressed his hand to the stone and whispered: “I need not find a path for Gia herself will make me one.” With those words the stone warped and pressed to the sides revealing a hole just large enough for Lenna to fit through. He helped her to the ledge and then released her gravity nullification. “Please do not fall.” Alexander requested of her. “He would kill me.”

Lenna chuckled. “I’ll be fine. Just make sure he hurries and doesn’t do anything too reckless.”

Alexander nodded. “I will do my best and gods’ speed.” He told her and dropped. When Alexander was only ten feet off the ground he rapidly slowed his descent and landed with a bend of his knees.

“She’s ready?” Isaac asked him.

Alexander nodded. “Yes. She wanted me to tell you to hurry and to not do anything too reckless.”

Isaac smirked and shook his head. “I’m immortal. How many things can really be described as reckless?”

Alexander fished a steel cube out of his Bottomless Bag and handed it to Isaac. The cube was covered in golden runic engravings and had a very obvious button to press on top of it. “Please be careful with this.” He told Isaac and handed it to him. “This is a prototype, it is not built to be tossed around.”

Isaac covered it in shadows and dropped it. The shadows dispersed and the item was gone. “Just set it down in an area with plenty of clearance and press the button, right?” Isaac questioned.

“Yes.” Alexander replied. “But only if you require assistance.”

“What in the hells is out there if he needs help fighting it?” The same garrison member as before questioned.

“Something strong enough to hide from me.” Isaac replied simply. “And some things just need a wizard to solve. I can tell the darkness itself to do as I ask but I can’t Disintegrate Walls of Reality or negate spells as they are cast.”

“Even Darkness has limits, if anything, he has more limits then most of us.” Fable stepped in. “But in exchange he is the strongest one here. Now, straighten up and prepare for contact.”

Isaac nodded to Fable. “Here goes nothing.” Isaac said more to himself than to them and started ramping his boost to just under maintainable levels so he could still regenerate some mana. Isaac took off at a run down the tunnel and he quickly reached the maximum speed for mortals without magic and held it. If he really needed to, he could have pushed himself a little bit further but even then it would only have been by a small amount. If he really wanted to break records then he would be competing with people that stacked speed enhancing spells on themselves and no matter how far Isaac pushed himself and his boosting skill he would never be able to keep up with them. Those people were insane speed junkies.

When Isaac passed the first skeleton he threw a spike made of shadows at its head and kept going without slowing down. He hit four more before they started moving. There seemed to be a five second gap between when something happened and when the skeletons would respond. It was likely that that was how long it took for their master to relay orders to them. Once they started moving they all went to close in on him at the same time. Every side tunnel that he could see was flooded with skeletons as at least five thousand of them tried to box him in. Isaac waited until they were all thoroughly committed to start his retreat.

With a quick teleport Isaac was facing the other direction and started sprinting back towards the defense team. They were arrayed twelve wide with tower shields and maces at the ready. Isaac took out another twenty of the skeletons before he reached the shield wall. With one massive jump he flew over the wall and landed in a slide. Isaac used his armored boots and knees to slow himself to a stop. The armor ground and grated against the stone as the scales proved to be much harder than the rock.

Isaac sprung to his feet and caught Alexander’s gaze. They both nodded and then Isaac was gone. It was up to the shield wall, adventurers, and court mage to keep the skeleton army busy for as long as possible. Hopefully the horde would stay focused on them until Isaac and Lenna were done.

—

Alexander summoned another black shadow sword formed of a shard of reality that was roughly sword shaped and covered in shadows. The spell also redirected light away from the blade to make it even harder to track in low light conditions. It was the only spell that Alexander could bring to bear that mimicked Isaac enough to be convincing. He then used telekinesis to wield three of them as the Flame Raven’s rogue wielded another. The hope was that the cloaked figure surrounded by three swords and using a fourth that were all made of shadows would be enough to trick whoever might have been watching that Isaac was still there. Even if it didn’t, it wasn’t an ineffective strategy, just a mildly mana intensive one. Alexander really hoped that Darkness, Hellfire, and their pet dragon would be beyond the army of undead before his mana got too low. Hopefully after that the army wouldn’t need him on the front lines anymore and he could save up enough mana to be useful in the event Isaac placed the beacon.

—

The shield wall had opened up to allow Shy to play the part of Isaac. Fable had cast Quicken on her and she knew that Alexander had her back but it was still nerve wracking to be the one pretending to be Isaac of all people. She had a front row seat for half of Isaac’s fight with Jallen and had even almost been collateral. She knew that even with everything that was stacked on her side all she could do was pretend to be Isaac fighting with consistency and endurance in mind. The problem was that there was a very real time limit on how long the magic casters supporting her could last. She knew that Isaac had no such limit. Just then a lightning bolt rang out from one of Safeharbor’s native wizard adventurers. The wizard was pacing himself but not very well. She knew that he would only be able to last half an hour to an hour at best. The sooner Isaac and Lenna wrapped up their assassination mission the better. Though, if Shy was being honest with herself, she was glad to not be going along with Isaac again. The last time she had, she felt like the slightest mistake would spell her end while he and Marie were treating it like a summer stroll. She shook her head. ‘Never again.’ She thought and resolved to fight in Isaac’s place for as long as necessary. Well, as long as they were home before breakfast at least.

—

Lenny’s knuckles were white as he practiced barehanded combat against a wooden contraption that counter attacked every time he attacked or blocked. The rapid clapping of wood hitting bone and visa versa rang out through the main room in his and his brother’s house. Lenny was working out his frustrations on the new contraption and had quickly come to realize that it was exactly as hard to fight as how hard he hit it. That had been proven the first time he had been hit in the cheek by the damned thing.

No matter how many times he hit it, or for how long, his annoyance of being left behind, again, didn’t waver. “You’ve been at it for half an hour.” James said from the old couch half a dozen feet away. “He already told you that you can’t openly work with him. That defeats the point of this ‘Phantom’ business, doesn’t it?”

“I, know.” Lenny replied through deep breaths as his pace refused to slow. “It’s, still…” He narrowly avoided getting hit in the face again and stepped back. He grabbed a towel out of mid air that his brother had thrown at him. “It still fucking sucks.”

James chuckled deprecatingly. Lenny scowled at him. “How in the hells do you think I feel?” He asked his little brother. “I’m the one that gets to walk around and talk all day while my precious little brother is trying to get himself killed helping the man that held him hostage.”

“It wasn’t like that and you know it.” Lenny countered.

James waved him off. “What matters is that I want to be out there with you but we both know that I was never cut out to be fighting people. I’m observant and good with manipulating people but you are the fighter of us. To borrow your words, ‘It fucking sucks.’ that I’m being left behind.”

Lenny sighed. “Fine.” He replied. “I get it. I’ll stop complaining.”

“Good.” James replied. “Because it’s freaking annoying.”