Darkness and Hellfire

Chapter 59 Skulls

Isaac and Lenna looked down at the glowing black, red, and purple stone embedded into the churned up ground in front of them. “I… I can’t break this.” Isaac said with a look of total perplexity on his face.

Lenna hummed in thought. “Let me try.” She stated and reached for her sword only to find it missing from her scabbard. “Oh, right.” She looked around but the back half of her sword was nowhere to be found. The pointy end had been completely annihilated by Shamsha courtesy of a disintegration infused branch of contorted magical reality. “I, uhm, seem to have lost my sword.”

“The one I got from Rei and Zei?” Isaac questioned.

“Y-Yeah.” Lenna said with a regretful sigh. “Would it make you feel better if I told you Shamsha had disintegrated half of it before I lost it?” Isaac looked like someone had just burned down his favorite restaurant or died his favorite black cloak pink. Lenna patted him on the shoulder. “I am sure that they are surprised that it lasted this long with how hard both of us are on equipment. What else from them hasn’t been utterly destroyed yet?”

“Most of it, actually.” Isaac replied. “The armor wasn’t up to the stress of use but the swords had been holding up quite well.”

“You don’t use the shortsword.” Lenna reminded him.

“But I have, and it’s still in pretty good shape.” Isaac defended himself. “The knife is still in great shape.”

“When was the last time you used it for anything other than cutting fruit?” Lenna questioned.

“That’s not the point here. Now you are just trying to distract me from the fact that you lost what was left of my sword.” Isaac accused her.

“Was it working?” Lenna asked flatly.

Isaac was silent for a few seconds. “Maybe.” He eventually replied.

“Let me try with your sword.” She told him and held out her hand.

Isaac pulled the sword out of his Inventory and looked down at the thin blade. “You aren’t going to break it, are you?”

“I’ll stab with it so it doesn’t flatten your edge.” She assured him.

Isaac sighed and handed her his sword. “Please don’t break.” He said to the sword and Lenna rolled her eyes. Lenna stood over the ragged gem and closed her eyes to focus.

“Ama’s death. My inability to protect my squad. Macken’s assassination.” Lenna whispered to herself. With each statement of anger and pain her aura built. Flames built as her entire body seemed to turn into an untrimmed candle wick. The entire area was bathed in red, orange, and yellow light that brought with it the heavy sense of loss and pain that was used to fuel a burning rage towards the world, fate, and Dri’El. With a primal yell that surprised Isaac, Lenna drove the point of the sword down into the heartcrystal of Shamsha. The tip of her, Isaac’s, sword drove two inches into the gem before it was halted. Lenna heaved deep and heavy breaths as her aura faded.

“Feel better?” Isaac asked her with some concern in his voice.

Lenna nodded. “A bit.” She replied breathily. “I broke it.”

Isaac’s face paled and looked down over his sword in a panic. “Not this one too.” He whined.

Lenna chuckled. “Not your sword.” She replied and hefted the gem up into the air with the sword.

“It’s losing power.” Isaac said and placed his hand on the gem. “Slowly but… wait, even with that much damage it is only barely losing power.” he told her. “We should get this to Jala while it’s still fresh and before something crazy happens like the skeleton comes back to unlife…” Isaac’s voice trailed off and his head slowly turned to see Shamsha’s very dead face. Isaac reached down and grabbed the skull of the Lord of Undeath, Isaac absently wondered how many ‘Lords of Undeath’ he would meet in his lifetime, and picked it up with ease. The rest of the pile of bones stayed where it was, in a heap, on the ground.

“What is it?” Lenna asked. As she studied his face an idea of what he might be thinking came to her: “You can’t be serious?” She questioned. “Him?”

Isaac nodded slowly. “I probably could have done it to Jallen but he would have eviscerated himself as soon as he tried to use one of those divine attack things and there is no way that he would have had a real aura.” He explained. Lenna was about to correct him on the proper term but he continued before she could. “The same goes for any paladin but this is different. Shamsha is worth it.”

“And Shaeo’ahna wasn’t?” She replied incredulously.

Isaac nodded in agreement. “We’ve never needed another person in the front. We both almost exclusively attack at melee range. Kahtesh’s only real use is that of a portable lightning bolt spawner.” His eyes just kept getting wider at the possibilities. “Imagine if we had this monster living in my shadow.”

“But what about Kahtesh and his… soulshadow?” Lenna wondered.

Isaac shrugged. “Only one way to find out.” He replied simply. “But regardless, not here.” He said and tossed Shamsha’s skull into his Inventory. “We can do that at home when we aren’t being watched by drow scouts.”

“Drow scouts?” Lenna asked and casually looked around.

Isaac nodded. “They’ve been watching the castle from the other end of the cavern.” He explained.

“The end we came from?” Lenna questioned.

Isaac shook his head. “No, the dead end.” He replied and they both looked through the rubble across the open space to the other end of the massive cavern. It really was a deadend, at least it looked like it and that was what it said on the map, as the cavern’s ceiling simply sloped downwards until it made contact with the ground. “Let’s just go.” He told her.

Lenna nodded. “Alright.” She agreed and the pair headed off towards Safeharbor.

—

“I guess it was poor form of me to hope that Shamsha was just messing with us when he said that they would just run free.” Isaac commented.

Lenna nodded as she hacked through another skeleton on their way to Safeharbor. “You think the city is still there?” She asked him.

“Gods, I hope so.” Isaac swore. “If not, I might crush Shamsha’s skull out of spite.”

Lenna sighed. “Only one way to find out, right?”

Isaac nodded. “Yeah.” He agreed. “Wanna see who kills the most before we get back?”

“You’re… nevermind.” Lenna replied. “You’d cheat and only cleanse your own exhaustion or something. Not to mention, I am breaking these after only a swing or… two.” She punctuated it by breaking a crossguard off a sword in a skeleton’s skull. Her aura coated her fist and she punched the broken off crossguard which went clean through the back of the skeleton’s skull.

“Actually, I have a question.” Isaac stated. Lenna didn’t bother to reply because she knew that he would ask whether or not she told him to go ahead. “What is really keeping them together?” He asked. “Like, why do they collapse when their skulls get destroyed? Why do they keep going when their arms and legs are crushed but once you break their spine or skull they collapse?”

“The spell that animates them uses the skull as an anchor point.” She explained. “Didn’t you notice the gold paint inside their skulls?”

“Gold paint?” Isaac asked and ripped a skeleton’s head off so he could turn it upside down and look inside. “Huh.” He said. “No, I didn’t.” He then threw the skull at another skeleton and destroyed another with a swing of his sword. “But what about their spine?”

Lenna shrugged and punched another one so hard her fist got lodged in its skull. She didn’t slow but simply used the skeleton as a flail to attack the next one. “I don’t know.” She answered. “Probably something to do with how the spell works. Ask Jala when we get back.”

“It was just a passing curiosity. It’s not like I can cast spells like that anyway. I only really need to know enough to recognize and counter them.” He replied. “This is going to take all day isn’t it?”

Lenna sighed. The only reason she was still moving was the trickle of death flames Isaac was feeding her. “Probably.” She agreed. “I hope Celeste has something warm to eat when we get back.”

Isaac laughed. “Me too. Actually, while we are back on the topic of Safeharbor, what do you think happened to Alexander? He never showed up when I used the beacon.”

Lenna shrugged. “No idea.” She replied. “It is probably a good thing that he didn’t. I doubt he would have survived the rest of the battle.”

“Fair enough.” Isaac agreed. “Well, wherever he is, I hope he isn’t dead. I won’t be able to pick on him for not showing up otherwise.”