Darkness and Hellfire

Chapter 60 Wanna Fight Him?

“And that makes ten. I am so glad you mentioned only taking their heads. That was a pain last time and I only took a few of them.” Isaac told Lenna as he finished wiping his blade clean from another spider kill. “I am slightly concerned about what will show up to eat their corpses though.”

“I thought you wanted to hunt whatever it was for coin.” Lenna replied. She looked around the tunnel to make sure there was nothing watching them. “We shouldn’t dally.” She whispered and nodded behind her. They had left their observer behind when they entered the spider infested tunnels. Lenna was afraid that he would show up while Isaac was playing with his skeleton.

“Yeah.” Isaac replied to both of her comments. “Let’s keep moving.” The pair continued for a while until they had amassed a haul of ten spider heads. Isaac had been the only one to kill any of them this time and he was getting better at working around the webs. He only needed Lenna to torch the webs of one of the spiders that he couldn’t get to.

The two stopped at a bend in one of the less used tunnels. “Here should work.” Isaac told her and sat down. He pulled his partial dragon skeleton out of the void that was his mana infused shadow. “Shadow magic is still freakin’ weird. Actually no, scratch that, all magic is freakin’ weird.”

“Indeed. That’s why there are wizards.” Lenna replied and positioned herself in between him and the part of the tunnel they had not come from.

Isaac focused on his little dragon and continued to help it regrow and then continue to grow into the majestic, bone, lightning, shadow, and death dragon that he knew it could become. He continued to pour mana into Kahtesh’s skull until he was almost empty again. This time half of the ribs and the beginning of both the front legs and the wings we made real from his dark mana.

Lenna had killed another five spiders while he sat. It wasn’t that he was sitting any longer than the day before but the fact that they were deeper into the tunnels where more spiders were that rose the number. The ones that she killed were usually split down the middle to some extent so she just tied them together to drag them back like last time.

Once Isaac was ready to go they headed back without incident. As they left the caverns Isaac decided to mention something that they were both thinking. “He really didn’t follow us.” He said in partial surprise.

“No, he did not.” Lenna confirmed. “You must have really scared him.”

“I didn’t even do anything. Nothing that he saw anyway. You don’t think he saw the little test thing with Edward do you?” Isaac asked.

Lenna just shrugged. “Maybe. He may have seen the corpses.” She offered.

“Oh.” Isaac responded. “Maybe.” The two of them finished their return in relative silence. They were let back inside without any trouble just like last time and used the cart to transport their bounty again. Just as before they collected their cash from Alice and were on their way. The day was turning out to be exactly like the day before.

“How long do you think we can keep this up?” Isaac asked Lenna as they were returning to their room.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

Isaac sighed. “A normal life. I feel like something is going to keep us from enjoying it for much longer.”

Lenna shook her head. “I don’t know. You won’t enjoy it at all, if you keep thinking like that.” She replied.

“Yeah. You are probably right.” He sighed again. “After lunch back to the books then some light sparring?” He asked in a brighter tone.

“That sounds lovely.” Lenna replied, which got a satisfied smile out of Isaac.

The rest of their day went according to plan. And the next. And the next. Soon almost a week had gone by without incident and Kahtesh’s body was almost finished. Only the tip of his tail and the ends of his wings needed finished.

As the two new adventurers were leaving the Celestial Dawn Celeste called out to them. “You two can take a day off ya know.” The tables were empty save for an older couple who always seemed to go to Celeste’s for breakfast. “You’re not even the ones paying me.”

Isaac smiled and shook his head. “Magical gear is expensive. What am I supposed to do when I get stabbed again? Come back to life?” He smirked at his own joke and Lenna had to fight the urge to roll her eyes at how bad it was just in case someone noticed.

Celeste shook her head. “Well you two be careful out there. Who knows what might be hiding in the dark.” She told them.

Isaac chuckled and waved as he walked out into the street. He said just loud enough for her to hear: “I’m what’s hiding in the dark.”

—

A dozen spiders and an hour into their seventh spider hunt Isaac’s eyes flew open. The skeleton on the ground in front of him moved its clawed bony front paws under its shoulders and turned its head to face him.

“Kahtesh.” Isaac whispered. The bone dragon rose onto all four of its legs and stretched out its wings before folding them back. It looked at him with what should have been empty eye sockets. Instead there were two balls of death flames, one in each eye, that seemed to be looking directly at him even though they had no discernible front.

The dragon didn’t move and only stared at him. He waved his hand in front of its face. “Kahtesh?” He asked. “Can you hear me?” The dragon nodded once. “Can you think?” The dragon didn’t move. “Okay maybe that’s a hard one. “Can you shoot lightning out of your mouth?” He asked with his shadow covered eyes sparkling with excitement.

The dragon nodded. Lenna looked back to see Isaac talking to his new puppy. His eleven foot long, four feet wide, solid bone, dark mana drinking, lightning, puppy. The spiders had stopped coming now that Isaac wasn’t flooding the local area in dark mana which they seemed to be drawn towards.

She walked back over to him and looked at the dragon. “You can follow orders, even complex ones right?” Isaac asked Kahtesh. The dragon nodded. “But you can’t speak and have no real thoughts to speak of?” The dragon nodded again. Isaac turned to look at Lenna with a child-like grin on his face. “Wanna fight him?”

—

Lenna swung her flame coated blade at the dragon’s skull. It ducked and lunged at her midsection. She kneed it in the lower jaw with a flame coated knee causing it to slam its closed mouth into her chest with all of its momentum. The two of them tumbled to the ground. They thrashed against each other. Lenna trying to get on top of the dragon and the dragon trying to get its jaws around her head.

Lenna eventually gave up on wrestling the bone monster and just punched it as hard as she could with the help of her flame enhanced strength. The dragon was forcefully rolled off of her and she got to her feet. The dragon had already regained its footing and now looked at her with unnatural focus.

“Do you think you could dodge his lightning?” Isaac asked.

“I don’t know.” Lenna replied while still in a fighting stance facing off against Kahtesh.

“Ready to head back?” Isaac questioned. He walked over to her and bathed her in death flames.

“Thanks.” She replied and sheathed her sword. “Yeah.” She opened her faceplate and took a long drink out of her waterskin as Isaac walked over to Kahtesh and examined him for damage. “How much control do you have?” She asked him.

Isaac knelt down and looked at the ribs Lenna had punched. They were blackened and had a chip that was slowly fixing itself. He ran some death mana over it and it fixed near instantly. “Basically total control. I could probably consciously have him move each bone in his legs but that would just end up giving me a headache.” He replied. “I think he can move and fight, poorly, because those were things that he could do when he was alive. He isn’t really alive anymore though.”

“Undead?” Lenna asked.

“I don’t think so.” Isaac answered. “I haven’t met any undead to know for sure though. Making those usually requires spells right?”

“Yes. The spell binds an unwilling soul to power the skeleton.” She explained.

“Oh. Then I don’t think he is undead. I didn’t bind a soul or anything. I think it’s more like my magic rebuilt him as close to the original as possible without a soul.” He scratched his chin. “Maybe the flesh and the soul are connected somehow?”

“Regardless. It, he, is a powerful beast.” Lenna told him.

“I think I like having something like him hidden in my shadow. An ability that any enemies don’t know about is one thing, but a whole other party member? Imagine the look on somebody’s face when a puddle of pure shadowy void opens up and a freakin’ bone dragon pulls itself out to eat them.” Isaac seemed to get more excited by the idea the more he went on.

“If we are out too long they will wonder why.” Lenna reminded him, pulling him out of his thoughts of spreading terror.

Isaac stood back up and opened the void to his new not so little friend. Kahtesh sank down into it without so much as twitching. “Next time I’m having you curl up or something. This is just weird.” Isaac told Kahtesh. He turned to Lenna and nodded. “Let’s go.”

They had only made it around the corner when Isaac heard footsteps. He disappeared and bolted down the tunnel after the sound. Lenna started jogging down the tunnel in the direction towards Safeharbor, which she assumed was the end destination. She couldn’t track Isaac and there was no way that she would be able to hear whoever he was chasing over the sound of her armor while she was running. She could only hope that Isaac would be okay by himself. ‘Well, he has a dragon in his shadow… He’ll be fine.’