Darkness and Hellfire

Chapter 66 That Was A Waste Of Time.

“What kinda proof?” Isaac asked, glancing at one of the dead guards.

Lenna shrugged. “I would prefer to not get the usual proof.”

Isaac raised an eyebrow. “What’s the usual proof?”

Lenna tapped the side of her helmet towards the back. It was the only strange part of her helmet. It seemed to flatten out to allow more room on the inside for her pointed ears. “Right ears.” She replied somberly.

Isaac shook his head. “Listen, I don’t really have a problem with killing people. In fact if they deserve it then all the better. But,” He raised a finger for emphasis. “Defiling the dead might just be a bit too far. We can at least let them rest in peace.”

Lenna nodded absently. “Thank you.”

Isaac walked over to the guard Lenna was standing over and looked down at him. “How much do you think the armor weighs?” He asked.

Lenna glanced at him. “Forty two pounds plus a three pound sword or spear and five pounds of water.”

Isaac looked at her. “Fifty pounds exactly?”

Lenna nodded. “Guards travel light.”

“Three sets of armor, the mage might have something on him,” Isaac looked over to the pile of adventurer gear. “Anything magical over there?”

“Nothing worth taking.” Lenna replied. “Unless you want your own tooth brush.”

Isaac’s eyes went wide and leaned away from the direction of the pile. “No, no I’m good. They can keep it.”

“It’s self cleaning.” Lenna replied casually.

Isaac only looked more concerned and disgusted. “It could disintegrate and summon a new one from the void and I still wouldn’t use it.” He glanced at Lenna and saw her shoulders bounce slightly. “Are you laughing at me?”

“No.” Lenna squeaked out while trying to contain her laughter. The squeak was too much however and she started laughing as quietly as she could.

Isaac couldn’t help but laugh with her. “I never thought… you could make a noise… like that.” Isaac eventually got out through his own laughter.

When they both calmed down. Lenna made eye contact with him. “That never happened.” She told him.

Isaac, still with a smile on his face, shook his head and chuckled. “Nope. Never happened.” Isaac looked at Kahtesh who hadn’t moved an inch in the last few minutes. “You think there is water in that wagon?” He asked.

“Yes.” Lenna replied.

“Start getting the guards gear together. I’m gonna clean out Kahtesh’s mouth and then we can figure out how much of the cargo we should bring with us.” He instructed. Lenna nodded and got to work.

Isaac beckoned Kahtesh over to him when he reached the back of the wagon. Sure enough there was a barrel of water next to one filled with rations like the ones Lenna had carried when they first met. Isaac had Kahtesh open his mouth and he used shadows to make a scraper, that was always the right shape, to start chiseling chard flesh out of his mouth.

Lenna found exactly what she expected to find on the guards’ bodies. Nothing but armor. It was regulation for guards to carry no personal effects on their persons. Their names were carved into the inside of their breastplate and helmet to differentiate them in case of death but otherwise they were all exactly identical.

The mage was special. Mages were auxiliary units to the standard infantry division. They were not guards but considered soldiers. He had his badge of rank, which was barely over a new recruit’s, his robes that were reinforced with metal ringlets, a staff made of magically reinforced and lightened stone with a quartz crystal at the end, a small coin purse, and finally, a spell book. The pages were paper like a normal book but just like the staff the spine and backs were magical stone.

About halfway through Lenna’s looting Isaac finished cleaning Kahtesh. He had used half the water in the small barrel. “I am going to find a way to make you clean yourself. I do not want to do this every single time.” He told the dragon. Kahtesh, of course, didn’t respond.

Isaac started digging through the other crates and eventually he struck gold. Literally. “What is this?” He asked both himself and Lenna as he picked up a small sack about the size of a coin purse. When he opened it up it was full of metallic dust of some kind. Lenna, who had just finished looting the guards and mage, walked over to him and looked into the pouch.

She opened her faceplate and leaned in. She sniffed it twice. “Gold dust.”

Isaac looked at her. “You can tell by smelling it?”

“Yes. Drow are colorblind but still vain.” She told him.

“Huh.” Isaac replied and closed the sack. He set it back on the pile contained inside the crate in front of him. “For magic rituals I take it?”

Lenna nodded. “Yes.”

“How much do you think it’s worth?” He asked, while staring at the crate.

“About a hundred gold per bag.” Lenna replied. She knew that most rituals worked on a base cost of a hundred per level of complexity, though she had never done one herself, she had been around for a while.

Isaac whistled. “There’s like fifty bags in here….”

Lenna nodded. She went around and looked inside the other open crates. Four food, two quartz crystals, three barrels of water, and the one full of gold dust. The barrels of water would only be enough for the transport team. ‘Wherever they were going must have its own water source.’ Lenna thought. ‘We can leave the food and water. Take just the gold…’ She looked at the crate of crystals. Each of them could be worth anywhere from ten gold to two hundred depending on quality and size.

The problem was that there was probably around five hundred pounds of quartz crystals and fifty pounds of gold dust. That and the almost two hundred pounds of gear from the guards and mage made the task of bringing it all back impossible. They already had sixty pounds of gear between them to make it even worse.

Isaac was thinking the same thing though without the numbers to do the math. “You think Kahtesh could pull the wagon?” He asked.

Lenna looked at the small dragon. “I doubt he can get enough traction.” She replied.

“Kahtesh, set your chin on the side here.” Isaac said and patted the wagon wall closest to the crate of gold dust. The dragon did as he was told. “Open wide.” Kahtesh opened his mouth wide enough to fit a man’s whole ribcage. He started grabbing the bags of gold dust and packing them inside of the dragon’s body.

Because of the way Kahtesh regrew, unlike other skeletons one could not just see through him. His bones had all grown plates that seemed to replace his skin and those plates had grown imprints of scales to help him look as close to how he originally did as possible. This fact made it that, although any fluid poured inside would find its way out through cracks and small gaps, most objects would be stuck inside.

Once the crate was empty Isaac moved on to the quartz crystals. He packed as many as he could inside the dragon. “Can you still walk buddy?” He asked and mentally directed Kahtesh to walk around the wagon once. Kahtesh did so but Isaac could tell that he wouldn’t be able to carry much more.

“What about the rest?” Lenna asked.

Isaac looked at it. “Pack everything in my pack into yours. I’ll fill my inventory with as much of the guard armor as I can, then we can make a sled for the rest and have you drag it along.”

Lenna nodded and started on her task. Once she was done she looked up to see two of the sets of armor gone and Isaac staring down at the other set. She looked around “How are we going to make a sled?” She asked.

Isaac looked around. The walls on the back of the wagon weren’t very tall. They had some rope but lacked something to use as the actual sled. Then his eyes settled on the mage’s heavy robe. “Run the rope through the sleeves, set a crate on the inside, fold the bottom of the robe up, run the rope across it to hold it in place.” He directed. “How much can you pull?”

Lenna shrugged. “Three hundred pounds, maybe.” She looked down the tunnel they came from. The path had been relatively smooth and hadn’t risen or fallen too much but it was still a lot of miles to be dragging all their loot back.

“We are sleeping out here tonight.” Isaac told her. He looked back at the wagon. “You don’t think the three of us could pull it, do you?”

Lenna looked at the wagon. “The guards probably helped.” She replied.

“What if we ditched the water and food?” Isaac asked hopefully.

Lenna thought for a moment. “Eight hundred pounds plus the wagon’s weight.” She told him.

“We’re gonna try. Worse case I have to repack Kahtesh.” Isaac replied with a sigh. The two of them got to work unloading as much of the wagon as they could and dumping the armor and quartz crystals into either the bed or their original crate respectively.

When they finally finished Isaac sat down in the bed. “That was a waste of time.” He said with a sigh.

“Loading Kahtesh?” Lenna asked.

Isaac nodded. “Yeah.”

Lenna shrugged. “Can you have Kahtesh get in front of the wagon?” The dragon did so with a thought from Isaac and Lenna got to work tying the dragon to the wagon. She tied everything in such a way that one rope, that was fifty feet long, wrapped around Kahtesh, through two iron loops on the wagon that the pecurke were tied to, then forwards again. She tied both the ends of the rope into handles and tossed their backpacks into the wagon.

Isaac hopped out and grabbed one of the handles. “Well, here goes nothin’.”