Darkness and Hellfire

Chapter 76 They’ll Be Lucky If They Can Stand,

Isaac and Lenna walked into a bar in the slums. They had passed a few homeless people and someone obviously eating the merchandise. Mushrooms had many uses after all. The bar was dark and a few of the tables and chairs were broken. An older man with long grayed hair was behind the bar.

The bartender immediately noticed Lenna’s guard vest and spoke up. “Not many of your kind come down here.” He told her.

Isaac looked around and noticed only one patron in the bar who looked to be trying to drown his demons with alcohol, literally. Isaac walked up to the bar and set Lenna’s golden guild badge on it. “You Chester?” He asked.

The bartender’s eyes went wide at the gold badge. “Y-Yeah. You two took the bounty?” He asked.

Isaac nodded. “Who are they? What do they want? When do they usually come by? Where is their home base? Why couldn’t you handle this yourself? And lastly, how do you want it done?” Isaac interrogated.

The bartender, Chester, took a moment to process Isaac’s barrage of questions, at least most of them. “Uh, younger folk, maybe a little older than you. Just showed up a few months ago demanding payment. Broke a few doors and windows of a few other places. Just demand gold every week. Usually come the first day of the week. Probably ran outta coin. What were the other questions?”

“Why couldn’t you, and the other shop owners, handle this yourselves?” Isaac replied. “If they haven’t hurt anybody I already know how I’m handling it. I’m not gonna kill a few idiots trying to extort a few shops.”

“It’d be easier just to kill ‘em. There’s six of them. Too many for us old timers to handle.” Chester replied.

Isaac eyed the man. He looked no older than late fifties. Isaac doubted a handful of guys his age couldn’t just scare off a few young thugs. “How many shops?”

“‘Don't know. Maybe a dozen.” Chester replied. He watched Isaac’s neutral expression turn to a scowl of obvious annoyance.

“Any gold they have I’m taking as a bonus. There’s no reason a dozen of you couldn’t handle half that many young idiots.” Isaac told him. “Where are they staying?”

Chester looked upset at Isaac’s rebuke and annoyance in his voice. “Two streets down, take a left, forth house.” He curtly replied.

Isaac turned to Lenna. “Let’s go. You wanna handle it or should I?” He asked and shoved off the bar.

As they were weaving their way through the tables Lenna replied: “I might kill one of them accidentally.”

Isaac noticed the door was off its hinges. At first he had just assumed it was propped open. “I’ll handle it.” He said as they walked through the door.

They pair headed down the street following Chester’s directions. “I really don’t like people who are content to let others walk all over them. This isn’t even about facing monsters or hiding behind guards anymore. There’s at least a dozen of them. Add in a few employees, maybe some friends and family, you have what? Thirty people? Forty? Just show up and take your money back. Maybe knock some sense into the idiots on your way out!” Isaac ranted. The longer he went on the louder he became. Lenna was sure half the block had heard him essentially call them cowards.

“At least the odds of them having a backer are low.” Lenna offered.

Isaac sighed. “Yeah. I guess. I have been meaning to try fist fighting.” He threw a few practice jabs with practiced precision and near perfect form.

“You did say you had that as a skill.” Lenna replied upon noticing his form.

“Yeah. Haven’t really had the opportunity to fight without life and death on the line.” He replied.

“Are you really keeping the stolen gold?” Lenna asked.

“Oh yeah. Definitely.” Isaac told her with absolute certainty. “If they wanted it back then they should have gotten it themselves.”

“Understandable.” Lenna replied.

“You know? I actually was hoping that this would be interesting. Maybe some poor shopkeepers were being harassed by a gang of former adventurers and they were beating up the people that didn’t pay.” Isaac sighed. “I don’t know, something… something…”

“Romanticized.” She replied. “You’ve been reading too much.”

Isaac laughed. “Maybe. How hard do you think I should go on them?”

—

Inside the thug’s ‘hideout’, if it could even be called that, half a dozen young looking men were playing cards and drinking cheap liquor. One looked to be closer to forty. He was human with the normal brown hair and eyes with a light skin tone that was prevalent all throughout the human territory Isaac had been in.

There was a dwarf boy, Lenna and Isaac both referred to him as a boy because he looked young for a dwarf which was hard to do with a beard covering most of their faces. A half-elven man whose real age couldn’t be discerned due to how elves aged. One that looked almost exactly like the older human but not a day over twenty. And lastly, two other regular looking human guys that looked to be in their mid twenties.

After Isaac scouted it out he returned to Lenna who was leaning against the neighboring building. He reappeared and Lenna shoved off the wall. “Only one of them looks like he can fight at all and I’m only saying that because he has a knife on his hip. He also looks to be the oldest, subjectively speaking, and I think one of them called him boss.”

“Any other signs of weapons?” Lenna asked.

Isaac shrugged. “A crow bar and a club were leaning against the inside of the door. I can just toss those outside. They don’t look very bright if I’m being honest.” He said with a frown. He was still hoping for at least an entertaining fight.

“Good.” She replied.

“I’m gonna go all scary on them, see who wants to surrender first, and send them outside to you.” Isaac explained the beginning of his plan. “I’ll take the rest of them out in the dark since they look like more of a hassle than they're worth. Then I’ll fist fight the boss.”

Lenna sighed. “Just, make sure no one is going to interrupt.”

Isaac waved her off. “They’ll be lucky if they can stand, let alone interfere.” He took off his sword belt and held it in his hand. “Once the shadows disappear, bring any that surrendered back inside so they can see me kick the shit out of their boss.” He said and vanished.

“Understood.” She replied and walked over to stand just outside the quiet building that was about to be anything but.