Chapter 36 Awaiting The Arrival

  After leaving Edward and Captain Tim, the duo stopped by the second wagon to grab all of Aria and Claus’s things. Isaac solidified the shadows of each of the containers. He then animated them and ordered the animated shadows to follow him. That was how they brought the rest of Aria and Claus’s stuff home. The duo decided to go home and get cleaned up, fed, and rested.

  Between getting fed and rested, Isaac penned a letter to Stan detailing how Lenna had managed to get an adamantine sword broken in half. He sent both of the ranger’s adamantine weapons, both halves of Farlen’s sword, as well as both halves of Lenna’s sword to Stan with a request that he find a way to get at least one serviceable hand-and-a-half sword for her by the next morning. Isaac made sure to mention that he had no delusions in either of the shattered swords being usable, especially not by then, but Lenna did require another sword that she could abuse. Isaac was aware that Lenna did not destroy swords on purpose but she did so regardless of her own intentions.

  During dinner, Martha had brought up how much fun they had during the Festival of the First Moon. Apparently stalls had been set up with candies and trinkets in the shapes of the full moon, wheat, and hoes. They represented the goddess of beauty’s desire to grant every beautiful wish to every beautiful soul, the hope for a full harvest to come from their springtime efforts, and the planting season itself that started the next day. There was lots of dancing and music and a beauty pageant of all things in the town square in honor of the goddess. Madeline had been old enough to enter but as it was her first year in Safeharbor, she hadn’t known about it in the first place so she did not have a dress or her hair done once it was time for it to begin.

  Martha also informed the Lord and Lady of the house that a certain criminal informant had started hanging around the manor a bit more than usual as of late and was always asking where her mother was. That information had come out faster than Margaret to tell Martha that James’s inclinations towards her were his and Margaret’s business, and were not things that needed to be shared with Isaac and Lenna. In all, it was a nice, light hearted dinner that was a nice change to the heavy topics of death, ambushes, assassins, and divine intervention.

  By morning, Edward had handled everything that Isaac had asked of him and also informed the Guild Leader that Isaac and Lenna would be on their way to Altesia so they could meet him and discuss their mission. Meanwhile, Stan had pulled an all-nighter and managed to crank out an entire sword just for Lenna. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t even that pretty, but it was sturdy, evenly weighted, and sharp. Stan usually doubled the price of a rush job and when the duo arrived to get Lenna’s new weapon, they wouldn’t let him sell it to them at the normal price. It helped that Stan was hardly conscious on his feet come morning, his assistant was passed out sitting in the corner.

  “Stan, money is meant to be shared. That’s why you were going to drop the rush job price, right? Well, we have a lot of money from all of the loot we took off of bandits. It’s hardly our money, we didn’t work for it at all, but we have it so let us share our unearned coin back and just take the money.” Isaac explained with mild exasperation.

  It was clear that Stan’s mind was trying to come up with a counter argument but he was far too tired to argue. “Fine, but not a copper more.” He eventually gave in. “What’d you want me ta do with the rest o’ the adamantine?”

  “Make Lenna two more adamantine swords.” Isaac replied. “Then send them over to Alexander. We’ll call for them if or when Lenna destroys this one.” Stan’s frown could have melted iron. “Apparently our next job is going to be both incredibly dangerous and requires us to team up with Catastrophe. I doubt very much of any of our gear is going to survive this. We’ll check in with Alexander before we get into a big fight, if we can, and if they are done then we’ll work with him to find a way to get them. If not, then at least Lenna will have a new sword or two afterwards.”

  Stan sighed in obvious defeat. He doubted that he would ever be able to make a weapon capable of surviving Lenna, not alone anyway. He knew of a way to make a weapon that would be nigh indestructible, but it required an alchemist or a hundred years of wood elf tree shaping shenanigans. “Fine.” Stan grumbled.

  “Alexander should be able to get you the money from our account, but if not, Margaret is approved as our manor’s head caretaker.” Isaac went on. “Alright, Stan, you look like you are about to pass out on your feet and we need to get going. The Guild Leader and Catastrophe are both waiting on us.”

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  Stan just nodded. He was too tired and was still trying to process everything that Isaac had just spewed at him to have a properly thought out reply.

  “Bye, Stan.” Lenna bid him with a nod as the duo left. Isaac just offered the old dwarf a wave without looking back, he had faith that they would be back so there was no reason to make a huge fuss about saying goodbye.

  Once Isaac and Lenna left Stan’s smithy, they went to the general store and restocked everything that they had used during their last trip. Once that was finished, they stopped in at the Guild Hall to let Edward know that they were leaving.

  “The Guild Leader actually arranged for someone to come and pick you up. He told me just to contact him when you two were ready. We talked about an hour ago.” Edward explained. “Apparently whoever he arranged to pick you up volunteered because they wanted to meet you. I don’t know if I would be concerned about that fact though, considering who the Guild Leader is and what kinds of friends he has. Maybe you’ll get lucky and it’ll just be one of the other Guild Masters who has been here before and can use Grand Teleportation.”

  “You don’t sound like you have a lot of faith in that hope of luck.” Isaac commented.

  Edward sighed. “I don’t.” He then grabbed a heavily enchanted piece of parchment from one of his drawers. The paper had an elaborate five circle spell with flecks of quartz crystals covering its entire backside. The front was plain save for one line at the top of the page:

  From ___________ of __________ Guild Branch to Guild Leader

  Edward quickly wrote ‘Blade Master’ and ‘Safeharbor’ in the open spaces. His message was a simple one: ‘The Lord of Darkness and Lady of Hellfire are both in my office awaiting the arrival of the promised teleporter.’ He then opened another one of his drawers, one that had only a heavily enchanted quartz slate inside and gently placed the absurdly expensive parchment on top of it. He then closed the drawer and the duo felt magics flare and pulse in a very familiar way. The parchment had been teleported away in the east by north easterly direction. The fact that it did not feel like it went downwards at all, despite the distance, was a testament to how low Safeharbor was in comparison to Altesia despite the extreme distance.

  “First off, that is so cool.” Isaac broke the brief silence in the room. “Secondly, that seems so inefficient and expensive. Why not just use long range telepathy? It has to be cheaper to get an item that allows that in every Guild Branch than supplying that parchment and teleportation slate.”

  “Yes it is. Most definitely. Because this leaves a paper trail of every correspondence between the Guild Masters and Central. I’m sure it would be.” Edward easily answered everything that Isaac had just said. His reply was so easy in fact that Isaac got the feeling that it was not the first time that someone had said something similar to him. Either that or he had been the one to ask those very questions and make those exact statements when he had first seen it as well.

  Isaac paused. “That… actually makes a lot of sense.” He conceded. “How long does it usually take to get a reply?”

  “Well, considering the Guild Leader doesn’t sleep, never more than two hours.” Edward explained. “You might want to get comfortable though, just in case the teleporter isn’t ready to come get you yet, for some reason or another.”

  Isaac nodded and actually took a seat across from Edward. Lenna did the same and both settled in to carry on casual conversation until the one who would take them to Altesia arrived. Either that or the Guild Leader’s reply. There were only really two reasons why the Guild Leader would need to reply at that point. The first was to say that the teleporter would be running late, and the other was to say that the duo would just have to get Alexander to take them to Sapphirestone and then use that teleportation circle to get to Altesia.

  While they waited, Isaac and Lenna gave Edward a more in-depth account of their trip and Edward informed them of what had happened to the prisoners. Apparently, Izen and Michael had seen to them immediately. Both were questioned under the paladin’s spell that prevented lies from being told. Derb was sentenced to twenty seven years of hard labor. That was generous enough that Michael was forced to write a report to the crown about the duke ignoring the set punishments for the list of charges, including multiple accounts of Treachery and compliance in another’s attempt at rebellion. That was right, Trevor had been sentenced to death by dismemberment for a rebellion attempt. Michael had cut off both of his arms and legs, one at a time, and then once he had bled out, his head as well. Trevor’s execution had taken place directly in front of Derb just so he knew exactly how lucky he was to still be alive.

  All told, the only information that Izen and Michael got out of the two traitors was that they were easily swayed and being taken advantage of. The drow spies were always very careful not to reveal too much of their faces. Sometimes they would have on a spider mask, their face would be entirely covered by some other means, or they would have a low hanging hood that covered the top half of their face. Chins and voices were hardly enough to get a good description of the spies, especially considering that there were plenty of spells that would work to alter those aspects of a person. Aside from Derb getting off easily, and the level of violence that Trevor’s end entailed, nothing had been a surprise. Drow spies were some of the best in the business after all. Even within the empire’s borders, spies were used heavily by the great houses and emperor.