Chapter 46 Pick Up A Friend.

  Isaac had just finished proverbially stacking bodies when he received a mental message from his companion and retainer, Shamesh. ‘Master, I have a problem.’ Was not on the list of things that Isaac wanted to hear.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Isaac questioned and then glanced down at his hand as his wedding ring started to glow. The glowing ring meant that she was in pain and he stared at it for a long moment while he waited for it to turn off.

  ‘I may be stuck in the vault for the next few hours.’ Shamesh replied. ‘I entered easily enough but triggered the vault security measures on entering. I dealt with them and looted most of the vault’s valuables, but one of those that I defeated has awoken and triggered the lobby alarm.’ He explained.

  Isaac sighed in relief as his ring faded and Shamesh explained that he was most likely not in any actual danger but simply stuck. ‘I’ll be there once I am done here. Let me know whenever anything changes on your end.’ He instructed his retainer.

  Shamesh sent a feeling of an acknowledging bow. ‘As you say.’ He sent back and then was silent in Isaac’s chest. It was very easy for Isaac to distinguish Shamesh’s telepathy from normal telepathy because Shamesh sent his feelings, thoughts, and words, through their connection that connected their core’s to each other. It was not mental magic that could be messed with by other mages but a resonance that came from one literally being a shadow of the soul of the other, in a different body.

  Isaac stared down at the man in front of him. All around the lounge were bodies and bloodshed. Isaac had used a steel sword and not his magic which left a heavy scent of iron vying for control over all the smells of sex, drugs, and alcohol. “Don’chew know who I am?!” The pantless man in front of him shouted with a heavy slur of some substance or another.

  “That’s why you are still alive.” Isaac told him calmly. “Have you met whoever runs your organization?” Isaac questioned him.

  “Even if I’ave I ‘oudn’ tell you.” The man slurred back indignantly.

  “Where is the main base of your organization?” Isaac followed up while the rest of the room’s survivors eyed him carefully. None of them knew for sure that they wouldn’t be next.

  “Ev’ry on’ knows it’s th’ Isle o’ ssi… sis… sisafis… no, that ain’t right.” The man’s ‘compromised’ state was grating on Isaac’s nerves as he ‘spoke’.

  “What kind of representative doesn’t know where he came from?” Isaac questioned the man with a scowl.

  “Sis… sissilly… n-no, that ain’t right ‘neither.” The criminal continued rambling on.

  “Sissario?” One of the barely clothed people on the side asked.

  “Yeah!” The representative exclaimed. “Sisarro.” He slurred out.

  Isaac growled down at the man. “The only reason you are going to live is because I need some actual information out of you.” Isaac spat down at the drugged up wreck at his feet. He then turned to regard the rest of the survivors. “Release the bindings if you can.” He told them. “Make sure everyone gets to the surface. And don’t even think about taking any of the drugs or alcohol with you.” He ordered them and then grabbed the CSC representative by the back of his collar and started walking towards the door. “I’ll be back.”

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  “‘Ey! What’re you doin’ ta me?!” Isaac got in reply from his prisoner.

  “Quiet!” Isaac snapped. “If you don’t have anything useful to say then shut up, before I decide to drag you by your ankle face down.”

  It took Isaac a while to arrive, with his prisoner, to the bank but he finally did. During the interim, things had gotten a little out of hand. Outside the bank there were a dozen armed and armored guards that had come from the bunkhouse nearby. How an underground criminal organization had managed to keep two dozen or more guards on the premises at a time was a wonder to Isaac. They were even much better outfitted than the city guards.

  “What’s that?!” One of them exclaimed upon seeing Isaac. They all turned away from the reality cage, that had formed across the entrance to the lobby of the bank, to regard Isaac and his unconscious prisoner. The CSC representative had fallen unconscious at some point, maybe it had been from the drugs or maybe it was from the time Isaac’s hand had ‘slipped’, only Isaac and the gods knew for certain.

  “What’re you doing here?” Another questioned as weapons were drawn and leveled at Isaac.

  “I’m just here to pick up a friend.” Isaac said and lowered his burden onto the ground. “Now, I’m not Lenna, so I am going to have to ask all of you to either let me through or face me two at a time.

  The arena was set, on one side there was a tunnel only two people wide that led to the rest of the underground complex. On the other there was a caged wall of reality magic that sealed off the bank lobby and vault. Between them there was an open space a dozen feet wide and nearly two dozen feet deep. At the halfway mark there was a wall of iron bars with a singular door in it, that was swung open with a key still inside the lock to prevent the lockdown procedure from activating. Between the tunnel and the grate-like wall there was Isaac with an unconscious and pantless drugged up prisoner at his feet. Between the reality caged lobby entrance and the grate-like wall there were eleven fresh guards in plate armor with helmets donned and weapons out. There was another guard resting against the iron bars with his helmet off and blood dried on the back of his head.

  “Don’t just stand there! Go get him! He must be connected to all of this!” One of the guard’s in back yelled at the rest of them to get them all moving.

  No sooner had all of the guards, except the one still on the ground, started moving in Isaac’s direction did he vanish. Isaac left behind a fading silhouette in the glowstone light as he appeared right in front of the reality gated off door to the lobby. Isaac stuffed a generic skeleton key shaped hardened construct of void black shadows into the lock and turned it with an absolutely shit eating grin on his face. Only one guard managed to see what was happening, before everything went to shit, and his eyes were wide with terror as he seemed to realize exactly how bad of a situation he was in.

  Fifteen wards activated at the same time. Six of them were individual reality walls that sealed the top, front, back, sides, and bottom of the area between the grate-like wall and the lobby entrance from the rest of the world. One of them was a spell that sent an odd resonance through the mana in the area, to make teleportation harder, while an unknown number of wards waited to counter all spells cast. A cloud of green poisonous gas formed in the middle of the sectioned off death trap from an eighth ward. A white burning cloud of phosphoric death began forming and swirling through the area from a ninth. Four lightning bolts shot from the four corners near the grate wall towards the lobby door caring little for what was in the way courtesy of the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth wards. A sound like city warning bells began echoing off the walls only drowned out by the lightning strikes for a few moments from the fourteen ward. And finally, a spell tried to hold Isaac in place because he was the one at the door when the wrong key had been entered.

  The spell that had tried to target Isaac not only slid off of his engagement ring’s protective soul shield but it also only caught a fading silhouette as Isaac had already vanished back to his previous location, still wearing a shit eating grin. The sounds of pain, agony, death, and pleading for a rescue echoed down the halls, in a cacophony that reminded any of those hearing it of what most would imagine a portal to the hells to sound like. Isaac had to drag his captive away from the chaos a bit as green poisonous smoke started creeping across the ground towards them. Luckily the white phosphoric tornado stayed mostly within the bounds of the chamber of which it was summoned.

  “Well, that was easy.” Isaac commented to himself as he waited for the spells that had killed all of the guards to burn themselves out. ‘Shamesh, it might be a while before I can get to you. I had to do some cleaning on the outside. Though I fear the smell may never leave.’

  ‘Understood, my master, I shall continue to regenerate my mana.’ Shamesh replied. ‘How is the mistress?’

  ‘I’m going to assume that she is fine. If I’ve managed so far without ninety five percent of my mana regeneration then I doubt she has run into anything worth fighting for real.’ Isaac replied. ‘The ring did glow a little a while ago but she probably just punched one of the locks open or something because it went back to normal after a few seconds.’

  Shamesh sent back the feeling of a bow as he replied: ‘Very good, my Lord.’