Chapter 49 There It Is.

  Isaac and Lenna entered the Adventurers’ Guild to search for a new caravan to take to their next destination, it was better to find one before the day they were going to leave after all, or at least find something to do while they waited for Sir George to finish his interrogation of the CSC prisoner. They had barely made it through the batwing doors when Hilton, the diminutive guild receptionist, sprinted up to them. He stopped a handful of feet in front of where Isaac and Lenna had stopped.

  “Your shadow won’t strangle you if you yell anymore, having said that, don’t make me change my mind.” Isaac told the smaller but much older man.

  Hilton shook his head violently which seemed to yank his focus back onto the reason he had raced over to them. “Lord of Darkness, by order from the Guild Leader, I am to offer you the position of Guild Master of Sapphirestone.” He informed Isaac with a clear and direct voice that easily caught the attention of all twenty of the adventurers in the Guild Hall with them. “As one of the only two available double platinum adventurers in the area, and one of the two double platinum adventurers that lead to our previous Guild Master 'retiring’, you are the first adventurer to be offered the position.”

  A cacophony of questions, curses, and demands rang out from the audience as Isaac just blinked at the man owlishly. “Huh?” He questioned after he had a moment to process what Hilton had said. Being offered the position of Guild Master was not on his list of things that he thought would happen to him within the next ten years. “What about the Glinting Blade?”

  “The Glinting Blade has expressed many times that he would rather die than become a Guild Master.” Hilton replied simply and then shifted his gaze to Lenna. “Lady of Hellfire, you are the second pick from the Guild Leader and are thus my second… target.”

  “Well, tell the Guild Leader, that I do not plan on becoming the Guild Master of any branch of the Adventurers Guild. The only way that that would change is if something happened to the Blade Master and there was not an acceptable replacement at hand.” Isaac told him directly. “That is to say, Safeharbor is my home, not Sapphirestone, and I do not intend to change that.”

  Hilton nodded in confirmation and turned back to Lenna. Before he could even say anything she shook her head. “No.” Lenna said without hesitation. “Being in charge of a bunch of adult alcoholic children, with three to thirteen levels worth of power, magic, and weapons at their disposal, is not something I would like for an afternoon, let alone the next four hundred years.”

  Unlike what one might expect, there was no anger at Lenna’s words, quite the opposite in fact. Most of the adventurers just nodded in agreement when she called them alcoholic children because they knew the truth of her words. They all also seemed to approve of her turning down the offer because she was not a local and they didn’t want someone from out of town showing up, kicking out their old boss, and then taking over.

  “I see.” Hilton replied. “The Guild Leader expected those responses and thus left me with another message for the two of you.” Hilton cleared his throat and dropped his voice a bit. “‘I’d owe you one if you kept the building from burning down for a few days. At least until one of my guys can get there.’”

  Isaac sighed. “When he puts it like that…” He grumbled.

  “He makes it really hard to say no.” Lenna finished for him.

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  “Fine, but no more than a week. Three days or less would be preferable.” Isaac told Hilton. “We aren’t doing any paperwork and our only goal will be to protect Guild property until one of the boss’s guys shows up.”

  Hilton nodded. “On behalf of the Guild Leader, thank you.” Hilton said with a slight bow. Once his mission was completed, Hilton seemed to lose all momentum and looked like he was ready to sprint away. “C-Can I go back to my post now?”

  “I’m not your boss.” Isaac told him while waving him off. He then turned to the small army that was staring at them. Isaac raised an eyebrow. “I know my greatness is distracting but you don’t have to stare.”

  “Listen,” One of the adventurers began while rising from his table. His platinum badge was on full display where it was framed and pinned to his chest. “we just wanna make sure you’re gonna make do on that promise not ta interfere.” The adventurer was around Isaac’s height and build. He wore only casual loose fitting clothes with a knife and a money purse on his belt. It was obvious that he was only there to hang out on his day off and wasn’t planning on taking any quests.

  “No, you listen,” Isaac returned and subtly tiled his chin slightly up and squared his shoulders a bit more. “I do what I say I’m going to do. If any of you doubt me, then we can sort it out right now.”

  The platinum adventurer got a twinkle in his dark brown eye as a grin overtook his features. He pulled his knife and money pouch from his belt and handed them to the guy next to him. “Sort it out, like men?” He questioned and took a step towards Isaac.

  Isaac chuckled. “You all just want a good bar fight because Benedict didn’t let you fight in here, don’t you?” He asked with obvious amusement.

  “Kinda.” One of the other adventurers agreed, which got him a punch in the arm from one of the others at his table as another kicked him in the shin. “Ow! Damn you guys!” He shot back as he clutched his shin.

  “Well, can any of you cast a repair spell once it’s over?” Isaac wondered and eyed the crowd of adventurers that hadn’t had anything to do for the last few days. At least half of them specialized in fighting on the water, because every manner of giant sea creature could be found off the coast, and as soon as one was sighted they would be out to hunt it down. The rest fought off swamp creatures and guarded caravans. That combination meant that bounties would often come in waves and then there would be a drought immediately afterwards. Three of the adventurers raised their hands. “Well,” Isaac began as he doffed his cloak and tossed it into his shadow that reached up to grab it. His shadows had actually done little more than hide the fact that Isaac had thrown it into his Inventory, but that was all he really needed them to do anyway. “someone give me a bottle to break over his head.”

  The following ten minutes were nothing but total chaos as tables, chairs, benches, bottles, and tankards were broken across jaws and skulls alike. Half of the wooden floor was even broken because there was a gold rank berserker who took great pleasure in picking up smaller adventurers and throwing them straight down into the ground with enough force that the wooden boards would break. Thankfully, most of the lower ranked adventurers had gotten out of the way of the chaos so there weren’t any real casualties but one of the wizards that was supposed to help fix everything was out cold. The poor wizard had literally been thrown across the room into an overturned table.

  Things had finally started to wind down, as there were only five of them left, when Isaac got blindsided by a chair to the back of the head. Lenna winced and pushed off the wall that she was leaning on to go help him when she felt his magic surge momentarily. The whole room went silent from the sudden chill that washed over them. Isaac pushed himself back up to his knees and shook his head to try and clear it while his death flames did their job. “Damn.” He swore. “It’s times like these that I am reminded that I’m still a mage.” He said with a huff and then rose back up to his feet while his power wound down and then winked out.

  “That bastard’s a mage?” One of the guys with a broken arm and a limp questioned incredulously while giving his friend a disbelieving look.

  “Don’t look at me.” His friend replied. “He took us both out at the same time.”

  “Double platinum’s are just built different from the rest of us.” The first one said with a sigh. “Hey, Darkness!”

  “Yeah?” Isaac replied as he dusted himself off.

  “You’re out. No magic remember.” He reminded him.

  Isaac frowned and wrinkled his nose but moved over to join Lenna against the wall. She hadn’t taken part in the madness but had simply enjoyed the show. “Who do you think is going to win?” Isaac asked her.

  “Well, you lost us ten gold.” She told him. “I bet that one,” She said and gestured to a man that was unconscious a dozen feet from them. “that you’d win.”

  “If I was allowed to heal myself I would’ve won.” Isaac replied.

  Lenna elbowed him in the side. “Don’t be a sore loser.” She scolded him. “I think the berserker will.”

  Isaac shook his head. “No.” He disagreed right before the large woman with heavily tanned skin tipped over and slammed face first into the ground. She had fought until exhaustion wouldn’t let her fight anymore and then kept going. “There it is. I was wondering how long she could keep it up.”