Chapter 89 Hypothermia.

  The sound of crunching snow, once, twice, thrice. The sounds of wooden soles slapping against stone, once, twice, thrice, and then a slight stumble. Crunching wood, heavy breathing, a hollow clunk of a boot on a wooden floor. Isaac jolted awake and sat up straight. His head snapped towards where the sound had come from. Just inside the door there was the leader of the three boys with a small crate in his hands.

  “It’s just me. I have the potions, uh, sir.” The leader spoke and began walking over to him. “I-I, uh, you gave me a lot of money.”

  Isaac nodded. “I did.” He replied.

  The leader hurried over to him and Lenna and then set the crate down a few feet from them. “Uh, here’s the-” He began but Isaac cut him off.

  “Keep the change.” Isaac told the younger man. “Gather as much of the shrapnel together as you can and pile it in the middle of the crater. I almost didn’t wake up.”

  “What?” The leader had been stunned at Isaac giving him the change without even knowing how much it was, but Isaac’s comment about not waking up had jolted him free of his stupor. He finally seemed to notice the blood covering Isaac and put the fact that Isaac was covered in blood together with the fact that it was below freezing temperature at the moment. “Hypothermia.” He said with wide eyes as he realized what Isaac was probably actively going through.

  Isaac blinked slowly at him like he was trying to get his eyes to focus but he couldn’t. “Potions.” He told the leader. He wasn’t really feeling cold anymore, which was definitely not a good sign.

  “Sure.” The leader replied and brought the crate of potions over to right next to Isaac. “One of these… here.” He said and took out a red liquid that was stored in a very elegant crystal vial. “This is the expensive one. Made with trolls’ blood and some weird plant or something.” He tried to hand it to Isaac but when Isaac reached for it he missed. “Uh-oh. That’s not a good sign, is it?”

  Isaac growled and his power momentarily surged inside of him. His entire body spasmed from the pain of drawing on too much of his power. Isaac barely wheezed out a grunt in pain before his power subsided. He felt more awake and could think a little clearer which was good but his chest felt like he had just torn open stitches that were set directly into his heart. “Ow.” Isaac groaned and reached out towards the potion again.

  The leader had been frozen completely stiff in terror. It was definitely the first time that he had been exposed to the fear of death and the true essence of mortality, its end. Isaac was able to take the potion out of his hand, pull the top off, and take a sip before the boy started to move again.

  “W-wh-what was that?” The younger man stammered. He was breathing quickly with uneven breaths and his eyes looked like they were shaking in fear even though Isaac’s power had already faded.

  “It’s my power.” Isaac told him after he swallowed around an eighth of the potion. “Don’t worry about it.” He said as a pleasant warmth washed through him. He hadn’t tasted the potion itself because his tongue wasn’t exactly up to the task at that time but he definitely could taste the aftertaste. Iron, roses, willow, sour and salty metal. It was too strange to be gross or pleasant, it was just every kind of weird. Even the viscosity wasn’t very consistent once it touched his tongue and started imparting the healing into him. “I see why mortals dislike these.” He thought aloud and then shifted slightly so he could give the rest of it to Lenna.

  “Mortals?” The leader whispered but Isaac ignored him.

  Isaac gently tilted Lenna’s head up and raised her shoulders slightly, to help her swallow the potion, before he slowly allowed the red liquid to tip into her mouth. Lenna’s eyes fluttered open just long enough to look up at him as she swallowed the potion. Once it was all gone she smiled up at him and then passed back out. Isaac sighed in relief. “Thank you.” He prayed aloud to Rei and Zei for donating their power to help Lenna bring him back, to Lua and Halya for helping those in their care, to the Reaper for waiting, to whoever Lua and Rei were talking about and the dark mana for helping him take more of the load off of Lenna for his resurrection, and to Fate and Lady Luck for not frowning down too much at them even though they had tempted Fate far too many times. The thank you also extended to the young man that was staring almost blankly at him.

  “Sure.” The leader whispered with an absent nod.

  Isaac smiled down at Lenna before he turned to face the boy that had probably just saved his life, the one that he had just gotten back. “I never got your name.” He said to the young man. “I’m Isaac. Though, many people call me Darkness nowadays.”

  The leader swallowed hard. “We aren’t supposed to give out our names.” He hesitantly began. “Boss said that keeping our identities a secret was the second most important part of being a vigilante.”

  “What’s the most important part?” Isaac wondered while he was still feeling decently okay. His nerves burned as feeling was returned to them, his chest felt like he had an open wound, and his head ached a bit but he was better off than he had been a minute prior.

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  “Protecting people.” The leader replied.

  Isaac smirked. “You’re a good kid.” He told him with a nod. “Now, about the shrapnel. I need it all in a pile in the middle of the crater. We need heat in here before I freeze.”

  The leader nodded and got to his feet. “You know, wet clothes aren't doing you any favors. Do you have any dry ones? Maybe wherever you kept getting all that money?”

  Isaac nodded. “I do. But most of the blood is inside my clothes. I need to wash and dry before I put on clean ones. I’d be willing to strip and try to scrape most of the blood off if there was somewhere even slightly warm nearby.” He explained.

  “It’s starting to warm up a little.” The leader told him. “I saw some water dripping from the rooftops on my way back.”

  “That’s not good.” Isaac said to him as the younger man started gathering all of the wood where Isaac had instructed him. “Once the snow clears out, all of the corrupt guards and CSC personnel that have gone to ground will scatter like roaches.”

  The leader nodded in understanding. “Where did you send my friends? I saw their tracks leading away from here.” He questioned Isaac.

  “To get your boss and a healer.” Isaac informed him. “I’m starting to slip again.” He said and tried to force himself up onto his feet. The effort was agonizing. “Can you use mana?”

  “What? No, I can sense it a bit though.” The leader answered. “Why?”

  “Fire.” Isaac replied simply. He dug in the crate that the leader had brought for another healing potion and drank half of it. It was one of the cheap ones so it just tasted like elderberries and amaranth petals. It barely warmed him at all. Healing potions were not actually supposed to warm a person up at all, it just felt like they were warming him up because the damage that his body had taken from the cold was being healed away. Isaac finally got to his feet and started to slowly pace back and forth while he rubbed his hands together. His gloves were half destroyed and the other half of them was covered in blood but wearing them was still better than his hands being directly exposed to the cold, probably. Maybe he was wrong and the blood soaked gloves were only making him more cold. At that point, Isaac didn’t know anymore.

  Isaac really didn’t know how long had passed before a full team of eight people rushed into the battered warehouse. One of the members hurried over to Isaac and grabbed his face. Isaac was too startled to even react when his eyes were forcefully pointed directly at another man’s. Isaac felt warmth start to permeate through his face and he sighed at the pleasant feeling. “He’s half frozen.” The man in front of him spoke but Isaac couldn’t really even process it anymore. The warmth was nice though.

  Isaac couldn’t really remember much of what happened after that. At some point, his clothes had been changed and the ones from his Inventory were put on. His armor was tossed to the side and most of the blood had been peeled off of him. There was a fire in the middle of the warehouse and there was a warm cup of water in his hands. Someone must’ve used the fire to heat some of their drinking water in one of the travel cups that had ended up on the ground along with Isaac and Lenna’s rations.

  “Hey, buddy, are you in there?” The same man that put his hands on Isaac’s face said from right next to him.

  Isaac took in a sharp breath and locked eyes with him. He hadn’t even noticed the man and had no idea how long he had been there. Isaac snapped his head around to look for Lenna and he found her right where he had left her but with five more blankets on her than before. “Why isn’t she next to the fire?” Isaac asked as his first words in only the leader knew how long.

  “Hey, you’re back.” The healer said with a smile in his voice. All of the men and women in the warehouse with them still had their hoods up and their faces covered but some of them had opened their coats up because it had gotten less cold in the warehouse. “You wouldn’t let us move her.”

  Isaac nodded. “Sorry about that.” He told the healer as he turned back to face him. “Thank you. I’d be dead by now if you guys hadn’t come when you did.”

  “I couldn’t believe that you were still alive and able to move around when we got here.” The healer shook his head. “And the damage that the two of you have taken is honestly insane.”

  “You were shambling around like a zombie.” A middle aged sounding man said and took a seat a few feet from Isaac, but still around the small fire in the crater of the floor. “I’m Boss, that’s what everyone here calls me anyway.”

  “Isaac.” Isaac replied with a nod in greeting. “But you already knew that.”

  Boss nodded. “I kind of assumed so.”

  “Healer, I’m going to need you to explain how exactly Lenna and I are hurt, and how to fix it.” Isaac said and then turned back to Boss. “But first, I need you to send a few messages for me.”

  Boss nodded again. “I’ll do what I can. The Guild Master told us to keep an eye out for you but to stay out of your way, unless you asked for help. We won’t fight anyone for you but supplies and messengers are well within what we can help with.” he explained.

  “Thanks. And thanks for the save. We got pretty fucked up. A lot of things went sideways in a row.” Isaac told him and then shifted to the topic of messengers and messages. Isaac had Boss send a message to Sir Solomon informing him that the targets had gotten away and had left traps in their wake, both magical and non-magical ones. He also sent a message to “The wizards in the Court Mage’s tower, specifically the human one.” That message was about the destroyed teleportation circle and was also a request to figure out where it went. Isaac was fully aware that Karthen would not want to teleport there to help figure it out himself but he had faith that Alexander, along with Karthen’s magical instruments, would at least be able to give him a direction and approximate distance. After that, Isaac had some questions for the Boss, specifically about how Heitor was doing and how well he took the dead adventurer that they had left in his Guild Hall.

  “I wasn’t there, but apparently there aren’t any doors on the Guild Hall at the moment.” Boss explained. “So I would wager that he didn’t take it well.”

  Isaac nodded in understanding and thanks. “Has he recovered from the spell yet?” He asked.

  Boss shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard.” He replied and then turned towards one of his people that was standing guard at the doorway. “Who wants to go check on the Guild Master?” She turned and looked at him. He gave her a nod and she did so back. “Once you know, hurry back.”

  “Yes, Boss.” She agreed and quickly left. With her gone, the warehouse was starting to look almost empty. There was Boss, Healer, the three boys, Isaac, Lenna, and one more person standing guard.

  “How many of the CSC and corrupt guards are still out there?” Isaac wondered aloud.

  “Too many, but not as many as there were.” Boss replied. “We honestly don’t know how many there were. The real problem is what we are supposed to do with them. I talked with one of the higher ranking soldiers and he told us to take any prisoners directly to the Magistrate. I have no idea what he’s doing with them though. I can’t imagine that there are enough cells there for everyone.”

  “If he's anything like the Magistrate in Sapphirestone, he’s questioning them and then executing the corrupt guards on the spot.” Isaac offered. “Sapphirestone was a bloodbath.”

  Isaac could only see a little bit around Boss’s eyes but it was easy enough to tell that he had gone pale. “All of them?” He questioned Isaac.

  “No, about half, I think. Maybe more.” Isaac replied. He shifted slightly to meet the healer’s gaze. “Now, explain to me what Soul Integrity Degradation is and how to fix it.”