Isaac's elbow shattered as Walter slammed his forearm through the space the joint occupied, while Isaac's wrist was pulled in the opposite direction courtesy of Walter's other hand's grasp on it. Isaac barely kept from crying out in pain as the sudden disjointed agony, and feeling of bone becoming shrapnel, nearly entirely overrode his mental faculties.

Walter let Isaac drop to a knee as the dark mage used every ounce of mental power he had in order to maintain conscious control over his own body. Isaac breathed out through gritted teeth for a moment as he just sat there with his pain.

"Good." Walter told him. "Pain is just your body telling your brain what's wrong. Sit with it. Accept it. Set it to the side. Then stand back up and look at me."

Isaac vaguely heard Walter in the background. Walter had already been through this with Isaac a dozen times. Every time Walter won he would end it in a way that made sure that there was never a doubt who the victor was. Every single broken bone, ruptured organ, or otherwise entirely debilitating injury reminded Isaac that Walter had played nice when they were fighting in the arena in Nualt.

Isaac, the Lord of Darkness, slayer of Jallen V'Nova and Lord Judgment himself, slowly forced himself to his feet. He would not lose. Not to himself or anyone else. Every painful lesson that Walter taught him was just helping him get closer and closer to his inevitable victory against the Engineer. Isaac took a deep breath and slowly let it out through his teeth again as he opened his eyes and looked gazes with his current teacher.

"Two more breaths." Walter told him which earned the artificer a scowl with a hint of real resentment. Walter didn't back down but simply waited for Isaac to do as he had instructed. Isaac took two, slightly shallow, breaths and then Walter nodded. "Good. You may heal."

Isaac's death flames surged as his arm was nearly instantly put back together. Walter had been forcing him to deal with the pain from each loss in an effort to prevent an injury from ending him in the future. Isaac was used to getting hit by things that either took him out or didn't. He very rarely got hit by something that would cause him a lot of localized pain, and when he was, he was healed before the true impact of the pain could be felt. If Isaac was trapped in a Poison Bubble, or something else that prevented him from regenerating mana, then he needed to be able to just power through whatever pain he was in until he was able to regenerate mana again. Getting hit by something that hurt, like a missing limb, and then trapped in a bubble that prevented mana regeneration, was a surefire way to kill Isaac by using his own instinct to heal himself against him.

Lenna had mentioned that, someone knowing how Isaac worked well enough to plan a trap in order to specifically create that situation, and then use it against him, was incredibly unlikely. Walter had countered it with a few simple words: "Anything big and scary is askin' to be hunted. Anything that pisses powerful people off is paintin' a target on its back. And a good hunter always studies their prey ahead of time. I can feel it in my bones that somebody's already started to hunt ya." It was a simple statement of fact from someone who had volunteered to hunt an invisible giant snake that could duplicate objects' sizes with its mind. An old hunter's intuition was rarely wrong and Walter was no spring chicken, even if he didn't seem old for an elf.

Walter took a drink of water and Philia handed him a faintly glowing yellowish white candy. "Really?" Walter asked her with a raised eyebrow but didn't wait for her to change her mind as he popped it into his mouth and started sucking on it.

"Mom sent me box a few weeks ago. I'd been hoarding them but…" She looked over at Isaac. "I think if he wins one of these times, I'm going to be out of a lot of mana. The best way to keep that from happening is to make sure that you don't get tired."

Walter nodded. "Thanks. Is Mrs. Ashborne staying near the Fatebreaker or just shipping him potions?" He questioned.

"She's staying there, at the moment." Philia replied. "Tell her hello for me when you see her… and ask her for more candies."

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Walter smirked. "I will." He promised and then turned back to Isaac who had taken a drink of his own water. "Ready to go again?"

Isaac nodded. "Yes." And then entered a fighting stance that had shifted ever so slightly compared to the first time. It was still recognizable, as Isaac didn't know a dozen different fighting stances like Walter did, but his skeleton was just a little more aligned with what movements he would soon be needing to make. Walter was an artificer, a blacksmith, tanner, bower, fletcher, tailor, jeweler, gunsmith, architect, mason, carpenter, and glassblower combined and he was hellsbent on forging, cutting, molding, stitching, and building up Isaac into a better hand to hand fighter in the span of a weekend.

—

Evening found Isaac and Lenna in their room and Philia hanging out with Walter as he worked under lamplight in the yard. He was cutting and stitching a Silent Stalker pelt into the shape of a cloak for Lenna while the two conversed. What they were talking about, Isaac and Lenna had no idea, but the pair hadn't seen each other for around thirty years so that was probably a bit of it.

Isaac groaned into his pillow. It was wool and stuffed with feathers from a dozen different types of birds. The wool made sure that the pillow still felt dry even though the air was humid. "I'm dead, again." His muffled voice came through loud enough for Lenna to easily make out what he had said.

Lenna laughed and laid on her back next to him. "You asked for it." She reminded him. "But, for what it's worth, you were noticeably better by the end."

Isaac turned his head slightly so his one eye could stare at her. "Really? Or are you just trying to make me feel better? Walter was way too nonchalant about the whole thing. I couldn't tell what he was thinking." Isaac questioned his wife.

Lenna chuckled. "Yes, his teaching skills are to be commended but his people skills are… mediocre at best." She said aloud what Isaac hadn't. "And yes, you actually did look better. I could tell that you were pushing him harder and harder as time went on, even with whatever candy Philia had given him."

Isaac narrowed his eyes in thought. "That candy seemed, off, somehow. Like my power specifically disliked it. Almost like I got a faint reading on my Polarity Sense but in the negative." He explained.

"Like it was a life attuned candy?" Lenna wondered.

Isaac nodded. "Yes. Something like that." He confirmed. "I wonder what it's made of?"

Lenna hummed in thought. "Apparently the maker of them is in the capital, maybe we'll get a chance to ask her." She offered with a shrug. "For now though, get some sleep, your brain needs it."

Isaac groaned again. "That last fight really showed it, didn't it?" He asked and let out a deep sigh.

Lenna chuckled. "Yes. You were worse than the first time that I'd ever seen you fight." She told him "Now rest." He had truly pushed himself to the point where not even his death flames could bring him completely back to normal. Sometimes rest is the only balm and no matter how much anyone might want or say otherwise, they too will have to rest eventually.

—

"I need to meditate." Isaac told Philia and Walter. "I'm… still not healed from a semi-recent injury."

Walter thought for a second before his brows furrowed even further in thought. "A soul injury? But how?" He wondered. The wanderer's ability to hit the nail on the head with minimal information was worrying at times for some like Isaac who was prone to specifically not showing the full truth.

"Regardless as to the 'how', if I could meditate until we leave tomorrow morning, that would be appreciated." Isaac told them.

Philia looked slightly confused and then turned to Walter for an explanation. "His throughput is higher than a few dozen mages." Walter explained. "He'll call all of the starving magical creatures from the surrounding area at once. It'll probably end up driving some of them into a frenzy."

Philia's brows furrowed in thought in much the same way that Walter's had. "Let me consult the Library." Philia told them. "I'll get you an answer before lunch." She promised Isaac. It was the day after Isaac and Walter's training session which meant that it was the day of the night of the new moon and then they would be leaving the next day.

Isaac nodded. "The sooner the better, every hour counts but I understand if you aren't prepared to deal with the repercussions." Isaac was starting to realize how much of a blessing Tunnel Horror's were. The hungry, mana chasing, disintegration worms did a damned good job at making sure that there weren't any other creatures powerful enough around to chase after Isaac whenever he meditated.

"I'll see what I can do." Philia told him. She had just finished her breakfast in half of the time that it was taking Isaac to finish his. Walter had a quarter of his plate left and he ate quickly. Philia looked like she was practically breathing her food in. Now that Isaac thought about it, they hadn't had breakfast with each other the day before, nor lunch, nor dinner. He was starting to wonder how the woman was still alive with only a meal every other day. She got up to leave. "I'll excuse myself now to look for it. Walter, can you?"

Walter nodded. "I'll keep an eye on them." He promised her with a nod. Philia nodded back and then left. When Walter turned back towards Isaac and Lenna he caught a raised eyebrow from Isaac. Walter tilted his head slightly in confusion. "Oh! No, not you, the scouts that are out right now, they have trackers with them that show up on the map. After we're done eating, I can show you. Some of them are on their way back right now, and they are all trying to beat the moon. If any of them don't, Philia's elite team will go out and get them."

"Is it really that much more dangerous tonight than any other night?" Isaac wondered.

Walter nodded with total seriousness and a weight almost seemed to settle on him as he spoke: "Definitely. Tonight is the night that Lady Luck turns a blind eye on the light elves, especially those under the gaze of the dark moon."

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