Lenna sat in bed in what some would refer to as excruciating pain. Others would refer to it as total body suffering, or active penance for all of their sins both past and future. For Lenna, it just hurt. Pain was something that Lenna was used to. From a young age she had been pushed to her limits and then beyond. The crack of a wooden stick on young unblemished skin was a regular occurrence during her etiquette lessons. Sword dancing until her knees gave out and she could no longer raise her arms was just daily practice, for years. She knew forty nine of them, every role of them, even the one that had forty eight different dancers, and they had been so drilled into her that she still hadn't forgotten, two centuries after her last lesson.

For Lenna, her body was a tool, like a sword or magic. It was honed, beaten, battered, pushed to its limits, healed, gains solidified, and then repeated in perpetuity. There were plenty of breaks, but the pattern would never stop. Not until she found the true end of her potential. All of that was to say, Lenna was used to long and painful recoveries. This one was a bit different but not overly so. Her body was, by all accounts, in perfect condition. What was not, was her soul and its connection to her body. The Wish had linked her and Isaac's souls, via their strands of fate, which had caused an enormous amount of strain on her soul's connection to her body. Isaac's backlash was his body being forged in an echo of her broken oath's flames, hers was her being stretched to be able to hold more power than her body could actually handle. It was an odd dissonance that would fix itself as the connection healed, hopefully.

Lenna had a feeling that she could actually take in more mana than her current maximum, if she was fine with her body starting to break apart from being forced to hold onto more power than it was rated for, simply by wishing to do so. Her mana regeneration rate was slightly increased, it was still slower than Shamesh's but it was closer to Alexander's, which would do nothing for her in combat but would help shorten her recovery time between fights. With Isaac's help, and some 'pain tolerance training', she should be able to hold around twenty percent more than her body's maximum mana reserve limit. She could vaguely feel, over the course of the last twenty four hours, her body being able to handle slightly more power and her soul's maximum slowly going down as her soul settled. She wondered if they would equalize at a ten percent overall gain or not. That seemed to be the course that she was observing.

There was something that all beings dealt with. It was something that old humans had a lot of experience with but so did quite a few old elves, at least the ones who had received more than their fair share of injuries that weren't healed with magic. Pain was tiring. Lenna could feel her stamina being burned away by fiery pain that permeated her body. Lenna sighed as she felt how every old human woman who needed a cane to walk looked.

"My Lady?" Madeline asked from nearby. "Is there something that I can get you?"

"What time is it?" Lenna questioned the young maid.

"Two hours before dinner." Madeline replied. "I should leave to start dinner soon, if that is alright, my Lady."

Lenna nodded. "Bring me the medicine, and then you may go."

Madeline did as she was asked after a quick bow of acknowledgement of her new directive. She sat the small bottle of medicine on the nightstand next to Lenna and then bowed again to leave. "Please, rest well, my Lady. We all wish you both a speedy recovery." Madeline told her mistress with pure sincerity.

Lenna gave the girl a warm but tired smile. "Thank you, Madeline." She said and then made another request: "If you see Shamesh, ask him how Isaac is doing for me, alright?"

Madeline nodded. "Of course, my Lady." Madeline replied and then left to see to her duties.

Lenna was worried. Rage was something that she was used to, both in herself and in Isaac. He had a temper, even without her oath stoking it, and she was afraid of what it would lead him to do. But more than that, she felt like she had a stake through the heart. She knew that a little bit of the pain was an echo from Macken's death, and she knew that a bit of it was from the fresh loss of two people who were close to becoming true friends to her, but she knew that most of it was from an echo of the soul wrenching pain that Isaac was experiencing. The pain felt subdued though, almost like Isaac was preventing himself from feeling it in its entirety somehow. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought that he was drunk or engaging in a pleasure of some kind.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"What are you up to?" Lenna asked slightly towards the ceiling and the far wall. She knew exactly where he was, as there was a slight pull in her chest towards him, and she knew that he was in his study.

—

Isaac wrote three more letters while he waited for Shamesh to return. One was to Sera, inviting her for tea in a week, the second was to Izen, asking for an update on drider silk clothing sales, and the third was to the bank, requesting his actual account balance. He wanted to contact Eliza to make item requests but wanted to know how much money he had at his disposal first. Once Shamesh returned, he handed off the letters and continued to look over his list, again and again. He wanted to check every item off as quickly as possible.

Most of the things on his list had no reason to be rushed, but he was focusing his energy in a productive way instead of boosting his strength to the high heavens and punching through the city wall. He wanted to go all out, even though he still wasn't quite healed from his resurrection and had a low grade fever, and work his emotions out through copious amounts of sweat and physical injuries. He wanted to fist fight a dragon, get in a mage battle with another lich, wrestle a Tunnel Horror, beat the planet with a near immortal paladin, again. Right when he felt like he was about to lose his cool, Isaac took a deep calming breath and refocused on his list.

He had questions for Xlen but as long as Master Su'Sol was unconscious, not even Isaac would be that tactless. It was clear that the two of them were incredibly close. Their relationship felt more like if Lenna was Jala's personal guard than anything else. It was a familial bond as well as a duty bound one.

Isaac tapped his list with his finger at an ever escalating speed. He needed an outlet before he actually went crazy. He got up from his chair and stalked out of the room. Shamesh met him in the hallway and Isaac could feel a little bit of his retainer's emotions that the skeleton tried to prevent from rippling through their link. Shamesh was concerned, incredibly so.

"Shamesh, can you learn fist fighting live?" Isaac questioned the one being that he could fix if he went overboard.

Shamesh nodded slowly. "I believe so, though, I would need to at least stand somewhat of a chance against my opponent." Shamesh was instantly aware of why Isaac had asked such a question.

"You can use Reality Shield and Quicken." Isaac informed his retainer. "I'll be burning mana but none of it will be used for boosting."

Shamesh nodded in understanding and agreement. "I will endeavor to be a good and learning sparring partner for you." He agreed.

"Good." Isaac's one word reply did not give Shamesh any confidence in what was to come. "Oh, and tell Margaret that there are three letters on my desk that need to be sent, today if possible."

—

Shamesh was faster, stronger, and more resilient than Isaac, but Isaac was simply too much for him. It didn't help that Shamesh could not see Isaac's movements half of the time. Isaac was blasting his throughput in shadows out from both the front and back of his core. The training room in the basement was being continually bathed in shadows that were too thick for even Shamesh's soul sight to see through. It was like trying to spot a man dressed in light grays in the middle of a foggy night, for a human, at a distance.

Isaac slammed one hit after another against hastily raised Reality Shield after hastily raised Reality Shield. Shamesh was learning but slowly, at about the same rate that Isaac was thinking clearer which kept them on slightly uneven footing the entire time. Shamesh was being pushed around the arena, as he either failed to get out of the way in time, or didn't see an attack coming. Shamesh caught about eighty percent of the attacks that Isaac threw at him, which was good for a beginner, even one with so many advantages. Isaac was fighting him as if he wanted to break the skeleton in half.

Shamesh knew that Isaac didn't actually want to grind him to dust but every attack that went through felt like his bones were about to shatter. Even his reinforced bones could hardly stand up to Isaac's unboosted strength. Luckily for Shamesh, the longer they fought, the more he protected important areas. That meant that he took more hits to the ribs in attempts to trade blows with Isaac, and less hits to his more fragile limbs. The one place that Isaac hadn't gone after was Shamesh's head. The skull was one of the most solid bones but Isaac didn't want to risk Shamesh's life for no reason.

Eventually, after nearly two hours, Isaac stopped. He was panting. He had used his death flames a few times to make his body be able to keep up with what he was demanding of it but only enough to do that much. He would let his body heal naturally after that. The endurance and strength were always welcome. Isaac was thinking about stopping anyway but was informed by Shamesh that it was dinner time.

Isaac's deep breaths helped ease some of the exhaustion that settled into every muscle in his body. That was both a good and a bad thing. On one hand, it made the trip up the stairs easier, on the other, it gave him more energy back to be angry. Isaac took an extra deep breath and tried to let it out a bit slower. "Rage clouds judgment." Isaac said to himself. "Sorrow hides truths." He tried to focus his mind. The sooner he and Lenna were back in fighting shape, the sooner he could take out his emotions on beings that didn't need to be alive afterwards.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.