Chapter 57 Recoverable.

  “Ugh… my head…” Lenna groaned. She looked up at a black circular cloud that blotted out the sun and a large chunk of the noontime sky. “Isaac?”

  “I’m here.” Isaac said from beside her. He had laid down in the ashy dirt next to her as he waited for Clark to return and Jane to regenerate her mana. He sent a gentle breeze of death flames through her in hopes that it would help alleviate any negative feelings she had. “Any better?”

  Lenna groaned. “Kind of.” She replied. “Can I go back to sleep?”

  Isaac chuckled. “You can try.” He told her. “Things might start happening soon.”

  “I have enough to get started.” Jane added. “I could wait another hour if you would like, I don’t have anything better to do and it is a beautiful day today.”

  Lenna waved her off. “Do whatever you have to.”

  Jane nodded but only Isaac saw it. “Be Undone, Be Undone, Be Undone, Be Undone,-” She went on for another six casts as she obliterated the last bits of the undead that were still encased in scorching hot ash. She had used telekinetic forces to help shove them into a smaller space but it still took more disintegrations than it should have. Some of them had started to regenerate a few muscles so they were officially on a timer but at the rate of regeneration it would take them over an hour to become a real problem once again.

  Lenna’s eyes widened as Jane just casually fired off one of the most deadly spells to have ever existed. “How long was I out?” Lenna asked Isaac with obvious concern.

  “About an hour and a half.” Isaac informed her. The teleportation mat a dozen feet from them lit up and Clark appeared with a few vials full of a clear liquid and a pair of what looked like tooth brushes with metal bristles.

  “Are you ready to get started?” He asked Isaac with the vials and brushes raised. He then looked around in obvious confusion. “Where is Magus Shamesh?”

  Isaac sighed and picked himself up with his shadow. He gestured to his side and his shadow turned void black and grew large enough for Shamesh to rise out of it. As soon as the shadow went back to normal, Shamesh started to topple. “Stop.” Isaac ordered the shadows inside of Shamesh and then turned to look at Clark. “Yes, and right here.”

  Clark quickly moved on from his surprise and joined Isaac. “The solvent is quite powerful but there is not enough of it to bathe him in it. This is all that I could make in a reasonable time with what we had available. Given a few weeks to gather the ingredients, an hour to run the conversion calculations from single batch to cauldron, and then a few more hours of production, we might have enough that he could just bathe in it. I can still do that, if you would like, but it will cost a small fortune. I figured it would be better to just go with this for now.”

  Isaac nodded. “Let’s get Shamesh moving and seeing again. After that, then we can think about a vat of ash remover.” Isaac told Clark and took the offered brush and one of the vials.

  “Oh, I would be careful getting this on your hands or breathing it in too much.” Clark warned.

  Isaac nodded in understanding and opened the vial. He was instantly hit with a scent that slammed two full force headaches into him at once. One was from memories trying to surface and the other was from the smell. The scent was distinctly familiar from a time that he could no longer remember and he had the feeling that it had always given him a splitting headache. Isaac coughed and held that vial at arms length. “Oh, gods, that’s awful.” He commented. “What’s it called?”

  “Mesit.” Clark replied.

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  Isaac frowned. That was definitely not what he had known it by in his past life but the more he tried to think of the name the more of a splitting headache he received for his troubles. ‘Shamesh, can you ask Walter if he’s heard of Mesit? Maybe he’ll know why this is making my head want to split in half.’ Isaac asked his retainer through their link.

  Isaac looped death flames through his head in rhythmic waves as he dipped the wire brush into the vial and got to work. It didn’t take a lot of force to make the ash start to liquify and scrub off. Clark joined him and combined they focused on Shamesh’s eyes. While they worked, Shamesh did as Isaac had asked and established a quick telepathic connection with Walter.

  ‘Walter said that the reason it feels familiar is because it is.’ Shamesh told Isaac. ‘He said that you might know it as ‘Nail Polish Remover’ or ‘Acetone’. He also said that he hopes that helps and does not make it worse.’

  Isaac’s head started to spin as memories surrounding the scents and names tried to come to him but couldn’t. ‘Oh, it is so much worse.’ Isaac sent back and stumbled.

  “Lord Darkness?!” Clark exclaimed and tried to catch Isaac. Isaac managed to catch himself so Clark’s steadying hand only helped ground him instead of support him. “Are you alright? If it’s affecting you that badly, I am sure that we can figure something else out.”

  “I… I’ll be fine. I just need a moment and to clear my head.” Isaac told him and sat himself down next to Lenna.

  “Something familiar?” She asked him.

  “Yeah.” Isaac confirmed. “I didn’t expect a chemical solvent in another world to be the same thing just under a different name, I don’t know why I didn’t expect it. In hind sight, it seems pretty obvious that plenty of chemical compounds would exist in both places as long as most of the elements remain the same, which they obviously are.”

  Lenna nodded. “Can’t you just boost Shamesh enough so that he can break out by strength alone?” She questioned out of the blue.

  Isaac slowly turned to look at her. “I’m a moron aren’t I?”

  Lenna smirked and shrugged. “Sometimes you just don’t look at things from a good angle.” She consoled him.

  Isaac forced himself back to his feet and pulled his Truth out of his Inventory. “Clark, get out of the way. We only need to clean Shamesh’s head.” He told the alchemist. ‘Sorry buddy but this is for the best.’ He sent towards Shamesh and unceremoniously cleaved Shamesh’s head from his shoulders. He caught Shamesh’s head and dumped death flames into him. It didn’t take long for Shamesh to have a fully formed new body.

  “Why didn’t you do this earlier?” Clark wondered.

  “My sword was acting up.” Isaac replied. “I didn’t understand why. Jane explained it but in my head I had already written it off. Lenna mentioning the ‘V’Nova Method of breaking through obstacles with raw strength and audacity alone’ reminded me of a partial solution that I had previously written off.” He explained. “Now we just have to clean his head, or rather, my shadows do. Set the brush down and vials in the dirt.”

  Clark nodded and did as he was told. He then stepped back to see what Isaac was going to do. “Telekinesis?” He asked the dark mage who could use no such magic, not exactly anyway.

  “Close.” Isaac replied. “Solidify. Animate.” He ordered the shadows under the brushes and then did the same for the vials. “Scrub him with the liquid and the brushes you surround until the ash is gone.” He ordered the shadows. They were clumsy, far less dexterous, and lacking any of the finesse of a real person, but they did the job.

  “Oh, wow, yes, that is much more convenient.” Clark commented.

  Shamesh was balanced on his own two legs under his own and Isaac’s power. He still couldn’t see but at least his body was working again. ‘Thank you.’ He sent Isaac while he waited for the animated shadows to do their jobs.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t at least do that much sooner.’ Isaac sent back.

  “He looks… naked.” Jane commented. “Does he have a change of clothes somewhere?” Isaac nodded behind her and Jane turned around to see where Lenna’s Bottomless Bag had exploded. “Ah, I see.”

  “I have a spare set of clothes for myself but there are a few problems with that. One is that it is my only surviving spare. A second is that my clothes are too big for him. And a third is that if something happens, I’ll be left even more naked than he is. At least he is made of bones and any dangly bits are not really there.” Isaac explained with a sigh. “You don’t happen to have a spare robe do you?”

  “I…” Jane’s voice trailed off as she thought through everything that she had with her. “The only thing that I’d be willing to part with is my nightgown. The rest of my clothes are enchanted.”

  Isaac winced and turned to look at Clark. “I have like a hundred gold on me. Do you have anything worth that much or less that you could spare?”

  Clark shrugged and pulled out a long raincoat out of his Bottomless Bag. “I got this for like thirty gold. It’s wool so that’s nice but I never got around to treating it with water repellent.”

  Isaac pulled three platinum coins out of his Inventory and traded them for the coat. “Well, buddy, you are in luck. You will not be completely naked until we can get new clothes for you, only mostly.”

  “Thank you.” Shamesh replied with a stiff nod as only the bottom joint of his neck could actually bend.

  Isaac turned towards Jane who was just more or less loitering around. “Now what? Do we tell Space that we are finished? The Guild Leader?” He asked her.

  Jane nodded. “Once we are done with the clean up, I will bring Clark and myself back to where we were before this mission with Recall. I’ll also let the golden brute know that we are finished and that he’ll need to arrange for someone to pick you up.” She explained. “Then we can all get back to what we were doing and where we were before this mess.”

  “Thanks.” Isaac told her with a nod. “I would love to offer you some tea while we wait but, well, I doubt any of it is recoverable.”

  Jane looked back over her shoulder again and eyed the pile of ash and metals. “Some of it might be, but the tea? Definitely not.”