Grand Saint Alloy

Siren looked into the deposit. It felt odd to call it that as he could see metal benches lining the walls inside. Normally elementals in the mine would burst out with a manic desire to kill everyone. These seemed to want to be left alone, if he hadn’t ordered the elemental that Conni termed an animus elemental, to be killed, it would have left.

To Siren, it stunk of coordination. It was folly to walk into an enclosed space with creatures stronger than yourself. He beckoned some of his more important people over. Initially, he wanted to exclude Luke, but the boy would probably be a vanguard and he was the only one aware of his true abilities. It was time to change their plans.

“What is your take on the situation?” Siren asked.

“We can’t go in there,” Shale said, “If there’s a second one of those things, it could kill us all in the first straight hallway we come across.”

Siren turned his attention to his only remaining warrior with a fire kern, “What was your gauge on its tier?”

“I don’t know. It had the same amount of essence as me, but there is no way I could throw a shield like that,” The warrior shrugged, “If the thing has a kern, I would say tier three, but treat it like a high tier four threat.”

Siren nodded at that assessment, “So there are potentially multiple tier four threats and it is likely we are outnumbered.”

Everyone was grim. Everyone but Luke, “You guys are worrying over nothing.”

“Explain,” Siren said. Luke was erratic and brash, but due to the odd way his brain worked he thought along different lines than most people.

Luke pointed to the hole in the roof, “Harvest some trees, patch the hole with wood, harvest another piece of the structure. Make another patch. They’ll eventually have to come out, or else we will find them in ones and twos. At that point, the cannons can make short work of them.”

It was not the worst idea, however there was only one issue, “That means someone will need to stay in the pit while only being protected by wood. The tier two saw we have is also too slow to work.”

Luke shrugged, “Get Elder Forest to loan you Hestia’s Sickle and I can cut through the walls in no time.”

Siren could not believe his ears, “You want me to ask the Elder to loan you a peak tier five artifact?”

“It was only an idea,” Luke said.

Grimacing, Siren had to admit it was a good one. He just did not want to hand the boy a weapon with the dual elements of flame and lightning. If he went rogue with it, then there would be no way to catch him. The tool itself boosted both foot and reaction speed, while the razor sharp blade superheated anything it touched. Only, this would almost certainly eliminate any casualties, even if Luke was attacked, he could deal with most elementals alone.

After a break pause while Siren weighed the safety of his men against the net wealth of a man he disliked, he nodded, “I’ll have him send it here, it may even have the added benefit of Henry tagging along as well.”

All the warriors visibly brightened up at the thought of a third tier four being here. It would make the mine the biggest concentration of military power in the caldera, with the exception of Alchehall. After setting up a watch and a team to build a plug for the hole, Siren stepped out.

He found Conni and set up a delivery of the metal and a request for Hestia’s Sickle. The chances were very low. He almost expected a response insulting him for his ridiculous demands. So it came as a surprise when the next day Henry and a few blacksmiths showed up the next day. The civil protector himself was the one carrying the artifact.

Siren met them at the entrance of the excavation sight. The Golden Heart patriarch still had a mask on from where Tristan had hit him with his decay. Siren was glad that he had a kern that countered it. He had no feelings of animosity with the man, however, Henry was definitely wary around him.

“I am surprised you brought the sickle, what caused Elder Forest to send it?” Siren asked Henry.

Henry shrugged, looking through the hole to the tunnel below, “Two things really. First whatever metal that is, it's not steel,” he nodded his chin at the blacksmiths who were scrambling to set up a forge, “It holds up to tier three artifacts well, and even somewhat to the two tier fours we have. It will make our soldiers invincible.”

That made sense. An army equipped with artifact level armor would be powerful. The alchemist demonstrated this by resisting the entire Caldera alone by over arming a few hundred people.

“What is the second reason?”

“Well, the only other person in the Caldera who can use Hestia’s Sickle is Regis from the Lake Caldera. I want to know what other tier fours I need to worry about, and more importantly how I can control them,” Henry said.

Siren snorted, “Then you should not have attacked and stolen from his friend.”

Siren jumped down into the mine and took a position nearest the deposit. He wanted to be close if anything went wrong. Henry jumped down after him, a white cape billowing out behind him.

“I have done no such thing,” Henry said defensively, “I do not make a habit of offending powerful people.”

Barely holding in a laugh, Siren beckoned Luke over, “He’s the one who can use it.”

Henry sighed, recognizing Tristan’s friend, “I just can’t get a break can I.”

Luke stopped in front of Siren, nodding to the commander. His green eyes focused on Henry. The patriarch made note of that, fire rarely gave green irises, but no one really knew what element lightning was spawned from. The current working theory was that it was a force given to either fire or water at tier six. No one could quite understand why some people received forces early, but if Luke had a lightning force, he would be truly dangerous.

“You got the artifact?” Luke asked.

Henry would have chastised him for his tone, but the patriarch had used power for the basis of his respect. It felt odd to be on the other side of his social perspective, especially when the person in question was his son’s age. He glanced at Siren who nodded briefly before he handed a lacquered box to the young man. Irreverently, he popped the lid off and removed the sickle.

It looked like a farming tool styled as a weapon. Black leather wrapped the grip, while a silver knob fashioned like a flame adorned the pommel. The blade was clean and mirror smooth, the only thing separating it from ordinary metal was the line of flickering white-red light at its very edge. It was long for a sickle at around thirty inches, making it around the length of an arming sword.

Luke tossed the box back to Henry, “This thing is awesome.”

“Just go do your job,” Henry grumbled.

Luke did exactly that. Jumping into the pit, he activated the artifact. A feeling of static electricity coated everything, and the blade glowed a cherry red. When Luke raised it to the wall, lines of electricity connected it to the sickle. The blade dipped smoothly into the wall - the high quality metal was no match for a tier five artifact. The cut that took Siren almost four hours only took Luke a minute.

The downside was the superheating effect of Hestia’s Sickle. A piece as wide as a finger proved insufficient to hold the slab up when it was reduced to a half liquid state. It dropped, hit the floor, and tipped toward Luke. Speed was not something Luke had a shortage of. He flashed to the side, letting the slab fall harmlessly.

He darted inside the structure before anyone had fully understood the situation. Inside a Dark elemental was suddenly exposed by the bright daylight now shining in. Instead of letting it hide and camouflage, Luke had opted to shove his artifact into its heart. For good effect, he cut it in half and threw a fire and lightning storm down the hallway before diving out.

That little show allowed everyone to get ready, as four separate elementals came barreling out. Three were the standard skeletons and the last was an anima elemental with an organ sack emanating a brown glow. If brown meant earth, then there were two earth elementals, one water, and one air. Luke instantly pounced on the air elemental. It was almost as fast as he was.

Siren yelled at the cannoneers, “Take out the anima elemental first it's tier five.”

Luke yelled back, “So is this one!”

He chopped at the elemental removing an arm, dodged a punch that would have shattered his rib cage, and purified the highly toxic carbon monoxide. The issue was, it was producing faster than he could purify. The carbon monoxide stifled the fire of Hestia’s Sickle, not because it was not flammable, but because Luke could not be sure how flammable it was. He was fine with lighting everyone up if it was the only way, but it was not.

He could whittle it down with time, but he could not be sure how much time he had.