Grand Saint Alloy

Tristan came around slowly. He felt like someone had spent an hour throwing rocks at his face. Focusing his mind, Tristan tried to recall the previous events. His memory was hazy, but he clearly remembered, Luke needed to die, Conni needed to die, and all the guards needed to die. Immediately, he sat up, intending to go and end their lives.

Something stopped him. Frowning, Tristan raised his hand to feel what was wrapped around his forehead. His wrist was bound down, and so were his elbows, knees, and ankles. He tried jerking his hands-free, but the bindings were made of metal. Could decay break his bonds? The metal should be resistant, however the table should be vulnerable. He tried to feel what the table was made of, but the callouses on his palms made it difficult. The surface was smooth, so he had to assume either metal, stone, or polished wood.

He tried to tear himself free, with no success. Tristan started panicking, how could he kill his companions if he was locked down? Something about that thought felt wrong. He tried to find out why, obeying the Lord should not be wrong. That thought also felt wrong, Tristan prided himself on having no real allegiances.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Tristan started going over the entire event. It should’ve been odd that Luke attacked him. However, it seemed normal for the Lord’s enemies to target him. Conni drew a sword on him, the man could be harsh when he needed to be, but normally he was gentle. Again, all the Lord’s enemies were evil.

Moment by moment, Tristan slowly pried the memory off of his own. It was as if something had attached itself to his mind and he couldn’t tell where his memories ended and the elementals started. He couldn’t think of her as Hailey. A person could be pitied but a monster could be destroyed.

Who was this Lord? the elemental had no concept of it aside from a greater power. Was it an elemental god or something similar? It had told the elementals to dig and kill. Tristan was aware that there were sentient elementals, Siren and Luke had killed one.

Elemental Lords were strong, but more importantly, they could think. This was important, if they released a tier six elemental lord, the results of the catastrophic. The dark elemental lord had the essence reserves of a tier three but had exhibited power closer to a tier six.

If Tristan was feeling a tier six elemental lord down in the mind would it exhibit power closer to tier nine? If the difference was consistent, then it could potentially be close to a tier twelve. That seemed preposterous. He had never heard of anything going above tier seven with the exception of some truly ludicrous mythical beasts. Though no one knew what tier they actually were. Survivors were required for that.

Even if the elemental Lord was just tier nine, there would be very few people who could stop it. The difference between it and the next strongest person in the Caldera would be like the difference between Siren and a tier zero.

Tristan was not sure how many tier zeros it would take to stop Siren. A lot probably. the problem was there weren’t enough warriors in the Calera to stop a sentient tier nine. if it could control elementals, then it could just boost its ranks through slaughter. Judging by the memory he had, it was already keen on taking that route.

Tristan was not sure how long he was out. At least long enough for everyone to get bored and leave. Not even his guards had stuck around. So much for getting a posse of butlers. He thought about yelling, but with the number of people he felt unsure about he felt that wasn’t a good idea. He didn’t want to run across Henry while he was immobile.

So he waited. After what felt like hours, but was more likely to be only ten or fifteen minutes, someone finally stepped in.

Tristan was surprised who showed up. He shouldn’t have been, but he was still happy to see that Eve was the first person to walk through the door. She had been the one to visit him in the Stone Fort, so it was logical that she would do it now that they were friends.

“You’re awake,” Eve said. For some reason, she seemed surprised at that.

“No,” Tristan said dryly, “I am asleep.”

“I need to go get Conni,” Eve turned and hustled out, “Don’t move until I get back.”

“Sure, lots of moving is definitely going to be happening,” Tristan muttered as he obediently stayed put.

He stayed there for a bit longer before he heard boots tromping down the stairs. Tristan realized where he was. The hole cut through the roof was not to let smoke out, but light in. He was in the conference room. The table’s base was cut straight out of the stone, however, the top was wooden. He really could have rotted his way out.

Conni entered, followed by Luke and Eve. The mine foreman folded his arms and looked down at Tristan like he was a rabid animal. Tristan supposed he had earned that reaction.

“Are you sane,” Conni asked.

Tristan almost said no, but he guessed that Conni was looking for reassurance, “Yes, I won’t jump up and kill any of you.”

“What happened?” Conni asked, “All I can get is that Siren asked you to experiment on some little elemental and then you started randomly losing control.”

Tristan explained the experiment that he had done, “I thought it would be the same as Luke when he pushes air essence into us to fuel his protein shakes.”

Luke frowned, “I don’t push essence into your kern, I push it into your body.”

Tristan frowned, “What's the difference.”

As far as he knew, all things were made of essence and essence was simply a composite of various forces working in conjunction with each other. It allowed everything to function predictably and smoothly. Pushing air essence into a body should be the same as pushing it into a kern, only the concentrations of essence should be different.

“My kern never touches yours,” Luke said, “It’s something you normally only have to worry about at tier four. Your bloodstream and your kern take up the same space but do not have the same protections, why do you think fire kerns don’t suffocate from the fire in their blood consuming the air essence before it gets to where it needs to be?“

Tristan had not really thought about it. He had just always assumed that it simply worked. His mother never complained about breathing troubles. He simply shrugged, Luke would explain it regardless of whether or not he wanted him to.

“Your kern is attached to your soul, while your blood is attached to your body,” Luke's frown turned into an impish grin, “If I shoved it into your kern, I would cripple myself, it’s even possible for me to lose a tier as a piece of my soul is damaged. It sounds like you actually ate a piece, you weren’t joking when you said you ate souls.”

“It was an accident,” Tristan complained, “how was I supposed to know it would try to take me over?”

Conni rubbed his temples, “Would you by chance be asking how you were supposed to know whether it was dangerous to hook yourself up to a creature and exchange essence with it?”

Tristan looked at him, not getting what made it a bad idea.

“You will give your future wife grey hair before she’s thirty,” Conni said. The foreman shook his head to refocus, “You said that you saw the past through the eyes of an elemental?”

“Yes, though, it does not feel like I saw it through someone else’s eyes,” Tristan said, “I think I watched Furnace die.”

Luke raised an eyebrow, “Now if that was not a devil-like thing to say, I don’t know what is.”

Tristan had to admit that it did sound pretty ridiculous, “Have you heard of anyone called the Steel Saint? I think he is the Silver Demon Lord in the temple’s murals. He ripped the fire god in half, he hit him so hard that the fortress was almost knocked out of the sky.”

Conni looked concerned, “Yes, though he was a master warrior of legend, if he is real, then he would be one of the strongest creatures in existence.”

Luke frowned, “How come I haven’t heard of him.”

Sighing Conni pointed to his face, “Haven’t you guys ever thought that I might not be from around here?”

Tristan hadn’t. The people of the Caldera had a variety of builds and looks, to the point that it was impossible to tell who was from which caldera just based on a set of visible traits. Kerns simply affected a person’s growth too much, two short skinny parents could easily have a tall broad-shouldered son if he had a high tier earth kern. He would likely have darker skin, while if his parents had light kerns then they would have lighter skin.

“You’re giving us too much credit,” Luke said, “I asked your wife if she was a werewolf. It was not too much of a leap to assume two ugly people fell in love.“

Conni looked offended. Tristan felt like he should be offended on Conni’s behalf, but he had honestly had the same thought. Conni was covered in scars that looked to have been made by a sword, he was missing multiple teeth, and his chin-length hair was not very well maintained. His brown eyes were odd for a fire kern, the slight slant to them was unique, but far from enough for Tristan to point him out as odd. The main traits people would notice would be the scars and the missing teeth.

Conni sighed, “Well, I suppose I should appreciate honesty. I basically raised you, so I can’t blame your rudeness on your parents.”

“No, you can definitely say they got it from their parents,” Eve said. Tristan had forgotten she was there, “Anyways, Conni, you were telling us where you heard of the Steel Saint.”

“Ah, yes, as you may have guessed, I am from outside the Caldara, though not from the same place the crier mentioned,” Conni said.

Tristan wanted to raise his hand to interrupt Conni, but his hands were anchored down, “Wait, there are people outside the Caldera?”

“Yes it was announced a day or two before you arrived at the mine,” Eve said, “Supposedly they are hostile and very strong. They pushed a squad of tier three warriors away, though none died. You were in prison when it was announced as part of a justification for the plane’s war.”

Tristan had been raised on stories claiming that they were the last bastion of humanity, set up by the gods. Gods that Tristan suspected to be deceased. Their flying citadel had fallen after all. Tristan just could not imagine multiple beings powerful enough to lift civilizations and throw punches hard enough to shatter them. He had seen the top of the mountain sheered off, the Caldera itself was an accidental result of those being clashing. The world would have broken long ago if there were too many of them.

Conni nodded, “It is true, almost any people group with a hero at the helm can carve out a space in the wilderness. People at tier six are monstrously powerful, they get something new at that level, and I suspect it is what you two call a force.”

Luke nodded, “Dad got the same one I have, it's the reason I was able to pick it up early.”

That was food for thought. Tristan wondered if he could get access to a second force at tier six. With the alloy force, it seemed that he could get access to multiple forces anyway. Even if it was an option, it would not do much for him. Luke, on the other hand, Tristan shuddered at the thought of Luke having something like conduction and erosion.

There was just one thing that Tristan wanted an answer to, “Hey, I want to hear about the Steel Saint and all, but can somebody let me at least sit up?”