Grand Saint Alloy

Tristan almost tripped at the shouting focused directly on his mind. It was like someone yelling in his ear, but instead of ringing it made Tristan dizzy. He took a deep breath to center himself. Yelling at the stupid lamppost would only make him look crazy.

“I thought you were an alchemist, how can you abandon a preserved heart?” Vulcan asked.

Tristan mentally sent back, “Why want I a heart!”

“Anger will make your grammar worse,” Vulcan commented, “Can you actually do alchemy, have you done any experiments, or taken any lessons?”

“I read a few books and was experimented on. Why do I want the heart, can I put it back?” Tristan asked.

“Maybe? It has not happened before. In the Numitor Empire, it was not uncommon for an alchemist to cut off an arm to separate it from their soul, augment it, and reattach it. It was risky, as they needed to do it before any essence dissonance occurred, you have the chance to do the same thing with the organ responsible for gathering essence and distributing it through the body,” Vulcan said.

There were a few terms in there that Tristan was unfamiliar with. He had assumed that it was possible to use biological alchemy on himself, but had never got around to trying. Mostly because he rightly assumed that the results would be permanent. Even if the experiment was successful, he would still need healing, so he lost nothing. Best of all he did not need to meld his mind with another elemental to do this. There was only one massive issue.

“I need essence for that, and this construct is taking it as fast as I can recover it,” Tristan sighed, his hope dying. He still trudged over to the frozen heart and picked it up.

It was burned on one side, and bruised from where it had struck the ground. He tried to brush some of the dirt clinging to it off. No way could this be used again. Still, he kept it, he could experiment with it later.

“You have loads of essence if you ask nicely,” Vulcan bragged, “I am a storage of essence that's a third full.”

“How much could that possibly be,” Tristan scoffed.

“Three times what Lotu has at his peak,” Vulcan paused, “Lotu is what I call the Lord of the Underworld.”

Tristan’s eyes widened. What was Vulcan before he died if he could casually mock a tier nine? Ajax could subdue the caldera alone, Vulcan might be able to simply wipe it off the map. This did give him hope, that he would make this work, he followed Jones and Doil out of the mine.

It was quite a long walk. The stairway winding around the side looped four times, before finally ending at the top of the pit. Tristan knew in his head that it was less than a tenth of a mile in total, but his legs still burned as climbing what amounted to thirty stories worth of stairs was more than he was used to.

The mine entrance along one wall was still there, but the hole to the surface had been widened. In each of the cardinal directions, an arch was being built. It looked like they would meet in the middle. Maybe Ajax wanted to put a roof over it, it would be useful to keep rain out. Two elementals were guarding the only entrance in or out.

One was a light elemental though this one was a more subdued white, lacking the vibrant rainbow of colors that was normal. The other one was an air elemental, both appeared weak, around tier two. If Tristan was not injured he could handle them both. Now, however, he meekly slunk between the two skeletons.

Fortunately, the dead creatures lacked the computation abilities to wonder why two people went down and three went up. Most likely not a task that was deemed necessary. Doil used a flint and steel to light a torch before walking into the mine.

“Why don’t they let us go out to the surface to walk back, it would be faster,” Tristan asked.

“Don’t know, they’re clearing the dirt away for some reason, I don’t think knowing makes much of a difference to us,” Jones answered.

Tristan was not sure about that. If they were building ramparts and battlements, then knowing about them ahead of time would be a big deal. The only reason it would not matter would be if someone had no intention of fighting the elementals. Something that was fair in Jone’s case as he would not be able to even stall the weakest elemental lord.

Another two miles of walking brought them out into the base camp. There was a big difference. The house Conni and Grace had lived in was gone, and so were the training fields and all the equipment that was there. It was just an empty dirt lot with a stairway leading down from where Conni’s home used to be.

The bunkhouses were still there, and they were full. All the crafters that had been conscripted to help dig had been forced into the mud brick structures. Currently, they were mostly empty, as the day crew was currently out doing work for the elemental lords. Tristan sighed, it was depressing that the fall of the caldera might just be caused by him jumping off a cliff with Regis.

Stepping into the bunkhouse, he saw that every bed had been claimed. Bags of equipment sat on the mattresses, mostly smithing tools that had been salvaged from when Regis had burned his way through the tent city. His eyes were drawn to a bag sitting by the door. It was a simple metal bag with two leather straps.

Tristan smiled as he walked over and picked up the bag, “You guys saved this for me?”

“No, we thought you were dead, remember,” Doil said, “No one was willing to touch it because everyone knows you’re a necromancer.”

“I’m not a necromancer!” Tristan exclaimed.

“You have a skull in that bag,” Jones said in a deadpan voice.

Tristan frowned, but he could not deny it. At first glance, he did have what looked like a dead human skull in his backpack. He also did rot out half of Doil’s tent, so he could see how it appeared that he was dabbling in necromancy.

“Don’t forget you also have conversations with dead people,” Vulcan laughed, the image he sent was a skeleton and Tristan as drinking buddies.

Tristan sighed, “It's a mythical beast skull that I found. Now where is a safe place that I can go and experiment on this heart?”

Both of the men nodded slowly as Vulcan laughed, “Man, your people skills suck.”

“We’ll just go to bed now,” Doil said, “If I die don’t bring me back.”

Tristan sighed again. He was doing that far too often nowadays, he wondered if stress would be bad for his metal heart too. Turning he walked out. He had places to go, primarily he needed to go visit an alchemist. If anyone could heal him it would be Hadrid, but also Hadrid would be able to help him understand some of what Vulcan said and put it into practice. He was glad he had allowed permission for experimentation on himself.

He grabbed some water and started out. It was a few days' walk at tier zero, so at effectively tier one he expected it to be a one and a half day trek. He was wrong, while his strength was around tier one, his stamina was less than that. After every few hours, he would have to stop and take a break to let himself recover.

It was on one of these breaks that a scout found him. A light elemental might sound like a terrible scout, but this particular one was adept in camouflage, using its light ability to mimic the colors around it. Because of this and its inability to make natural noise, such as breathing, it was almost on top of Tristan before he could respond.

The only reason Tristan survived, was that the elemental appeared before him and gestured for him to start moving back towards the mine. Did it think he was lost? He hoped so, as he could not take it in a fair fight. He was not sure what tier it was either, but as the bulk of all elementals were tier one and it was patrolling an unimportant stretch of wilderness, he guessed it was on the lower end.

“Thank you, can you lead the way, I am quite lost,” Tristan said.

The elemental made another gesture, evidently, it was not dumb enough to let him walk behind it. So he did the only thing he could think of. He threw a rock at it and ran. The rock hit it square in the chest, knocking it over, and causing it to fall to the snow, giving Tristan a head start.

“You can’t outrun the soul revenant, they don’t get tired,” Vulcan said, “Even the weakest one has more stamina than the strongest men.”

Tristan ran through the forest bending branches and jumping rocks as he went, “Wait that’s what a Soul revenant is?”

That was frustrating, all his time trying to figure out what those were. He would not even be in this mess currently if he had known. The book described the process of how to use a soul core and how to process one. If he had known he would have processed that tier one earth elemental and never had his mind invaded. He would have been properly armed and armored before Regis had shown up and the elemental lords would have never been released.

Tristan could hear the light elemental closing in. The snow did not slow down the animated kern, and while Tristan had better control over his body, the elemental was not hampered by needing oxygen. Tristan came to a small ravine that was about ten feet deep and five feet wide, what appeared to be a logging operation was set up on the opposite side. The camp was empty and the snow had no footprints, so no one had been here in the last few days.

Five feet was a short jump, and he made it easily. He staggered a few steps forward and whipped his bag around behind himself. The elemental was caught midair, the metal skull and three metal binders more than enough to screw up its landing. Its glowing feet hit the far side, but its body was overbalanced and fell into the rift.

Turning back to the logging cabin he kept running. Tristan held no illusions that the fall would even hurt the elemental, but it would give him time to find a weapon. The elementals were very studious when it came to disarming the population, so he was currently unharmed. An empty logging camp might have a weapon, or a wood axe at the very least.

The loggers had a rudimentary setup, a long dirt shoot for sending logs down, and for dumping elementals in, a small cabin, and an empty field with stripped tree trunks and large rounds serving as chopping blocks. There was also a stable, but no weapons. Tristan ran up to the cabin door and tried to pull it open. It was barred from the inside.

That meant someone was inside, or there was a second entrance. He ran around back hoping to find another door, finding another locked one. This one was locked, not barred. Taking a few steps back he prepared to ram the door open.

The sound of crunching snow caught his attention. Tristan spun to see the elemental lunging at him, he was standing on a small porch with railings and there was nowhere to dodge. So he braced himself and prepared for impact.

The elemental bounced off. Tristan blinked in surprise, the elemental looked up in shock. He was tier three and this thing was tier one. Tristan had estimated his strength to be around tier one, but that was only when working against the metal circulatory system he had. His durability was probably higher due to that, and while working with the metal, he might actually possess more strength.

Reaching down Tristan gripped the elemental’s ribs in one hand and squeezed. Slowly the bone cracked before giving out completely. The elemental beat him uselessly with its fists as he ripped its heart out.