Grand Saint Alloy

“So all I have to do is eat?” Tristan asked uncertainly, holding a meat stuffed bread roll.

“Yes,” Eve nodded, “Fit as much as you can in your stomach as you can.”

Tristan learned the horrors of gluttony that day. Each bag Eve had been carrying weighed around twenty pounds. Tristan got halfway through the first one. He felt like vomiting and grimaced at the meat bun. These had tasted so good at first, but now he would rather get stabbed than eat another one.

“Am I good to activate the artifact?” Eve asked.

“Sure,” Tristan said.

They had forced him to lie down on the dining room table as they weren’t sure if speeding up the digestion and absorption of food would make a person dizzy. Supposedly, the glove would force one hundred percent of the beneficial materials to be absorbed, while leaving the rest to pass through the digestive tract naturally.

Eve poured water essence into the artifact activating it. Instantly, Tristan felt dirty, breathing became a little harder, and he felt his stamina slip away. He also felt hungry again and the meat bun did not look so bad.

Bruce cringed, “Sage, you put on some fat.”

Tristan looked at his gut, then glared at Eve who just shrugged, “Why are you making me fat?”

“Well, that's how the body stores excess food, you’ll lose it in a few minutes,” Eve said not a hint of apology in her voice.

They repeated this process another five times. At least if he died from this procedure, he would die well fed. After he was good and ready, with a small village’s worth of calories, they were ready.

Eve pulled out a leaf, “The healer advised me to use this on more extreme surgeries. It will put you to sleep so you don’t flinch and kill yourself.”

Tristan sighed, “Well, see you in a few minutes, or in the afterlife.”

Bruce snorted, “You aren’t going to fight in the army of the gods.”

“I’m going to fight the army of the gods,” Tristan said as he took the leaf from a surprised Eve before popping it into his mouth and swallowing.

The effects of the artifact were still going strong, so it only took a few seconds for Tristan to be out cold. To him it was like closing his eyes, no drowsiness at all, one moment he was awake the next he was unconscious.

Eve looked over at Bruce in panic, “He was supposed to drink that as tea.”

“What happens if you eat it?” Bruce asked. He was not a fan of tea it was just juice but with the bitter part of the plant.

“The concentration of the drug is too high, it can lead to low blood pressure and heart attacks,” Eve realized that the first case would be helpful and the second was irrelevant, “Well, I suppose it could be worse, can you go get Grace?”

They had sent the cook outside to bury the heart in the snow. Nobody knew if that would help, but both Conni and Grace had fire essence, making them very resistant to cold weather. Grace would be the one holding the heart in place while Bruce applied light essence through his spear.

Grace had butchered enough animals that she was familiar with the organ. Sure a cook was no doctor, but the temple had stopped any doctor from assisting, so they had to take what they could get. If they had a limitless amount of time, then they could figure it out, but they had less than a minute before permanent brain damage set in, as no heart meant no blood flow. Once the heart was in and working, they would have another minute before blood loss killed him. They needed to be fast and they needed to do it right the first time.

Grace came in with the wooden case with a blue gem inset into the cap, “Alright, where will we be work…. what happened to him?”

“He ate a sleeping drug,” Bruce said, “It was supposed to be made into tea.”

“No, why is he fat?” Grace asked.

Bruce shrugged, “He ate a lot, I’m pretty sure it was a good sixty pounds of food.”

“Let’s hope you didn’t clog up some of his arteries,” Grace grumbled as she trundled up to the table.

Eve had not even thought of that. There were many things she had apparently forgotten about. Still, this was their best hope.

“Let’s start,” Eve said.

They started by locking down the house. The last thing they wanted was a gaggle of children to come running through and bump into Bruce while his spear was embedded in Tristan’s chest. Bruce positioned himself so that he could hold his spear steady with minimal effort. While he was now tier three, the spear was also weighted for a tier three, he did not know how long he would need to hold it and did not want to get tired while working.

Eve was ready with more food, though it was not like it would help. Tristan could not eat right now, it just helped her not feel useless. Conni was ready to give a message to someone named Vulcan. Eve had no idea who this was, but Conni reassured her that he could interrupt Tristan’s essence flow to deactivate the fake metal kern.

Grace popped open the lid and pulled out a heart. It still looked slightly burned, but it was also frozen solid. Eve knew this was actually a vast improvement over its original state, no bruising was visible, and the blackening was faint. A few more days and it could have been too late.

Eve watched as the heart was lowered back into place. Right as it was above the wound, Grace looked up at her husband, who closed his eyes for a moment. For a brief moment, there was something in the room, it was a sense of an unyielding blade, the weight of a mountain, the incinerating heat of a forge. It was like for a moment, ten thousand blacksmiths all struck their anvils at once.

Everyone flinched at the power in the presence that did not linger for even a moment. Eve remembered the story Conni told of the Steel Saint, and it made her wonder if the teachings of gods were true. The biggest issue was, that this god was partial to metal.

Grace was the first to start moving, only hesitating for a second, as that presence had swept away Tristan's essence. He was now on a much shorter timer. She held the heart up with a string tied around it, in the other hand she had two metal rods, with which she held one of the arteries.

Lowering it in, Eve winced at the amount of space Grace had to work with, “Start here.”

Grace held the artery up to its counterpart, which was leaking blood. Eve had expected it to spray blood everywhere, but no pump meant no pressure. The spear glowed with light essence as Bruce lowered it in and pricked the artery. The artery was healed immediately, it made Eve want to cheer, this could work. A weapon that could starve a man in seconds would be used to save one instead.

Working methodically Grace connected all the arteries and veins. Eve mentally counted down the seconds, Grace worked fast and the last one was put in place at fifty-two seconds. The heart did not beat, it remained inert as the sixtieth second ticked by.

“What’s wrong, why isn’t it working?” Eve asked in a panic.

Grace frowned, “I don’t know, I take them out and cook them, I haven’t put them back.”

Conni was the one who was the most calm, “Dear, can you massage the heart while Bruce here heals everything back up.”

Uncertainly Grace reached in and squeezed the heart. Blood leaked out of all the damaged blood vessels, so it was working. Grace kept squeezing as Conni calmly gave directions.

“Start from the back, rebuild the tissue there as fast as you can,” His voice was soft and not at all stressful, “It’s not like you can make it any worse.”

Bruce followed instructions, scoring the tissue at the back and watching as it almost leaped for the blade of the spear. Bone grew out and the ribs folded in around the spear. Bruce retracted it from the bone, and it did not heal, leaving a razor thin cut in the bone. It would not heal past its borders and the spear had to be inserted to achieve the effect.

“Ignore the minor damage, bones heal,” Conni said.

Grace kept squeezing the heart, as Bruce worked his way back. Eventually, the meat and viscera threatened to close around her fingers, forcing Grace to retract her hands. It was fascinating in a disturbing way to watch fat shrink back. Eve had not realized how much energy the body burned to heal itself.

“Keep going,” Conni encouraged.

The ribs closed up, and skin grew over the wound. A thin cut ran across the top of Tristan’s gaunt chest. It was razor thin, but the spear was ultimately a weapon of torture and death. What was left was a thin emaciated body body. The wiry muscle was gone, replaced by saggy skin. Tristan looked more like her grandpa than the young man he really was. Worst of all, he was not breathing.

“Out of the way,” Conni said, almost shoving Bruce aside.

He put both palms on Tristan’s sternum and shoved as hard as he could. Eve watched in horror as Tristan’s rib cage deformed and some of the recently healed ribs groaned. At first, she panicked, but she was tier three, Conni was tier two, and she could actually do something about this.

She stepped forward to remove Conni, but Grace stepped in the way, “What are you doing?” Eve asked.

“Stay back,” Grace said, “This is a good thing.”

Eve loved the woman, she was kind and always saw the best in others. All that history was thrown out the window when she heard a bone break. Conni may have been tier two, but Grace was tier zero, she stood no chance at all of stopping Eve from going around her. She pushed Grace aside and went for Conni.

Bruce had beaten her to it, he had his spear pointed at the man, “Stop, or, or I’ll have to stab you.”

One more shove and Bruce moved to club Conni with his spear. The tip cut a smooth line in the wall before smashing into Conni, knocking him to the floor. Eve felt some relief that Bruce did not stab him. That relief turned to shock when Tristan sucked in a deep breath before falling back into sleep. Maybe the old miner knew what he was doing when it came to getting people breathing again.