Grand Saint Alloy

Tristan felt like a clown. The ‘armor’ that he was offered was nothing like he had imagined. Leather armor could be colored in any way the creator wanted. Navy blue with black accents was a pretty good color scheme. However, why did the River Caldera have to pair it up with shiny golden shoulder plates and bracers? Golden greaves protected his shins and a belt with a huge golden buckle was strapped around his waist. He had on his head a golden bucket that barely qualified as a helmet. Who in their right mind puts peacock feathers into the crown of a helmet?

The metal was simple steel with a gold colored coating over the top. He thought it was some kind of powder, and could only be grateful that it was not actual gold. Holden had tried to make him take a golden sword, which Tristan vehemently refused. He had no idea how to use the long two handed sword, so he summoned Vulcan in a flash of fire and the groaning of sundered metal.

“Impressive,” Holden said, “An artifact will indeed be better than any weapon I can provide.”

Tristan mentally grumbled, it's better than every artifact you can provide put together. He had not realized he projected the thought until he got a return message from Vulcan. It was sent in the form of an odd feeling that Tristan could only describe as masculine pride.

“Do you really expect me to wear this gaudy gold armor?” Tristan said, “Won’t it make it more difficult to protect the head family?”

“Yes, blue and gold are the official colors of the River Caldera,” Holden explained, “No, it won’t make it more difficult, in fact, pushing through crowds will be far easier if they know who you are.”

Tristan realized he was under a misconception. He had assumed that the threats would be in the wilderness. Maybe one of the few remaining ghost crabs, or an elemental that could pop out from behind the tree cover. Instead, Holden was saying that he was supposed to protect Eve from other people. Why would other people attack her?

“Pardon the confusion, but Eve has a very good reputation everywhere, why would someone try to hurt her? Especially during this time,” Tristan asked.

“The human pet of the elemental’s leader is the former civil protector of the Lake Caldera. He despises her, so it is not unlikely that there will be an assassination attempt. The steward of the Forrest Caldera has partnered with the temple guider to turn the whole population into extremist zealots,” Holden explained.

Tristan remembered how Doil acted. Most people were semi-religious just like him, going through the motions, paying the money, and feeling justified when they got offended. It would not take much hardship to turn the people against the temple or much blessing to make them devoted believers.

The elemental lord with Henry’s kern could have healing abilities, and the Lord of the Underworld could repair tools and homes with a simple wave of his hands. He could command the weakest elementals in his service to assist the humans. The battle for the heart of the Forrest Caldera had already been lost.

Shadow Fist had helped turn his people into little more than cattle for the elemental lords to harvest. Elementals did not die to old age, so it would not be too long before the dead outnumbered the living. At that point, there would be no hope of victory.

“Well I won’t let any of them get to her with or without the reflective armor,” Tristan nodded stoically.

Holden grinned, “Nice try, you get to do it with the armor.”

Holden finished up with the armor and patted Tristan on the back. He barely felt it through the mythical beast leather. The leather must have been from a high tier beast, as Tristan had no issue killing tier three mythical beasts at tier one. While that was mostly due to his knives, he knew that with a war pick, he could have done something similar. If it came from a tier seven or higher beast it would explain why it was so rare. Despite the constant fighting at the ramparts, anything above tier six was still extremely rare and hard to kill.

“Alright, follow Kobe here, he’ll take you to the leader of your group,” Holden said, “Now don’t get too comfortable in the position, we simply lacked the warriors to protect both the Elder and his heir while they are in separate locations.”

Tristan gave the man a thumbs up, “Great, I will return this horrible uniform as soon as possible.”

Kobe turned out to be the secretary who had led him there. He looked rushed, “We need to run, Lord Kerri wants to push up the arrival time, so you might be a little late if we don’t.”

Tristan was fine with that, he doubted Kobe’s tier one speed would be able to wind him. Even a tier three with low stamina should have more than a tier one. Kobe led him outside before jogging to the outskirts of the River Caldera. The wealth of the citizens made it a longer jog than it would have in the Forrest Caldera. A richer people built bigger homes, which expanded the caldera’s footprint by at least double.

They arrived at what Tristan recognized as a parade ground, though it was messier than any he had seen before. The warm eastern wind had melted all the snow drifts piled against the River Caldera’s wall. So the entire field was covered in mud. It was not deep enough to get the wagons bearing war machines stuck. However, it was bad enough to give everything a slightly dreary and dirty feeling.

Kobe led Tristan to a group of ten other golden people. All of them were wearing the same uniform. Tristan had to admit he was not impressed, while he could not feel their tiers, none of them would be a match for even the weakest of Siren’s warriors. Kale was Tristan’s benchmark for competency, if a warrior could not match an old man with an injured leg, then they were squandering their potential. Sure, Kale was a very experienced veteran, but all the others Siren trained would trounce him one sidedly simply due to the effort they were expected to put in and the power of youth.

“Temper your arrogance,” Vulcan said, “The one in charge is tier four with a dual water and light kern.”

Tristan met the man’s eyes. He lacked the bearing of a civil protector, giving Tristan what he could only describe as a slimy feeling. Was he putting on an act? Without Vulcan’s warning, Tristan would have assumed he was the weakest in the group.

When they arrived, one of the golden armored men stepped forward extending a hand, “Good morning, I am Captain Janis. I’m glad that you could join us.”

“Uh, nice to meet you,” Tristan said, now very confused. Janis had green eyes and a handheld cannon identifying him as possessing an air kern. He was also not the tier four, that man was standing meekly behind Janis like he wanted to avoid attention, “My name is Sage, I only found out I would be here this morning.”

Kobe nodded once introductions were made and ran back to work. Tristan inspected each man, they all held artifacts of some kind. Most of them were the odd metal adjacent substance that many artifacts were made of. There were ten of them there, one with a dual kern, two healers, Janis with his air kern, one with a fire kern, and the remaining four had earth kerns. If the tier four could heal, then the party had three healers, three ranged warriors if one counted Tristan as fire, and four tanks to take blows. It would be ridiculously hard to take this team down with anything other than overwhelming force.

“So, you’re new, but then again so are most of the others,” Janis said, “What tier are you?”

“Three, why, isn’t everyone here the same?” Tristan asked.

“No, we are short on warriors, so these four are tier two,” Janis gestured to the three earth kern warriors, “If we can’t get firepower then we need someone who can take some hits, and oftentimes a tier two earth kern will make someone more durable than a tier three with a fire or wind kern.”

That was something Tristan was aware of. The body scaled with the tier, but each kern would produce a different outcome. Before it had seemed like a simple law of the world. He now knew that it was the forces that composed essence affecting the body. Air had the force of mutability, making anyone with that kern naturally more flexible, while earth had the force of adamance, which made it harder to gain flexibility, but made the body stronger. Tristan had personal experience with this one as metal also had adamance, he could survive a truly ridiculous amount of punishment, but could not touch his toes.

“We will be running a simple strategy, the healers will be right next to Lady Eve, the walls will be in a ring around them,” Janis nodded to the four men with earth kerns, “the rest of the warriors will be staggered between each of the walls. No one is allowed to reach the Lady unless she asks for them and even then we need to search them first. Direct all messengers to me and I will relay their message.”

If this was how Eve grew up, no wonder she was so desperate for human interaction when they first met. Her naivety at how the world worked was also clear if she was kept in a golden cage. He wondered how she had gotten away with going to the Stone Fort and fight her way through hordes of crabs. Now he suspected her story of a trade of heirs was bogus and she had snuck out forcing her friend, Lesley to keep quiet about it.

“Get in your positions, the Lady has arrived,” Janis yelled.