Grand Saint Alloy

Hadrid was having a bad day. He had failed to transplant the organ sack from an anima elemental into a human. The information Rail had brought him made it clear that the power of the human body was massively underutilized. Two more methods of essence control were out there, one connected to the mind, and one connected to the heart. A failed experiment was simply a normal occurrence, it had taken him hundreds of attempts to get his little golize. He could work past that.

However, Fealy, no Ruth had said his name was Felix, had started banging on the front door in a panic. Some bastard had parked a cloud of knives over his city. So here he was with the biggest interruption to his work possible while a cocky elemental troll brought an army and preached his greatness like a newly ordained priest.

”Witness humans, the power of a true king. I rule not by the blood of my fathers, but by right given by no man. But don’t think me a tyrant, a king serves the needs of his people, not their wants. Your former leaders have convinced me that this cancer must be excised for the flock to grow. An apt description from their own mouths, now witness the power greater than that of your ancestors and kneel to your Lord.”

The interloper opened his mouth as if to continue. Hadrid did not have time for this, “Shut up you flying turd,” he realized that there was a word for flying turds. Bird poop.

“You dare interrupt,” The Elemental lord dodged to the side, barely avoiding the projectile that tore a hole through his cloud of knives.

“My property, My rules!” Hadrid yelled and made another motion. He was older than he looked, any force a kern possessed would grant a resistance to that force. Little Tristan would live a ridiculously long life with resistance to decay and a propensity for growth, no he wasn’t jealous, not at all. Still, in his ninety some years of life, he had invented weapons armed his populace, and built himself a fortress.

A fortress city that aimed every one of the seventy-three artifact-powered canons at the interloper. The best part about artifact cannons, they did not need to shoot metal. The stupid elemental’s eyes widened as the sky lit up with volcanic rock, acidic explosions of steam, beams of light so concentrated that they could cut the Lake Caldera in half from where they stood, and vortexes of pure annihilation force that simply deleted anything within their area of effect.

“You stupid mole! You should have stayed buried, that's where corpses belong!” Hadrid yelled.

The Lord of the Underworld, which Hadrid believed was a good name for a mole, lost an arm before he realized that maybe staying in the air was a bad idea. He hit the center of Alchehall like a meteor decimating a block and crushing three of the cannons.

The Lord of the Underworld seemed smug as he watched the fleeing citizens, “What will you do now that I am in your city.”

Cute. He thought the civilians were running from him. Hadrid raised an eyebrow, “Build a new one?” What else would he do?

The cannons went off again. All of the people survived, they knew him, and they also knew he did not care about them. When the cannons had been introduced foxholes had been cut at every street intersection, enough space to protect the entire population many times over. A wise choice as the entire place was leveled with the Lord of the Underworld at the center.

He tried to evade, but several golems held him down. Metal copies of Hadrid held him in place, the detonation of all the volatile forces creating a cloud of dust and debris. The mushroom shaped cloud had multicolored discharges of chaotic energy, it would have been beautiful if it had not happened on his property. No, he could turn this into an opportunity.

Pulling his notebook and pen out, Hadrid watched the interaction of forces, black lightning. Was that a mixture of the annihilation force and the conductivity force? Too bad Luke could not get annihilation, a user of black lightning would be imposing. The fact that pure destruction could be conducted put his understanding of the force of conductivity into question.

It was an enlightening light show. He did not learn anything, but he did find many new questions with which he could direct his search. All good things come to an end while the bad things never seem to.

“My subjects aid me.” The mental voice of the Lord of the Underworld projected out.

The army advanced, but Hadrid was unconcerned. His beasts and citizens could handle them, he was more curious about how the elemental lord survived. While it appeared that they were stronger, an elemental lord was really just a complete person. If Hadrid had an anima and a mind of metal, he would be a match in power without his toys. He did possess something that evened the playing field, a force. A warrior with a force would be worth multiple without one, it just so happened he was in that exact situation.

Hadrid’s interest in the miraculous escape faded when he witnessed the method. He burrowed into the ground, the creature was a mole, a very big irritating mole. He ruined cities instead of flowerbeds.

Hadrid sighed and gestured to his pets. The golize and terror birds moved to his commands. He made the terror birds some time ago, but this was the first time he would get to truly witness their effect on a large scale battle. Unfortunately, he would not be able to watch, maybe the mole could go play in a sandbox or something while he took some notes.

The molten puddle of stone that the elemental lord crawled out of bubbled with his anger. Sighing, Hadrid resigned himself to do some pest control. He ran his hands along his side, where he had removed a kidney. Only one was needed, so he had replaced one with a tier eight essence reservoir. Several lesser batteries were stashed all over his person. A molar filled with the healing force and earrings with smaller essence reservoirs, he was almost ready.

“Dear can you go get me my fly swatter?” Hadrid said.

Ruth grinned, “Really, I get to see you use it?”

“Unfortunately,” Hadrid said, “The temple’s feral attack mole needs to get kicked into a gutter.”

Ruth ran off. Hadrid patiently watched the mercenaries, civilians, and beasts clash with the army of elementals and Forrest Caldera warriors. The elementals had tiers on their side, while Hadrid had both numbers and equipment. The elemental lords wreaked havoc on his people, but even they went down to focused crossbow fire. A dark elemental lord was shattered like glass as one of Hadrid’s few sound artifacts struck it in the chest. Another made of light cut through his golize like a light through the dark.

The mole seemed fine with waiting. It would be able to heal quickly in that environment, as it had a dark kern and a dual anima of flame and stone, three elements heavily featured in his cannons. While he waited on Ruth he had an idea, rummaging in his pockets, he pulled out his spare pen and notepad.

“Fealy take this,” Hadrid said.

Fealy muttered, “It’s Felix.”

“Take notes on how the terror birds do, write down everything even if it seems stupid,” Hadrid said.

Fealy nodded, “If it keeps me out of that mess, you can call me Fealy as much as you want.”

Hadrid shrugged at the strange man, why wouldn’t he use his name? He was distracted when Ruth returned with the flyswatter. The temple acolyte had a conniption when he had asked for the holy relic of Ajax back and he had called it a superb fly killer. That alone made it worth keeping the artifact around.

He grabbed the tier six artifact. Instantly his metal sense sharpened, and he could feel the particles of metal floating in the air. Hadrid could only smirk at the destruction that his weapons had caused. This glorified rodent had thought that it could walk in with a show of power, that it could use a cloud of metal daggers on the most capable alchemist the Caldera had ever seen. Folly.

Liquid metal leaked out of the grip of fly swatter, coating Hadrid’s arm. The liquid formed a film, it was both flexible and resilient, more resilient than anything Hadrid had ever made. Ajax had wielded a tier six artifact, and the common thing among all people in the realm of heroes was the acquisition of a force, a force that had been passed on to the artifact. The force of resistance, pulsed through the armor.

The metal coated his whole body leaving only his nose, mouth, and eyes exposed. He inspected himself, it was an interesting, if impractical tool. Metal essence already made him quite durable, but it was the irony that mattered. He knew who this elemental was.

He started walking towards the mole, a grin plastered to his face, “So little rodent, how do you intend to rule all the creatures that scurry around.” Hadrid saw uncertainty in the Elemental Lord's posture. It took a step back, Hadrid kept speaking, he held up the hammer, it was preposterously large, “King’s like fancy words, right? So here is something poetic, Ajax’s corpse was laid to rest by his own trusty hammer. Don’t you like it, king?”

The mole looked around for its aids, but they were not coming, they had come for a fight and had received one. Hadrid grinned at the cornered creature. It had assumed that Hadrid was no threat without his toys. It had forgotten that toys were for children, if it could not stand up to what a child toddled around with, how then could it stand when the owner returned to remove the trash?