Grand Saint Alloy

War was both intense and boring. Tristan stood outside the the stewards compound in the Lake Caldera with nothing to do. Upon arrival to the city he had been fired and several of the River Caldera’s warriors had taken his place. As far as he knew the room inside held, Siren, the commander of the Lake Caldera’s forces, Eve, Elder Lake, and a few others Tristan did not care about. Luke was not among that group, he was instead bombarding Tristan with questions.

“Did it hurt to have your heart ripped out?”

“Yes, having anything ripped out should hurt.”

“Did the metal heart rust?”

“Uh, I don’t think so, I couldn’t actually see it.”

“Would magnets stick to you, I would have gotten a magnetic mask.”

“I did not try. Isn’t there something more productive we could be doing?” Tristan asked.

“Probably,” Luke said, then he grinned, “You want to see my Rail cannon?”

Tristan looked around at the packed streets of the Lake Caldera. They lacked the infrastructure to house three thousand extra people within the walls, so it was an understatement to say it was crowded. He had heard stories about the devastation of this ability and he would prefer to keep it out of the city.

“Sure, but not here,” Tristan said, “I want to go see what is left of Hadrid’s lab. There shouldn’t be anyone there, so its a good spot.”

What he was planing was technically grave robbery, but he did not care. Another thing he did not care about was the claim the Lake Caldera had laid on the site. No one had been sent yet, as silver flames were still burning in patches. However, the fire was somehow able to burn on top of the water making traversing the lake dangerous.

Luke frowned uncertainly, “Are you sure we should go there?”

Tristan inspected Luke. He never worried himself over what was right or wrong, instead choosing to do what was beneficial. Being the first to pick over Hadrid’s stuff would definitely be beneficial. So, it was an emotional reason. Tristan had never been clear about what the relationship between Luke and the alchemist was, but Luke had to have lived somewhere between his arrival at the mine and the death of Rail.

“Did he mean a lot to you?” Tristan asked.

Luke shrugged, “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anyway.” He took a deep breath then gestured forward, “Let’s go.”

Interpreting emotions was not Tristan’s strong suite, and sifting though them behind a facade of bravado was even harder for him. So instead of pushing he followed Luke through the Lake Caldera. The guard at the gate was supposed to stop people from entering or exiting with out documenting it, however he did not stop them. He probably already knew who Luke was, even if the man was a civilian. Arriving at the head of an army of warriors was a pretty important event.

They made their way to the docks. Hundreds of small boats and a few larger ones bobbed up and down in the water. One might think that the lake would have been over fished with this many boats, and that may have been true in a normal lake. Every few years the fish would come back to the lake, swimming upstream. Most people assumed that mythical beasts drove them upstream.

As none of the boats were being used, they only needed to grab the one they wanted. Sure the owners might have something to say about that, but Tristan intended to have the boat returned before they ever found out. They chose one of the smaller ferry vessels and pushed out into the lake. Most of the ferrymen were tier zero, so Tristan made much better time with the oars than they did.

“Get closer to the fire,” Luke said.

“Why?” Tristan asked.

The fire was randomly scattered across the surface. It would be easy to make it through without hitting any of it. Getting close would still be a risk, as the fire was not stationary. Most of the patches floated along lazily like driftwood, Tristan did not want to be nearby if the wind picked up.

“I can feel air essence in it,” Luke said.

Tristan started rowing closer, and as soon as he got within the hundred foot range of his metal sense, he felt metal essence within the flames. Luke had a larger range on his air sense, though as it was not possible to feel the absence of air essence, it was much less useful than Tristan’s metal sense.

“Stay back,” Vulcan said.

Tristan hauled back on the oars so hard that Luke almost toppled out the front of the boat.

“Hey, what was that for?” Luke complained.

“Vulcan said to stop, let me get an explanation,” Tristan turned his attention to Vulcan, but still spoke aloud for Luke’s benefit, “What makes it so dangerous.”

“Do you know what the word dissonance means?” Vulcan asked. Of course Tristan did, it was primarily a musical term for bad artists, “Well that lack of harmony can occur within elements to blend them. Its very useful when you want a sword to have fire properties or mass produce glow stones for indoor lighting. The issue is you need an anima or a dominion to handle it, as it is now you have no resistance to that dissonance.”

Tristan relayed Vulcan’s words, Luke had a question, “What makes it more dangerous than normal fire?”

“It has an unknown mixture of the forces of those three elements. It could be hard as steel, as volatile as fire, and have a nearly limitless fuel source from air. Or it could have the force of magnetism, and drag you in if you get to close. The most probable danger is likely the fumes it is releasing, they quickly decay back to their natural state, but a lung full of metal affinity air is bad for your health,” Vulcan explained.

“We’ll stay away from the silver death flames then. So how can I make them, I want to have a silver fire sword,” Luke asked. Tristan had to agree, though Vulcan was essentially a flaming pole arm.

“Inject essence into any object, I believe that is a tier four ability, enforce a balance. Assuming the object survives, you have created dissonant essence. If it fails it will explode as the forces involved violently reject each other, if you want a crash course on the use of essence dissonance go to the Silent Nation.” Vulcan explained.

Tristan made a mental note to go there when he returned Vulcan home. He had quite a few places he would like to visit. Hopefully he would be strong enough to get an audience with the Steel Saint, Tristan also wanted to visit the Agni Raja, Conni’s people. Adding a whole nation should not be an issue.

The boat ground up on the shore next to Alchehall. For once Tristan took the lead, as Luke was unable to purify the metal flakes out of the air. If there were fumes it would be best for Tristan to be the one to breath them. His lungs were right next to his heart making them trivial to heal.

The fire was more prevalent out here, but still far from all consuming. They made their way to the top of a ridge. Tristan realized that they would not be scavenging anything from this area of Alchehall. The dirt was a good three feet lower than it originally had been and it sloped downward at a shallow angle towards the center.

Not that Tristan could see the dirt, it looked like a giant mass of liquid metal was flickering before his eyes. The area seemed to have the center of the town as the point of detonation, the castle was gone, the city was gone, a good portion of the farmland was gone. Heat radiating of the fire pit had started some more regular fires in the rest of the wheat.

“Yeah, I think I’m staying away from dissonance,” Tristan muttered. If this is what a failure looked like, he would never be able to live near people.

“Right, it makes my Rail cannon look like a toy,” Luke agreed.

“Did you have a tier eight in this nation?” Vulcan asked.

“No, the metal part of the fire is easily identifiable as Hadrid’s. Unless he rose three tiers, then no,” Tristan said.

“This is way more essence than a tier five should be able to generate,” Vulcan said, “Even if he corrupted his own kern, the explosion should not be this big.”

That sent a jolt down Tristans spine. Had he almost become an earth and metal version of this when he traded essence with Hailey. He was only alive because his total essence eclipsed hers. Would he have turned to stone, or turned into a giant bomb? All he could say is that he was lucky to be alive.

“There is nothing left here,” Luke said, “We should go check the battle field.”

He pointed out to where the two army’s had wiped each other out. Hundreds of corpses littered the area the varied clothing and equipment of mercenaries stood out starkly against the uniforms of the enemy. All the deceased elementals had already been rendered into their base essence, however the human part of the army was till there, lying in the grass unmoving.

Then and idea struck him, “Hey Luke, if I take an essence reservoir off one of those mercenaries and fill it with healing essence, do you think I could get Siren and his elites a broken kern?”

Luke’s smile turned predatory, “You want to make a few dozen people with forces I take it?”