Grand Saint Alloy

At least this knocked one thing off his bucket list, he would not have to go find Guider Daphan. It should not have come as a surprise that the Temple would move its operations into the much larger and better equipped mansion. They were part of the leadership claiming that the Lord of the Underworld was the champion of the gods. Also, Guider Daphan loved his wealth, so why not move to the most lavish place?

Another guard rushed at Tristan with his spear aimed at him. The man was so slow, that he might not even be tier one. Tristan grimaced, is this what tier fours had thought when he fought them before? Catching the spear just below the head, he pulled the point off target and swiped the shaft of his maul into the guard's shin.

The leg broke, but the maul still swept him off his feet. He left the injured man on the floor, discarding the spear as he made his way to the four acolytes. For their part, they had started moving towards the far doors. Tristan thought for a moment about sprinting to catch them and beat some answers out of them. However, he already had some experience with these people and knew they would lead him to their companions in the hope of mobbing him.

They shut the door at the end of the entry hall, and the sound of a bar falling into place locked the door. Tristan smirked, that would not have stopped him, even when they first met. Making a small bead of decay essence, he ran it along the door, right under where the bar should be. It left behind a line of dark silver liquid that quickly started eating into the door.

Tristan waited for the alloy to eat into the wood, “Ready or not, here I come.”

With that, he smashed the blunt side of his maul into the base of the door. It broke cleanly where the decay had notched it, sending the lower half of the door flying into the room. He got a grunt and a curse when it collided with someone on the other side. Normally he would have ducked under the remaining half, but there was no way to tell if there was someone ready to kill him when he came through.

There was only one hinge keeping the top of the door attached, so he grabbed and twisted. The screws holding it in place lost their grip after a few back-and-forth twists. Dropping the half-door off to the side, Tristan saw there was a man with an axe standing just on the other side of the door. It was a man he recognized.

“Butler three?” Tristan asked in surprise.

The man was one of the six babysitters that Shadow Fist had left with him. Their faces all blurred together, and he still lacked their names, but the concave artifact axe was easy to recognize.

“Huh,” The butler said, “Why do you call me butler three.”

“I never got your name,” Tristan shrugged. He used the blunt side of his maul to pop the bar off the brackets to fall on the floor.

“You never,” Butler Three said brows furrowing in anger, “You thought we were servants?”

Tristan was not sure the man expected an answer, as he attempted to rush in with a horizontal chop. Not wanting to hurt the poor guy too badly, Tristan kicked the bar back up into the air. While it was no longer anchored to the wall, it was still wider than the doorway. Butler Three took it to the thigh, kept going, and flipped over the top when it jammed into the doorway.

“Just go home,” Tristan said shaking his head. The man was way out of his depth.

Not caring where Butler Three chose to go, Tristan stepped over the bar and into the hallway beyond. Finally, he was faced with something that he wanted. Two elderly acolytes with staves topped with glowing essence reservoirs stood at the end of the hallway. One had a foggy grey-white reservoir while the other one had a glowing red and orange orb topping its staff. The standard metal halo surrounded the reservoirs, giving them their classical ostentatious appearance.

“Stop, or we will have to use deadly force!” One of them said.

Both were old, one had a long white beard, while the other was bald. Tristan wondered if the bald one lacked hair due to possessing a fire kern, maybe he burned it all off. Both pointed the tips of their weapons at him and awaited his response.

“I have been looking for someone who knows where everyone is,” Tristan said, “Can you tell me where Guider Daphan is? I need to make a scene.”

“You intend evil. You must be allied with the devil in the west!” Baldy said.

Tristan sighed, “You know all this devil stuff is really annoying.”

He leaned down and picked up the bottom half of the door. It had a ‘C’ shaped handle, making it a passable shield. The old men immediately activated their staves, filling the room with oxygen and fire. Tristan tried to block it, but while a shield was excellent at stopping impacts, it was horrendous at stopping gas.

The invisible cloud of air buffeted Tristan, not budging him. Fire followed a split second later. It went around his shield and burned everything. Tier four made a person roughly five times more resilient than a tier zero, and while that helped immensely in most situations, today it meant that Tristan was only badly burned. This barrage would have killed any at tier one or lower.

The cotton fiber tunic was burned away, and so was the backpack he wore. Grimacing, Tristan threw the door at the two old men. He would need to find a new sleeping toxin. Making something that worked on a man with a consumption force was very difficult. Also unless he wanted to add streaking to his list disturbance list he needed one of the old men’s robes.

Beards took the door to the chest and something cracked. He coughed up some blood on his white and gold robes. So Baldy’s robes were the ones. Tristan rushed at the man, his burned joints protesting at being stretched, but he kept going. He was surprised at how much it hurt, a full-body burn like this caused more pain than having his heart removed. Well, he was not in shock this time, so it was not an accurate comparison.

The man grinned as Tristan did not even attempt to dodge, “Die Heretic!”

The fire at the end of his staff was pitiful. Both Tristan and Baldy realized the issue at the same time.

“Balthazar, more air!” Baldy yelled at the other old man.

To slow, Tristan’s fingers wrapped around the tip of the staff. He ripped the reservoir out and drove a reinforced fist into the man’s temple. Knocking him out immediately without a drop of blood being spilled on his robes. Beardy groaned as he tried to rise. These two men were high enough up in the hierarchy that he would have known about the assassination attempt on Eve.

Tristan meant it when he believed that the Caldera had never cared for him. Eve, Conni his wife, Luke, and Bruce, even Harp, to some extent, had shown him he was wrong. No one would take that from him, he would make sure the rest of the Temples received the message from the fall of this one.

Beardy raised his hand to protect himself from the maul. He was a powerful tier two at the very least, but he was old. Tristan broke the burnt shaft of his maul with the final blow. He traded it for the Beardy’s reservoir and tossed Baldy over his shoulder before leaving the hallway and the body behind.

This mansion had been frequented by Tristan when he was younger. Most of those memories were absent, but feelings remained. He thought of where he would go when he was tired and let his feet take him where he wanted to go. He was greeted by a scream when he got there.

A young acolyte woman was in the room he apparently had slept in, “Pervert!” Then her eyes widened in shock, “Guider Warner, is he injured.”

“Not really, I did not hit him that hard,” Tristan lied. The man probably had a pretty severe concussion, “Wait in the corner while I take his clothes.”

That was the wrong thing to say her eyes widened, “You are a thief!”

“Sure,” Tristan said as he barred the door from the inside. Thief was kind of a refreshing new insult, at least it was true. He started stripping the white tunic and linen trousers. They were on the small side, Baldy had been both thinner and shorter than Tristan, but the clothes fit reasonably well. Tristan was surprised at how comfy they were, he should have mugged those acolytes back before he fought Henry Golden Heart.

The woman’s eyes bounced from Tristan to the door, “What do you want with me?”

Tristan sat down cross-legged in the doorway. As it opened inward he would be notified if anyone short of the Lord of the Underworld attempted to break in.

“Give me some answers,” Tristan said, “Oh, and I’ll be humming while you give your answers, don’t mind it, just keep talking.”

He held the two reservoirs. They were both tier two, and he intended to fill them with healing alloy. It was something too valuable not to have on hand.

“For starters,” Tristan said, “Do you know where Shadow Fist is?”

The woman glanced at the door, “He should be at the throne, leaving a draft report with the elemental lord, Custodian.”

“Will he be back today?” Tristan asked. She nodded, “Good, now tell me where is Guider Daphan?”

Her loyalty to the Temple was greater by far than her loyalty to Shadow Fist. It was admirable that she only trembled slightly when she said “That is not something I can tell you.”

“Your guider, tried to have my friend killed, so you have two choices, tell me where he is or I smash my way through the acolytes until I find someone less loyal than yourself,” Tristan held both hands out to his sides like he was holding a bowl, “Either you think everyone is like you, in which case, everyone gets wiped out or you think there are some more cowardly members. If it's the second option, all you are doing is sparing the loyalists between myself and the coward by telling me.”

Tristan was not sure if this would make his point or not, so he created a construct. It was a dagger, a downsized version of one of the horns that grew from the Demon Lord’s skull. It got the point across.

The acolyte paled muttering, “Silver devil,” she took a deep breath, “You have to give me Guider Warner and not hurt anyone else.”

“You can have Baldy here, but I cannot spare my targets,” Tristan said, “I can agree to leave anyone who does not attack me alone.”

The woman swallowed, “Do you know where the throne room used to be?”