Grand Saint Alloy

Tristan read the book ‘Collecting and Transferring Essence’ while standing in Lesly’s office and ignoring everyone. If he had been reading Hadrid’s leather-bound copy with the title on the cover, it might have attracted some attention. As it was, Tristan’s copy of the book looked like it was made to survive the apocalypse. The front and back covers were made of a steel three-ring binder, the pages were made of treated leather, and to top it all off there was a coating of liquid glass to stop the ink from smudging in the event of water damage. Hadrid had called it lamination.

He briefly looked up as Bruce explained to his sister, “And that is why I executed William.” While she stared back with her eyes wide and mouth half open.

Nothing important, he went back to reading. The book ‘Natural Forces’ was vastly more interesting, however the book was just a list. Tristan knew and was not on bad terms with anyone who had a force, so knowing about any force he did not currently possess was largely irrelevant. Harvesting essence could be immediately helpful.

The first step was a discussion on how to harness what the book termed loose essence. Which was any essence that lacked a will, it meant that the essence in a sword was loose, but the essence in a person or animal was owned essence. It claimed there was a void that could suck in the essence, the kern, anima, and the domain. Tristan had no idea what it was talking about, maybe different words for the same thing, the book seemed to assume that it was common knowledge.

The book claimed that essence was not pulled from the environment, instead that everyone drew it from the primordial forces. He guessed that made a little sense. The metal parts of his clothing never had their essence stripped from them, despite the fact that he was always drawing on metal essence. His daggers would pull a little to refill themselves, and his kern would refill itself, only for the process to start again.

He wondered why it was called a primordial force. Of course, it was old, but the name just sounded pompous. Unfortunately, the book was not created to explain naming conventions, it was created to bend the forces of the world to an alchemist’s will.

Something poked him in the side, but Tristan ignored it. The room was already small, but half was taken up by a desk, making it hard to stand without bumping into people. The poke came again, this time in the cheek.

He looked over and saw Eve staring at him curiously. She was way too close for comfort. Tristan hurriedly stepped back, almost tripping over Clive in the process. To everyone in the room, it looked like he was scared of Eve. Which might have been a little true after she killed the crabs.

“What,” Tristan asked, curious as to why she poked him.

Eve smiled slightly, he wasn’t sure if she had gotten over the rift in her world view, or if time had dulled the edges. She asked, “Did you not hear Lesly, she called your name three times.”

“Oh,” Tristan said, a little embarrassed, then still looking a Eve, “Was it important?”

“Yes,” Lesly said, a little exasperated, “You worked with the alchemist on this object, will it work? What exactly does it do?”

“Yes it does work, Hadrid prides himself in being the greatest alchemist, which he can’t do if his creations fail,” Tristan said, “Also the alterations are quite simple, these crabs will be vastly more aggressive, and Hadrid disabled the natural feature that most creatures have to stop them from parasitizing and eating their own species. The effect should be the ghost crabs consuming themselves and any small ones that get missed will be so aggressive that they would be easily found.”

Lesly frowned, “this would not work if they weren’t contained, I was hoping for a solution that could be used in the event a situation like this happens again.”

Tristan could only shrug, “Why get rid of repeat business.”

Tristan did not really see the issue with Hadrid getting a second payment for a second crisis. This one would not even be a crisis without human interference. Vin and his team could have killed it out in the plains, the problem would have been over, and no one would have known how terrible it could have been.

After realizing that he was no longer needed, Tristan went back to his book. The book made a startling claim, plants were alive, despite the fact they did not move or think. Tristan snuck a glance at Eve, wondering how she would react to the information. Plants still gathered their essence from the primordial forces, but they had no will.

Everything seemed to come back to farming, though many of these plants and fungi were very difficult to cultivate. The example that ‘Collecting and Transferring Essence’ gave was a type of conifer that grew in iron-rich soil on top of high mountains. The essence combinations in those areas made the trees, lightning-attuned, which created an excellent place to harvest the force of conductivity. It seemed that locating a resource that worked was often more difficult than harvesting the force, as the conifer in the example looked like an ordinary tree.

Tristan suspected that the book was actually understating the difficulty of finding these resources. He had no proof, but he suspected that many of these natural wonders had incredible crafting utility. If a tree had some law to give it fire immunity, then any blacksmith would be eager to build their home out of it. Though it was not impossible to cultivate these plants, at least if all that was needed was a set of specific prerequisites.

“TRISTAN!” Someone yelled.

Tristan looked up, “Yes.”

“Could you put the book away,” Lesly said exasperated, “We are trying to have a serious discussion.”

“No,” Tristan said, “You're here to get weeks-old information out of your younger brother, any information you get out of me can be dismissed with a simple, you can’t trust a devil.”

Anger started clouding Lesly’s eyes, she gritted her teeth, “You know what, if you want to be a stubborn child, be a stubborn child.”

Tristan looked around at the others. Bruce was shaking his head, a slight smirk on his face. Eve was angry as well, but she seemed to be following Lesly’s lead and keeping quiet. The only person unaffected was Clive, who had been busy tallying costs for the expedition. Tristan was starting to feel like he was missing something.

Lesly got up, and started around the desk, “There is a runner just outside, follow him.”

“Where are we going?” Tristan asked warily.

Lesly gave a cold smile, “I already told you.”

Tristan thought about making a run for it but quickly pushed the idea aside. Even if he had the chance, it would be foolish. Lesly had a light kern that was an entire tier higher. Her stamina outstripped Tristan’s by such a large margin that fleeing would be foolish. So, he capitulated.

Stepping outside, he found a man dressed in the drab grey of Stone Caldera government workers. A grey tunic and pants were not very flattering, but they gave the workers of the Stone Caldera a little status without handing over any real authority to them. Tristan nodded to the man and gestured for him to lead the way.

The man bowed, “Follow me.”

He started walking towards the exit. They left the offices and made their way toward the gate. Tristan wondered if he was being led to meet one of the hunter teams. They did need a new member to round them out. However, that seemed to be more of a Bruce problem than a Tristan problem.

When they left the fortifications of the Stone Fort, the sound of training could be heard. The ground outside the gate had been packed flat by constant traffic. Even the ruts cut by horse-drawn carts during the rain storms in the last month were being worn down by the passage of many people.

There seemed to be a match where two people were sparring with Kale at the same time. Kale had a padded stick while both of his opponents had staves. There was a crowd surrounding the trio, talking excitedly and stopping Tristan from getting a good view of Kale’s opponents. Whatever was going on, it was something that his guide was taking him to.

The man stopped and bowed to Tristan again, “The man you are to meet is currently facing master Kale.”

Tristan shrugged and started pushing his way through the crowd. He got some dirty looks, but one look at his metallic golden eyes was enough to make most back off. Tristan could not prove it, but he was sure that he was the most dangerous tier-two at this camp. No one would stop him from seeing the fight.

When he got past the last person, he froze. Kale was facing off against a tier two that Tristan did not recognize and the other one. Tristan clenched his fists, a silver sheen collecting at his knuckles. The other one was Shadow Fist.