The vision shattered, leaving Tristan standing in the cave holding a lamppost. When he lifted it, it was substantially lighter, so much so that he almost whacked himself with the glass end. He used the light it generated to make his way back out to the main room.

“So what can you do?” Tristan asked.

“I can create fire and act as an extra storage of metal essence. I can also pop in and out of reality as needed,” Vulcan said, “Though I suppose you will need your kern to use any of those functions. Oh, and my greatest quality is my love of the arts!”

For some reason, Tristan had trouble believing it. Though one part of that word slurry caught his attention, “Pop in and out of reality? Like Conni’s sword?”

“Don’t know a Conni, hope she’s nice. Popping in and out of existence is not really accurate, artifacts like myself can move back and forth between the realm of primordial forces and the material realm,” Vulcan sent an image of himself shrugging over like it was no big deal.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Tristan remembered the crushing immensity of just the primordial force of alloy. He would be torn apart if he was thrown into that mess. The thing was, the primordial realm was filled with thousands of natural laws, most were more dangerous than alloy.

“For you sure, souls are immune to natural forces, though they work within their framework. As an entity made of essence wrapped in a soul, it is perfectly safe,” The shrug had turned into a man with two thumbs up.

It would take Tristan a while to get used to someone beaming images into his head. How did Conni get ahold of what he assumed was a sentient weapon and why did it never talk? He supposed that it would only talk to its owner and if no one else could hear it, Conni would look crazy. The man already looked half crazy, so he supposed completing the image was not in his best interest.

“So you need essence to have any of your functions activate,” Another thumbs up, “I don’t have essence, making you useless right now?”

“That's not fair!” Vulcan yelled, “Did your parents pay you to be good?”

“Uh, no,”

“Then you were good for nothing. I will not be good for nothing,” Vulcan sent over an angry faced man that was scolding a child.

Tristan was not sure how to take that. It almost sounded like the lessons economists were fond of giving. The Numitors sounded important, so maybe he was talking about the economy. Regardless, he needed to find a way out. The vent in the metal roof was about thirty feet away, but now that he could see with the help of the lamp, he could see that there was quite a bit of dirt inside now.

Whatever was being done up above was slowly filling this room. He could wait for them to slowly fill the hole with excavated earth, or he could speed it up with the furniture scattered around. Every few half minutes or so another small amount of dirt was shoveled in. Tristan found it interesting that the Lord of the Underworld sought to fill the underworld with dirt. It was not as if it could be reused as a prison, though if he wanted to keep a noisy artifact quiet, burying it was a good way to go.

Slowly he started moving furniture. His stamina was dramatically lower, reducing the work to a grueling crawl. Tristan had leaned the lamp against a corner, as he lacked the essence to resummon it if he dismissed it.

Working quietly was paramount, but despite his best efforts, he still made noise. One of the desks made a screeching noise as he dragged it. Tristan winced and froze. Hopefully, none of the elementals filling the pit would comment on the noise. Unless they were elemental lords, they might not even register the noise. It was a hopeful thought.

“Did you hear that,” Someone from above asked.

“It was only a screech from Hell! Yes, I heard it,” Another gruff voice said, “Honestly, I’m not sure why that boy doesn’t smother you with a pillow.”

Tristan stopped halfway behind cover. He recognized both voices, the first one was Doil, there was no way Tristan would ever forget the very superstitious man. The second was a miner by the name of Jones, he had been part of Chase’s mining crew before he eloped with Sun Set. They got along, despite them having completely different goals and methods.

Jones wanted to save to buy a house before he got married. A real house, not a mud hovel with a thatch roof. Tristan wanted to cut his way through whatever got in his way. So yes, Jones was a better person.

Tristan walked to the hole and looked straight up. It was still too dark to see well, but his eyes had adjusted enough to see the dark shapes of two men looking down. He had the flaming lamppost in his hand, so they could definitely see him.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Jones, Doil, how are you doing, can you help me out?” Tristan asked.

“It's a Devil Ghost!” Doil squealed and dropped a shovel full of dirt on Tristan’s upturned face.

Jones had a much more reasonable response, “How are you alive?”

“You know I’m pretty hard to kill,” Tristan said with a shrug.

The shadow pointed off to the side, “Bro, your heart is over there. I could toss it to you if you wanted.”

Tristan sighed, it would take too long to explain what the Alloy Force was and how he had broken his kern repeatedly. He went with a simplified truth, “I got myself to tier three with the alchemist's help, I made a construct heart to replace my old one, but its not good. Maintaining it drains essence as fast as I gather it. I’m effectively tier zero again until I find something to heal me.”

“Did you know that tier three was the minimum tier for an engineer in my army? Sai was actually in charge of those guys,” Vulcan chipped in, “You would not think that a bolt changer would work well with a dark kern.”

Tristan ignored Vulcan. Answering him would only make Tristan look crazy. Both shadows whispered to each other for a few moments. Tristan was not sure what there was to discuss, just throw a rope down and pull him up. A rope was standard issue for miners, though he suspected the Lord of the Underworld cared little for the safety of his people.

Finally, Jones said, “Tell me something only Tristan would know?”

Tristan frowned. He knew what Jones was trying to do, as elementals lacked memories of their original lives. If he had them then he was not a resurrected specter.

“I was attacked by a drug addict who wanted my wind tuber on the first day,” Tristan strained his memory, “Carl was his name, I think.”

Doil whispered, “Is he a ghost?”

“Elementals and ghosts are different,” Jones hissed back, “And yes it proves that he is not one.”

Several minutes later a rope was tossed down, knots were tied at regular intervals. This left Tristan with another dilemma, he had wanted to keep Vulcan out, having a large flaming weapon on hand would be helpful. Unfortunately, he could not climb without his hands. One arm was useless so he would have to climb using his good arm.

Sighing he asked Vulcan, “So how do I dismiss you.”

The lamp popped out of existence. One second it was there, the next it was gone. Tristan stared at the place where it had been in disbelief.

“All I had to say was go away,” Tristan asked.

“No, all you had to do was think go away. Now climb up that rope before they think you were talking to them.” Vulcan responded.

Climbing was difficult with one hand though still easier than the railing. The knots allowed him to get a better purchase with his legs. When he got close to the top, Jones reached down and assisted him. The man was only tier zero, but his strength was on the high side for the tier, as he hauled Tristan out with only a light grunt. Every step up in tier had come with an increase in weight for Tristan, he was sure that he weighed between three hundred and three hundred fifty pounds.

Tristan scrambled over the edge breathing heavily. His injury had exasperated his injured lung, though he supposed he should just be glad his trachea was intact. After all the trachea was part of the anima, so his kern would have little to no effect.

When he had caught his breath Tristan nodded to Jones, “Thanks, I don’t know how I would have gotten out of there without you.”

Jones took a half step back, “Are you sure you aren’t an elemental?”

“Yes,” Tristan said, “I am human still, by some miracle. Anyway, what are you two doing?”

Doil was the one who answered, “The forsaken elementals are making us dig their dwellings in the walls like some kind of hive.”

“This place is being constructed as some sort of capital. You can’t see it from here, but the top is being expanded and two arches are being constructed that will meet right above our heads. I don’t know the purpose of it, but I believe this will be used as the elemental’s headquarters,” Jones supplied.

Tristan frowned at an unsettling implication that they had made, “You make it sound like there are more elemental lords.”

“Yes,” Jones nodded, “As far as we know there are six more, well five. One left and never came back, we don’t know if he died or if turned traitor.”

Tristan inspected the walls of the pit. It was still dark, but his eyes had long adjusted to the pitch blackness of the pit. Starlight alone was enough to make out the outline of a staircase that spiraled around the wall of the pit. It did not appear to be overhung, so the pit had been widened at the top to make way for the steps. Scaffolding was also visible, and masonry was being used to make the walls more presentable. The tunnels that Tristan could now sense were metal tubes with a room at the far end, which appeared like black holes in the wall.

Shivering at the scale of it all, Tristan realized that when the time came he would be one of the people fighting to destroy this place. Those stairways would be a death trap, fighting elemental lords one at a time was suicide. It would be better to simply collapse this pit and kill the elementals as they dug themselves out.

“Well that just means I have a few more lords to put down,” Tristan said, “So how do we get out of here?”

“That's easy,” Jones said, “The elementals make us work twelve hour shifts, so when the sun rises we can just walk out, we even still sleep in the same bunkhouses.”

Doil scoffed, “Those are glorified pig pens,” he turned to Tristan, “Can you really kill Ajax?”

Tristan pictured a confused face and sent it to Vulcan. He answered, “Your guy’s face looks constipated. Anyways, yes, I got killed by gravity, and I was stronger than the elemental lord by a good margin. All a tough nut requires is a different hammer.”

“Yes,” Tristan said with all the confidence he could muster, “I might not be able to, but I am also not going to try alone. On a more pressing topic, how will I sneak past the elementals?“

“Why would you have to?” Jones shrugged, “You're dead and unless Ajax himself sees you, everything will be fine.”

It did not take long for twilight to arrive. The sky lightened slowly at first then seemingly all at once as the sun crested the edge of the Caldera. Jones and Doil set their shovels down and started for the stairs. Tristan hoped that his possessions were still in the bunkhouse.

He started to follow them when Vulcan yelled in his brain, “Wait, Stop! Are you just going to leave your heart down here?”