“Don’t kill me, I have a wife, and a pig,” Oaf pleaded, “We might eat the pig, but don’t kill me before I can.”

Tristan stared down at the kneeling man. He had never realized how uncomfortable it was to watch a grown man cry. Tristan had dragged the unconscious body of Jin over to the mouth of the cave, and upon hearing the noise, Oaf had panicked and started glowing. The man could not glow for long but it had been enough to utterly terrify the man.

“I don’t intend to kill you,” Tristan sighed, “Now who are you and what are you doing here?”

Oaf sniffled and looked up, “We are the people who make the staves for the temple. Now that there is no one left to use the staves we are out of a job. We thought that if the temple did not need the artifacts, we might as well take them for ourselves.”

“Oh, not very acolytish of you,” Tristan said dropping Jin’s unconscious body on the floor.

“We aren’t acolytes, just craftsmen, I’m a carpenter, specializing in detailed engraving, my very good and definitely should be left alive friend, is a jeweler,” Oaf said all of this on a single breath.

Airside from the the oddity of a dark kern specializing in the creation glittery objects, Tristan should have expected something like this. When warriors traveled to the ramparts, they would use merchants to carry their supplies, despite them not being part of the military. It was reasonable for the temple to outsource.

Tristan felt a little bad about ruining these people’s livelihood. Jin stirred. Both of them looked over at the prone man. Head shots either knocked someone out until a healer was found, or only for a minute or two. Tristan was glad that this was the former scenario.

“Please don’t kill him,” Oaf begged.

Tristan rolled his eyes, though the only person who could see it was coming out of unconsciousness, “What’s going on upstairs, I assume a search of some kind? Where are they looking?”

Oaf slowly nodded, “Yeah, some maniac burned down Elder Forrest’s old mansion. Guider Daphan almost died. It was bad, man.”

“I’m sure it was,” Tristan said.

“They’re going from house to house looking for him, though if he’s any good at hiding he’ll get away. Anyone that can hurt Ajax’s mad dog won’t be stopped by a simple search team,” Oaf babbled, “They are passing out charcoal sketches of him, but he looks pretty average. Black hair pale skin, well built…” Oaf trailed off when he realized that he was describing Tristan, “Oh gods, I’m going to die. This is my punishment for stealing from the temple.”

Tristan considered knocking Oaf out and trying his luck with Jin. Unfortunately, Jin was still a little loopy. So he settled for slapping Oaf.

“You work for me now,” Tristan said, he had a small plan forming, “I will not pay you in essence reservoirs, but artifacts. Upon the completion of this task I will allow you to ask for one artifact to use for yourself, and I will custom design it for you.”

“Can you do that?” Oaf asked, greed creeping in.

Tristan could in fact, not do that. However he was not far off. From what he could gather, he would need to form something called a channel. Normally this was done through rune pathways, as most creators could not simply make metal with the required channels within. Once Tristan figured out those channels, it would be simple, plug in an essence reservoir of the correct essence type and the job was done.

While all of that was most likely a gross oversimplification of a complex process, Tristan was sure he could figure it out. What could these two want that he couldn’t make? He had mainly light and dark alloys after all. The only one that did not fall under those essence types was infusion, which seemed to have a foot in every element, even fire.

“Sure,” Tristan said projections his confidence, “Find several people for me and direct them towards their local vault.”

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Oaf’s face fell, he most likely thought that Tristan wanted him to pillage several other Temple vaults. There were so many reservoirs down there that it would not be hard to skim some off the collection.

“There is a woman by the name of Harp, she’s looking after a few dozen children in the River Caldera. If things get really bad tell her where to hide,” Tristan said, “And a person named Siren. Tell them that Tristan sent you. He is a warrior, but also honorable, you can trust him. Once you have done both tasks I will make your artifact.”

Oaf nodded quickly, “Yes sir, I can do that.”

Tristan was not sure if he was saying yes, because that was what he genuinely intended to do or because he was scared of saying no. Either way, preparing a warning for the people he knew had paid off when the Lord of the Underworld had gotten free. He saw no reason for it to change now. He chose Harp and Siren simply due to the fact that they had the most overlap with the people he cared about. Harp watched the miner’s children and would also be in contact with their spouses, while Siren led the army that Conni and Luke were part of.

“Good, I’ll leave you to your looting then,” Tristan said, “I was not able to find a large enough bag to take it all.”

While he wanted to return and take it himself, Tristan was aware that he would probably never be back. Not unless the caldera defeated the Lord of the Underworld and Tristan somehow beat the temple to this underground workshop. It was better to let these two take everything, Tristan already had most of the items that were immediately useful.

He climbed the shaft, leaving both Oaf and Jin down in the darkness. Jin to regain awareness and Oaf to one day enjoy his pig. He thought about breaking off some of the lower rungs. It would not trap them, as there was more than enough material to make more, but it would delay them. In the end he decided against it, he should not hinder a person he was requesting a service from, especially as he lacked a way to enforce it.

The temple was the same, with one exception. This was one of the few buildings with a direct connection to the sewers, courtesy of their toilets. There was a ladder propped up against the interior of the toilets. Tristan shuddered at the thought of slogging through the sewers, his last experience had been horrifying. He would use the back door.

Moving furniture out of the way, he exited the Temple. The back door was in an alley, the temple took up an entire side, while various businesses took up the other. He started towards the end of the alley and stepped out onto the street. People were wandering around doing their daily chores. They did not seem perturbed in the slightest that someone had broken into their city and attacked its heart.

Shaking his head Tristan knew that his appearance was not uncommon. However one thing set him apart, and it was something he had no way to hide at the moment. Golden eyes. Normally he liked them, but right now he wished the color was grey to blend in better. He thought about it for a moment and decided that if he could not hide, then he would just walk confidently out in the open.

Regis was the only one who could stop him, and he should still be recovering. Tristan remembered Eve saying something about healing artifacts being hoarded by the Elders. He saw no reason for Elder Forrest to be any different, so while the artifacts most likely survived, they would need to dig them up with Tier two and below labor before healing Regis.

He stepped forward and started walking around the temple. This time he intended to go around the smithy, instead of over its roof. Curiously, simply not acting suspicious was enough to stop people from looking at him. They would look right at him, but not register his existence. They had seen a charcoal sketch of him last night, though a well made sketch could not be mass produced in the necessary numbers in just a few hours. Not unless it was simple, which would make Tristans already generic features harder to notice.

Smiling to himself he crossed a street, went around the smithy and laid his eyes on the building he and Henry demolished. The wall had not been properly repaired. A sheet of wood plugged the hole, making the building look abandoned. The cobbler could still be seen making boots through the window, so Tristan knew it was still occupied.

Originally he had intended to wait atop the building’s roof. However, if Shadow Fist was true to form, there would be some other angle he was trying to control. Maybe there would be reinforcements, maybe Regis would show up. Tristan had no way to know.

His inspection moved to the building adjacent to the cobbler’s home. It was just as tall and owned by an elderly seamstress. He decided to wait on top of that building for sunset. If Shadow Fist was good and showed up alone, Tristan could always get his attention with Vulcan’s flame. On the other hand, if Shadow Fist resorted to his standard set of tricks, Tristan could take him by surprise.

Climbing the building was easy. He only needed to jump and catch the second story window sill, pull himself up onto the ledge that ran around the first floor, then jump again to grab the edge of the roof. While he did loosen a brick, it was much less damaging than using the reverse edge of his knives to climb.

This roof had two rocking chairs, a table, and a cabinet full of drying tea leaves. Aside from the low wall running around the edge, it was bare compared to the cobbler’s roof. Tristan sat and started having a one sided conversation with Vulcan. He hoped that one day the lamp would heal enough to talk.