Boredom was Tristan’s greatest enemy. He had arrived on the roof about three hours after sunrise and had scheduled his meeting with Shadow Fist at sunset. Why hadn’t he picked noon? He had successfully kicked the ant’s nest and could not risk wandering around. Tier four was strong, but not enough to clean out the entire guard force of the Forrest Caldera.
Vulcan remained silent, and talking to a lamppost stashed in a separate dimension got boring after fifteen minutes. He did not even have his books on alchemy to distract himself with. So he decided to experiment with his infusion alloy. Rummaging through the old seamstress’s tea cabinet he found a few potted plants. He could not identify them but assumed that they were some kind of herbs. Keeping potted herbs in a cabinet was odd, but what did he know about plants?
Infusion alloy did nothing when he injected it into the plant. Plants could absorb forces, so why was this one resisting? Frowning he poked one of its leaves. Plants normally lacked metal essence, but infusion should bypass the issue. Any plant growing in an area filled with a force would absorb it and start exhibiting traits similar to that force. Trees with the force of combustion might have flaming fruit and be resistant to fire, for example.
Growth. They needed to absorb it as they grew. Tristan could accomplish that. He grabbed the largest volume of growth essence he could and shoved it into the herb. The already fully grown plant exploded. Tristan was covered in a light film of green particles. He returned the now empty pot, hoping that the seamstress did not need the plant too badly.
Hours passed and Tristan watched as people passed below. There were even several patrols who came through and checked the business. No one came upstairs. Finally, the sun started dipping toward the horizon. Tristan inspected the opposite roof, he could not see anything. Sunset would last for around twenty minutes, so there was still time.
If Shadow Fist did not show himself, Tristan was not sure what he would do. Siren would be arriving tomorrow, and that was when the real chaos would begin. If Tristan did not get Shadow Fist out, Commander Blacklake would kill him. Tiers did make people resistant to poison, but not to the same degree as physical assaults. A poison that could kill twenty men would kill anyone up to mid tier seven, some snakes produced venom that potent, so it was not hard to come by.
The sun disappeared, leaving only the pinkish-red tint staining the east. Shadow Fist had not shown himself. Tristan sighed thinking about his next step. Some of the guards might know where Shadow Fist slept. Getting the information out of them would not be too difficult. Even without violence, they only needed a mortally sick relative for a healing reservoir to loosen their tongues.
He mused on that. Being fixated on the path of violence had shut so many doors. While he still believed violence to be a valuable skill to have, he was coming around to Vulcan’s point of view. The path of a crafter opened nearly every door and made few true enemies.
“I thought we were meeting on the other rooftop?” Shadow Fist said.
Tristan almost jumped out of his skin. He turned in a circle, looking for his father, but he was nowhere to be found. The roof only had a wicker chair for cover, so he couldn’t be hiding. Taking a deep breath, Tristan stopped using his eyes. The chair was made with wooden pegs as was the cabinet. There was a faint ring of metal about ten feet off to his left.
Tristan looked over at the empty space, “Tier four?”
A surprised looking Shadow Fist materialized on the edge of the roof, “How did you find me, I removed all the metal from myself.”
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Tristan smirked Shadow Fist was incapable of removing every piece of metal. Marriage into a head family involved a tattoo, it was supposed to signify both loyalty and as a permanent sign to the whole Caldera that a person was important. The Forrest Caldera had a tree encapsulated in what was supposed to be the moon. A moon that got its color due to the silver mixed into the dye.
“Your shoulder,” Tristan smirked. The information was not too important, after all, what would Shadow Fist do, slice his arm off?
Tattoo aside, Shadow Fist had done a good job avoiding metal. He was wearing black leather armor with ties as opposed to buckles. Two bone knives were sheathed at his waste. Tristan did not believe that mythical beast bone was superior to metal, but he did not know what the properties of the material were.
“Why are you here? Did you come just to throw a temper tantrum at the temple?”
Tristan frowned, “No, that was an impulse, they sent an assassin after a friend. So I made sure they couldn’t do it again. The reason I came was for you.”
Shadow Fist tensed. Tristan was now sure the only reason he had arrived alone was entirely due to his invisibility. Hadrid had made it very clear that every force was all powerful, but the people who used it could be worked around. If Shadow Fist had lacked the tattoo there were other ways to find him. Compressing his metal sense to just the five hundred square foot rooftop would make his metal sense over fifty times more intense. At that level, Tristan would be able to see the iron in Shadow Fist’s blood and also get a headache.
“Why? Is it for revenge?” Shadow Fist said.
“No, I was told to remove you from the Forest Caldera, and I chose to just capture you,” Tristan kept his focus on Shadow Fist while he looked up at the sky, “Despite how terrible you are, I don’t really want to kill you.”
“You don’t?” There was an odd tone in his voice. Tristan was not good at reading emotions, being around both extremely stable and extremely volatile people made his judgment of the average very poor.
“You think I just run around killing people for no reason?” Tristan asked.
“Kind of,” Shadow Fist said, “The last time I met you was when you were about to stab Henry after pulling you off a battlefront where you were known for your confrontational personality. Then you burn most of the clergy alive.”
“You instigated the first one, and the second was deserved, anyone following those forsaken dead gods is bound to be crazy,” Tristan said, his patience running out, “Now are you coming willingly, or do I need to drag you out of here?”
“No, you may think I’m a monster, but I have the best interest of my family in mind,” Shadow Fist said, “You can’t beat Ajax. What’s more, why would you want to, he’s a fairer ruler than any of the Elders were.”
Something inside Tristan started heating up. He wanted to keep his emotions under control. Last time he had snapped and beaten Shadow Fist half to death. With weapons involved, the man would die, bone weapons would fail before the might of Vulcan.
“Still you go on about what is best for the family. Do you not hear yourself? Your wife’s brother is being executed. Helen fled to the the River Caldera as a broken mess,” Tristan grimaced when Shadow Fist’s eyes sharpened, he hadn’t known where Helen was, “You abandoned me, you’ve abandoned your family.”
“I did all I could for you. What more could I have done?” Shadow Fist yelled, “I sent you to the fairest person I knew. Do you think Conni showed up in the sifting yard by accident? He’s a warden, why would he inspect innocent children for work among convicts? I warned you about the ghost crabs. You know how inheritance laws work, why would I deny my secondborn the chance to be the next Elder? My daughter was the only child in the family. Did you want to take that from her just to feel good?”
Tristan could admit that Shadow Fist had been dealt a bad hand in the last few years. However, who hadn’t? Everyone had been affected in some way by the events of the last few years. Two different apocalypses had occurred, one from mythical beasts and one from the undead.
“No, I simply expected you to be a dad, but this is not about your lack of qualifications as a father,” Tristan answered keeping his anger under control, “You are coming with me.”
The sheer entitlement made Tristan even more angry. Shadow Fist and Helen claimed to do everything for their family it was a load of garbage. He had been woken up by little Tris after his heart was healed. She had parroted “Harp is here.” Neither was really there for her, the neighbor’s kid was though.
“I’m not coming with you,” Shadow Fist said, “And I don’t think you can make me.”
Tristan frowned, “What, are you just going to run away? Sure I would struggle to find you in the dark, but you won’t be able to make any appearances in the city while I’m here.”
“I don’t need to hide,” Shadow Fist said, “Don‘t kill him.”
Tristan was unsure what he was talking about. Then Shadow Fist jumped off the roof before the building exploded.