“Ah good,” Blacklake said, “We need to know where either Guider Daphan is or where you are keeping Elder Forest.”

The warden frowned. He stood from the hole he was scraping at and inspected Siren and Blacklake. Recognition flashed across the warden’s face.

“You used to be the head of security at the mine?” The warden asked. At Siren’s nod he continued, “Well, you won’t find either of them here. Lord Ajax is returning in the next day or two, and Forrest will be executed then.”

“Where would we find them?” Blacklake asked, folding his arms with a disgruntled expression.

“At the mine,” The warden answered with a smile, “The tunnels make a great prison.”

Siren was fine with that. Mines were one of his best environments, it was rare that darkness and earth were so plentiful. So long as the Lord of the Underworld did not arrive, Siren would have an uncontested advantage.

Blacklake scrutinized the warden, “You’re sure? It seems like you are giving up the information too easily.”

The man was still smiling, “The alternative is getting tortured by a bunch of devil lovers. No thanks, I would rather you just go and tussle with a horde of elementals.”

Siren placed a hand on Blacklake’s shoulder, “It's only an eight mile run. That's only a fifteen minute run, we can afford to lose thirty minutes on the round trip.”

It took a bit of prodding, but he got Blacklake to follow. Once they were out of earshot, Blacklake said, “He was lying about something. Maybe about Forrest being located in the mine itself?”

Siren did not know, though only one part needed to be true. The Lord of the Underworld just needed to be absent, though it might not be the worst event if he arrived. He ran his hand along the lacquered capsule that he always kept with him. Detonating it inside a tunnel would be almost certain victory.

They exited the Forest Caldera from the opposite gate and made their way to the mine. There was only one guard here, and he only had a tier zero kern. Unlike the other guards, he was alert. Roughly sixty percent of the Caldera was tier zero, at least naturally. Thirty percent was tier one, and around ten percent was tier two. Around one percent were naturally tier three, none of those numbers were exact, but they were rounded to the nearest tens.

They were also the numbers at the last census. Seeing a tier zero guard sent a pang of sadness through Siren. When the common man had to pick up a weapon, their civilization was close to collapse. It was a sign that the Caldera might be too far gone to be saved.

The mine quickly came into view, and it took Siren by surprise. A village of people prepared for war. Siren would have called it a military camp, but all the buildings were made of stone. They had too many points of ingress to be defensible. This was a village, a very well armed village. He lacked Tristan’s ability to identify metals, but he would not be surprised to learn that everyone was wearing tower plate.

Drills were being performed in the training yard Siren had built. It had been expanded and outfitted. Docile elementals worked as opponents, they would react as though they still lived when struck with a blade. Constantly healing opponents gave the trainees a real sense of what combat was.

Siren felt like cursing. He had been confident that the combined army of the Lake and River Caldera would be enough to crush the weakened Forrest Caldera. Most of their warriors had sided with Siren, mostly due to the fact that he had trained almost a third of the Forrest Caldera’s tier threes. Still, an army outfitted in near artifact level armor would be a problem. A trained tier two with tower plate was more than a match for a tier three with normal equipment.

“Why was I not told about this?” Blacklake looked around, just as shocked as Siren.

There were nearly a thousand people here. A tenth of the Forrest Caldera’s population, the strongest tenth, had vanished and no one had noticed. They hadn’t been able to get any spies near the mine, but something this big should have still been noticed.

“Hello,” Siren jumped, almost striking the speaker on reflex. A wiry man with dark skin, black hair, and dark purple eyes smiled at them, “Are you new from the city?”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Dark kern, not a weak one either judging by the influence on his physique. It did explain why he was able to get so close while Siren and Blacklake were distracted.

“Yes, I didn’t know this was out here,” Siren said, the man nodded proudly, “I asked where to watch the Elder’s execution, I wasn’t expecting this when I arrived.”

All true, the man’s eyes narrowed, “Who told you?”

Siren forced himself to act startled, he was a terrible actor, but Blacklake was not, “The warden, was he not supposed to?”

The smile returned, “Of course, he is looking for recruits. You haven’t heard of this place because no one ever leaves. Everyone here was slaughtered ruthlessly at the Stone Caldera. That’s what the Caldera thinks, and those thousand absent soldiers were brought here and trained. Everyone passing through, or delivering supplies joins, we have around two thousand now.”

It was going to be a blood bath. Two thousand soldiers, and an unknown number of elementals, that line of absolute collapse the Caldera was teetering on seemed more frayed with every word this man uttered.

“Are you ready to get started?” The man said.

“Not really,” Siren said.

“Too bad, you’re here now,” He said.

Siren felt thoroughly out of his depth. He had expected something quick, march in kill an Elder, walk out. Infiltration was not something he was skilled in. Blacklake walked up to him with a smile. Siren shuddered slightly at it, there was even a twinkle in the interrogator’s eye as if the emotion was genuine.

“Lord Ajax truly does prepare for everything,” Blacklake made a bashful expression, another creepy face on him, “I admit, I doubted his ability to overcome the silver devil, but he had a plan, one he chose to…” Blacklake paused as if thinking, then looked straight into Siren’s eyes, “move in the shadows.”

“Indeed, the devil lovers won’t ever see it coming,” The man with the dark kern nearly vibrated in excitement.

Siren for his part, started looking for a place to vanish. The limiting thing about his dark based stealth was its reliance on darkness as, currently, it was slightly before noon. There weren’t enough connected shadows for him to move unseen with impunity. Fortunately, the man started leading them to a familiar building.

Conni’s little home looked petite next to the larger stone buildings around it. Still, it was the only one designed with hospitality in mind. Stepping into the familiar room Siren surveyed his surroundings, they were less clean than Conni kept it, but most of the furniture was still the same. The dining table was being used as a desk and was covered in papers and other important looking objects.

Siren had little experience in leading a war against people, but if it was anything like fighting mythical beasts, the papers were budgets and correspondence. Their guide gestured for them to take a seat before exiting. A metal map covered the center of the table, showing the Caldera in excruciating detail. Siren inspected it, most likely this was made by the Lord of the Underworld himself.

He opened his palm and made a small replica of it out of a black diamond, including all the small figurines scattered across it. Siren was pretty sure that they were troop positions but he did not recognize any of the war machines, and the divots cut into the ground made no sense. Passing the replica to Blacklake he continued looking at the table.

A few minutes passed until their guide stepped back in, “Let me present to you, the current leader of the human domain, Guide Daphan.”

The previously mentioned guider stepped in and all three of them froze. Siren started using cohesion to combine his two essence types. He would rather wipe out everyone here than let himself and Blacklake get captured. Daphan’s face paled, most likely realizing what Siren was about to do.

Fortunately, Daphan acted first, “Gravis, it’s been a long time, your parents were good friends.”

That was a lie. Siren’s parents despised Daphan. His lies to take the leadership of the temple ran counter to the integrity needed to carry valuable packages. Still, Siren took the olive branch.

“I admit, I was worried you had been killed in that unfortunate fire,” Siren said.

“Yes, I bet you were,” Guider Daphan was not quite able to keep the bitterness out of his voice, “You can leave us, Hans, I won’t need a guard around family friend’s.”

The guide, Hans, simply nodded and stepped outside, most likely to ambush other visitors.

Siren watched him leave, then waited, just to be sure the man was actually gone. He used his dark sense to feel for nearby people. The military village was busy, but no one was loitering around Conni’s home.

Once he was sure, he nodded toward Daphan, “So, where is Elder Forrest?”

Guider Daphan sat down across from them, “I’ll tell you on one condition.”

Blacklake laughed coldly. Siren knew he wasn’t entertained, he did it to unsettle the old Guider, “I know your type. Most Guiders have a very low pain tolerance, we won’t make deals with traitors.”

Guider Daphan sighed, “You are right, at least you would be in any other situation. Did you know that the elemental lord follows the law of predation, that is he believes the strong devour and rule the weak? What place does an old man have in that hierarchy? Here is my offer, I lead you to Elder Forrest, and you get me out of here,” He held up a hand to forestall the obvious question, “No you won’t kill me, Siren here doesn’t break his word.”

Siren nodded without hesitation, getting a frustrated glare from Blacklake, “I will protect you to the best of my ability, and I will discourage the angry people of the Lake and River Caldera from taking action. I will not protect you from the temple, those are your affairs and I will not meddle.”

Guider Daphan thought about the terms before nodding, “I can’t get much better. You could just search the mine as a wraith and I’m sure you would eventually figure out his location. I agree.”