Tristan scrambled over the top of the dirt pile, fifty or so people were warily standing on opposite sides. All were too afraid to poke their heads over and risk getting hit by a stray fireball but too curious to prioritize their own safety. He was thankful they were there, he would have even been glad for more of them.
“Does anyone have a tier three dark kern!” Tristan yelled at the people. They all stared at him blankly.
Of course, there was not anyone with a tier three dark kern. Merrick was the only one who was of any power in attendance. Tristan wished he had thought to stock up on reservoirs of all six common essence varieties. It would have been easy, but no he had to go along with Luke on a whim.
“Anyone have a light kern?” He asked. It didn’t matter if he got a dark or a light reservoir, he could use it to support one and use the stasis artifact to freeze the damage to the other’s body. Jenna’s dual kern made her more resilient, as Tristan had given her an earth reservoir, normally she would be safe. Unfortunately, Luke had shattered all the ribs on the right side of her sternum, it was soaking up all of the healing the reservoir offered.
People shook their heads. Warriors were rare, though Tristan was only now seeing just how rare. He had grown up surrounded by fifty or so people, and at any time seven were warriors and one was Luke. There were only about five hundred in the whole Caldera, so they were quite uncommon. To make it even worse he was looking for the two rarest kern types aside from metal. There were only likely thirty of each in the pre-conflict Caldera. Running through the numbers did not paint a good picture, as Hadrid had killed six of those, Bruce had killed William in the Plain Caldera, Shadow Fist was imprisoned, Siren was absent, and Haver was barely hanging on.
Bruce, Tristan knew where Bruce was. It was about a two mile run, but a light reservoir would allow him to transfer the stasis artifact from Jenna to Haver. Tristan was on the slower end as far as tier fours went, however, he could still crack a two minute mile. He coated himself in armor, it gave him a headache, like he was breaking some rule, but he used Vulcan’s gravity to pull himself upwards. It was not enough to float, but he went from three hundred fifty pounds to one hundred.
A quick application of healing alloy pushed the headache down before he shot off. Lightening himself did not help as much as he had hoped, it actually made it harder to take corners as his traction no longer matched his mass. The crowd of people scrambled out of his way as he barreled toward them.
The gate to the River Caldera was around half a mile away, the road to the dirt pile had fortunately not been obstructed by tents. The guard scrambled to bring up his halberd, making the judgment that it would take too long to shut the gate. Not a bad choice, normally. Tristan was moving at forty-five miles per hour in full plate armor.
The halberd would either snap or punch straight through Tristan’s armor, but either way that guard would get flattened. In this armor, Tristan had more mass than some wagons. Thinking fast Tristan made a pole of adamant metal and shoved the butt into the ground.
What he had pictured was a graceful pole vault through the air between the top of the guard's head and the arch of the gate. What he got was more like a catapult. The rod dug into the dirt, and then it jerked Tristan up, his head bounced off the gate arch and he went sprawling to the ground. Tristan staggered to his feet with ringing in his ears on the other side of the thankfully unflattened guard and started sprinting again.
The city was where turning started becoming an issue. Shadow Fist could just run along the walls to bleed off his inertia and avoid the pedestrians at the same time. Tristan would plow through any walls he slammed into, being a higher tier was not all upsides. One day he might be too heavy to enter standard dwellings.
Still, he made good time, and within five minutes of leaving the landfill he arrived at the Stewards office, and his heart fell. Janis was not standing out front. In fact, no one in the golden and blue livery of the River Caldera elite guard were present. However, there were a few guards, so someone important was there.
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“Do either of you have a dark or light kern?” Tristan asked.
Both men had just watched an intruder sprint towards them at high speed while in full armor. It would set off warning bells in any protector’s mind, “Identify yourself.”
“Tristan,” He answered quickly, before realizing that it was not that uncommon of a name. There had to be something they would remember him for, he was not the most subtle of people, “My friend and I came through with a wagon full of artifacts,”
Recognition lit up their eyes, however they did not lower their guards. If anything, they raised it, bracing for a fight that Tristan was not willing to pick right now.
“Do you know where I can find someone with a dark or light kern?” Tristan was almost yelling now.
A familiar voice came from behind Tristan, “What do you need a dark kern for?”
He whipped around to find Siren giving Commander Blacklake a piggyback ride. Tristan rushed over and started infusing healing alloy into the splinted leg while he explained.
“I found an artifact that would give me a one hundred percent success rate with kerns. My issue is that I have two people who need it, Haver and Jenna. I can fix the issue with a reservoir of either light or dark, but I need to get back now,” Tristan handed over an empty tier two reservoir while he explained.
Thankfully Siren did not comment on how dumb it was for Tristan to start breaking kerns without doing any research into the materials he would need. A part of Tristan wanted to shove blame off onto Luke, much of it did belong there. Tristan had not planned on breaking any kerns today, he had just gotten excited and Luke had run with it.
It took only a few moments for Siren to fill the reservoir with inky dark essence. Tristan did not wait for Blacklake’s leg to heal, he snatched up the orb and sprinted back towards the landfill. He did not know if people expired faster at higher tiers, but he would not be surprised. The standard method of progression with artifacts were safer, but Tristan was pretty sure it polluted the kern. Conni had mentioned something like that with the anima. A polluted cut was much more dangerous.
The whole trip took less than fifteen minutes. Tristan avoided the piles of dirt entirely this time, but what he found was disheartening. He slid to a stop beside Haver, the man was pale, but also hollow. Tristan’s metal sense told him that there was a hole. Blood pumped into it, but his connection with the iron in the blood was cut off when it entered the void.
“Luke, what happened?” Tristan yelled.
Luke walked over with far more ease than the situation warranted, “He’s dead, we knew that one would probably die.”
Tristan punched Luke in the face, “What do you mean probably? I have a safe way to do this! No one should be dead!”
Tristan was not close to Haver in any way. However, this was the first person he could truly say he had killed through negligence. It hit different, especially when Luke was so casual about it.
Luke took a few steps back holding a split lip, “What was that for?”
“With even a little bit of preparation, this would not have happened,” Tristan said pacing back and forth. He tried feeding Haver the dark reservoir anyway, but when Tristan tried prying his jaws apart the skin cracked like paper.
“You thought that a special reservoir would be enough to make this safe?” Luke said incredulously, “What was your test sample, Siren and Merrick? You are quite literally exposing yourself to primordial forces and you think a little essence is enough to make it safe?”
“What do you mean?” Tristan asked, but he was already looking around. One of the fire kern warriors was a blackened husk and another with a water kern was emulsifying. That was the most disgusting thing he had ever seen, and he quickly removed his helmet to throw up.
Luke crouched down beside Tristan, the protein shake he had drunk already healing the split lip, “Don’t worry, between Siren, Merrick, and these eleven, a seventy-five percent success rate is pretty good. Not everyone can handle having a force crawling inside their body, it's another reason why tier zeros have the easiest time. It's a very small dose.”
Tristan wanted to punch Luke again, but he had been naive. If it was that easy to advance, everyone would be tier six by the end of next year. His shoulders slumped and he looked up at Luke. He did not look angry, or dismissive. Tristan realized that Luke was more concerned about Tristan than about the three dead warriors. It was both comforting and revolting somehow.
He looked up at the crowd at the top of the hill. Merrick looked around in shock. He had most likely never seen the destruction forces could cause. Many more looked down in horror as they witnessed what an uncontrolled force did to a human body.