It felt like blinking. One moment he was Vulcan the next he was Tristan. The memory overlap was not jarring, just like last time he had trouble telling where his memories ended and the invasive ones began. He felt what he assumed to be affection for Ailinn. It was a feeling that he wanted, but also the feelings of loss from knowing a woman he had never known was long dead left him feeling a bit hollow.

Mentally he was fine, but Vulcan was far stronger than Tristan. He had attempted to use his mind in ways that simply weren’t possible. It did give Tristan insight into what a domain was, if he had one he would be able to control constructs outside of his body. It also let Tristan know that there was a force connected with each one of the three parts. Gravity was part of the mind, adamance the body, and combustion the heart.

Whatever a dominion was, it physically wrecked Tristan. His body was sore and his face was caked with blood. He ignored both the people staring at him in shock and examined the memory. This time it was easier, he had intentionally lain down, he knew that would be the starting point and it was a good marker for the change. The broken vision and dissonance with reality made a good if fuzzy marker for the end of the memory.

“Tristan, do we need to take you to the hospital?” Siren seemed unsure. Most likely he had never seen someone spontaneously bleed from their eyeballs, nose, and ears.

“I should be fine now, I think,” Tristan struggled back to his feet. He nodded to the young smith. Tristan felt odd thinking the boy was a child when they were the same age, “Thank you, Drew, you might have saved my life.”

That was true. Vulcan had been trying to do things with his body that Tristan was unable to do. Just attempting light tasks caused damage, he did not want to know what a panicked Vulcan would have done. Most likely he would have fried Tristan's brain attempting to flatten everything with the force of gravity.

“Sorry,” a faint voice said. It started weak but grew more faint towards the end.

Tristan immediately sent back, “Vulcan? Are you better?”

No words came back. Only optimistic uncertainty. Tristan smiled slightly, it was progress. He did not intend to fight more memories, as a different memory could cause him to go out of control. Tristan was lucky that Vulcan was a pretty laid back person, a normal ruler would have smeared the obstinate smiths across the inside of their workspace. The man just wanted to forge.

Tristan jumped to his feet in shock. He still had those memories, it was incomplete, but he had the instructions for an insanely high tier weapon. All of the rules for basic crafting were second nature to Vulcan and Tristan could not pick up what was habit through the small memory. Still the Void, he needed that.

“Siren go grab my bag,” Tristan ordered, not considering who he was talking to.

The warrior did not have the best view of Tristan at the moment. It had only been a few hours since a few of his warriors died, but to Tristan that had been quite some time ago. That and he had his emotions pulled in so many directions, excitement from a visit by his uncle, shock that his uncle was the Steel Saint, gratitude to an empress, guilt over a mistake, and excitement at what could potentially be a tier fifteen weapon.

“No, you need to explain yourself,” Siren folded his arms and frowned at Tristan.

Tristan pivoted on his heel. Siren took a step back when he made eye contact with Tristan’s slightly manic expression. He supposed it would look horrifying with the silver tinted blood drying to his face and bloodshot eyes. Regardless, Tristan did not have time, the patterns in his head were complex and in a language he did not understand. He struggled to remember the names of all the miners, no way was he going to be able to remember a set of instructions complicated enough to shift probability itself.

So Tristan tried to explain himself. Unfortunately, he pulled words out of Vulcan’s head, “I need to make something to punch math!”

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Maybe his head was not as healed as he had assumed. It did not matter, he could suffer permanent head trauma if he managed this. When Siren did not move to go get his bag, Tristan sprinted out at top speed. He almost ran Drew over. For a moment Siren was shocked, but he quickly concluded that a manic tier four could not be left to freely roam the camp.

Tristan did not make it difficult to follow. Laborers and Soldiers alike were forced to jump out of his way. Every so often someone would attempt to put Tristan in his place by sinking into a more stable stance. They were bounced aside with little effort, a good stance could help if the person in question was not twice the other’s weight.

Fortunately, the miners were not far from the smiths, as many of them were decent metal workers as well. It took less than a minute for him to arrive, and barge into the tent that he, Luke, and Fluffy shared. Luke was inside, he quickly hid the yarn toy that he had been using to entertain Fluffy.

“Tristan, knock next time,” Luke huffed.

“Books, where are my books!” Tristan yelled.

Luke’s eyes widened at Tristan’s appearance. He pointed to the bag in the corner that held all of Tristan’s possessions. Tristan scooped it up and ran back out before Luke could ask anything else. Siren arrived at the tent just as Tristan exited and ran back the way he had come. It took a few moments for Siren to come to a stop and turn around. In the end, he had still come to the tent.

Luke poked his head out, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, by the silent gods, I am getting too old for this,” Siren said as he started back after the much younger man.

Siren was taller, but also significantly heavier. Tristan had the same disadvantages to speed with his kern, but he had healing alloy which stopped him from causing damage to his muscles. So long as he could handle the pain and shortage of breath, Tristan could sprint as long as he could run. One of the advantages of missing part of his lung for the last five years was how normal a shortage of air felt, now that he had two again he went even faster.

Drew wisely jumped out of the way this time. He had only been waiting for around two minutes, but in that time several smiths had asked him what was going on. As the youngest one in the area, he bragged to all the other smiths about what he was going to make with the unique ore. Just like he had hoped all the master smiths looked at him with jealousy.

When Tristan came back and whipped out his book a large crowd had gathered. He ignored them and searched for void in his book, ‘Natural Forces.’ He scanned for void and when he found it he froze.

Void- Absence: Pro: none Con: death. Is often considered to be similar to emptiness. This is false, emptiness can be measured. Void is the absence of value. Void does not occur naturally and anyone who uses this force will be prone to apathy and depression. (All essence types most commonly in Dark)

That was ominous. Tristan did not know what the absence of value was, it sounded dangerous though. Dangerous enough to do something if it was used to punch the Lord of the Underworld in the face. Tristan closed his eyes and pictured the gauntlets, they were a combination of gauntlets and bracers. A plate of adamant metal ran from the elbow down the arm and to the wrist. It had no essence reservoir, but it was made for the Steel Saint, he could power it with his own essence.

That plate protected several reservoirs set into their own webs of essence channels. Several cylinders of metal had runes running up and down them, each carrying the essence to the desired location. The void reservoir was set into the palm, tendrils ran around the hand over the fingertips and circled the knuckles.

Several absorption reservoirs were placed. One at the wrist, elbow, and inside of the forearm. The runes coating them had an effect that took Tristan a minute to figure out. Absorption was used in tower plate and made the armor great at absorbing damage. Here it appeared to nullify one of the basic laws of physics. Any action performed by the gauntlet could have its opposite reaction negated. Tristan could use that to ignore mass when defending.

Finally, there was another force he had to look up. Execution. He first thought that execution was simply capital punishment. Except that forces did not have a criminal justice system. He flipped through the book and found it.

Execution- Control: Pro- Preset instructions, Con- lacks utility due to time constraints. Is used for short tests in engineering. Pre-set simple instructions to be immediately completed. Instructions can be canceled, but cannot be stored. See Synchrony and Procession for more commonly applicable forces. (Light, Earth, Air, Metal, [Water {Ice prerequisite} unconfirmed])

The void had an on and off switch as did the absorption. If Tristan understood what he remembered, this weapon would zero out everything. How many miles per hour can you run? Zero. How many pounds can you lift? Zero. Your effective mass? Zero. What volume of space do you occupy? Zero. How many people remember you? Zero.

This was a horrifying weapon. It was like decay, but for reality instead of organic material. Tristan was glad that he did not have a void reservoir, he would be dumb enough to experiment with it.