Tristan had never been to the command hub of the army. He was brought straight to the battle line by Luke. Having never been to a human-on-human war, he was not entirely sure what to expect, but a tent was not it. The large fabric structure would struggle to keep any attack out, while also doing nothing for privacy.
The square structure looked like a repurposed crafter’s partition, similar to the ones the smiths used to box off their forge. Several guards patrolled the area around it, keeping people away. Tristan could feel at least one artifact on each of them, but nothing particularly daunting. Tristan attempted to walk into the tent only to be stopped before he had stepped onto the cordoned off area.
The patrolling warrior interposed himself between Tristan and the tent, “Halt, name, and purpose.”
Guards were a nuisance. He met them everywhere that he went and they always wanted to get in his way. That being their job description did not help settle his irritation.
“Sage and I want some answers,” Tristan said he tried to push past, but the warrior stopped him with a palm on his shoulder.
“No, you especially are not allowed back unless called for,” The warrior did not reach for a weapon, which was prudent, but he was clearly willing to fight if it came to it.
“Fine, maybe you can give me some answers then,” Tristan began, but the warrior shook his head, “An official explanation will be released when the Elders and Commanders are done convening.”
A tailored explanation was what he meant. Something would be released that would paint the leaders in a good light. While Tristan wanted answers, he was not about to force his way in, if he was even able to. There were at least four tier fours inside and Siren was one. Turning away Tristan stomped off. He stopped after a few steps he had no idea where he was going.
As a tier four that was barely connected with the military Tristan had no superior. His only peer was Luke and he did not want to talk to him at the moment. So he fell back on the only person he could think of. Tristan went to go find Conni.
It took almost half an hour to find the mine foreman mostly due to him helping Grace distribute food to the Soldiers. Conni was cooking fish in a broth or oil of some kind. Tristan was not aware the man could cook. Maybe he couldn’t as he was using his hands to remove the cooked fish, something that Tristan wasn’t aware a fire kern allowed. Water kerns were resistant to boiling water, however a fire kern was not. Despite this, flames would not burn a person with a fire kern despite being much hotter than the boiling water. Tristan could only mentally shrug, forces must interact differently with an anima than a kern.
Grace was making a soup mostly out of vegetables. The pot was enormous, probably weighing three or four hundred pounds by itself. She was tier zero and the strain of stirring such a large pot seemed to be wearing on her. He also noticed that she had all her skin covered, it had never crossed his mind that she would be self-conscious about her appearance.
“Here, let me take a turn,” Tristan stepped up and took the ladle from Grace.
She took a step back and huffed, “Thank you, make sure to drag the paddle along the bottom to stop what’s on the bottom from burning.”
A paddle? Tristan supposed it would be difficult to find a ladle sized for this cauldron. He took a position beside Conni and stirred the pot. When he looked over he found Conni giving him a disapproving expression.
“What?” Tristan hadn’t done anything wrong as far as he was aware.
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Conni pointed to a bucket of water, “You’re disgusting, go wash your hands,”
Tristan looked at his hands crusted in red up to his elbows. Carefully he released the paddle so as not to let any flakes fall into the stew. He went and plunged his hands into the water. It was not clean, but it was also not filled with blood. It took more time than he expected to get it all off of him, but soon enough he was back at the cauldron.
Conni smiled at him this time, “How are you doing?”
Tristan shrugged, “I don’t know. How about you?”
Conni scooped some soup up with a wooden bowl and placed a fish fillet on top before passing it off to the next man in line, “I am fine, remember where I was raised. An elemental lord was not a common occurrence, but it was not so rare that I haven’t known people who lived through it.”
“Did any of them win?” Tristan asked, he had asked how Conni was doing more out of politeness.
“Yes, the sects can become quite powerful, especially the martial ones,” Conni said, “Elemental lords never win in the end.”
“How so,” In Tristan’s opinion, the Lord of the Underworld was making a fine mockery of the Caldera.
Conni passed out the next plate, “Simple, they expand too far. Eventually, they pick a fight with someone or something that kills them off. So long as you survive long enough to be integrated by whoever kills it, you should be fine.”
That sounded less than desirable. Tristan did not want to be drafted into the invasion force for a leader who would one day bite off more than it could chew. Though there was only one relevant target, the group of people a few hundred miles to the north. They had odd kerns, so maybe they could pull off a victory.
“How do you keep control?“ Tristan asked, at Conni’s quirked eyebrow he explained, “I just killed a lot of people, I did not enjoy it, but it was not the horrifying experience that I thought it would be. I had to be talked out of killing another dozen and I was mad about it.”
Conni frowned, “This is not something that I grew up thinking about. Despite the rampart being full of conflict, the average person here is not used to killing. I keep control because this is something that I have built up a tolerance for. You already have a partial tolerance, all the tier twos who did anything against the ghost crabs do.”
Tristan took a moment to look at the people who were receiving Conni and Grace’s food. There were no tables, so they sat on the ground. Most stared blankly at their food and the ones who did eat did so with shaking hands. No not all of them. A few simply looked vacant but were operating normally otherwise and one tier three warrior acted like it was simply another day on the job.
Was he simply not acclimatized to war? Did he want to be? Tristan did not think it was a positive to be used to taking another’s life. It would be a fast way for him to become a monster like Hadrid.
“If I don’t want the veggies, can I have two fish?” A hiss followed, “Make that three fish.”
Tristan turned to find Luke. He had had bloodied knuckles but was fine aside from that. Fluffy was standing with her hind legs on his shoulder and forelegs on his head. Currently, it looked like the golize was contemplating jumping into the pan after the fish.
“Sure, you were the one to stop the second in command, correct,” Conni stacked a few fish inside a bowl.
“Eh,” Luke made a so-so gesture, “He sucked, whenever I asked about his boss he gave me some stupid excuse about how he was collecting a second army.”
“There aren’t enough people left in the Caldera for a second army,” Tristan frowned. Tier zeroes did not create elementals or artifacts. While they had the essence to power artifacts, it was not enough to produce external effects or manifest anything upon death.
“I know right,” Luke said around a mouthful of fish. He did not bother removing any of the little bones, opting to simply swallow them whole, “Anyway he yelled about how this was only half the army of elementals, then I punched his face in. The ugly gauntlet works great, by the way.”
Tristan had a bad feeling about what Luke said, but he could not place why. Having an unaccounted for conglomeration of three tier six elementals running around would unsettle anyone. However, the Lord of the Underworld’s normal activity was to crush with overwhelming force. The next back and forth between Conni and Luke jogged one of his memories.
“It’s not like there is another mine full of elementals to free,” Luke scoffed at the elemental lord he killed.
“Not only that, some would have to be from different planes to create elemental lords from their elementals,” Conni said, “I don’t see where he could acquire such a large number of extra-plainar beings, at least I don’t see how he could locally.”
It was not from his memory, but Hailey’s. The Flying Fortress split in half. One side hitting near the edge of the flat top of the mountain. The other punching into the water table and creating a spring.
Tristan turned to the Lake Caldera, “I know exactly where to find another mine.”