Tristan miscalculated how fast large objects could rise through water. The gravity powered flame was not even half charged when the surface of the lake bulged. He had never seen water mound around anything, but seeing it on such a massive scale was awe-inspiring.
Their net was off-center, but the fortress was large enough that three of the four boats were still lifted into the air. Dane almost fell out as his boat tipped to the side with the net as it was lifted into the air. Something was off, Tristan narrowed his eyes, they were rising, but despite the pressure from below, the net had not dipped below the water.
A hard object crunched into the bottom of Frank’s boat, buckling everyone to the floor. Everyone but Dane’s boat had something similar happen. As Tristan climbed back to his feet to the sound of cascading water, he surveyed the damage their plan had created.
Nothing. Not a single elemental had been hit by the net. They had considered that the Lord of the Underworld should have the ability to control the metal net, but that he would still be suffering from injuries. Handling both the fortress and the net should be beyond him. Instead of the Lord of the Underworld keeping his minions safe with his power, he had kept them safe with common sense. The elementals were inside the fortress.
Tristan hesitantly hopped off the damaged boat and onto the pitted surface of the back half of the fortress. The floating island of steel looked nothing like a fortress. Mud and lake floor plants covered the structure. Tristan tried to remember what it looked like in its undamaged state, but he had never seen the exterior. He did suppose an air born fortress would look different than a standard fortress by the necessity of a three dimensional environment.
Still, he had expected something more than a large dirty cylinder with short metal bars jutting off to the side. The whole thing was also smaller than he first thought. It was approximately six hundred feet long, but only one hundred fifty wide. It was narrow enough that Tristan could see a quarter of it clearly within his metal sense.
The interior was hollow, a spiked shaft ran down the center with a ring at the end he could sense. All of it was contained within its own pipe. Walls extended off the exterior of that pipe, and metal furniture was bolted to the exterior of the fort. Tristan was actually standing right over a desk, if the shell of the fort was clear he would be looking at its underside.
He frowned the spiked rod looked like a screw with a reversed plane overlayed on top of it. As no enemies were clawing their way out of the hull, Tristan made a small replica of it and the ring surrounding it. He dragged the ring up and the rod spun. It was a screw, but with how it was anchored that meant that it would force the whole structure to spin.
Tristan was no expert on fortresses, but spinning seemed to be a terrible method of defense. Though when fighting gods material strength might not be a consideration. Experiment over, he tossed the construct aside and moved over to where Siren was dragging Dane’s boat up onto land. Siren had the advantage of stone gauntlets to resist the wire.
Once everyone was collected, Tristan started making a construct between his palms as he talked. He ignored the half step back many of the tier fours took, “The portion I was able to inspect is not the part that the Lord of the Underworld is in. This is set up similarly to the tower, back at the mine only on its side,” The central pillar was formed and the individual rooms were created, “These are rooms or barracks of some sort. The entrances between them are located to give a person standing on the interior of the outer shell easy passage.”
All the warriors realized the danger. The individual rooms were formed like a slice of a pie. On the bottom that gave them plenty of room to move, on the top they would be standing at the point of the said pie. A well placed attack could kill everyone in a room like that.
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“There is a bolt in the center that can rotate the whole structure,” Tristan gestured to the central pillar, “This may work to spin it, but I feel that the heaviest side will always face down.”
His original concern was the Lord of the Underworld simply spinning them off the fort. However, the elemental was not strong enough to lift the whole fort, so he believed spinning was most likely off the table. Fortunately, most of the people here were also at the mine, so they did not question him. Luke chipped in with his observation of the interior's toxicity.
Siren summarized the information, “So you are saying that we need to fight our way through an environment with a poisonous atmosphere while walking across a material that our enemy has control over?”
“As awesome as that sounds, I would suggest simply ripping patches used to make this thing airtight,” Luke said, “This tube is not nearly large enough to have created the lake, so if this end is not a patch, the other should be.”
Siren met Tristan’s eyes, “Keep a construct map of the interior growing, and let me know when you find our target.”
Tristan nodded. He stayed right beside Siren so the warrior could see the structure right below them. All of it was tower steel, which was insane. If there was still a functioning economy they would be the richest people in the caldera. A piece caught his attention, there was a piece that lacked the essence signature of tower steel.
He pointed to the area, “That spot is made of normal copper.”
A copper plate was welded to the exterior of the fort in one of the few mud-free areas. It was not a large area, but that was comparative, the group could fit through one at a time. That was good news, a copper patch meant the Lord of the Underworld was unable to control the metal of the fortress. Otherwise he would have used the plentiful and superior tower steel for the patch. Tristan was happy that he did not have to look forward to the floor deforming into spikes.
“If we need to go in this looks like as good of a spot as any,” Merrick commented.
“It would be better to pop the cork off this bottle than to fight our way through it,” Luke shrugged, “But you know I would prefer your way.”
Tristan knelt and touched the plate. Something was off. Yes it was a metal plate, and thus it had metal essence, that was normal. What was abnormal was the sheer volume of essence. If he didn’t know better he would believe this was a tier one artifact. There was one way he could test it.
Tentatively he gathered some infusion alloy and some consumption alloy. After kneading them together he pushed them out of his body and into the plate. Consumption tore into the unexplained essence, it was quick to deposit the processed metal essence into Tristan's palm. The foreign essence recoiled from the consumption alloy. Tristan had never seen a domain in action, but if he had to use his essence to control it this is how he believed it would work.
“Everyone, prepare to run!” Tristan yelled though he was not sure where they would go.
He should have known that a tier six elemental would have a larger metal sense than he did. At tier six Tristans would be able to sense around three hundred fifty feet in every direction. More than enough to monitor the whole structure.
“What are you talking about?” Merrick asked.
“Where?” All the elites asked.
The metal essence threw itself forward and forced the whole fortress started to spin. It was not rapid at first. At tier four it would take a good amount of time to build up to that speed. The problem was the net. The Lord of the Underworld pulled it into the water and forced the giant poison coated razor net into a position to catch anyone who fell.
Tristan pointed up, “That way.”
Kale gave a half smile, “Good thing I got my leg healed.”
“Did you know the nobles of the Numitor Empire kept little rodents as pets? You claim to be here to end my life, yet you still run like hamsters.” The smug tone was infuriating, but the elemental lord was not wrong. They were running, and they could not stop.
“I’m going in and putting my fist through that jerk smug face,” Luke said, “I don’t know about you people, but I am going inside.”
Tristan knew that Luke could purify the air so it was not entirely suicidal, “Good, I’ll get the plate off.”
Kerri squeaked his protest, while Tristan busied himself creating a large spiked hammer. It was heavy, well over a hundred pounds. His goal was simple, break the weld. Two rotations later, Tristan brought the tool down as hard as he could. Copper was not known for its strength, and that was shown as it crumpled around the hammer’s head.
Luke jumped in immediately. Tristan followed him in on the next rotation to find Luke shoving Hestia’s Sickle through an elemental’s head.