“Do we just walk in?” Tristan asked.
He was uncertain of the wisdom of marching deeper into the fortress while leaving elementals at their back. Assuming that they had killed half of them, there should still be nearly forty left. Tristan was not confident in fighting the Lord of the Underworld and an army of minions at the same time.
If the numbers remained consistent, there were enough brain elementals and anima elementals to make another thirteen to fifteen elemental lords. It might be more important for them to kill the materials for more lords than kill the Lord of the Underworld. Thirteen elemental lords might be more dangerous than a single Lord of the Underworld, depending on the tiers in question.
Siren shook his head, “Of course not, we’re only cutting our way through this vessel because he tried to knock us off it. We kill everything between us and him, then we kill him.”
Luke smiled, “It's sentences like that that make me like you. Finished purifying the next room, the elementals are all dead.”
Just like the first room Cole and Grant stepped through with their heavy armor. Nothing attacked them. Siren and Tristan entered next, but it was just as silent. Herod entered and shed some light on the room. Perforated scraps of dissipating essence were thrown against the walls. The stone from the earth elemental’s body had already dissolved, making it look like the air elementals had just decided to spontaneously die.
Nearly twenty elementals died in a single strike. Tristan almost wished they had saved some of the earth elementals to throw into the following rooms. The massacre gave them a break while Luke cleared out the next room. While they waited, Tristan went around with Regis’s amulet.
He had repurposed it to heal instead of flood fire essence into the target. Tristan could have utilized a tier seven add on to his kern, but Vulcan already did that better than all of the essence reservoirs put together. Healing alloy was simply too valuable to pass up. His heart constantly infusing his blood with the growth force gave him a steady supply to feed to the amulet, and neatly sidestepped the issue of his heart causing cancerous growths in random locations.
Kale was the first he approached, his head wound was not fatal, but it was unwise to leave head wounds unattended. Reversing the input and output, Tristan placed the amulet against Kale’s skull.
He jumped at the surprise contact, “Oh, I had forgotten, you could heal. Not a very metal ability.”
“Actually both forces can be found in metal, though it is very uncommon,” Tristan said. Kale most likely did not care, but Tristan was trying to keep both himself and everyone else from thinking too deeply about where they were in this break. Surrounded by bodies, in an enemy fortress, floating across a lake, with an undead king waiting to kill them at the end of the road.
“Oh?” Kale asked.
“The healing force is a compound of growth and architect. Architect can also be called image and dark is the only element that completely lacks it. I was also surprised to find bismuth has growth, don’t ask me why, but the metal is good for growing something,” Tristan watched carefully as the head wound stopped bleeding, before scarring over.
He moved on to Kerri, the rock embedded in his leg had already dissipated into essence. It left behind a jagged hole a half-inch deep. As far as wounds went, it was minor. No major arteries had been hit and the muscle had not been disabled, all it did was cause pain. Tristan and Kerri stared each other down for a brief moment and he was worried that the man would refuse to be healed.
That might have been the case if not for Jenna, “You’re both big strong men, now stop sniffing each other's butts. I want my shoulder fixed.”
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Kerri blushed at her words and hesitantly pushed aside the taste that was protecting that thigh. The rock had hit the ground and somehow ricocheted back up between the layers of protection. It was not something that could be exploited in a fight, but it was also something that Tristan needed to be mindful of. Mythical beast leather was good but it was not impervious.
Tristan moved around the room putting the whole team back together. Despite it being a tier seven reservoir it was nearly exhausted by the injuries present. None were life threatening, but healing was not efficient in much the same way that building something took more effort than tearing it down.
“Next room is good,” Luke said, he frowned, “I think it's empty.”
“Why?” Siren asked.
Luke shrugged, “I am the wrong person to ask about that.”
Tristan extended and focused his metal sense on the next room. He did not expect to feel anything, not unless the elementals were equipped with metal tools. Herod entered and the room was indeed empty, however, when Luke to the next doorway, his sense extended to their destination. He picked up three things, but only one was expected.
“Uh, I found the Lord of the Underworld,” Tristan said,” He’s where we expected him to be, but he has two other metal elementals with him.”
Siren’s head snapped around, “Tier?”
“About a third as much essence as the Lord of the Underworld has,” Tristan did some quick math, “That would be about tier three.”
He couldn’t get an exact shape, but they were upright. Meaning they were looking at skeletal or anima based elementals. Tristan hoped they were anima elementals, they might be tougher, but they wouldn’t be able to fuse into an elemental lord. Regardless they would be made out of metal essence, making them effectively mobile suits of armor.
Kerri shrugged, “I beat you pretty easily, how hard could elemental you be?“
Tristan considered ignoring him, but the information would genuinely help the group, “No, I have a kern, they will most likely be anima based. That means they should be just as strong as earth elementals, though with better armor, and slower healing. Metal essence is not plentiful in most environments as it does not leak energy as quickly as other materials. No brain elementals, aside from the Lord of the Underworld will also reduce their relative impact. On the off chance a metal skeletal elemental is found, it should be fused into an elemental lord, in that case, expect armor and weapons.”
“So an elemental lord with a metal kern is just you,” Luke teased.
Tristan shook his head, “No, it's nothing like me.”
They made their way to the end of the fortress. It took quite some time as Luke needed to purify the air in every compartment. The spinning of the fortress started to slow, their enemy needed his focus. Tristan took that as a good sign, if the Lord of the Underworld needed all its focus, then they had a chance.
The slowing rapidly made it harder to work. Their section of the fort had everyone, elementals, and humans on it, making it heavier. The floor stayed the floor after everything halted, but the last few ponderous rotations forced them to hold onto the desks. Just because the spinning stopped did not mean that the fortress had halted. It still bobbed through the water like a cork.
They stopped before the last door. This one had a piece of copper keeping the compartment separate. Luke, Merrick, and Cole started preparing their weapon. A sphere of stone and ice was filled with air. It was not dissimilar to the hollowed out earth elemental, simply more intentional.
Tristan had a theory. The Lord of the Underworld had kept the elementals separated by essence to take advantage of the power the brains gave to their fellow elementals. A water elemental domain would negate most of a flame elemental’s advantages. On further thought, were there any fire elementals? Living for centuries at the bottom of a lake would probably kill them. Dark elementals weren’t common, so did the Lord of the Underworld already lose most of his minions?
Most was not good enough. The Lord of the Underworld only needed a handful to cement his hold on the caldera. They would effectively become the new elders and no one would ever be free again. The downside of an undead king, waiting them out was not an option.
“Everyone ready?” Siren asked.
After getting a round of nods, Tristan stepped forward with his oversized pick. It took two swings to punch through the plate, Siren and Grant grabbed Vulcan and heaved. With the sound of twisting metal, the copper plate was torn off the wall. Immediately Luke heaved the ball of stone and ice into the the room before quickly throwing a lightning bolt after it.
Tristan slammed the copper plate back into place. Half a second later an explosion went off, the pressure wave nearly threw Tristan off his feet. Siren braced him and Grant held the plate steady. Once the pinging of ice and stone stopped, they removed the plate once again.
It was still dark inside, but Tristan started charging a gravity blast. There was no way that explosive killed the Lord of the Underworld, Tristan would have survived so there was no way it would kill the high tier undead. A light lit up the far end of the room, showing a line where the explosion simply stopped and revealing three figures.
“An impolite way to make an entrance to someone’s home. Still, I am glad the last true resistance of the Caldera came to me.”
The Lord of the Underworld sat on a throne glaring down at them completely unharmed. On either side was an elemental lord, one had a metal anima, the other a metal kern. Both would be a problem.
“Welcome to my victory.”
As if two elemental lords weren’t enough, the fortress lurched as it hit something. With a pulse of metal essence, the cap that kept the water out was crushed into something like a ramp. They had just made it to shore.