Kale looked at the drawing for a few minutes, he muttered to Luke while inspecting it, “If this is what I think it is, no it tastes awful, we would grind it up and use it as bait to draw the really dangerous mythical beasts to more convenient locations, or spike traps.”

“What do you think it is?” Tristan asked.

The others at the table could only see a poorly drawn picture with no context, so they were eager for an explanation. Kale did not keep them waiting, “judging by the picture is either a very poor rendition of a manticore or a very poor attempt at a ghost crab. However. from the term used to describe it like black plate, I assume it is a ghost crab.”

“What are those,” Tristan asked. He had heard the term manticore before, but he had never seen one. Most mythical beasts were far above his capability to handle.

“A manticore is a base tier five creature, but we have seen them as high as seven, they are rare and rarely travel alone. They have a human head lion body, feathered wings, and a scorpions tail. Their skills are a fear aura and poisonous tail, they are hard to kill, but they are manageable if you use your brain.” Kale paused to make sure everyone understood him before continuing, “The ghost crab is quite a bit weaker and more common, the highest we have seen is around tier three and our sample size is large enough to be sure it can’t go much higher. This one is less dangerous to soldiers, but vastly more problematic in population centers. Their life cycle consists of an egg, nymph, and the adult ghost crab.”

Tristan frowned, he was confused at why this was an existential crisis. It sounded like some poisoned prey would get rid of the manticore and if that failed a well trained team should be able to do the job. The ghost crab was even less of a problem, Siren could get rid of it by himself, he could most likely take on multiples if he was well armed.

That was until the ghost crab’s reproduction cycle was explained, “The ghost crab gets its name from this reproductive cycle, the stinger deposits an egg into the target. It parasitizes the host when it hatches. This is the nymph stage, it starts consuming the host, while making its way towards the heart. It will consume the heart and all organs in the chest cavity to give itself some space. Once it finishes purging the foreign essence from eating the heart, it builds itself a cocoon and goes through metamorphosis to repeat the process.”

The miners shuddered. Tristan could see why this thing would be so problematic, if it got loose in the Forest Caldera there would be almost ten thousand victims within easy reach. It also seemed that animals would be good hosts as well, so the flocks of sheep and goats would be targets as well. They would have to hope that Shadow Fist’s drawing was bad enough for it to be a manticore.

Chris cleared his throat, “Ghost crab, because it possesses its victims.”

Kale nodded, “yes, don’t worry though, they aren’t subtle, and they are stupid.”

Tristan rubbed his chin, “What weapons would be best against these things?”

The mine would be an excellent nest. It was a shelter and ranch land was a few miles away, the farms would have workers that would be able to take the eggs into the Forest Caldera. The farmland was also well irrigated and a pond was in the ranch land, so water was available as well.

Kale chuckled, “Well we are good in that department, a strong arm and a war pick, which is a lighter version of a pickax, will work. Don’t worry about the stinger, the egg it lays can be removed easily before it hatches. The front legs are also not made for slicing live flesh, they are saws to cut the more durable flesh of mythical beasts into bite sized pieces,” He nodded at Luke, “He’s right, it really is an oversized bug.”

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That put everyone’s mind at ease, the adults were dangerous, but so were elementals. The miners had to stress about tier seven elementals every day, so a tier two or three bug was actually not that big of a deal.

After finishing up their food Tristan and Luke went to go find the crew that had requested his help in the mine. It was one of the newer teams that was assembled around six months ago. There was the mandatory light and air kern, but the rest of the team were fire and dark which was an ominous combination, especially in a mine shaft.

Most of the people in the group, were jerks. The leader Olfred was not from the Forest Caldera, he was a criminal with a fire kern from the Grass Caldera. The crime he committed was calling Elder Grass a druggie and miming the elder sniffing actual cannabis. He would have just gotten whipped for it if the slander hadn’t been committed at Elder Grass’s second son’s wedding.

Tristan had no love for any of the Caldera elders. He was only alive because they could not get along with each other. However Olfred was truly an unpleasant person. He also had a tier two fire kern, weaker than Helen’s fire kern, but way above Tristan’s tier zero. He did not care what others thought about him and had an irritating way of talking.

“Hey, little devil,” Olfred yelled, “get over here and make us some money.”

Tristan held his tongue as provoking the man would only make him bear his presence longer. He walked to the end of the tunnel, he had done this dozens of times over the previous years. The range of his sense had not increased, though a large enough object could still be picked up from farther than thirty feet.

The detail of the sense had massively increased, he had a general idea of the size of the object if it was within his range. It was relative to the intensity of the sensation he got, the strange feeling of comfort he got was proportionate to the mass of the metal. However he had never felt what he was feeling now.

“What is this?” Tristan muttered to himself.

There was something enormous below him. Whatever it was, it was much, much larger than any building in the Caldera. Tristan would go so far as to call it a castle. He closed his eyes and then something down there moved. It was slight, but there was definitely some movement. His mind went though several different possibilities, both bad. There was either a some sort of metal creature below ground or a metal elemental noticed him. He had never heard of a metal elemental, but it sounded bad.

“What have you found, demon,” Olfred said. He had noticed Tristan’s body language and was getting exited. Tristan could understand why, the metal down there was enough to crash the market price and make them quite wealthy. Well Tristan would be as well with his cut.

“Maybe, I need to talk to Conni and Siren first,” Tristan said. He refused to just release a potentially invincible elemental on the miners.

“You found something, tell me,” Olfred growled, he grabbed Tristan by the arm to stop him, “You want to keep this to yourself don’t you.”

His team members grumbled unhappily, it seemed to give Olfred a confidence boost, “Your not leaving until you tell me what you found.”

Tristan removed a knife from his pocket. He would not hesitate in putting his razor sharp steak knife through the man’s femoral artery. Olfred had a fire kern and at tier two his blood would be hot enough to light flammable items like paper and give burns if Tristan got any on his body.

Fortunately for everyone involved, Luke intervened, he grabbed Olfred’s wrist and squeezed. Olfred cried out in pain as Luke ground the bones in his wrist together. Luke twisted the arm in a way that forced Olfred to his knees.

Olfred was larger, but was slightly shorter than Luke, but he still scowled at the older man, “Stop acting like a forty year old toddler, your whining is very irritating.”

Tristan was not going to let his friend fight his battles, “Luke let him go, I can handle him.”

Luke’s eyes flicked to Tristan’s hand, but he had already put the knife away. He shrugged and released Olfred, “ I think its time for us to start weapons.”

Olfred looked at Luke, not understanding the statement meant for Tristan. He shook his head, he did not care, he rose to his feet with a roar, if the a teenage kid wanted to mess with him, he would make him regret it. Despite the physical superiority that his tier two kern granted him, Olfred missed it when Tristan kicked him in the groin.

Luke started laughing, “Your nuts, man,” he said as the two of them went to meet with Conni, his laughing doubled, “So, with your kern, that means you have balls of steel!”

Tristan sighed and did his best to ignore his friend as he left to go find Siren.