Tristan wiped sweat off his face. It was freakishly hot today, and he was supposed to stand rigidly in a line with two other people, in front of a block of around three hundred fifty warriors, who were themselves in front of a less organized six thousand people. Another two crowds surrounded the stage that the Caldera’s leaders were standing on. Most of those people were the families and civilians who weren’t allowed to fight. Tristan was surprised to see a few people he recognized.
Sun-set stood holding a young boy in her arms. The child was tiny, less than a year old. Grace was standing next to Sun-set smiling down at the child. Both Chase and Conni were absent, Tristan assumed that they were in the army behind the warriors. All told, nearly ten thousand people stood here, a full two-thirds of all adults left in the Caldera.
To Tristan, it appeared to be a large number of people, but in truth, it was less than a fifth of the people originally living in the Caldea a year ago. It was odd, Tristan was one of the very few people who lost none of his immediate family to all the disasters that had arrived. He had taken risks to keep it that way, but he was fortunate.
Eve stepped up onto the stage, flanked by Commander Blacklake and Siren. Kerri and Merrick followed like some kind of honor guard. Both of them were wearing the standard navy blue and gold. Blacklake had a mix of copper and brown for the Lake Caldera. Siren was in a sleeker version of his black armor and silver chain mail showed at the joints, giving it a striking appearance.
It had only been a day, so Blacklake still had crutches. Eve had a large bandage wrapped around her abdomen. Tristan suspected that the bandage was for publicity, as it would have been easy enough for her to put something on over it. That was a tactic used by Shadow Fist, he would exaggerate an injury while downplaying the valor of taking it in the first place. It let him look both humble and brave at the same time. Tristan hoped Eve was not playing that game, it was dishonest, and that would mean this conflict had broken her.
Eve took center stage, she looked around the crowd. She seemed uncomfortable but took a deep breath. Drawing a knife with an essence reservoir in the handle, she placed the pommel to her lips. Tristan recognized the artifact, it was one of the ones that he had termed interesting, but useless. Interesting because it used sound essence, it did not seem to be a naturally occurring essence type, and useless because it made any action taken with the weapon louder. When sneaking, every light footstep would sound like a stomp. It amplified the sound of cutting, which was mildly nauseating when Tristan’s perception was high enough to tell exactly which layer of skin the edge passed through.
Politicians figure out how to use every resource, as this tool also amplified speech. Eve tapped the reservoir a few times as if testing the device. When she was satisfied, she started talking. To Tristan it was loud, but he was also in the very front, looking up at those on the stage.
“Good day, defenders of the Caldera,” Eve started, “While we have endured against impossible odds, we must honor those who gave their all to save us.” She paused for a moment and looked down, before bringing her eyes back up to the crowd once again. “Elder Lake perished in the battle at the hands of elemental lord Custodian.”
She paused to let a murmur run through the crowd. Tristan was not sure why the elder was on the field at all. He was weak, even though he was tier three. It was a bad combination of importance and vulnerability in a hostile environment. Custodian would have been a fool to pass such a soft target up. Tristan wondered if that was something Blacklake set up to get rid of the greedy man.
“His next of kin also died in the first skirmish. The River Caldera will assist until a new Elder can be raised. Those who live here will not go hungry and they will not be left defenseless in the event of another calamity.” While her voice rang true and clear Tristan thought he saw her wince as she took another deep breath.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“There are many brave and valiant fighters to whom we owe our lives…but we must stay vigilant. An elemental lord in service to the lord of the underworld escaped after his ruler was destroyed.”
That took everyone’s mind off the lack of a leader. Elemental lords would be the boogeymen for the next few generations, and one being at large was the common man’s worst nightmare.
“This one is dangerous, but it ran from our warriors after they had already been injured. If it shows its face, we will kill it,” Eve said, “If it chooses to flee, so what? If it chooses to fight, we kill it. We have already won the war - Kerri struck the final blow that killed the Lord of the underworld.” Eve kept her eyes facing the crowd, but Kerri couldn’t help but stand a little straighter and even step ever so slightly closer to her as applause erupted from the crowd.
Luke muttered to Tristan, “Cocky bastard. He’d still be on the bottom of the lake if we hadn’t done all the work.” Tristan resisted a chuckle. After thinking of Kerri as lazy for the longest time, Tristan was glad he could hold his own. He knew that being able to fight was not a good measure of a person, but it did mean that all that time he had spent in the River Caldera might not have been by choice. Tristan could not be sure, but he would not be surprised if the overprotective nature of Elder River had something to do with the situation. He was still an arrogant narcissist and Tristan would not mind if Kerri kept his mouth shut forever.
Once the cheering settled, Eve continued,
“Custodian is dead by the hand of Siren. The remaining elementals are afraid of us - remember this day, for we have won!” Eve smiled as the crowd roared.
“It is important that we recognize those whose acts of valor sealed our victory.” Eve said, “Ellen, please come forward.” As Ellen walked forward, Eve shared her part, “Ellen was at one of the breach points on the trench. Instead of pulling back into a shield wall, she jumped into the trench and tackled an elemental making the breach possible. As a tier one, it was an impressive feat and it saved at least two dozen lives.”
A medal was placed around her neck and Ellen was sent on her way. Tristan used his metal sense to see what the material was. He was surprised to find that it was tower steel. Had they used the Fortress to make medals? Well, they had only a day to make these, and that was a source large enough to give everyone a medal.
Eve called up the next person, another soldier who fought through two elementals to get an injured warrior to the healing tent. That was more impressive than it sounded. Tristan knew tier zeros did not hold up well against elementals. After the tenth person was called up, Tristan started to zone out. It was not that he did not value these people’s contributions. He simply did not know them and he was still exhausted from yesterday’s battle, he would rather be taking a nap right now.
He did refocus when names he knew were called up. Grace and Conni were called up for cooking food. They had used their downtime to do it and were the main reason the left wing of the army was not fighting hungry in the second battle. Drew, the smith, was called up for repairing a stolen cannon in time to be used against the Forest Caldera.
The person who took Tristan by surprise was Olfred. He had not thought much about him, but the tier two brute would have done well for himself here. He got a reward for discovering that fire elementals could be used to harm their allies by throwing flammable bottles filled with alcohol at them. It was a very Olfred like discovery.
The sun was starting to dip towards the horizon, though that hardly mattered nowadays. With the light in the east, that half of the sky was always lit up, and there was so much light pollution that the stars were no longer visible. Tristan had been so busy recently that he had pushed it out of his mind, but Vulcan had asked him if it was getting closer when he wondered if he should be concerned. It was definitely getting closer.
Tristan inspected Vulcan again. He should be getting close to completely healing. The metal essence was refilling at a trickle, and it would be a good while before that essence was completely refilled. There was still a tinge of gold in the fire essence. It would take a large amount of flame to deplete that side of his kern. Though fire was easier to throw out in large quantities than metal.
He was pulled out of his thoughts when Eve called up Jenna. People clapped when they noted how she fought the Lord of the Underworld. Luke was up next. He stuck his tongue out at Kerri and got a scowl from both Blacklake and Kerri for it. Tristan was just glad that Luke did not cause any problems, contenting himself to walking around with Fluffy. He did give the medal to the lizard as soon as he was off stage.
“Tristan,” Eve gave an apologetic smile, when Tristan was on stage she whispered low enough that the artifact amplification wouldn’t carry her voice, “We can’t let people know that you raised the tiers of the elite, despite that being the reason we won.” Tristan was glad. An outsider might view it as a good thing, and maybe it was, but he still felt guilty about it. Eve raised her voice again, “He fought with the elites and was one of the three that was responsible for killing the Lord of the Underworld.”
Polite clapping. Everyone else was just as tired as Tristan was. Maybe more so, he had a healing alloy that let him recover faster. He left the stage and Eve recognized the people on stage as well.
“Now for the best part about victory, the feast!” Eve smiled at how the word ‘feast’ perked the whole crowd up, “Yes, there will be a feast, starting as soon as the sun sets. It will be outside the Lake Caldera’s walls. Eat, drink, be merry, and tomorrow we will rebuild!”
Tristan was happy for food, but the kid in him being trained to take the title of Elder Forest knew. It was winter, they should be saving their food until harvest, but with how few people there were a feast was hardly an expense.