Nearly a ton and a half of weight came crashing down on Tristan, and more importantly, on the spear point. He felt the crunch as the broad head spear punched through the cracked armor of the bone sloth. A second one rattled the adamant spear shaft as the point went through the sloth’s back.
The crossbar that made up the wings of the spear was the only thing keeping the entire weight of two mythical beasts from crushing him. Blood dribbled out of the sloth’s fanged mouth, falling the foot and a half to land on Tristan’s face. For a moment, he thought it was dead, but it gasped a shuddering breath and hissed at Tristan.
Slowly, the bone sloth started sliding its good arm towards Tristan’s neck. It was going to attempt to take Tristan with it. While long arms are an advantage in most cases, they aren’t when one is stuck in a cramped space. The long arms of the sloth could not bend correctly to get the swordlike claws into the correct position. The beast crooned in frustration.
“Time to go to sleep,” Tristan said. An awl made from architect alloy fell into his free hand, the needle like tip glistened from the coating of decay alloy.
His arms were short enough to stab the sloth in the eye if he held the awl in a reverse grip. The beast tried to thrash, but the tortoise was still lying on the sloth for some reason. A hammer formed next, it was not the fastest kill Tristan had ever made, but it would be permanent. The decay softened the bone, making it easier to pound the point of the awl through. Eventually, the resistance gave out all altogether, the awl jerked as it got through the skull, depositing decay straight into the sloth’s brain.
The mythical beast shuddered one last time before stilling. Tristan sighed in relief, having some blood drip into his mouth when he did. Gagging, he tried to spit it out. He had survived. He had won, yes, it was mostly luck, but he had survived. Tristan started laughing as the relief washed over him.
“Spear,” Vulcan reminded.
What about the spear? Tristan thought as he looked at the weapon currently skewering the sloth. The shaft was starting to dissipate into silver smoke. He had forgotten that force construct could not stay manifested for long periods. He crawled out from beneath both beasts before the construct dissipated enough to drop them on his face.
Tristan rose to his feet unsteadily, the adrenaline rush leaving him feeling jittery. The tortoise lay atop the bone sloth, unmoving. Tristan summoned Vulcan and poked it.
“Eww, don’t use me to prod dead animals,” Vulcan complained.
Nothing. The tortoise did not twitch, it was actually dead. Tristan raised an eyebrow when he realized that the spear had gone through the sloth and still had enough length to punch through the tortoise’s belly. A stab should not have done much to a beast like this, not unless it hit something vital. Tristan did suppose that he might have gotten a heart shot on the tortoise. He was probably the only person to ever make a mythical beast shish kabob.
Looking around Tristan saw the two living tortoises hobbling around. The one with only two good legs was trying to shove itself towards the wall to presumably grab some food. Tristan was not sure if they ate the rocks or just spat them at people. Regardless, it would take a good twenty minutes to arrive at its current pace.
The other tortoise was limping along on its three good legs at a respectable pace. Its injured leg was only used to keep its balance if it started tipping. Every time it did, the beast would hiss in pain before continuing. Where was it going? Towards the blood metal.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Tristan muttered and started running over to the ore as well.
Tristan was tired, but he was mostly uninjured. He was already faster than the tortoise anyway, but with its injuries, he arrived well before it did. Drawing his knife he considered finishing off the tortoise. Without its charges, Tristan could put it down with relative ease if it did not tuck itself into its shell. However, he could just walk off with the ore at that point.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He glanced at the two dead tortoises and sighed. These creatures had done nothing wrong, their only crime was possessing something that he wanted. They were happy to be left alone. He sheathed his dagger and hefted the ore. Its ridiculous weight made him adjust his stance, but he was able to move with it in hand.
The tortoise started hissing as it frantically tried to push its body faster. It was not fast enough. All its injuries kept it from cutting Tristan off as he jogged out of the clearing and off into the night.
Looking down at the ore, Tristan muttered, “I hope you’re worth it.”
“Oh, it will be,” Vulcan said, “This is an ingredient even I struggled to get ahold of when I was an emperor. I ruled the better part of a continent and I still haven’t seen a piece of kharkodine like this before.”
Tristan inspected the fist sized piece of red ore. It faintly glowed and Tristan was struck by an odd thought. How could he sense this rock if it did not reflect his metal sense back at him? So he focused his metal sense down on the ore, he expected to get a response as he could clearly feel nothing. The absence of feeling was almost a feeling in itself. It was an odd sensation, almost as if a piece of his senses had been removed.
For the longest time, Tristan had assumed that his senses could not interpret anything not made of metal. This led to him knowing how large a suite of armor was, but not the size of the person wearing it. He could feel the iron in a person's blood, but not the blood carrying it. This led to a situation not too dissimilar to when an artist painted objects on a black canvas. Metal was the paint and everything else was black. This piece of kharkodine created something like a hole in the canvas, paint could go in, but nothing could stick. When the brush was retrieved the paint would still be on the bristles, he could tell something was there if he focused, but without Vulcan, there was a good chance he would have never noticed the anomaly.
“Ahem!” Vulcan spoke the word, as he lacked the throat to clear.
Tristan pulled his focus back, prepping for the backlash of using such focused metal sense. He almost staggered when the pain never arrived. Had the lack of stimuli protected him from the backlash? Tristan could see a lot of potential in that, especially for force based smithing.
“What’s the problem?” Tristan asked Vulcan. He could not see any threats or anything of real note.
“You just spaced out in the middle of a wide path, at night,” Vulcan sighed, “Are you trying to freeze to death? Inspect the kharkodine at your hideout.”
Tristan nodded at the rebuke and started towards his shelter. It was not a long jog, but when he arrived he found something disconcerting. The corpses of the wroughtwilers were all covered by a layer of snow. That was not the issue, the problem was apparent when Tristan looked at the trees. Long gouges were cut into the bark, too short to be a second sloth but also high enough off the ground to let Tristan know whatever this was, it was way bigger than a sloth.
Scorch marks covered the trees around Tristan’s hideout, burning the bark off the outside. It was all cooled by this point, but something very powerful had arrived while he was gone. He shuddered as he realized the sloth’s game of cat and mouse was probably the only reason he was alive.
“Vulcan, do you know what this is?” Tristan asked. The shredded and burned trees were awe inspiring. Regis had thrown around fire like this, but he was unable to generate the raw physical power that this beast could.
“Get a closer look at the cuts in that felled tree,” Vulcan drew his attention to a tree lying on the ground.
Tristan moved to inspect it, paused to drop the kharkodine into his hideout, and then went to inspect the tree. He did not want to risk whatever this was showing up and taking his ore. Kneeling, he ran his hand along the claw marks. Three parallel lines penetrated the plant’s bark, it was not that it cut through, it was more like an axe crushing the plant fibers and scooping out bark and wood alike.
Each claw was as wide as three fingers and set about a hand apart. This thing was big, at least the same size size of a bone sloth. The way trees were toppled also made Tristan think this creature was much bigger than even the tortoises.
“Get into the hideout,” Vulcan said, “If it is what it looks like, you will be spending the next few days in the outpost.”
Tristan did not argue. He did not climb down, he jumped, dragging the bolt hole closed behind him, “What is it?” Tristan asked as soon as he was safe.
“That had two of three markers of a dragon,” Vulcan said, “Fire, incredible physique, the only thing it lacked was flight, as the trees burned from the ground up. It started from the ground. I think your local drake gave you a visit.”