The interior of the building Tristan had climbed into was lit exclusively by the balcony he had climbed through. While that was currently providing enough light, it would fail to do so one room farther in. Vulcan could produce light without draining any of his essence just by the nature of the form he had, but it would be little better than a torch.

He examined the room, expecting to find signs of what had happened to the people. Instead, he found two wooden rocking chairs with a table between them. Tristan could imagine an elderly couple watching the sunset from this balcony. That was probably an extreme luxury in a city like this. A tea set sat on the table, made of a delicate stone so fine that Tristan believed that it had to be a construct made from earth essence.

Just beyond the rocking chairs was a bar. Bottles of strange design sat on racks. Tristan could recognize wine, even if it was stored in rectangular glass bottles as opposed to cylindrical ones. Walking over he picked up a bottle, he was not a wine connoisseur, but if the label had an aging date on it, Tristan might get a time frame to work with. Well at least within a hundred years.

There was a label, but he couldn’t read it. He scanned it, looking for numbers, and was relieved when he found some familiar characters. Something 4, 2435 followed by a two character abbreviation. Tristan tried to understand what he was looking at, it was probably foolish to assume that this place would use the same dating method as the Caldera.

“Monsoon 4, 2435 PI,” Vulcan translated.

“You can read this?” Tristan asked, “I thought you spoke the same language as the Caldera.”

“The Caldera spoke a common trade dialect, but I couldn’t read your writing. The volunteers, Numitor technicians, and sect cultists all could speak that dialect, but it has no written form. Your writing is a bastardization of three different languages with several centuries of linguistic drift to make it harder on everyone who wants to translate it,” Vulcan explained, “You did not even have any legends around to anchor your language.”

Tristan knew that people tended to live longer the higher they rose in tier, though he was unaware of what the theoretical limit was or how it scaled. A tier three would not live three times as long as a tier zero, they would make it to eighty or so instead of the standard sixty. He had not considered how the lifespan of the powerful could affect things as simple as language.

“How long ago was 2435 PI?” Tristan had no idea what the number was counting from. He was not even sure if this culture’s years were counted up or down.

“I’m not sure, exactly, remember, I was trapped underground for quite some time,” Vulcan said, “However we arrived in this city in the eighteenth century.”

Tristan wondered how the Caldera’s history and this nation’s could overlap for nearly six hundred years without coming into contact. They were quite some distance apart, maybe too far in mythical beast infested wilderness for trade to be feasible. Still, Tristan was sure that there was some use in a friendly neighbor. Maybe they weren’t good neighbors, Vulcan did say they judged others based on their finances.

The bottle gave conclusive evidence that this city had been populated as recently as the twenty-fifth century. Tristan knew that the caldera had been around for at least eight hundred years. So this city had most likely been empty for quite some time. The thick layer of dust seemed to affirm that it had been a long time.

After searching the room and finding nothing else of interest, Tristan continued deeper into the bowels of the city. There was only one exit to this room and no door. Tristan was not familiar with subterranean architecture, but he would have assumed that doors would have been useful to keep the cold winters out. The door might have rotted away, but the chairs were still present and unrotten.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Stepping in, Tristan found a dining room with a long table that sat eight people. Dishes were set with the last remnants of dinner still atop them. Tristan could only tell due to the dry drumstick bones and a few dried seeds that he couldn’t identify. The people were either slobs or had not had time to clean up after themselves before disappearing.

A hallway exited off either side of the room. One only had a single door, while the other had several doors lining it. Tristan explored the hallway with doors first. There were four of them and all ended up being fairly nondescript bedrooms. The fabric on the beds was most likely a good weave and very comfortable, but it had stiffened with the passage of time.

There were also clothes in the closets. Everyone who lived in this household was at least a head shorter than Tristan, judging by the length of the robes. So far, looting an extinct civilization had not turned up much. Tristan realized that there was probably a moral issue with grave robbery, but he had looted a bunch of essence reservoirs off of Hadrid’s men and that had not particularly bothered him. Tristan paused at that thought, he probably needed help.

Whatever. Finding nothing, Tristan finally asked Vulcan, “What am I looking for?”

Vulcan shrugged, “Don’t know. I am aware that this nation had a finance based social system, but I am not aware of what they bartered. Most people use platinum, gold, silver, and jewelry. I also don’t know if the government would have confiscated anything you would have wanted. They were eager to please when I showed up, so they would have told me what I wanted to hear, as opposed to the truth.”

Tristan laughed at that, “Who would be afraid of you?”

“Tristan, you do realize that at full strength I have more firepower than Viral showed off when attacking the Caldera. Being strong comes with a price, you’re always holding a metaphorical blade to everybody’s neck. You can promise never to chop their heads off, but that doesn’t mean the sword isn’t still there,” Vulcan’s voice had a tinge of sadness, “It’s something that no one tells you until everyone is already afraid.”

That had been Tristan’s experience. At tier zero, people treated him terribly. At tiers one and two, people were less picky about him being a silver devil. When he crossed the tier three threshold, people started getting wary. Tristan had assumed it was respect, after all, he had gotten there through his own effort and that was respectable. However, maybe it was fear, he knew for a fact that no one was willing to get on his bad side unless Siren was there to reign him in, or they cared for him independently of his tier. Eve, Kale, and Conni had not demonstrated fear, and Tristan had not always accepted their criticism, but they had actually cared.

The memory he took from Vulcan was similar. A relatable, fun loving man was excited to meet his uncle, and his servant was terrified. Ailinn, his wife, was the only one who saw him for what he was and not the death he could deal. There was also a slight chance that Ailinn was at a similar tier, but Tristan did not intend to bring up any memories of what Vulcan had lost by asking.

“Don’t worry, I don’t think you’re holding a sword to my neck,” Tristan paused to let Vulcan respond.

“Thank you for the thought,” Vulcan said uncertainly.

“No problem, after all, you don’t have hands,” Tristan smiled as he walked through the dining room to the opposite hallway.

There was a brief pause, “You’re a jerk, you know that, right?”

Tristan only nodded as he opened the door at the end of the hallway. Then jumped back at the elemental that sat directly on the other side. Tristan instinctively struck out, hitting the opposite wall with his knuckles. He missed, mostly due to an assumption. Tristan had thought the elemental was aggressive, thus he struck where it would have been had it attacked.

Breathing a little heavily from the surprise Tristan took a moment to inspect the elemental. It was a fire elemental, and it was simply sitting cross-legged in the exit. The door out of the hallway led to another hallway lined with doors similar to the one he wanted to exit through. Each had a number, but no other identifying characteristics.

The elemental cocked its head and raised a hand. It was holding a scorched object that took Tristan a moment to identify. A toy cart, made of stone, which had been blackened by however long the elemental had been holding it. Tristan frowned, wondering if he should take the toy.

“That is from a child,” Vulcan sighed.

That made up Tristan’s mind. Elementals were not violent by nature, hearing this one was a child made it even more likely to be passive. The fact that a kid had made an elemental meant that he or she was likely only twelve of thirteen upon death. He took the toy from the fire elemental, his force empowered hands had no issues resisting the heat.

The elemental gave what Tristan could only call a smile, then dissipated into essence. Its heart dissolved and the bones and vessels followed shortly after.

“He probably was worried about a toy he borrowed when he died,” Vulcan said.

Tristan clenched his fists, he needed to find out what happened here.