After a dozen or so trees were felled, some kind of signal must have been sent out. A truly terrifying number of guard crabs swarmed over the central district of the Plains Caldera. Tristan felt that he might have gone overboard, but the sickly sweet smell of decay now covered the entire area.
Several plumes of dust rose from the sky, where buildings were destroyed by the guard crabs in an effort to save the tree crabs.
It did not matter, Tristan would not be sticking around to fight them. At least that was the plan. At first he had assumed that there were only a handful of these guard crabs. No, there were at least two hundred swarming over the district. All of them moving silently like ghosts as they scoured the area.
In hind sight it made sense that there would be this many. He had calculated that there would be around twenty thousand tier threes, which means that one or two percent of them had developed into either guard crabs or the tree variant.
Still the difference between two hundred and two was not that great when Tristan could not even fight one. His knives would probably still cut them, but they were too short to do anything more than leave a hairline slice in the armor. Tristan ground his teeth, he had not felt this helpless since he was pushed around by Elder Forest in the Forest Caldera.
He waited for the party of three guard crabs to round the corner before moving to the next awning. Tristan cut the bolt off the door and stepped inside, just as a lone crab crawled over the building he was currently in. It crossed the street and went up the opposite side’s buildings. He moved to the next building, looked for the tell tale metallic shine, and decided it was worth getting to the next building.
This one was on a corner at the intersection of two streets. Tristan sprinted across the street and found himself in front of a bank. It was made of thicker stone and Tristan hid behind one of the statues of a past elder. A crab scuttled past, and paused in front of the statue. Tristan did his best to stay still. At first he assumed it had spotted him, but it soon turned around and left the way it had come. Was it given orders by something?
Tristan was about to move forward, but his eyes landed on the bank. Most of the people from the Caldera were dead and the spoils would go to either Elder River or his uncle. Tristan decided he was alright with robbing them. He justified it by saying he could buy something from the alchemist with it. It would not even be difficult to pocket twenty or thirty talents.
He shrugged and entered the bank. Surprisingly, there was no tree inside this building. He assumed that no ghost crabs had been able to get in here, as the walls were very thick. The trees also did not look capable of feeding themselves, so the guard crabs would also need to be able to enter.
He made his way around the desks where the tellers once sat and headed for the vault. It was hidden, under the floor in a well disguised basement that resembled a stone bunker. However, building a room out of metal, then trying to hide it underground from Tristan was an exercise in futility. He made his way to the hidden stairs when he came across something odd. A trap door blended perfectly with the floor and in front of the trap door was a vault door.
It was made of metal, but only the door was metal. Tristan frowned and cut the hinges off the door. The bar was unable to hold the weight and it collapsed inward. Rows and rows of drawers occupied the interior, he cut the locks on a few and found hundreds of silver, copper, and steel parces. There were even fifty or sixty talents at the far back. Some drawers had names attached to them and contained letters, incriminating evidence, and objects with sentimental value.
This is what Tristan had expected in the vault below ground, but if this was the accessible vault, what was below ground. After pocketing the talents, he stepped out of the vault and headed below ground. Upon opening the trap door he was met with a second metal door with a combination lock set into its center. It was actually the only reason he had been able to find it.
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Sliding the sword breaker around the edge, he cut the the bolt, followed by the hinges. The metal door was supposed to be pulled up, but he let it fall down and slide down the stone steps. He winced at the crash it had made, but there was not much he could do about it now.
Tristan followed the door down and found an identical vault door. This vault was made entirely of metal. Tristan cut the hinges again and watched as this door fell as well. He looked down at his blade. These knives were way too good, he felt like Hadrid had given him a tier three artifact, not a tier one.
One look inside the vault told Tristan why this one was hidden. Random objects lined the wall. Some were weapons, some were tools, others were decoration, but all had one thing in common. They were all tier three artifacts. A handful of these were worth more than every parse upstairs. Anyone who got ahold of these would be able to instantly advance their tier and equip themselves for whatever task they wanted. Well anyone but Tristan. Not a single metal artifact was present.
That did not mean it was useless. He ran over to the jewelry section and started collecting all the light and water artifacts. Tristan placed a ring on every finger and draped a dozen necklaces around his neck. After he had taken all the jewelry he could he then moved on to the weapons. He could not carry very many, but he still strapped a belt full of light artifact daggers over his own belt. After grabbing a water artifact longsword and a light attribute spear he left.
Tristan could not use these, but Eve and Bruce could. If he could raise their tier to three with these, and equip them with appropriate weapons, his chances of survival would skyrocket. Also they could not be mad at him for keeping the talents. Tristan could only shake his head at the ridiculousness of the situation. Both Eve and Bruce would be given materials to get them to tier three by their families, so he really was not helping them out that much.
He was pretty satisfied with his haul. Striding to the door, he swung it open and saw the fist sized eye of a guard crab staring at him. Tristan slammed the door and sprinted for a window on the opposite side of the building. A blade like claw cut through the door, sending splinters and shrapnel everywhere. If he had moved any slower the claw would have gone through his head.
The window Tristan was aiming for turned out to be quite sturdy. That should have been expected on a bank, but it still took Tristan by surprise when he bounced off the window. The pane of glass flexed but it did not break. A groaning could be heard from the main entrance as the guard crab tried to force itself through the door way. Marble and stone cracked, but all that the crab managed was a few sparks from where its shell met stone.
Tristan cut the glass away and stepped outside. All of the running and dodging had put him fairly close to the elder’s mansion and he decided to get there in a final sprint. He only had to make it two streets and then he would be at the center of the city. There is a reason why slow and steady wins the race.
Tristan sprinted and picked up two tails almost immediately. Two large, extremely angry tails. Stealth went out the window as Tristan rattled down the street with all his valuable baggage. He stayed close to the building, which slowed the guards down. The decorative trees meant to give shade to pedestrians became obstacles.
A city built for people was a bad place for giant crabs to chase down a human. They smashed into trees, while the flexible trunks groaned and broke, the momentum that had been built up was exhausted. Tristan ducked inside what was likely a guiders home from all the teaching supplies, gutted the tree inside and ran out the back. A third guard crab saw him, but was distracted when the building Tristan came out of exploded in its face. The first two decimated the house, trying to kill Tristan, smashing straight through it and into the third crab.
The distraction was loud and was the he made it to the Elders home. Steel gates blocked his way, so he cut the lock and kept going. He saw a beautiful sight. Whoever Elder Plain was, he was at the very least, prideful. The mansion was well built, composed of thick marble and surrounded by pruned trees. The estate was very fancy, it had probably costed hundreds of talents, and the maintenance and staffing probably costed a few more every year.
Regardless the trees provided the cover he needed. Until he ran across a furrow in the ground with a dead guard crab at the end of it. Its shell was blackened and cracked, and there was blood on its scythes.