Tristan woke up wondering if he was going to get brain trauma from the amount of times he had been knocked out. He was sure it was not healthy. Unlike last time he had recovered from a broken kern, this time it was like waking up from a very fulfilling sleep.

He moved the essence in his blood. It circulated through his body and bones, and there was a lot of it. There was also something else. It was tainted with something. Tainted may be the wrong word, but it was mixed with another essence that Tristan did not want. If he had to describe the essence, he would call it ancient essence. He realized this must be the result of what Hadrid was experimenting on. So decay and time were related?

With a jolt he remembered, Hadrid. Where was he? Tristan sat up and looked around in panic. The alchemist was asleep in an odd chair with wheels on the legs. Someone had draped a blanket over him, Tristan assumed that was Ruth. He did not know what she saw in Hadrid. However, he could appreciate her attempts to keep Hadrid asleep for longer. Tristan looked around for an escape.

Belatedly, Tristan realized he was attached to the steel table with restraints. The leather straps were too tough to break simply by struggling. Tristan could do nothing, unfortunately he would not get a better chance to escape than while Hadrid was asleep. He looked around for a clasp or some other type of strap that would hold the straps closed.

Unsurprisingly, the releases or ties were under the table. He looked around for other options and found nothing. Hadrid did not even keep knives around as he could make them out of his metal essence. Tristan was sure that the alchemist did not even have a vault for his weapons. From how it sounded when Tristan was dragged in here, Hadrid gave the weapons to his citizens when he lost interest in them. That would explain the odd effects and elements that were present. Sound was not actually an element, and he distinctly remembered noticing a sound dagger.

With no outward options Tristan turned inward. He observed his kern for a few minutes. At first he thought it was odd that he could see his kern, like it was another organ instead of mixed with his blood. Then he realized, if he could sense metal essence underground forty five feet away, it should stand to reason he could sense it inside him.

He tried, with little effect, to create a tool out of essence. Even a tiny knife, or jagged piece of metal would have worked. The essence packed into his fingertips turning them silver, the metallic color turned a sickly grey as it went down his hand and returned to simple flesh at his forearm. Tristan sighed in frustration, creating essence objects really was a tier three thing.

Tristan frowned, the decay essence hadn’t moved. It still lazily moved through his kern. He tried to move it, and nothing happened. Tristan was not sure he even wanted to move it, what if he moved it wrong and he rotted out his heart or something. He shuddered. Then he looked over at Hadrid and decided it was worth the try.

The next ten minutes were spent straining. He felt a headache coming on. There had to be some way to work this. Tristan went over the memories he had that were related to this. Hadrid had said it was something called a force. Could he control that, Tistan thought back to the source and its magnitude. No, definitely not. However, Hadrid had called the force ‘alloy.’

Working in a metal mine probably gave Tristan an education on metal second only to blacksmiths. An alloy was when two materials were combined to create something with attributes of both. The most common was spring steel, it could not be mined, only manufactured. Forgers would combine wood with metal, the result would be slightly softer, but also vastly more flexible.

Tristan inspected the decay essence and wondered, could metal essence and decay essence be alloyed. What would it do, after all both things were metaphysical at their core. Tristan did not know and he did not want to wait for the mad scientist to wake up. He started simple he moved some metal essence to an equivalent amount of decay essence and tried to combine them somehow. It worked, in a way, the decay essence ate the metal essence.

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How in the world was this supposed to be useful? At least he could quickly recoup the lost metal essence from the environment. How else would he get the essences to mix when he only controlled one half of the equation. Frustrated with his confinement, he started testing a combination method. Maybe he would have to swirl it like blacksmiths did in their furnaces. The decay hollowed out the inside of the swirl like a donut.

He tried vibrating them, which got the same result. Tristan wondered if it was a volume issue, he doubled the amount of both materials and something painful hit his hand. It broke his attention, he looked down to see blood leaking from his fingertips. Grey blood leaked down onto the table. At first Tristan was horrified, then he watched a speck of decay enter his pinky, which was still full of metal essence.

The tip went from silver to grey in an instant. After a moment, Tristan felt a sharp pain and the pad of his finger dried and cracked, before blood leaked out. At first, Tristan thought there was something special about his fingers, but with even a little thought he knew that was dumb. The decay would mix with extremely concentrated metal essence, then hurt him.

After reviewing what he knew of alloys, Tristan realized that most of them required ninety some percent of a metal and a single digit of a non metal. He had not been using enough essence. This did however lead to another potential problem. The decay essence was floating around in his kern, and every time it bumped into metal essence, it would destroy it. Absorb was probably a better word, they would all become a decay-metal alloy over time and tear him apart.

There was not a lot he could do about it though as he watched the amount of decay essence replenish just like his metal essence. It was much, much slower than metal essence, but it was not something he could put a stop to. There was something he could do right now.

Placing his three middle fingers against the leather, he waited for a speck of decay to enter. He had envisioned it occurring all at once, but the decay essence was slow. They arrived at three different times, making it the most painful waiting game Tristan had ever played. The anticipation was the worst part, watching the little pieces of decay dawdle to his fingers.

The first finger cracked releasing grey blood onto the leather. Nothing seemed to happen at first, then the second one cracked. Now the leather looked slimy, which made sense, he had just put a liquid on it. The third finger cracked and Tristan felt dizzy. He had used a lot of metal essence. The ratio of metal to alloy was not economical at all. He could not even see a time when this would be useful, it was too slow, hurt him, and needed him to touch the target. Which was fine if he was stronger, however, why would he use decay if he could overpower them without it.

After inspecting the leather for almost fifteen minutes, nothing happened. Tristan slumped back. He guessed he would be a lab rat from now on. He slumped back on the cursed table, at least the coffin lid was not closed. Hadrid snorted in his sleep which caused the blanket to fall off.

Tristan flinched, jerking away. Thankfully the alchemist was still asleep. Then he looked down at his bindings. The one with blood all over was torn like wet paper. Tristan looked at it in shock. Guess it was not useless. Tristan started to analyze what happened, he quickly stopped himself, freedom first.

He rolled over and freed his other hand. Next he undid the clasps keeping his feet secure. He pivoted, swinging his feet off the table and met Hadrid’s eyes. Panicking he grabbed the nearest weapon, it was lackluster, as the string bound notebook was relatively useless against Hadrid.

The alchemist gave Tristan a sleepy smile, which looked really creepy when given by a fifty year old man in low visibility, “Ah good, your awake.”

Groggily he reached for the side table, fumbling for something. Tristan glanced at his hands and got an idea.

He brandished the notebook like a sword, “You had better behave,” The sleepiness left Hadrid’s eyes, “Or the notebook dies.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Hadrid said in a threatening tone.

Tristan flipped the book over so the back was facing up. He held his finger over the book and as a single drop of decay alloy dripped onto the paper he said, “Or what.”

Hadrid’s face paled as he watched the drop hit the back cover and start dissolving it.