Tristan marveled at the strength that tier two granted him as he plunged his knives into the wall and started climbing. The wall was about a foot thick at its thinnest, and he had chosen a spot just outside a pillar. He was not sure if the vertical wall support was called a pillar, but at this scale, that is what it reminded him of. Regardless, no one inside should see a knife sticking through the wall.
Hand over hand, he pulled himself up the side, until he was able to scramble onto the roof. Tristan did his best to scramble quietly, but the tiles on the roof made it difficult. He hoped they were distracted by Bruce right now. Slowly, he tip-toed across the roof, the sunset twilight made the edges of the tile hard to see.
Tristan had expected the five men to leave the skylight open, however, he was not so lucky. The tiles here were formed into the square frame of a closed skylight. Tristan could see the seam but there was nothing he could do with it. After a minute of thought, he decided to cut his way through. He drew his long knife and prepared to start cutting when the panel started opening on its own.
At first, Tristan was shocked, then he got a face full of smoke. They were eating without him. For some reason, the thought of everyone except him getting food was very irksome. The skylight panel was only opened about two feet, as the smoke released was far more important than letting in light during the evening hours.
Grumbling, Tristan took a deep breath and crawled on his belly through the gap. The catwalk was just below him, however the person who had raised the skylight was still present. He was walking to the ladder but had not made it there yet. Tristan could not do anything until the man was on the floor. If he jumped down too soon he would feel the shaking on the platform. Tristan might be able to get away with it while he was on the ladder, but it was not worth the risk.
The man was wearing the armor, marking him as part of the other group. By the way, he moved, Tristan suspected that he was no stranger to combat. The way someone walked could be used to roughly predict the element they wielded. Water, wind, and dark would all be smooth and often would not take efficiency into consideration. Fire would be more erratic, most of the force in a step would come from a strong initial push, while light and earth would be direct, not moving from their chosen course. This man had one of the first three kerns.
Once the man was on the ladder, Tristan started lowering himself down. His lungs burned, despite the time elapsed only being half a minute. Just because he had worked hard and gotten strong muscles, did not mean his lung capacity was back up to the average human. He dangled six inches above the catwalk for long enough to get his bearings.
There was a fire off to the side of the stacks of produce crates and everyone was gathered around it. Bruce had managed to rope in the other group to eat with them. Tristan frowned, the man was feeding everyone, but him. He saw the man who opened the skylight walking back and released his grip.
Tristan his the cat walk harder than he intended to, and froze. It sounded loud from where he was. One of the people, Fire Kern if he was to guess, looked around for the noise. It made sense that the sound of crackling flames would fail to obscure Tristan’s landing from someone with a fire kern. He crouched while the warrior inspected the catwalks.
Once the man was distracted by the plate Clive handed to him, Tristan started crawling. Not for the first time, he wished he knew someone who could teach him stealth. Siren never needed stealth and Luke was straight-up allergic to stealth. So, Tristan was doing his best to mimic William as he slid on his belly.
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The catwalks extended all over the warehouse, Tristan supposed that after the crates were stacked to a certain height the platforms would be extremely useful. A pulley system was bolted into the rafters above the crates, which could have been used like a crane. The rope had been removed or stolen, leaving only the pulley wheels behind.
Tristan slowed his breathing and tried to listen. At first, he could not hear anything, but with some concentration, he could start picking out voices. He decided to risk poking his head out to see who was speaking.
“This is some good food,” The man who opened the skylight said, “And you say this is ghost crab.”
Clive nodded happily, “I’m glad you enjoy it. My wife is great with plants but terrible with fire, so either I cook or all we eat is vegetables.”
Several of the armored men laughed. Clive laughed with them, though Bruce and Eve did not join in. In fact, they had very tense expressions. Tristan frowned, he knew Clive was a coward, but he was not stupid, which meant that there were some higher-level issues going on if only Eve and Bruce picked up on it.
Clive stirred the diced crab he was currently cooking in a pot, “The secret to making ghost crab taste good is to cook them like vegetables. The alchemist took a look at them and said they were related to some plants that I had never heard of, so I thought, what if I stir-fried them? And it worked great, I think I will try frying next.”
Half the warrior's expressions darkened at the mention of the alchemist, the other half just kept on talking merrily, “Like those fried onion rings at the festivals.”
“Exactly, but I’m pretty sure these curly fries will be healthy,” the warriors on either side of Clive cheered at his words.
He was too focused on his cooking and the men on either side to notice the reactions across the fire. Bruce and Eve did, and they were tense. It was obvious that this crew had some enmity with the alchemist.
It was a mystery that soon answered itself. Fire Kern placed his elbows on his knees, “So you three met with the alchemist.”
Bruce shrugged trying to appear calm, “Many people have, why?”
“Don’t play dumb, you know what I’m asking,” Fire Kern removed his helmet revealing a bearded face that would have been handsome if the eye-slits on his helmet hadn’t tanned his cheeks. It made him look like a scruffy raccoon. He placed his sheathed broad sword on his lap and started tracing his fingers down the sheath’s pattern.
Bruce remained quiet.
“Let me tell you a story, it might just jog your memory,” Fire Kern said, “There were once twins, blessed with tier three kerns of flame and shadow. The older one took responsibility when their father died. He trained and became an elite of the Lake Caldera, leader of a special force to take care of special tasks. The younger one looked up to his brother, and he followed in his footsteps, unfortunately, there could only be one leader of the special forces. So he moved, he left for the River Caldera, and he easily took the lead of their special forces. Everything was perfect for these brothers. They could compete, they could live outside of each other's shadow.”
Fire Kern took a slightly unstable breath, it was clear that this story was about himself, “Then on the best and the worst day of the older brother's life something terrible happens. The older brother gets promoted to chief peacekeeper of the lake caldera and his little brother is killed. He is killed fighting a fat mole defending a spoiled child. A spoiled child that was only there because you three had to bring him along.”
“That was not our fault,” Bruce growled, his hand tightened on the shaft of his spear, “I can’t control another person’s actions, let alone someone two entire tiers higher and in a different chain of command.”
“I did not even get his body,” Fire Kern hissed, “It was fed to your precious alchemist's pet abominations.”
Tristan felt bad for the guy. It seemed his brother had been one of the people in black that Hadrid had killed. Tristan shuddered at the memory of people falling apart like toy blocks as wire nets were cast everywhere. He was pretty sure that he would simply kill everyone responsible if he were in Fire Kern’s position, and to hell with the consequences.
Tristan's eyes widened as both he and Fire Kern came to the same conclusion at the same time. Fire Kern jumped to his feet and unsheathed his broad sword at the same time. It was a plain blade, not long at a little over thirty inches, but it was wide. The only notable quality of the blade was the deep crimson color of the blade. That and the fire leaking off of its edge.
Bruce and Eve leaped to their feet as well, it took only a moment for Bruce to yell, “HELP.”