At dinner that day a second person was there, serving food. Eve was dressed in the standard tunic and pants and wearing a leather apron that appeared to have been stolen from a blacksmith. She was watching carefully as Grace demonstrated how to layer and fry potatoes to make hash browns. Beans were mashed into a paste and mixed with lettuce to be applied to thin slices of bread.
Tristan was slightly disappointed at the lack of meat, though that should have been expected. Even if the bulk of the cattle had not been killed, there was no way Eve would be willing to cook it.
Tristan walked up to the pair while Luke and Siren went to sit down with the other warriors, “So, how do you like the mine?”
Eve looked up, she seemed happy. Smiling she said, “It turns out, I don’t mind frolicking underground.”
Grace narrowed her eyes at Tristan. At first, he thought that he was in trouble, “Boy, you’re lucky she’s helpful. If she had been dead weight, I would have kicked her out.”
“Why would that make me unlucky?” Tristan asked. It sounded like Eve was the one who had gotten lucky. Maybe Grace would have charged Tristan for the resources she used during Eve’s stay. He had kind of expected that.
Grace raised an eyebrow, but instead of answering Tristan, she pointed at the table, “Go, sit. I will bring you food.”
Eve laughed as Tristan was told to leave. Not seeing any reason to ignore the suggestion, he went to take a seat by Luke. It was odd, many of the warriors he had used to look up to were now only a few levels above him. One or two more breakthroughs and he would match them. It was a surreal thought.
Some of the miners waved to him and he noticed that some people were missing. Other people had replaced them, but there were two people in particular that Tristan was looking for.
“Where are Chase and Sun Set?” He asked as he took his seat.
Luke looked up at him, “who?” Then he remembered the people Tristan named, “Oh you mean the lovey-dovey couple that you were friends with?”
“Sure,” Tristan said unsure of what Luke was talking about.
“ She got pregnant and they had to elope to escape from Sun Set's very underprotective father, who decided to get overprotective at that exact moment,” Luke explained,“ They are somewhere in the Stone Caldera, I believe.”
Tristan was not sure how to take that, “good for them I guess. “
The warrior across the table started talking. Tristan actually recognized him from the confrontation with the drug addict on the first day. He hadn’t given the man much thought, but he was very incompetent. Now that Tristan was on the edge of tier three, he had a good grasp of the warrior’s capabilities. It was easily within his power to stop a drug crazed man.
Laughing the warrior said, “It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. A tier zero butcher, who was out of work, chasing around his tier one daughter and son-in-law with a knife.”
Tristan tried to understand why it was funny. People could be injured by lower tiers, it happened all the time. In fact, he regularly did it. He felt more concern for the baby than humor.
“Why is that funny, “ Tristan asked.
“Oh, it's something you would have to start dating to understand,” The man said.
Tristan looked over at Siren who was rubbing his temples. After a few minutes, Siren pulled out the sketch Tristan had made, “We need to set up a plan. Each floor is separated by around ten to fifteen feet of dirt, so we can take this structure one level at a time.”
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Luke shrugged, “There will be fewer of them than we originally thought. We can just walk in and take them apart.”
Siren shook his head as did many of the other warriors, “That would be the same as asking to get killed.”
Tristan asked what he thought was an obvious question, “Why aren’t the traps you collected for the metal elemental being used and then reused on every level?”
Siren smiled slightly, “Of course, but not all the elementals will be willing or able to just come charging out. Remember the dark elementals with the elemental lord? They were asleep when we first came across them.” All of those who had been with Siren at the time shuddered. Except Luke, he grinned, “We need to make a plan for the various elementals who stay behind.”
The warrior across the table asked, “Why does it matter? All elementals have the same weakness.”
“It matters because dark elementals would be a massive issue in an urban environment, fire elementals would turn the whole place into an oven, and air elementals would spread poison,” Siren massaged his temples again, evidently this guy was in the dumb as a brick category.
“Poison?” Tristan asked in surprise. He knew that air kerns could change toxic air to clean, but he had no idea it worked in reverse.
Luke answered, “It's not something that humans can do, after all, you would have to create a toxic element with you at ground zero. And if you purify it so that you can breathe it, then the effect is nullified.”
One of the newer warriors asked, “Why don’t we just flood the place with something flammable? It will hurt anything thats not fire or light, and even those two will be forced to come out into the traps.”
Another tier three frowned, “That would cost more than the metal we extract is worth, oil is expensive”
Tristan listened in fascination as multiple suggestions were bought up and shot down. He learned more about elemental biology in that half an hour than in the rest of his time at the mine. Things like, light elementals were ridiculously rare, while dark ones were the most common ones. Fire was the most feared and water was the one most people preferred to fight, as it lacked many of the traits that made the others dangerous.
In the end, a solution was found by Luke of all people. He yelled that if they were just going to hide, then they might as well build a wall. That had stopped the conversation before the tier threes started complimenting Luke. It turned out that the strength of a tier three would indeed allow them to move a wall. If there was a window at around the chest cavity, then they could just stab the elemental's hearts through it.
The idea seemed a little extreme to Tristan, but he really could not see a better option. There really did not seem to be one thing that was useful against all elementals, aside from tearing out their hearts. At least they were all corporeal. Whatever source animated them, also forced them into a solid state, which was good, otherwise air elementals would be impossible to deal with.
It did get Tristan thinking. What did animate the elementals? They were very similar to artifacts in that they both were created by emptying a kern and condensing it into a preset shape. Artifacts even used a soul to hold the shape and collect essence, however they collected it from the owner or its surroundings. Tristan was not aware of any that pulled in primordial essence, though it was not impossible, as he had no real way to test it. Using this train of thought, he concluded that elementals were all solid for one simple reason. They were soul constructs, just instead of a tool, they were the shape of a kern.
The temple master even claimed that free will and and the soul were linked, if not even the same thing. So an elemental construct created after death that acts on the person’s greatest regrets, it sounded like a common denominator that could be used. If Tristan could find a way to dissolve or crack the soul shell keeping the essence in, then the whole elemental should collapse.
The food finally arrived, Tristan absentmindedly thanked Grace only to receive a glare and someone stomping off. Tristan was pulled from his thoughts and realized it hadn’t been Grace who handed him the plate, but Eve. She hadn’t taken kindly to him misidentifying her. He did not see what was wrong with being compared to Grace though. That was one of the highest compliments he could actually give a woman. Shrugging Tristan turned his attention back to the conversation, he would talk to Eve later.
“Hey, do any of you guys know how to destroy a soul?” Tristan asked the warriors.
If any of them knew how to accomplish it, their elemental problem would be permanently solved. He did not get the expected reaction. All the warriors stared at him, Siren included. The staring lasted for an uncomfortably long time.
“What?” Tristan asked, confused at the attention.
“Tristan,” Luke said, “Breaking souls is not traditionally seen as a good thing.”