Tristan frowned, “Sure it is, most of the people here have done it at least once.”

Luke looked taken aback, “Huh,” he inspected all the warriors who looked equally confused, “I know for sure that I haven’t.”

“Well any artifact is a soul construct, I’m not quite sure how it works,” Tristan explained what he knew. Well, he explained what he thought he knew. He had no way to prove that Hadrid and the books were accurate. However, the fact that the alchemist used them as the base for his knowledge and did many things successfully, gave Tristan confidence.

Siren nodded along, however, he eventually stopped Tristan, “I am having trouble following you, but let me summarize what you’re saying. If we can figure out how to separate the essence from the elemental, the elemental will collapse.”

Tristan nodded, “That’s the gist of it, break the elementals the same way we break artifacts when we harvest them.”

“It is a line of thought that is worth researching, but do you think we could have an answer within the next month or so?” Siren asked.

There was no chance with a time scale that small. Someone would have found a solution already if it only took a month. Especially as none of them were experts on the subject, to begin with. Perhaps only the alchemist and the temple would even be able to approach that idea with any competence.

“No,” Tristan admitted, “I can’t see it happening that quickly.”

Siren nodded. “Alright then, we get to open this giant can as soon as the smith gets done with our shield.”

He picked up his plate and after handing it back to Grace, went to speak with Conni. Tristan quickly finished up his own potatoes and stood. He came face to face with the six guards who were staring at the food longingly. Tristan did feel some pity for them as they had been abandoned by their leader and left in hostile territory.

“Come on,” Tristan waved to them.

They would have followed him without the order. It was their assignment after all. Tristan followed Siren down into the cave and into the board room where the two leaders were talking.

He pushed aside the curtain and poked his head again, “Hey, I got six hungry shadows who want to work for food, is there any hard labor that needs to be done, food is cheaper than coin after all.”

Conni raised an eyebrow, he knew full well that the prideful guards had not asked for food. However, it was true, there was plenty of work to be done. Riffling through some papers, he stopped at something that looked like a graph. He grabbed some charcoal and shaded in one section.

He held out the parchment and said, “The area shaded in black needs to be dug to a depth of around ten feet. There is one other crew who will be working below you, so be careful.”

Tristan looked at the graph, it had a detailed overhead drawing of the area around the base camp. In fact, there was a tiny drawing of the camp slightly off center. If everything was to scale, they would be digging around a mile away from the main entrance.

“We’ll be digging above ground?” Tristan asked confused.

“Yes, there is a lot of metal there, it would be better to pull it straight out as opposed to hauling it through miles of tunnels. Also, we will be able to pile the excavated dirt on the surface,” Conni said, “There is already a small flag marking the area in question.”

“Thank you, I’ll get it done,” Tristan nodded then turned his attention to Siren, “I want in on the deposit raid.”

Siren had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, “Nope, you would die.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“I’m not the same person I used to be,” Tristan defended himself.

“Sure,” Siren said, cracking one eye open, “However, the average tier of these elementals is tier four.”

“I have fought tier fours before, three different times,” Tristan held up his fingers for emphasis.

“With or without your ridiculous knives?” Siren asked.

“Wait, you two don’t have them?” Tristan had been given the rest of his stuff, including the skull of some nasty creature. He had assumed that Shadow Fist had given the knives to Conni for safekeeping, or something like that.

Both men shook their heads, Siren sighed, “I know you want to be a great warrior, but dying young is a very poor way to achieve that.”

“I don’t need them,” Tristan said, “I can still face off against a tier four with no issue.”

“Including me,” Siren said, “Because an average of four means that there will be some stronger than me.”

Tristan went still. Did he really think he could beat Siren? That wasn’t the question, the question was, can you face off against them? To that, he could confidently say yes. He had faced off against tier threes as a tier zero, and a tier four, while he was at the edge of tier three should be easier.

“Yes, yes I can,” Tristan said.

Siren stood, “Then I will treat you like one of my men, prove it. Make me bleed.”

Conni sighed, “Please, not in the conference room. These chairs are expensive. Tristan, don’t tear apart your body, if you have to do that, then I will stop you from participating.”

Tristan stepped out, to the wide eyed stares of six men. They had heard everything, including how Tristan was supposed to face down Siren. When they had first arrived they had no idea who the man was. However, there was not a single person at the mine who would not brag about their head of security. It was a point of pride for the miners, in much the same way a group would take pride in their local celebrity.

“So how do we do this?” Tristan asked. Mauling each other seemed a very poor way to prove a point. Well without a weapon, Tristan was pretty sure that he was incapable of mauling Siren.

“Combat is the art of killing, being the one walking away is all that matters,” Siren said, “No rules. No surrender, after all, you won’t get any quarter from an elemental.”

For the first time, Tristan was unsettled. However, he was still confident, Siren was unaware of Tristan's decay, so he still had the ability to win. Tristan nodded. They were surrounded by tools lining the walls. Mundane shovels, and some weak artifacts designed to help dig hung from hooks. He would start by grabbing one of those, he definitely needed a weapon.

“Alright,” was the only warning Tristan got. Siren took a step and vanished.

Tristan’s eyes widened. Siren could turn invisible? He had forgotten that the man had a dark kern as well. Everything about him screamed earth kern warrior. Still, Tristan reacted immediately, he lunged for the tool shelf. There was a whooshing noise, and he imagined a fist barely missing him.

Scooping up a shovel he swung it like a bat, his goal was to take up as much space with the wild strike as possible. It should keep Siren back to avoid the blade of the shovel. Thunk. The shaft stopped like it hit an invisible brick wall, it did not even rebound. Tristan immediately snatched up a second shovel and speared the empty space that he had struck.

Nothing. The split second it took Tristan to realize that Siren had caught the shovel from the opposite side was too long. Siren jerked Tristan forward with the shovel. Something hard and made of stone slammed into Tristan’s jaw. However, there was a reason why metal was used to shape stone and not the other way around.

Tristan reinforced his jaw. The stone shell around Siren’s invisible fist shattered, but his fist still made contact. He bounced off the wall just behind him and straight into a punch that he could not see. This one was to the gut.

Tristan growled, it had been a long time since he was this one sidedly beaten. He understood Siren was powerful, but this combination was truly ridiculous. Tristan gritted his teeth, thankfully he was a little ridiculous too.

He knew Conni said he could not maim himself, but a little injury should be tolerable. Tristan activated two separate decay essences at the same time. It hurt and the freshly healed wound on his hand reopened. On the next strike, Tristan shoved a palm forward. He felt cloth on Siren's chest and smeared his grey blood over it.

He was still bounced off the wall, but he had done it. Landing on his hands and knees, he looked up grinning in victory. His grin froze when a hand grabbed him by the hair and lifted him off his feet. Siren was now visible, though visible was a relative term. The only thing Tristan could see were the knuckles on one of his fists. Everything else was covered in opalescent stone armor. His combat robe was rotting away, exposing the steel plates beneath it and more importantly, the stone shell below that. Tristan had not even managed to touch him.

“Boy, you have gotten stronger, you have gotten taller,” Siren said, his voice more disappointed than angry, “However, you haven’t really grown. At heart, you’re still a child.”

The stone on one of his fingers blackened as a black obsidian blade grew out. He placed his finger right above Tristan’s heart, “You will not be fighting inside the deposit.”

Siren dropped Tristan and turned to go back to his planning with Conni, “How, what,” Tristan was not sure what to say, eventually he settled on, “Why are you so strong?”

Tristan could blame it on the dual kern, and that was a massive advantage, but there were at least a thousand others with the same advantage. He had never seen another one among the elite of the Caldera. Siren stood head and shoulders above everyone else, Luke and Hadrid being the only exceptions. However, if Siren ever got access to a force, he was sure that both would be surpassed.

Siren paused, looking back at Tristan, “You focus on the strength of your body, it is a very impaired version of power. I have always pursued strength of character, power is a simple byproduct of that.”

Tristan could only stare at the man as he rendered the conference room. He wanted a real answer, not this pithy nonsense about self-improvement. Clenching his fists, Tristan tensed his muscles before releasing the tension through a deep breath. He was a tier two, a strong one, however, Siren was a monstrous tier four, of course he lost.

Climbing to his feet, Tristan beckoned the guards to each take a shovel. They still had a hole to dig.