Grand Saint Alloy

Tristan stared wide eyed as Olfred first followed by his whole team started to beat the elemental to death. Siren had told him that crushing the heart was the only way to kill an elemental. Olfred proved that you could destroy everything but the heart and that worked just as well. It only took his team a few moments to completely tear it apart.

Olfred was currently jumping around like a cave man with a torch, holding the black heart, and yelling, “And everyone calls me heartless! I showed them!”

Tristan shook his head, he still wouldn’t be comfortable with Olfred, but he would definitely strive to get along with him better. He made is way to Conni and Grace. Conni had actually owned some high quality weapons, he was standing between the unconscious Grace and the mine entrance holding a sword made of a flame red metal. Wisps of smoke rose from the edge of the blade, giving it a savage apearence.

“Conni, is the expedition alright, they are in the middle of all this?” Tristan asked.

Never taking his eyes off the mine exits, Conni answered, “Yes, they should be, light kerns would cut through these things, while shadow kerns will give an innate resistance. They should be fine, unless there is a really strong elemental down there.”

True Siren could have dealt with the dark elemental and the brain with his bare hands. Earth was naturally a sturdy element while darkness was able to resist itself. Anything in the mine would have to physically overpower him, while their abilities were being restricted by the illuminators. If he remembered right one of the warriors had a light kern as well. Sun Set had been able to ignore the brains abilities and she was only tier one. A tier three would have immediately annihilated it.

“I don’t know if you saw what was going on out here, but we had to deal with a creature with a brain and eyes inside a ball of grey goo. It was spitting out the black fog everywhere. It looked like slime but I’m not sure what it was?” Tristan asked.

“Have you ever met a world strider?” Conni said. The lack of smoke was causing him to relax.

Tristan shook his head, he had heard stories about other worlds existing. Some even claimed that those worlds could be seen in the sky at night. Tristan did not hold to the odd belief that people lived on both of the moons, how would they get up there? And more importantly, how would anyone ever know.

“Well, people in those other worlds store their essence in things other than a kern. We use our hearts, blood, and bones, which is why our elementals look the way they do. The one you fought sounds like it used its mind and eyes as some sort of kern, I have heard Siren talk about seeing one that was just muscle and organs that moved in odd ways.” Conni said.

Tristan was surprised, he was not sure he believed that something from a different world was a reasonable explanation. It had come from underground after all. He shook his head, their world had enough issues without other ones shipping their problems over. It did take some of the weight off Tristan’s shoulders, if Siren had experience with these creatures, then he would be able to keep his team safe. Luke was very likely to be alright.

-Siren

The tunnels were covered in an inky darkness. For the first time in a long time, Siren was grateful for his hybrid kern. It was not common knowledge, but combination kerns gained both the weaknesses and the strengths of the respective essences. Normally darkness was not applicable in combat, so he was cursed with an earth kern that was vulnerable to light essence. Which also happened to be the most common type of artifact.

Now he was grateful to it, the illuminators had to spend essence to eliminate the fog and push back the darkness, while he was not obstructed in the slightest. If the tunnel went straight to their destination, he would be able to see it. While his eyes could pierce the fog they would not be able to pierce the cloaking abilities of the dark elementals. At least not until they were very close. Every year he lost more people to dark elementals than any other type of elemental.

Nothing happened in the time it took them to reach the deposit. Tristan had been right, if Olfred had dug at a slightly different angle he would have discovered it himself. Siren could only chuckle at that, one or two degrees cost that boar a finders fee. The slit that was spilling out the smoke was thin, the gas must have been collecting for centuries to be released with this much pressure.

“Alright clear the wall,” Siren said.

Shale, one of the warriors had an earth kern and it made it relatively easy to remove the earth. Siren had an earth kern as well, but he was more valuable for his unhindered perception at the moment. An earth kern at tier three would not let Shale control the earth, but it did help him understand it, and more importantly, how to remove it.

The dirt fell away, as Shale applied a vibrating artifact normally used for sanding and polishing. It quickly revealed a corroded wall. That would have been normal, spending many years underground invariably degraded the metal. However the rust was not a reddish orange, it was green and grey. As if the metal was rotting instead of rusting. Siren was not going to touch it, it was a sign of prolonged exposure to dark essence.

“Luke could you do the honors,” Siren said.

He was wary of the blond boy. Luke was the only person in the camp that he was not shure he could put down. In the earlier training, he had taken on Kale, and two others in the middle of the tunnel training. He destroyed them one sidedly. It was something normally only seen when people of different tiers fought.

Luke nodded, producing the short sword he called the ‘big knife’ from nowhere, “Got it boss.”

He sliced a small gap in the wall at about eye level. Siren pulled out a clear air artifact, it was a dinner plate that would stop bread from going stale. He did not need it for its culinary properties, he needed a shield. Placing it over the window Luke cut, he peered through the glass. It was a tier two artifact, so it was doubtful that anything inside could break it in one strike. More importantly it dampened the effects of decay, which was one of the strongest tools in the dark elements toolkit.

Inside he saw a room with different pieces of equipment. None of it was familiar, but Siren could recognize a gym anywhere. He could see several elementals sleeping on the floor. Tier three kerns could normally tell how dangerous their foes were, so long as they shared an essence type or they had a lower level kern. So Siren was surprised to find that he had a stronger kern than all of the ones that he could see.

“Around a dozen tier three dark elementals,” Siren said, “They should not be a problem, so long as we don’t wake them.”

He nodded to Luke and put his plate away. Luke cut a six by six foot door. That was their first miscalculation, Tristan’s knife cut so cleanly that there was no lip to grab and they were reluctant to touch the metal mold. So the two inch thick slab of metal slab of metal wall fell inward. It hit the floor with a bang and shattered to pieces.

A wave of black fog, so thick that even Siren was slightly obstructed, billowed out. All of the elementals woke up and the movement attracted Sirens attention. The weird elementals that Conni claimed were from world striders, matched the skeletons in number. Fortunately it seemed it was only the two kinds of variety. Unfortunately, it meant they were dealing with closer to two dozen of them.

Siren readied his weapons, he had his earth artifact ax. It could split stone as easily as wood. The illuminators got all of their artifacts ready. His warriors set up a shield wall behind Siren, protecting the vital illuminators. If the illuminators died, Siren would be the only one with even a slight chance of escape.

“Throw!” Siren commanded.

Glow stones flew over his head, cutting through the fog and revealing the room. Many of the soldiers got their first look at what they were up against. However, Siren could see further, and what he saw made his blood chill.

Sitting on a throne at the far side of the room was a man seated on a throne of metal with onyx black muscles with no skin covering them. Black veins and arteries carried his life’s essence through his body and abyssal eyes stared out of a black skull.

“Oh some one new, did the Lord of the Underworld send you?”