Grand Saint Alloy

Down. Up. Tristan pushed as hard as he could, but try as he might he could not force his muscles to obey. It had been less than a day since he managed to push the healing through his extremities. Not wanting to wait to regain what he had lost, Tristan tried to perform his daily routine.

Getting off the bed proved to be a challenge. The floor proved much easier to get to, though his goal of a full workout was shrunk to a set of pushups. Then a single pushup, and finally he made it a goal to get off the floor. Unfortunately, he was not sure how he would go about achieving that.

He clawed at the bed frame, but his denser body proved to be too heavy. Normally it was a benefit, but it was also much harder to move. Gritting his teeth, Tristan hauled himself up into a sitting position.

“Any advice,” He asked Vulcan.

“How about starting with walking as opposed to pushups,” Vulcan sent him an image, “Make one of these.”

Tristan inspected the image. It was a scaffold of metal with four legs and bars connecting three sides. In the picture a nondescript man was standing inside the contraption, placing his weight on it, before sliding it forward and repeating the act. It functioned in the same way as crutches seemed to, but this had even more support.

“How will I move that?” Tristan asked. He could barely move himself, so a metal crutch was out of the question.

“Those metal bars are actually pipes, they are thin and hollow as they only need to hold your weight,” Vulcan said, “Use your architect alloy to build the model, it should let you make a perfect replica.”

Tristan had forgotten about that aspect. Creating a construct could be done regardless of the shape, the architect alloy simply automated the process at the expense of durability. It was still metal, but it had more in common with aluminum than steel. He pictured the image and mixed his metal essence with the architect's essence, then pushed it out to make the image.

He gasped when his kern emptied out. A hollow object like this should be no issue, he should have copied the image perfectly. A crash forced him to open his eyes, he was looking at the half completed image. Only he had also pictured the nondescript man, the blank face and shoulders fell to the floor.

“You know, if I had known you were going to make a bust, I would have used my own face,” Vulcan said, “You could have put it in your temple and I could become a god!”

“Your ego is so big that I would run out of metal before I reached your nose,” Tristan said.

Vulcan chuckled at that. Tristan prepared to wait the three or four hours it would take to recharge his essence. For the moment he would practice making images in his mind with only the desired object in focus.

“What’s this?” A feminine voice said.

Tristan opened his eyes to see Harp standing in the doorway, inspecting the metal bust. She was holding a small child in one arm and the tribe of little people were all gathered behind her. All of them were staring at the disembodied head on the floor.

“Sorry, trying to make something from essence to help me walk,” Tristan said.

Harp paused, “people can’t do that, can they.”

Tristan was only half paying attention, more focused on visualization than the conversation, “of course they can, warriors can all do it.”

“You’re tier three,” Harp said quietly. Then, “how, no one has ever seen metal artifacts.”’

Tristan shrugged, “They exist, I have seen them in the mine.”

It would be illogical for anyone to expect metal artifacts to be present in the caldera. Tristan was one of two people who had the requisite metal kern to make artifacts. Well, that or metal elementals.

“Oh,” Harp did not seem to know what to say.

Tristan finally had the image down. It was harder than he expected. He could not be too focused as it would cause him to pay too much attention to one area. It was an uncomfortable process as relaxed focus was not a skill he had developed. He assumed it was the talent that allowed old people to enjoy watching grass grow from the front porch.

Harp jumped in surprise when a metal object wove itself into existence. Hollow tubes with rounded bumps at the bottom. It took a little bit over half his essence, which was good as it gave him some ideas on making construct weapons.

He could build pole arms with hollow shafts. They might bend rather easily, but if he got his hands on the force of adamance, then it would not be a problem. Absorption should work as well, after all, that was the force that was used to empower tower steel.

It was still a struggle, but the scaffolding was able to support Tristan's frame, “Vulcan, what do you call this thing.”

“It's a walker, old people use it to maintain their mobility after movement becomes difficult,” Vulcan answered.

People tended to either stay healthy or die younger in the Caldera. The oldest person he knew was Elder River and that man had no issues moving around. Most people died in their sixties or even a little earlier, so these contraptions would not have much purpose outside of injury, or physical therapy.

Originally, Tristan had intended to work his way back to peak condition, however, at the moment, it was clear that simply going about his day would be a workout in its own right. Harp moved out of the way as he hobbled his way to the door. The rest of the home was empty and silent, Tristan had expected Grace to be in the kitchen. For the entire time he had known her she was always cooking something.

“Where is everyone?” Tristan asked.

Harp answered, “There was a mandatory gathering of people for the announcement of a draft, the only people exempt were the injured and those who were deemed unnecessary.”

“You were deemed unnecessary?” Tristan asked.

Harp nodded, “Do you know how dual kerns work?”

Tristan shrugged an action that was difficult while putting his weight on the walker, “Sure, you have two elements, a smaller amount of essence per element than normal, but an overall larger kern. It is also easier to progress as any artifact with one of your elements will work for you.”

“There’s a reason why Siren is the only powerful dual kern,” Harp said, “The essences don’t stay separate inside my kern. Earth and darkness essence are like oil and water, they don’t mix, but they also don’t conflict. Light and dark, however, are as opposed as one can get, I effectively don’t have a kern. I will never be able to use dark to hide better or light to run farther.”

That did explain a lot of things that had confused Tristan. Having a dual kern seemed like an insurmountable advantage, so it would be something the Caldera would want to develop. Siren was so powerful that having fifty more just like him would be a good thing. However only one out of every forty-nine people with dual kerns would have Siren’s kern. Tristan was sure it had to do with the forces that composed the element. The healing of light would be negated by the decay of darkness.

That brought Tristan back to the warning next to the force of alloy. Adding a bunch of random essences could conflict and weaken the host. Tristan was glad his decay and hunger had to be activated, otherwise he would have lost all his alloys due to stupid decisions. He had two dark and two light alloys after all.

“Well, give me a few weeks, and I’m sure I will be able to fight,” Tristan said, “In the meantime, how can I help?”

He hated the feeling of powerlessness that being useless came with. There was not much he could physically do, but maybe he could find something to occupy himself with.

Harp’s answer surprised him, “Sure, can you make more metal?”

“Yes,” Tristan said, “Though not large objects, I only managed this because it is hollow.”

“I’ll be right back then,” Harp said.

She left Tristan to gimp around and went outside. It took her a good thirty minutes, during which Tristan had to keep some of the younger children from climbing on his walker. He swore he would not have kids if they all acted like this.

Harp returned, holding a silver object, “This is a screw, they are like nails but better.”

Tristan was aware of what a screw was, and that they were expensive. The inclined ramp running around the shaft was very difficult to make a proper mold for and the best screws were identical. That exact nature was difficult for smiths but would be easy for Tristan, as he would not have to worry about his mold warping or filing the edge perfectly.

The only question was, “Why do you want me to make screws?”

“Do you know what this sells for?” Harp asked.

Tristan had not needed to use one before, at least not in his admittedly fractured memory. He shook his head.

“This sells for a copper parse,” Harp said, “One of these is half a day's wages.”

“Interesting,” Tristan said, “What do you need the money for?”

“Food, clothing, proper survival gear, and weapons for these children’s parents. I like running a daycare, not an orphanage,” Harp said, “From the stories, my dad tells, the Caldera throws the regular infantry some cloth armor and a pointy stick before saying, best of luck.”

“Fair enough, let me experiment on the composition, and I can definitely do this,” Tristan said, then thought about it, “It does not matter so long as it is made of metal right?”

Harp shrugged, “I don’t know. I’m not a smith.”

Tristan hobbled over to a wall and leaned back against it. His thigh was cramping from fighting to hold him upright. Taking the screw he held it, turning it over and inspecting it. It was relatively simple, a hexagonal head that any gripping tool could hold, a shaft like a nail, and a spring shaped ramp coiled around it.

He started with the architect alloy, and he had an exact copy of the screw. A few more times gave him several more copies. The essence investment was not low for their size, but the screws were so small, that he could make one or two hundred a day. He handed them off to Harp and then tried to make them without the architect essence.

The result was garbage by comparison. It had a straight shaft, and the hexagonal head had rounded corners, almost making it round. The ramp was a set of rings bulging out of the shaft. It was not a marketable product, but the essence cost was halved. The ability to copy things was great, but the architect alloy was a guarantee of quality, not quantity.

This little piece of metal would be great practice for free crafting metal constructs. It would not be good to become dependent on his alloys, especially if he could lose one by incorporating the wrong force in the future.