Grand Saint Alloy

There was an agonizing scream, what was going on? A man yelling, fighting, and an explosion. Had they been attacked, something had struck her on the head, it was heavy and made of metal.

“Come on Lady River, wake up,” a female voice said. Eve did not recognize the voice, the screaming did not stop.

Eve opened her eyes to a pounding headache and saw the ground around the messenger torn up. The head guard, Janis had a massive bruise covering the left side of his face, his helmet was on the ground. Whatever had hit him, dented his helmet into the side of his face. One person was standing, fending off several others.

“How did you know it was there?” Janis asked.

“I used my metal sense, don’t you have something similar for air?” Tristan was here, he had also thrown the staff he was now holding at her.

Why? Her gaze moved to the earth kern guard, Walter, who was holding a discharged hand cannon. The Temple’s messenger lay at her feet a knife completely made of silvery metal protruding from his chest. Had Tristan just killed an assassin, and then beaten most of the guards? Why would he have to fight guards? She could see the silver grey of decay and the white enamel of Herod’s molars being eaten away.

“What are you doing, subdue him, he tried to harm Lady Eve,” Kerri yelled. The noise pulsed a wave of pain through Eve’s head.

Kerri had been her intended, he had been perfect and the darling of the Caldera. Eve had known who he was behind closed doors, he was spoiled, a godchild raised being told that he was better than everyone else. Elder River had corrupted the boy with his praise. His reputation had fallen in recent times, with him hiding from true danger only confronting those he believed to be safe targets. Like the alchemist, as a crafter, and Tristan, while he was injured.

The pain caused Eve’s attitude to slip. Solution attitude, it is what she had grown into from the toxic positive attitude. Still, she let some of the unproductive emotions out, “Grow a pair and do it yourself,” Eve grumbled as the healer helped her up, “Help Herod before the rot gets to his eyes.”

The healer’s eyes widened, “Rot?” Then the implication sank in, and she ran to Herod. She swapped out the ring on her thumb for another, most healing artifacts were jewelry, and knelt over the writhing man.

Kerri also looked shocked, “Me! You want me to fight this lesser?”

“No,” Eve answered, cringing from her position leaning against the horse, Kerri’s voice was so shrill, “I want you alive because we desperately need every tier four we have, but it’s better a tier four who does nothing dies than a tier three that will fight.”

“You think he could defeat me?” Kerri huffed.

Covertly, Eve glanced at the unconscious Herod before nodding, “Yes, you would not be the first tier four I have seen him fight. You need to drop this frankly pathetic feud you have, it makes you look weak, it makes my grandfather look weak, and it makes the River Caldera look weak.”

When Kerri tried to defend himself she decided to ignore it. She had more important things to do, like inform the army why they had stopped and why the guard had fought itself. Also an explanation as to why a single individual was able to non-lethally challenge the nine other members and survive.

“Walter,” Eve called.

“Yes, mam,” Walter saluted.

Eve preferred the more militaristic tones of the four tier two guards. The trained protection detail always used Lady River and Lady Eve, which was fine, she was a lady. It just lacked both the familiarity of her name and the efficiency of the military.

“Please find some people to spread the news of what happened here, just leave out Kerri’s squawking, please,” Eve said. Better to let the people think the guard made a mistake than one of their leaders was controlled by a petty grudge.

Tristan took the man’s original position, which was fine, a metal kern would make him a better wall than an earth kern would. The head of finance got off his horse and offered Eve his arm.

“Are you feeling good enough to continue?” He asked.

Eve gratefully took it and nodded, “Thank you. Most likely not, but it would be a bad decision to arrive late due to a scuffle.”

They started forward again, the entire ordeal taking less than five minutes. Herod was back on his feet, glaring daggers at Tristan, but he did not say anything. He had acted foolish as well, Kerri did not outrank a Civil Protector. In fact, Civil Protectors outranked everyone save for the Elder, not even Eve could dictate his actions. He should have possessed the wisdom to understand the situation.

Tristan should have also known that no one would have known what he was talking about when he yelled stop. Then clubbed the person they were guarding and stabbed the messenger. Yeah, she was just glad no one on her side died.

“Lady Eve,” Carra, the other light kern healer trotted up, “Look at this.”

She held a bracelet in one hand, and due to its brown color, she assumed it to be an earth artifact. In the other, she held the hand cannon. Eve wondered what was so special when the healer slipped the bracelet on and slid the weapon into it. Then she activated it, it flashed the white of a light artifact, then back to brown several times and each time it turned white, the cannon vanished.

Frowning Eve asked, “What is that, I have not seen anything like that.”

“It's a twinned artifact,” Carra said in awe.

That still did not explain anything, so Eve motioned for her to continue. Carra obliged, “There are times where identical twins with dual kerns will have a shared kern each owning a single essence, though it is rare even among these rare births. The phenomenon is always considered a disability as it takes twice as many artifacts to advance and if one of the twins dies the other’s kern will shatter. I have treated only a single case of this, and that was only because they wanted to create a paired artifact. You see if they decide to condense an artifact upon death there will be two identical artifacts with different affinities.“

“So this one can what, make weapons disappear?” Eve asked. The explanation was interesting but failed to explain anything pertinent to their situation.

“No, they were made of the same kern and can trade places with each other. The twins I mentioned wanted to make a box to allow their family to stay in contact. The boxes could switch places at any time and immediately deliver the mail, food, or anything inside the artifacts. I believe their mother got one, and their father who was a warrior got the other,” Carra said.

“So the messenger did not have a weapon when he arrived, are these common enough that more could be around?” Eve asked. It was concerning that such potent tools could be created without the knowledge.

“Doubtful,” Carra answered, “As I said this is a rare situation in a group of people that is already quite rare. How many identical twins do you know?”

Eve frowned, she knew several twins, but no identical ones. It was not as if she knew most of the people in the River Caldera, but it was a sizable enough percentage to say there could only be a handful in the Caldera. Still, if they were so rare, why would the temple waste such a rare artifact on an assassination?

It was not as if Eve could simply ask a priest as there were two obvious answers one religious and one assumptive. They are heretics, of course, they act the fool or Regis just really hates your guts and Daphan has to do what he says. Neither felt right, Guider Daphan was not a believer in his faith and would not sacrifice something so valuable unless he was forced to. Also, this particular messenger had been a parishioner at the River Caldera for a long time, she remembered because he was part of the choir.

The rest of the trip was calm, they started meeting more elementals as they entered Lake Caldera’s area of influence. Their first casualty came from a surprise slime elemental creating a fire domain and boosting the power of a wind elemental. Eve had the body of the man wrapped in a shroud and prepped for burial upon arrival at the Lake Caldera.

When they crested a small rise, she gawked at what was happening in the distance. A small force of four or five hundred people marched towards the city, crushing their way through any opposition. The Lake Caldera itself was fine, but from the top of the hill, she had a clear line of sight across the lake.

Alchehall was a small blip on the other side, but even from this distance, she could see the ring of flames surrounding the small hive of criminals. Above the city was a cloud, it was not white and fluffy, but jagged, reflecting the sun's light. Soundless explosions went off, the distance too great for the sound to travel.

That was not all, the show came with a voice.

“Witness humans, the power of a true king. I rule not by the blood of my fathers, but by right given by no man. But don’t think me as a tyrant, a king serves the needs of his people, not their wants. Your former leaders have convinced me that this cancer must be excised for the flock to grow. An apt description from their own mouths, now witness the power greater than that of your ancestors and kneel to your Lord.”

Eve watched in confusion and mounting dread as the cloud descended on Alchehall. They had assumed that the Lake Caldera was the target, they were now on the wrong side of the lake. She could only bear witness to the death of her only sister.