Grand Saint Alloy

“What was that gods blighted, forsaken, mentally stunted, little pest thinking,” Commander Blacklake raged at a thin pale faced informant.

Siren simply leaned against a tree and watched the spectacle. He had never seen the commander this angry, but whatever happened must have been bad. An informant had been waiting about two miles outside the Forrest Caldera to receive them. Siren could have chosen to step in, but informants weren’t something he wanted to get himself tangled up with.

He preferred clean, honorable combat, not the information warfare that Blacklake specialized in. It was why he had chosen the ramparts and the mine. Beasts and elementals were obvious, you killed them or they killed you. No malice was involved, just a clean struggle for survival with few moral dilemmas. Killing humans put a bad taste in his mouth, it was nearly impossible to be certain that the person he killed deserved death. Forrest was an exception, the man had not directly done anything, but his decisions had sent the Caldera into a civil war.

The only upside was the lack of mythical beasts assailing the walls. It was as if they had all gone dormant or left. Either way, Siren was grateful another beast wave was not in the near future. He refocused when Blacklake dismissed the informant and came stomping over.

“Do you know what that hooligan did?” Blacklake yelled.

Siren was not sure if the question was rhetorical, or if an answer was truly expected.

It was rhetorical, “He burned down the Elder’s Manson, knocked over the temple, and wiped out most of the governing body. Guider Daphan is the only one with any status left in the city.”

Siren raised an eyebrow. That was a bit extreme, he had known Tristan was an angsty kid, but going on a murderous rampage seemed a little off. Though if he was true to his mission, throwing a torch at the Elder’s pinewood mansion would be a decent way to go about it. Siren struggled to make himself care. It was easy for him to build indignation and anger when innocence was being oppressed, but these people had mostly decided to back an undead in its domination of their entire civilization.

“So, why is this a problem?” Siren asked, “Fewer leaders just means no opposing voices to the story you intend to spin.”

“No one knows where the forsaken Elder is!” Blacklake yelled, “Well maybe Daphan does, but no one knows where he is either.”

That was a problem, so Siren asked, “What about Regis, or whoever is the current civil protector?”

“Regis got himself turned into a bloody paste, the informant was very clear on that,” Blacklake said, “No protector has been established because Shadow Fist was elevated to tier four, and your little silver devil friend ran off with him.”

Siren had to take a moment to digest that. What the hell had happened? He knew Tristan could be a menace, and now that he possessed the force of cohesion, it made even more sense. From what he had been told, the boy had a force that allowed him to use multiple forces. It sounded very potent until he had been told that the force lowered his essence efficiency by at least thirty percent.

Still melting Regis seemed like a bit of an exaggeration. The man’s death was a long time overdue. That meant they would have very little opposition in the city.

“Why don’t we just walk in and just start asking the people?” Siren asked, “One of the guards might have an idea.”

“Yeah, the guards,” Blacklake grumbled, “Tristan crippled most of them, torn tendons and sprained ankles mostly.”

Shrugging, Siren turned to the city. That was not a no, and while they were here, he might as well take a look around. The two guards at the gate stopped Siren. He could have snuck past them, but both looked exhausted and they could be the first two he questioned.

“The Forrest Caldera is not accepting visitors at this time,” one of the guards said.

“I’m not visiting, this is my home,” Siren answered honestly. He did not own a house or any land, but the Forrest Caldera was where he was born, “I heard that Forrest is going to be executed, he mistreated a lot of people I know.”

The guard eyed Siren suspiciously, “Give me the address to your home.”

“I never bought a home, I was on the ramparts so much that I did not see the point, will my parent’s old homework?” Siren asked. His parents had him late in life, and had they still been alive, they would be over ninety now. Still, they had not been inactive in the community, so there was a decent chance these guards had met them when they were children.

Glancing at his companion, who nodded, the guard slowly said, “Yes, though if you’re lying we will know, we have both patrolled the Forrest Caldera for over a decade.”

Siren smiled, “My full name is Gravis Ren, my parents used to live in the third house from the intersection of Circle Street by the wall and that alley that never drains properly.”

The guard looked up at the sky and ran through various memories. Slowly he nodded, “I think I knew them, what business did they own.”

Siren smiled, “They ran a postal business, their motto was Ren, sleet, snow, and hail.”

The guard’s eyes widened in realization, “Oh, their name was Ren, I thought they were just bad at spelling.”

Siren saw the moment both guards relaxed, “So where will we be going to watch the event?”

“Well, we don’t know,” the guard said, “We have been a little busy, there aren’t enough guards right now, so it's all we can do to stop the panicking from turning to rioting.”

“I won’t complain about a serviceman doing his job with pride,” Siren responded, “Who can I ask to get the directions.”

The guard thought for a moment, “Shadow Fist was taken, but his warden might know. He manages most of the executions and prison blocks. I don’t know where to find him, but if I were looking I would try the crime scenes.”

Siren continued talking for a few minutes until he found a good time to break the conversation off. He and Blacklake walked into a city that was currently locked down, and Siren hadn’t told a single lie to accomplish the feat. Blacklake had a concerned look on his face.

“What’s wrong,” Siren asked.

“Why haven’t I heard of a warden in the Forrest Caldera? As far as I knew, the River Caldera and Stone Caldera were the only ones with that position,” Blacklake explained his concern.

They walked past rows of mud and straw homes. People seemed mostly unconcerned with the events that had just occurred. Their productivity was almost nonexistent, but none of the panic a hyper-violent invasion should cause was noticeable. The Caldera was nearing a full year of constant violence, maybe the people had just gotten numb to their fear.

“It’s simple,” Siren explained, “Conni was the warden up until the fall of the Forest Caldera.”

Blacklake mused on that for a few moments, “He had no prisons and no escape attempts, how was he a warden?”

Siren shrugged, “I don’t know why his methods worked, I just know that most of the convicts liked him. He was not any kinder to them than anyone else, but he was fair.”

Blacklake had not spent enough time in the city to navigate the Forest Caldera, so Siren took the lead. The temple was closer to the gate, making it the first place they would go. People became more scarce as they approached the business district, it was eery. At first, the change was unnoticeable. A broken ceiling tile here, a cracked window there, slowly changed to broken shutters, cracked walls, and homes stripped of their siding.

The temple had three walls still standing. It appeared that the building had relied on gravity to hold the rafters on the walls. Whatever had happened, pushed the roof off its supports and the opposite wall had buckled under the weight. Broken stained glass and pinewood splinters covered the area.

Siren wanted to go through the rubble if only to figure out what did this, but that was not his mission. As no one was sifting through the rubble, they needed to look elsewhere. This was not the epicenter of the damage. The smithy across the street was broken, and beyond that, a two story building had collapsed onto the neighboring building.

When they arrived at what Siren assumed was the center, they found a group of five people. They were inspecting multiple pieces of armor and the pitted cobblestone beneath their feet. It looked like acid rain had fallen in a twenty foot area, melting wherever it touched. The spherical symmetry of it was at odds with the ruined chaos around them.

One of the people noticed Siren’s approach, “Who are you?”

“You may call me Sir Ren, now where is the warden? I was told to speak with him,” Siren used his most commanding voice. It would not work on anyone with self-confidence, but few people had that in the first place.

Another man looked up from where he was prodding the wall of a divot with his knife, “Who told you to speak to me.”