The thick, heavy air of Ashforge City grew even more dense as Inertia led the way into the Abyssal Depths beneath the Hellbrand spire, Tresla on her back, her friend and sister a short distance behind her.
It had been some time since Inertia and Tresla had last renewed their oath bond.
That was partially because despite all the fame Inertia had accrued, she did not enjoy being gawped at like one of the enslavers of old. However, when last they reforged their bond, it had been important to provide a symbol of the Forgeborn and Myriad’s alliance. To encourage others to do the same.
It had been beyond crowded. Now there were only the two of them, each with a single witness.
Inertia's eyes flicked in the direction of her new friend. Percival was a good addition to the ritual, though she worried his magical protections would not be able to hold up to the intense pressures. She was equally as worried he would not hold up to her sister's intense curiosity.
While Inertia could be stubborn, she also prided herself on her restraint. Her sister…
“And it does not disturb you that you have to do it physically?” Calamity asked, gesturing downwards towards her Perry's waist, “excreting wastes by such primitive means instead of simply breathing them out.”
Perry cleared his throat, glancing towards Inertia. “I mean we breathe it out in a lot of ways. It's just some of the heavier stuff we don’t. Why are we talking about this again?”
“Because it's interesting,” her sister declared. “And because I can’t ask most mortals without violating your taboos. But since you’re my sister’s friend, you won’t just run away over a little discomfort.”
“Not sure that’s universal. Couldn’t I just give you a book?”
“I’ve read plenty. And dissected a few cadavers I bought off Terra Vista. It’s not the same,” Calamity said, waving a hand at Perry.
Inertia tuned them out, instead ensuring Tresla didn’t misplace her steps. It was dangerous this deep underneath the Hellbrand Spire, especially for a lightsinger such as Tresla.
There wasn't much Sky Light for her to sing to in the Abyssal Depths. Even less than in regular underground areas. It was why the bond was forged there, where the only light was Tresla’s own.
However, it also left Inertia’s closest companion nearly blind. So Inertia guided her around the flows of lava under their feet, sometimes lifting her companion to step directly on the lava, moving past it before the thick material could bend under Inertia’s considerable weight. Doing so reminded her of Nails once asking her if he could drown in lava if he had a strong enough shield enchantment. It had amused her since even she would have a hard time sinking in most lava. To any appreciable depth at least.
Inertia turned her head back, looking at the pair behind her. Despite the depths making casual conversation difficult, they continued, now talking about incorporating enchantments to channel excess steam. Something Calamity had mastered. She’d needed to, to keep her current form from being constantly shrouded in mist.
Her sister was navigating the lava with even more ease than she was. The new winglet-spider-legs were propelling her along with casual ease. Inertia found herself wondering if she should complete a similar design.
Of course her friend Perry had it the easiest as he was able to simply float above the lava. There were not many times she envied his smaller form, yet the ease with which he was able to ignore such fundamental physics was one aspect she appreciated. Perhaps she could create something that emulated his travel instead of her sister's.
It took nearly half an hour of steady descent before they arrived at the Bond Chamber. It was, by necessity a large chamber, one big enough for even her true form to enter. It had been in that form Inertia had last entered the Bond Chamber alongside Tresla. Some would consider them diminished now compared to their former glory. Inertia did not see it that way.
Her current form was sleek and streamlined, much like her sister's, though not to the same extent. Even Inertia had not been willing to go as far as Calamity. Inertia also preferred the form of the raptors that sailed the skies. There was an elegance to them that embodied freedom.
Her sister was one more prone to creating amalgamations, which, while unique, unsettled even the less rigid Forgeborn.
Thankfully, it did not seem to unsettle her friend Percival.
Even despite her sister's line of questions, he had engaged her fully. Something few Inertia had met were capable of, especially since their tangents swung from the earlier discussion of excrement all the way over to higher physical limitations of material sciences and then into the actual rune crafting and integrating them within. There were portions even Inertia had trouble following, much as she would never admit as such.
“Are we nearly there?” Tresla asked in a near whisper. It was a sign of how blind she was that she couldn’t properly guage her volume.
The question returned Inertia’s attention to the bond chamber. “We have arrived,” she hissed out in Forgespeak.
While she was quite familiar with the room, it had been some time since she'd last been there. With Tresla cradled in one arm, Inertia carefully inspected the many tools laid out at the center of the room. Even if it had been a long time, these too were familiar. It was much like a forge, with automated bellows and heat that could be regulated with a single turn of an inset dial. It was a forge design specifically for interfacing with an adaptable Forgeborn such as herself, not for one of the Castborn who constrained themselves to a single form.
Inertia tilted her head backwards, a constant hiss of steam escaping as she looked upwards. Above them loomed a larger set of equipment, for use by the War Forms. The surface for shaping metal was nearly as large as the airship they'd arrived on.
It was on that surface she had forged their previous bond. It had been a great day for her people. A day of cheering, hope and a grand future.
For Inertia and Tresla, it had been the last time they’d been forced to fill the role of Forgelord.
Inertia’s gaze moved back to the more intricate set up. This time the bond would be for them, not for the entire Forgelands.
A few minutes of preparation later, and Inertia laid Tresla’s cloaked form down upon the anvil.
“We are here today to witness the bonding of these two sapients,” her sister said, having held up a hand to cut off Perry and his questions, which he had started asking in return. For all that her sister may embody chaos at the best of times, she did understand the solemnity of these oaths.
Her friend didn't say anything, simply nodding where he floated next to Calamity.
Inertia ran a hand over lightsinger companion’s hood, hissing out the word, “time.”
Tresla's hood bobbed as it always did. Then her gloved hands reached forward and pulled.
As she did so, the threads slowly unwove, falling to either side of the anvil, until only the lightsinger within remained.
The body of her companion was difficult to look upon, even for Inertia. It was more layers of scintillating light than any solid surface. In truth the edges flowed and ebbed and shifted as if the shore of a great ocean.
The sole point of steadiness was the pair of eyes that looked upon Inertia, glinting red with amusement as a constantly fluxing ‘hand’ held up her cloak. “Well my friend, shall we?”
Inertia nodded, reaching forward with her own hand to accept the cloak and the forgework hidden within. Turning it inside out, Inertia revealed the forged brands that ran up and down the lining, each of them crafted specifically for their bond.
Stepping over to the light-forge, Inertia started the auto-bellows pumping with a touch of her foot. Once the flow was steady, she turned to a set of clamps. Pulling it open, she placed her hand inside.
Then she removed it in a hiss of steam.
In the heart of a properly designed forge, she would not need the multi-purpose appendage. Not for both arms. Instead, she replaced it with a highly specialized clamp.
While Inertia prepared the tools, Tresla stepped into the light-forge. The flames, and thus the heat within, soared higher than anything a volcano could ever produce.
It was into that fire Inertia placed the first of the rune-forged pieces. With a thrust of specially enchanted tongues, she plunged it into the heat of her bonded friend, into the heat of a star.
If not for the specialized clamp that she had replaced her hand with, even Inertia would not have been able to retrieve the material.
It didn’t take long for the material to be ready to work.
Retrieving it, she laid it out on the forge as she forged the oath into steel. Together their voices rose as they renewed their oath: Inertia in forgespeak and her companion in scintillating light.
Neither had an exact translation into Elinder, though the closest words would have been: “Those enslaved, now free, forge a bond of exploration and discovery. We carry the past, standing upon its shoulders, using the height to see even further. While not allowing it to drag us into the depths.”
Inertia felt the translation lost some of the meaning.
There was more context, more history involved in Forge Speak. The nuance of being free and bonded at once and how she only felt free while bonded. For if she was unbonded she would have to be like her sister. She didn’t begrudge her sister, but having a translation unit built directly into her frame… that had been a requirement of the slavers.
As it was she could let her companion handle that part of their lives.
As Inertia shaped the metal, Tresla’s light poured itself into the runes, both of them imbuing it with the magics of their people.
Long into the night and the next day, their work continued. It was a slow unhurried process as they re-forged each piece of their bond. Every strip of metal was but one part of their oath to each other and to their ideals. This strip along the sleeve, a renewal of their commitment to destroying slavery wherever they found it. That curved piece along the hood, a commitment to see all beings as equal, no matter how strange or disturbing. The inlay upon the gloves, a commitment to remember to find fun where they could, to ensure life did not lose its luster.
It took more than a full day for them to complete. Her sister and her friend, standing silent beside them the entire time.
As the process drew to a close, Inertia couldn't help but be filled with pride as she and Tresla were bonded once more.
Tresla stood tall, though no taller than before, flexing her hands. A glint of red light escaped her hood. “A much more comfortable bond. Almost forgot what it was like without the itching.”
Inertia let out a grunt of steam as she put her tools away properly. A lesson that hadn’t taken as long to drill into her human apprentices as it did many of her Forgeborn ones.
She wondered how her latest apprentices were doing and whether they were getting ready for their own to prove their worth as forge tenders not born of the Forgeborn.
Whatever they were doing she was sure that they would make her proud.
For the moment, she returned her attention to her bonded, happy it had proceeded without a single explosion.
Well… mostly happy. The occasional explosion did make life more enjoyable.