Chapter Twenty-Four: Claudia Opens Up

*

Together, they approached the forge. The building had several long vents on the outside and, aside from the Obelisks, was the only building not made out of wood. There was one big door at the front, but several smaller entrances and exits allowed different points of entry towards different parts of Zion. Already, the smell of heat wafted out from the large door left open. THe windows had also been cracked, oozing rippling waves from whatever Magnus worked on inside.

When they entered, Olivia looked around curiously. There were various tools crafted of different unknown metals strewn across various workstations. Each workstation had everything someone needed to work on an independent project without getting in the way of others. In the center of the room, there was an anvil three times the size of the personal use ones at the stations, and the sides glittered with Inscription.

If she recalled correctly, Aiden had purchased the building from the system shop and had the blueprints delivered. When that happened, a lot of Essence went into aiding those creating the building and items required in this almost trance-like state, but she couldn’t argue about the level of effectiveness it contained. The whole place had been erected in an evening. Those that had helped remember doing so but had commented about feeling like they’re minds had taken a backseat to some driving force that pushed their bodies to complete the assigned task.

Terrifying, Olivia thought, remembering the look of concern on Aiden’s face at the time. He’d been a part of the construction crew and agreed and validated all of their testimonies. The system had a level of power they couldn’t even imagine. The same thing happened for each and every one of the magically constructed buildings. If only the knowledge on how to do it stuck behind.

She stared at the magically engraved inscription on the large anvil and wished she’d be able to discover the secrets to applying the Patterns to everything. An almost desperate need to discover all the mysteries and workings of the magical language drove her nearly insane at times, but the amount of progress she made couldn’t be looked down on.

Once she started her process of trialing all the variables in each part of the Formations, she quickly made leaps and bounds. She’d logged each function of each Pattern, how it worked within the three-ringed Formations, and started even experimenting with trying to formulate her own Formations.

She’d failed every attempt but one. That one success showed her that there was potential, but she’d wracked her head against the problem without rest or result. Looking at Anna and Claudia, she internally begged the universe to help them figure out how to use it for the betterment of Zion.

There wasn’t a single aspect of daily life she couldn’t see the applications enhancing, especially when pushed to the utmost degree. Their people would be stronger and safer when they fought, their fortifications would hold up under the barrages of their enemies, and they could even get to the point of recreating all the things they missed from Earth—though she hoped they wouldn’t be forced to stay there that long.

She could see the worry in Aiden’s eyes though. He wouldn’t voice the words aloud, and she wouldn’t force him to. He saw the fear of never completing the Gate Hub Destiny Quest, and if they did, the uncertainty of whether they’d even be able to get back home. To put all that effort into completing it and then to still be stuck? She was sure it would break his heart.

However, he wasn’t one to give up in the face of adversity. Never had been, and coming to Midrath only exemplified that quality exponentially. Knowing that, she looked at Magnus and felt hope in her heart for the first time since the raid party returned and shared the news of what had happened.

He wouldn’t stop fighting, so neither would she. She might fall down, but like him, even if it did take her friends’ support, she would always get back up and keep going. So now, she’d do what she could do to help.

“Hey guys, surprised to see you here!” Magnus called over the roaring flames of the forge. His thin hands nimbly traced over each tool multiple times as he waited for the heat to rise to an even higher degree. He straightened the tool over and over. Once he couldn’t make them any straighter, he turned and tapped the sides of a large barrel. Inside, there were a bunch of rocks. He sighed and looked back at them. “They gave us so much to work with, but I didn’t realize none of it would be processed.”

“Pretty unfortunate, yeah, but I think that’s what Aiden had bargained for. The cost of processed goods versus raw materials and whatever else he traded with The People for,” Claudia explained as a layer of steel-colored metal covered her hands like gloves. “How many barrels do we have?”

“Too many,” he said, grinning.

Olivia found his reaction curious but stayed quiet and watched the two interact for a little longer. She felt a crushing weight and pressure at the thought of trying to work through the problems with the Patterns, but she took a deep breath and respected that their own interests were important to them. The time would come. She couldn’t just expect everyone to drop everything then and there because she wanted them to.

So she found a workstation and set the compendium down, going over many of her notes and tests. Each variable had a purpose, but balancing each chain reaction to get something that functioned in the way she wanted didn’t seem to fit in with the examples she had of applicable in the Pattern to Formation schema.

Not to mention her confidence in defining anything as definite felt like it was a straw house and could be blown down at any second. She wanted to believe the results of her trial and error testing, truly, but she also didn’t want to fall into the same trap Aiden had to make logical leaps and connections that didn’t exactly exist.

Without having more than a single one out of hundreds of tests, she felt the occurrence more circumstantial and likely beginner’s luck. She couldn’t repeat the success on any other Formation, and even using the success she had, the Formation as a whole didn’t do as she thought it would with the Patterns she’d provided it.

Thus the reason she’d wanted to meet with the two blacksmiths. Rather than look at everything as Formations being the base level she needed to understand the workings of the language, she took a step back to see what kind of applications Patterns could have without the support of any of the circles or complex Formation arrays.

In hindsight, it only made sense to do it as such, but she wanted to sprint before she knew how to walk and ended in a lot of wasted time. She knew what the Patterns did in theory, but she’d taken Aiden’s word at face value, which was backed by the limited understanding imparted by the system, a system controlled by the gods.

Those system notifications were a whole other level of messy and chaotic. She’d already attempted to utilize the Inquiry System to figure out how to advance her understanding of Inscription, but that had been a dud. They were very adamant she quit trying to learn the freeform applications of the language and pushed her to only use the system-provided Inscription.

Yeah, no thanks.

The shop was useless in the way of learning the language, though she’d noticed several interesting items she couldn’t even dream of affording any time in the near future. The Patron system had been like static when she tried to use it.

The Faction system wouldn’t let her access it without Gate Leader’s approval, and Aiden was the only one with that authority. She thought her position as Advisor might’ve allowed her some leeway in managing the Faction, but nope. Due to him being gone, another dud.

Only the Companion system would benefit her much outside of just slamming her head against the compendium until something made sense, but Zeal was more of the free spirited type. He loved soaring through the skies and only returned if something interesting happened. She’d sometimes envied the others for their Companion selections, but she saw how many Essence Blizzy consumed, the sizes of the droppings Ares left behind, and the arrogance of Shadow and Kion.

Now that I think about it, where’d Baby Bartholomew run off to? The troublesome bear hadn’t been around for quite some time, and Josh hadn’t mentioned anything about him. When… was the last time I saw his Companion?

A thought made her blood still as chills creeped down her spine and arms. Turning, she blurted out, “What happened to Baby Bartholomew?!”

Anna’s eyes widened for a second before she turned away. Magnus looked confused and a little annoyed at being interrupted. He looked towards Claudia and backed away.

“I’m gonna… go. Yeah. I’ll be outside.” He scampered to the larger front door, gave a quick look over his shoulder, then pursed his lips and left. He could still be heard outside, muttering as he continued his work.

Claudia’s face was twisted in fury and pain, disgust and guilt. “BB… is gone.”

Olivia’s heart skipped a beat as her throat dropped into her stomach. “Wha…?”

“Gone,” Claudia repeated, her nostrils flaring and shoulders shaking. “Forever.”

“No, that can’t be,” Olivia said, shaking her head. “What do you mean ‘gone’? Josh released the Companion bond? Why would he do that? That doesn’t make any sense!”

“BB is dead, Oli.” Her words caught in her throat and she clutched her chest tightly, squeezing her eyes shut to stop the tears. She stayed like that.

Olivia didn’t know what to do. She was still trying to figure out how the tank of a bear could’ve died and why nobody had said anything about it. When Zeal got too far, she felt an overwhelming dread. If that’s how getting too far away felt, she couldn’t even comprehend what it might be like to lose the falcon forever, to have her Companion die.

“Dead?” she repeated quietly. She’d just seen the brutish boy. She never would’ve been able to tell he’d been holding something like that if she hadn’t thought about it coincidentally. He didn’t talk about it, didn’t act any different from his usual self. Her heart ached for his loss. “How?”

Her oldest friend took several long, shaky breaths as she tried to calm herself. She got her pained face under control. But no matter what she did, her hands continued shaking. “I was feeling restless during one of his visits. The underground felt claustrophobic, and I hadn’t seen the outside world for a week. We went for a walk with BB and Hard Head so I could get away and we could be alone, but not too far away, we found another Shadowborn dungeon that warped the surroundings and drained the life from the native plants and small critters.”

“Don’t tell me—”

“We did exactly what you’re thinking. Without reporting what we found, the four of us entered. We didn’t notice the draining effect at first, but we should’ve known just from seeing the outside. This wasn’t the first of its kind, but we’d taken a couple down before and thought nothing of it.” She scoffed. “We’re impulsive idiots, as you know.”

Olivia could see her friend’s hurt. Claudia grabbed the sides of the large anvil to steady her hands after swiping at her twitching eyes. There were no words that Olivia could say to make things better or undo the past, and Claudia was almost as hard on herself as Aiden. The two used to bond over their sentimentality. All Olivia could do was listen and hope it would be enough, so she nodded and waited.

“The dungeon shifted around the portal leading back out, trapping us inside. Because I’d been learning to smith, me and Hard Head were far weaker than Josh. We couldn’t last like he could. About a quarter of the way through the dungeon, we had to hide behind him and BB as they slaughtered their way through endless hordes of Shadowborn.” She glared down at the anvil for a few seconds while saying nothing then looked up at Olivia. The haunting guilt and despair overtook everything else. “I’ve never felt so powerless in my life, even in the school when we first were brought over.”

“I can imagine,” Olivia muttered, remembering how Aiden had protected her and the current feelings of not being able to do anything to help looming in the back of her mind. “It’s an awful feeling.”

“It is,” Claudia agreed, nodding. “We were stuck there for two days by the time we got to the boss. Josh and BB were barely hanging on, but they still protected us. Hard Head was dying, I could feel it, and it was the worst thing I ever felt in my life. It was even worse than this guilt, and that makes me feel even worse because BB is gone. If it felt like that with Hard Head on the verge of death…”

“I get what you mean,” Olivia said, resting her hand on her friend’s when she saw the other girl struggling to form words. “What happened isn’t your fault. Does Josh think it’s your fault?”

Ignoring Olivia’s questions, Claudia continued. “That feeling made me reckless. I’d been trying to conserve my energy the whole time, so when I thought I saw an opportunity to strike, I did. I got baited. It was a trap. I threw myself at the dungeon boss recklessly, putting everything into one desperate, final attack. BB sacrificed himself to save me, and Josh went berserk. I don’t even remember what happened. All I remember is red. Everything was red. Such a deep, painful red. I—It was too much, and I passed out.”

“Did you ever ask Josh what happened?” Olivia asked, slightly curious herself but not wanting to seem rude.

Again, Claudia continued as if Olivia hadn’t asked a question. “When I woke up, the dungeon was gone. The shattered core lay at my feet. There was no trace of Josh, BB, or Hard Head, but I could feel Hard Head was alive. I knew he was on the verge of dying and could still feel that feeling. Following it, I found myself back with The People. They have this ceremony of returning the dead back to the earth and land. BB was there, and I tried to stop them. I didn’t want to believe what had happened, but they didn’t stop. While I kicked and screamed, BB turned to nothing more than Essence in the air and earth before my very eyes.”

“Wow, I didn’t know they did something like that,” Olivia muttered, barely audible. She stroked her friend’s hand again, doing whatever she could to comfort her.

“I found Hard Head with the Argul. He was in such critical condition, Nin’Yala had to suspend him in ice until V’Yenya could personally heal him.”

“Holy shit,” Anna muttered, startling them both.

“What’s so surprising about that?” Olivia asked, never having really spent much time with the diplomat of the Osh’Tika’Varu.

“If both V’Yenya and Nin’Yala were needed to keep her fire ram alive, pretty much nothing else could have. Even among The People, those two are considered insanely talented. Like, once in a million years, but when they say it, they literally mean a million years. They’re both powerful enough that they could, pretty much at any time they want to, leave this world,” Anna explained.

“Oh, wow. I never knew,” Olivia said, looking back towards Claudia. Her closest friend nodded and gave a wry smile. “It was too late for BB, but they kept Hard Head alive and nurtured him back to full health. He took a liking to the Argul, so he’s been with them while I threw myself at learning smithing. BB was his closest friend apart from me, and he’s not taking the loss well. He almost canceled our Companionship bond when I suggested leaving the Argul den…”

Olivia’s eyes widened. She’d heard canceling could happen with Companions, but she’d never heard of it happening before. “Damn… I didn’t know any of this. How long ago?”

“It’s been two weeks, but it all feels like another lifetime. Everything’s happening so fast.” She frowned, pursing her lips. “I don’t know what he did while he was gone, but he came back with more power than I could fathom. He didn’t say anything to me, didn’t touch me,” her lips trembled, and she pushed off the anvil to cross her arms, “didn’t care about me anymore.”

“I’m sure he do—”

“No, he doesn’t,” Claudia interrupted, shaking her head quickly. “You should’ve seen the way he watched me work. It was unsettling. There was nothing, maybe absolute indifference at best. Back in the Town Hall, those were the first words he’d said to me since BB died.”

“That… can’t be true,” Olivia said sadly, but she could see the truth in her friend’s face. “I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could do to help, really.”

The frustration grew inside of her that she hadn’t know these events occurred. She knew why neither of them talked about it, but she also felt frustrated with both of them. Even then, weeks ago, there had been an established procedure when it came to dungeons, but both of them had ignored those procedures. Everyone of them that went in suffered the consequences of those actions, and Josh…

She couldn’t even begin to imagine what would happen if she lost Zeal, and the falcon was the personification of aloof. BB? The big bear was the kindest, most gentle creature.

And she only now realized the loveable bear had died, weeks later. How? Someone had to have noticed. Maybe Aiden? But he’s so busy all the time. There’s no way he knew, right?

But she remembered the way Josh spoke about Aiden, how there would be unexplained absences in his schedule from time to time. She had thought he’d thrown himself into another dungeon to vent some steam, but could this have been where he’d gone?

Olivia turned and stared daggers into Anna. “You knew.”

A statement, not a question.

“I did, yes,” Anna said, nodding once.

“Tell me,” Olivia demanded, her mind in turmoil. He told her, but not me? He didn’t… tell me. Why didn’t he tell me? Why? We’re family!

“What’s there to tell?” Anna asked with a shrug. “You think he wants to burden his baby sister with all of his problems? If you think he’d do that, you don’t know him very well.”

“But why didn’t he tell me about Josh?!” she nearly screamed, suddenly becoming very aware of her close proximity to Anna.

“I’ll say this again, only two people knew about what happened to him after BB died. Hell, she doesn’t even know,” Anna said, pointing at Claudia. “Aiden and Josh fought for days. I only found out about it because Josh nearly killed Aiden, and I had to heal him. Why is that something he would tell anybody?”

“What?” Olivia and Claudia said at the same time.

Olivia took a step back and looked at her oldest friend, seeing how her face sank. For what felt like the billionth time that day, she didn’t know what to say or do to help. She just felt like a burden. Even her brother thought so, thought she couldn’t handle things.

Is that how everyone sees me? she thought, backing away from Anna until she bumped into one of the work benches. She leaned back on the station as her eyes lost focus, but a sharp snapping brought her back to the world and out of the spiral of doom her mind had started to dive into.

“This. Right here, right now. This is why he doesn’t tell you things. You can’t process the things he has to deal with on a daily basis, let alone all of the other things he worries about, without becoming a vegetable. He needs you more than you know, but how could he open up to you when, every time something happens, you turn into this?” Anna eyed Olivia with disdain. “That’s why he comes to me. There is no other reason.”

“Bitch.” Olivia grabbed the compendium from off the station she’d set it on and left the smithy. She ran, and ran, and ran, not once looking back as the tears streamed down her face.