The return from the barrier was surprisingly easy. Kju was the one who needed more time as his Fortitude had not reached 256 yet. When they arrived in the giant room, Kanzoo rushed to them: “Zaiké meekhalakiddzhi zoonjiek?” (What happened to Zaiké?)
Zaiké started to speak in really fast Island-and-Coast language, showing his stat sheet and gesticulated wildly. A larger group of glitchlings congregated around them, while he did so. Kanzoo looked intrigued and almost drooled about the changes. Especially when Zaiké lifted up the thin Kanzoo as if she weighed very little. Zaiké wasn't strong compared to a regular human, but compared to a glitchling, his strength seemed amazing. When he moved towards the kitchen, apparently to help with dinner, a large group of glitchlings followed. As the Memleketian group wanted to follow, a group of older glitchlings stopped them, the elder that they met the day before was one of them. They motioned them into a small side chamber. "I see, I put too little weight on you. I thought, no chance this real," the elder said.
Kiresula nodded: "It is hard to believe and harder to trust. We had not been able to remove the barrier, but destabilised it long enough for Zaiké to gain a class and for Kju and me to level up."
Mayana went into the structure and the spellflow and how they disrupted it. Most of what she said seemed not to have been understood by the elders.
The elder smiled warmly: "This is you work on long time. Soon you will all of us give classes?"
Kju looked so eager about this. "As soon as the barrier falls, yes!"
Mayana smiled at the eagerness that seemed to befit a puppy more than a glitchling. Kiresula looked more worried however. She was aware of the expectation that the group was setting and felt it like a heavy weight. "We will look to make it fall, but we cannot guarantee it. It is one difficult barrier to unravel."
The elder responded: "But we want know why? You want do this with head, heart, hand. Why Memleket glitchling care about Jetahkalesa glitchling? Different language, belief, spirit."
Kiresula responded in their language and explained the fact that she gained experience from finding out new things, that Kju gained experience from guiding people towards classes and Mayana was her loving wife. But then she paused for a moment and explained that she wanted this knowledge to be like the sun, no man, woman, elf, dwarf or glitchling can extinguish it. She explained that the goal was to bring this information to Ilkshehir, but if she would not make it, she wanted the information to persist.
The elder pondered Kiresula's explanation for a few breaths. Then responded, slowly, with easy words in her language that she did not see that coming. The elder expected her to want assistance in combat, which she was hesitant about.
“No. We fight, we lose. We are many but even with a class, we are level 1. What I want is this to not go away. That this exists after all of us are no more.” She knew that the Island and Coast people took on the numbers of the Ancient Imperium, but they never used their invention of the number zero. Instead, they still kept their characters there, writing ten not as one zero but as one kéh, where kéh was a squiggly symbol. Kiresula didn’t know a lot about these, but she was aware that the symbol jéyo for one million as this was often used on Mainlander engagement jewellery meaning “forever”. She drew 1 jéyo on the soil and said: “Even after this many years, I want glitchlings to know they can gain classes.”
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The elder smiled: “I see. You sound like a teacher.”
Kiresula blushed and nodded: “I was a teacher of magic.”
“A noble work, but one that can blind you. Before I was a glitchling, I worked for the village leader. It can blind me differently. To think in hidden ways and secret caches, where a teacher thinks in open ways. I expected you to have been another person who had been cheated into being a glitchling and wanted to use us for revenge.” The elder understanding that the language of magic was Ancient Imperial, not Island-and-Coast-language, which was still the language of commerce, navigation, ship building and sea faring for mainlanders, occasionally used what little she knew of Ancient Imperial to fill in when she saw Kiresula not understanding her.
Kiresula breathed in: “I do not want you to fight my battle. I was betrayed, but had not thought about revenge. I admit, that this had… it had not been good for my me. So, I mostly tried to gain levels and regain what I lost. I was an Ice Mage, I thought being able to keep food safe for long and being a teacher made me… not important… but… a nail without which something breaks down. I had looked into a way to regain a way to make food keep fresh as a glitchling. Both to regain… and not to think…” she covered her eyes by her sleeve.
The elder put a hand on her shoulder as Kiresula dissolved into a crying mess.
Mayana had been in a different conversation with a male elder, but now that she saw the absolute state Kiresula was in, she hugged. For a long time, the two did nothing but sobbing.
Then Zaiké stuck his head into the room and told the elders that dinner was ready. Most of them ate, but Kiresula didn’t feel hungry. Instead, she kept to herself, thought of what she lost, what she had found and what remained. She remembered the enemies she gained and the friendships she retained, deepened or thought she had and lost. She cried for the loss of her form and class until she passed out.
Eventually, she woke up freezing, casted [Grains of Time], realised that dawn was almost upon her, just 3 grains away, looked around in the almost complete darkness and she saw Mayana in an awkward position, obviously asleep. She moved towards her lovely wife (and smiled as she saw her) and warmed her with her body. She fell asleep again just moments later.
When she woke up it was because Mayana did so and moved. Mayana however woke up because of the ruckus outside. Kiresula didn’t understand what it was about, but she heard fragments of Island-and-Coast conversation: “they are gone”, “how can they do that”, “hit the wind!”, “no where seen” and more.
Kiresula stuck her head outside: “What person do you search?”
The others looked at her: “You here?” one of them asked. Another one asked: “Mayana here as well?”
She nodded.
A glitchling who reminded her of Haditera asked: “Why did you not sleep in big room? We thought you ran!”
Kiresula blushed and mimed crying, sleeping and crying again. She then covered her mouth.
Kju heard the commotion and shouted: “There you are! It seems that everyone is eager to run to the barrier! And I couldn’t find hide or hair of you! And you speak the language better than me. What in the green hills of fair Anadolu happened?”
Mayana looked at Kiresula, giving her permission to disclose as much or as little as she wanted.
Kiresula grimaced: “I had a little breakdown. I am better now. I was reminded of what I lost when I glitched. I tried not to think about that for a while now. Metaphorically speaking ran away from it.”
Kju nodded: “I getya. I wondered how you held up so well.”
She made an unhappy noise: “Behold the life-changing power of denial. Anyways, let’s go. We have a barrier to break and classes to assign.”