Kiresula suddenly felt under the influence of a spell. She breathed in sharply and allowed it to happen. She knew that the other person was most likely not a glitchling, so whatever happened was most likely either Mayana’s or Kju’s work.
“A Travelling Mage? Never heard of that being a class!” the man scoffed. “Just stay down there, I just want to try something!” He called something. For a long time nothing happened, then he heard footsteps. An accented, young voice called: “You called, Arikan?”
“I did, Shtiljit. Can you verify this person’s status please? Something looks off about it and I don’t know the class.” the man said.
“Weyka!” the kid said in accented Je-ashvehanu, then yelped. So did the man.
“Get up,” he removed his foot from her head. Kiresula closed her status and clambered to her feet.
Kiresula looked at the man and the kid, no, it was a dwarf, not a kid. A person with fairer, almost white skin, a long, braided beard who only reached to Kiresula’s chest. “So, are you aware now that I didn’t steal any sheep?”
The man, Arikan, looked very tanned in the light of her [Light Body] spell. He looked very muscular for a fire mage, which was rather confusing for her as mages tend not to do physical labour. His clothing was dirty and threadbare. “Yeah, the status immediately shifted from Mainlandish to Akjiri when Shtiljit touched it. That’s not easily repeated with illusion magic. Especially so far from the Akjiri Confederation. And if you speak Akjiri like that gentleman, you are a friend of the dwarves and I would need to show grudging respect to that. Sorry for accusing and attacking you.”
Kiresula wanted to say something honest, but judging the level difference, caught herself: “I understand that your sheep are your livelihood. So if enchantments fail seemingly at random, it must be hard.”
Arikan confirmed: “I have asked an [Enchanter] from Ilkshehir to look at the fence, he added a lot of alarm enchantments that were supposed to fire in case of tempering, but they just… vanished as well. So I was out here trying to catch the sheepstealers, but it seemed that the enchantments just… broke. So when you were nearby, I assumed you did it from a distance. I am not certain about what it was.”
“Have you checked for broken magic? It can unravel enchantments.” Kiresula said.
Arikan looked shocked: “Broken magic‽ That sounds terrible! What makes you think that‽”
“I saw some Shanastanis delve a dungeon and they used highly enchanted gear as a warning. If the enchantments failed, they knew that the area was unsafe.” Kiresula explained.
“I don’t know any dungeon that would be safe enough for a Level 2 and at the same time attract foreign attention, so this sounds fishy to me.” The dwarf said.
“I was in a large group and we ran the Savage dungeon. And, yes, I was massively underleveled. We could only defeat the other side by using all kinds of tactics including the use of poison.” Kiresula explained.
“Yikes!” the dwarf cursed, “We stopped our adventuring because we lost half of our party to broken magic and then that misery follows us here!”
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Kiresula asked, trying to sound empathetic: “People in your party glitched?”
Shtiljit shifted his gaze downwards: “Yeah! Makajj, Hsie, and Kieki glitched and they now live here with us. We had to stop adventuring and are now trying to make a living as farmers. Well, it beats idleness.”
Kiresula nodded: “I understand that. I hope you find a way to resolve this.” She hoped that her deception was high enough or that the two were polite enough not to comment on this. She hoped that they would go away and stop bothering her. “I need to see how my companions are doing. The struggle against the groundsnarler must have woken them up.”
Arikan nodded: “Certainly so. If you want to stop by for breakfast tomorrow, our house is just in the direction whence the groundsnarler came. You recognise the place by the red colour. We’d love you to stop by to express our apologies to the entire group.”
A voice was heard from behind her: “We’d love to do so!” She looked around and noticed that it had been Kju who spoke. Kiresula rolled her eyes, but remained silent.
Mayana appeared from the same ditch Kju had been hiding in and hedged: “However, if we oversleep, we would hate to impose on you too late in the day.”
After the farmers went away, Kiresula hugged Mayana. She was so happy that her wife was unharmed. Kju waited until the act of affection finished and then said: “I am just glad that you tried to stall a bit. It was what allowed me to use spell points for something that I otherwise would never choose, but was what saved your ass.”
Kiresula asked: “An illusion spell? Some translation related ability?”
Kju shook his head: “Translation related, yes, but it is working between systems.”
Mayana stared at him, then almost shouted: “Between systems? Or the two systems?” The dual had been a grammatical feature that Mainlandic started to lose but Mayana used in the last sentence explicitly.
Kju smiled: “I am not sure if the system uses deprecated forms, but there’s one way to test. Can someone please show their status?”
Kiresula did so, only to see it switch to a blue status that looked more or less like a normal system screen. Then, she gasped as she saw a yellow screen.
Class: Mage of the Journey
Rank: Shkien
Class: Mage of the Elements
Rank: Shkien
Spells:
Rank Luui: Beetles Avenge with Elements
Rank Shkien:
Light, Blazing Light of the Sun, Journey that Cannot Be Impeded, Hidden Tracks, [Undefined], Water Cannot Harm This, Winter Arises, Fall Arises, Nothing Can Surprise, [Undefined], Aware of Time, Aware of Direction, Keep Food Well, Move With the Wind, Fiery Hit, Know Vegetation, Digging, [Undefined], Find Vegetation, Use Vegetation Aspect, Glow like a Candle, Icy Hit
Everyone gasped.
Kiresula however felt quite embarrassed. She knew that the last letters of the alphabet of the Siginistani Empire, a predecessor of the Shanastan, were Luui, Hsa, Shkien. She asked: “This is a Shanastani system? I learned a bit of the Shanastani alphabet for school. Shkien and Luui are letters used in the maths formulas behind spell development.”
Mayana made a face: “I am not sure about ‘is’, we have no idea whether it is still around or if the green system preserves a memory. Shanastan uses the letter Luui only in maths – just as we do. And from what I understand of what you tell me about the books, there is no writing about a yellow system.”
Kiresula nodded: “Yeah, statuses were always described as blue, not as yellow and I never heard the term for rank in this context. But this is definitely something I would like to ask a native speaker, a historian or a native historian. But that is tomorrow’s matter. Now we should sleep. I am tired. Badly so.”