Once they arrived at the cave it was later in the afternoon, Gale, after seeing Shigeo with the papers, took them away.
“Y’all are back! Great, some more have woken up and keep asking questions, and it's so annoying,” Athol greeted them, her tail swishing on the ground. Noticing Gale’s hands holding something, she asked “what’re those?”
“We found them in a fire near the village and had Imli restore them,” Gale answered.
“Let me see…” She took the papers, “crap Fey…”
“So you can’t read it?”
“Only Infernal and Common,” she handed them back.
“Apparently Shigeo knows some,” Gale gave them to said cadet along with the translation book.
“Really?” Athol looked at Shigeo.
“It just seems familiar…” Shigeo rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed.
“Oh, okay, you don’t look elven anyway,” Athol commented, “are you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Let me see your ears then.”
“Oh- okay…” He hesitated.
They’re kinda pointed… probably an ancestor or something was Elven,” Athol analyzed.
“Really?” He rubbed an ear.
“Yup. Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked, do you want me to move some people out of a room?”
“No, it’s fine, we can just use the room we slept in,” Jamey inserted himself into the conversation.
“Okay, there’s one person still in there, just a disclaimer,” She waved off the cadets as they walked behind a wooden wall.
Once they managed to travel to their destination, they saw Lance, who was being cared for by a small komir, this time actually conscious.
“Who there?” The komir stopped its treatment, making Lance alert.
“It’s just us,” Jamey said kindly, Shigeo behind him, still traumatized by the previous day’s incident.
“Jamey?” Lance inquired, starting to get up until the komir gently pushed him back into a laying down position.
“Yes, and Shigeo,” Jamey answered.
“Where have you been?”
“Out in the nearby village.”
“Oh nice.”
An awkward silence filled the room, all except the crackling of the komir’s fire and the shuffling of Shigeo as he translated the paper. The room held this silence for a while until another small komir rolled into the room to exchange shifts between the two.
“I have one translated,” Shigeo announced, placing a page off of the stack. Jamey walked over to read it, under the original wording was the english translation.
“‘Instructions for soul rebirth spell’?” He read the title of the page, skeptical, he read the first few directions.
“‘Use Soul Remover Spell on deceased body (must not be in coffin or underground)’? ‘Jar Soul’... ‘Use Transfer Spell to move soul into available body’? This is… concerning…” He thought out loud.
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“Mhm, I think the creatures we saw might have been from this spell if they aren’t Goblins, and Gale and Brutus were saying that they weren’t so…” Shigeo said, looking to and from the book and the pages.
“They’re basically more professionally made zombies, lovely,” Jamey commented, the last part said in a sarcastic tone.
“Yup,” he replied, distant.
Jamey watched Shigeo work, Lance most likely listening into the conversation, probably barely understanding, but listening. Shigeo muttering under his breath while he translated, the komir paid no attention to the three as it continued to apply the rags to Lance’s forehead.
After a few minutes, Gale walked into the room timidly, “sorry to intrude, I just wanted to see how much has been done.”
“Only a page or so,” Shigeo replied, then jolted once he realized who he was talking to.
“Really? Could I see them?” She asked tentatively, walking over.
“Mhm,” Jamey offered the paper to Gale, who started to read it. Her eyes widened the more she read it.
“So those things were necrospawn?” She looked astonished, holding the paper down to Jamey.
“That’s your word for Zombie?” Jamey asked.
“Yup, I guess,” Gale shrugged.
“Where’s Brutus?” Jamey asked after a small silence.
“He’s off who knows what, who knows where,” she answered.
“Who’s that?” Lance groaned, making himself a part of the conversation.
“This is Gale, she helps with getting us food,” Jamey introduced her swiftly.
“Ah, thank you then, it makes me feel less idle,” Lance said, not even trying to get up, knowing the komir would pull him back down.
“No need to thank me, Athol’s my friend so when I decided to help her I decided to help everyone in the cave,” Gale shyly responded.
“But being the admiral of our ship, I must thank you, I should have been the first to wake up,” he frowned at himself. Gale, not knowing how to respond, just nodded and hoped Lance saw.
“Another page,” Shigeo’s briefing interrupted the silence. Jamey took the page and handed it to Gale, knowing she would understand it better. Gale, who was now sitting beside the two, read the paper silently. The semi-productive air was at a standstill until Gale explained the paper.
“Apparently you have to construct the ‘desired body for the soul’ by slapping a bunch of animal and or human blood in a pot or something and putting the soul that was inside the jar into it,” Gale handed the paper back to Jamey.
“Even more disgusting and weird, great,” he muttered sarcastically.
“You then have to wait from a few minutes to a few days, you know you did it right by it changing color and slowly forming into a mutated version of all the blood you put inside the pot.”
“Gotta love it when it’s graphic.”
“Well, it is instructions.”
“Fair point.”
Fwip. This process continues until Shigeo finishes translating, and Gale paraphrases. To sum it up, to make the souls your servants, you have to add a minimum of one drop of your blood to the mix. The more of your blood, the more loyal the soul. The directions even describe how to “repair the vessels of the souls” and so on.
“So…” Shigeo hesitated, “what do we do now that we know this?”
“Keep it in our brains until we either stumble across more of it or start researching further,” Gale answered.
“I would assume it is around time to eat so we might as well go to the mouth of the cave just in case,” Jamey stated, the two others agreeing, they headed towards the mouth of the cave. As they walked, Jamey noticed how much easier it had become to navigate the cave since the previous night. Once the three arrived, apparently, it was either too late or too early. Gale left either way, saying she already gave the food they foraged to Athol before she came to check on them. After a few minutes of small chat, the komir and fellow shipmates came out from behind the wooden walls. Jamey noticed the amount of people had multiplied compared to yesterday. About a third of the twenty-man crew was out and waiting for the komir to pass out the food. Soon after, the komir rolled onto the scene and walked over to the navy-men (and Tomiko), dishing out the food, which this time seemed to be the Gaiendas with an assortment of sliced fruits. Jamey and Shigeo took the food kindly before Shigeo scarfed his and asked for some of Jamey’s.
“Hell no, I need to eat too!” He laughed. The two conversed until Jamey finally finished his plate. They, then, headed back towards their ‘room’. Once they arrived at the door frame, they heard Athol’s voice.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Like what?” Lance’s voice responded.
“Your skin is starting to become thick, like dragonhide.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you might, by some miracle, be turning into a Lizardfolk or something of the sort, maybe even a Dragonborn.”
“So I’m changing species?”
“Seems like it anyway.”
“That’s something to wrap my head around.” Lance groaned, Jamey imagined him rubbing his head, “thanks Athol.”
“I try,” she was pictured shrugging, “see you in the morning.”
“See you.”
When Jamey and Shigeo walked in (after Jamey heard Athol leave) they sat down and settled for sleep, this time being easier because of both the foraging, and Lance not huffing (as hard anyway).