Kia moved her arm outside of her long cloak and into the bright elements. From the girl's soft alabaster skin, white smoke rose into the sky as her skin slowly gained a brighter garnet-like complexion the longer the Iris stared at her. With the swiftness of a crane plunging its beak into the water, Kia jumped under the tarp behind the elf.
Iris's eyes tried to follow the mage's figure into the interior of the wagon only to find a wall of darkness blocking her vision. The fearless risen put her right arm through the solid void and touched something incredibly cold and hard at the other side. "Ice?" A winter's chime pierced the darkness as she tapped the cold surfaced with her fingers.
The darkness around the tall elf's elbow receded into the faint shadows of the wagon's interior, permanently in a state of twilight as the light was barely able to trickle inside through the floorboards and the sides.
"Hi, what are you doing?" Her knuckles knocked on the ice dome suddenly occupying most of the wagon's cramped interior. She wiped the ice surface with her hands from the hazy vapour clinging to the dome allowing her to gain a small clear window inside.
Through the warping ice Iris could roughly make out the outline of Kia's slender figure. The standing undead girl inside barely fitted inside of the dome as the elf watched her taking off her simple, black dress letting its fantastical fabric unceremoniously drop to the ground before disappearing completely as the girl finally took notice of the awaiting elf.
Even with the thick barrier between them warping her every part, the girl covered her face in embarrassment as she was left with only the corset woven from red and black fabric to cover her petite body which screamed for an end to its brazen immodesty.
Without meeting the risen's eyes the girl began to drag her finger on the ice facing the elf causing the ice to shift into readable letters on the inside.
"My talent can't translate these." Iris shrugged her shoulders before pointing at the writing made by the necromancer as her talent refused to even detect the writing in front of her. "Try Common." She slowly spoke trying to move her mouth as clearly as possible.
Kia whipped the writing off the ice before placing her pointing finger on it once more. The undead girl drew the symbol for wind before stopping, her finger hanging still over an incomplete symbol resembling nothing Iris ever saw. Kia's elegant writing quickly deteriorated to be barely legible as more isolated words in common appeared for Iris to decipher.
"Wind, Life..." I really have to teach you some basics instead of cuddling and being useless all day. Iris thought before continuing to read the symbols representing each Aspect. "Is the wind doing this to you?" The girl gave her a confirming nod to her guess. "For how long do you plan to stay like this?"
Kia's distorted figure stood still for a long silent moment as she bobbed from side to side before concluding with an unsure answer communicated to the risen by her fingers.
"Two days?" Iris wanted to ask more but it was probably unwise to ask the girl for more elaborate answers. "What about me?" She pointed at herself. "Ahh." A feeling of revulsion suddenly forced the elf to retreat from the girl as a System's notification rang in her mind adding to the uncomfortable wave.
Status
Iris
Race: Risen {Undead}
Age: 2.5 months
Title: [Anchor of Undeath]
Classes: [Risen Level 30 ] [ Hoplite Level 20]
Talents: [Masterful Translator] [Pure Mana Manipulation(awaken)]
HP 1750/1750
Strength 420
Constitution 416
Dexterity 426
Wisdom 418
Intelligence 418
Charisma 415
MP 2000/2000
...
"I get it, you can stop." Iris said as she reached behind and hit the ice dome as a black and red flame burned behind each instance of her race being named in her status. "You could have given me some warning."
The elf was suddenly left without anything to do outiside of watching the endless green horizon roll past her. She could poke her head inside again and try to communicate with Kia but unlike a certain pale mage, her senses couldn't be trusted with full certainty none of the hunters would sneak up on her and peek over her shoulder.
The wind smacking her cheek faintly smelled of lavender as Iris was sitting hunched on the driver's seat with her hands outstretched in front of her. Her naturally white skin with light rosy colour embedded in the bottom layer of her skin slowly began to lose its delicate balance. Could she even call her pearly skin natural, she was of a different race now so she would guess so but something felt off about that explanation as it became yet another thing Iris threw into the growing bucket of meaningless questions her brain for some reason asked and stored in a corner of her mind. The undead hoplite curiously watched the blushing veins deep inside her seemed to bloom with new life as they slowly spread evenly across her body giving her a somewhat normal hue all be it a little too red.
"Elf, where is the human." The rudely called elf closed her palms and straightened her posture as she was faced with the emotionless rainy mask.
"Sick." Iris felt her tongue lick the corner of her lips.
"S-sick, could I see her? I'm not really good at healing but she might have gotten something local and I could help with it." The sibling's tone caused the elf to frown. Isn't she a little too hopeful for Kia to be sick? She thought as a vague outline of a particular white-haired woman with golden eyes merged with the human impatiently tapping her foot on the floor while resting her arms on her hips.
Why can't people leave Kia alone, she is mine after all. Iris murmured under her breath before she answered the human. "Thank you for your offer but no thank you. She knows how to treat herself so your help is not needed."
"Oh... if that is the case Ruu, the leader of the caravan is asking for you." Nu pointed at the front of the caravan where most of the large birds were standing beside before stepping aside for Iris.
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"After you."
"Why?" The woman roughly the age of Iris in her past life asked with profound confusion as she stood only a few steps from an unnatural dome of ice.
"I don't know where is Ruu, the leader of your caravan."
"But he and Bauha are just there, I can see their mounts from here, Elf." The human raised her arm and pointed at the far end of the caravan.
"Yes, but they are not Ruu nor Bauha they are just their pets." Iris finally found a use for the countless pointless tricks she had learned from eavesdropping on the lower temple staff's conversations outside her cell and she was not about to be denied using them now.
"Elf don't play with me."
"I am not playing with you. You had informed me that Ruu the leader of your caravan wants to talk to me and unfortunately I don't know where he is now," Iris crossed her legs and leaned into the uncomfortable, stiff backrest. "Soo, unless you lead me to him I will stay here and keep watch over my sick companion."
"Whatever, follow me." The human fumed under her motionless mask.
Maybe if Iris changed her strategy just a little bit to gain the trust of most of the humans she can divert her attention toward the humans who still don't trust her.
All eleven remaining humans were sat in a wagon around a small metal object with a small fire burning under it talking loudly. Their chatter quickly faded as the elf led by Nu came into their view and most of the humans pulled their masks down except Ruu and Ba who both held a small wooden cup in their hands.
"Ruu I brought the elf as you asked."
The wooden cup Ruu had idly thrown into the air fell onto the floor as he narrowed his eyes and scanned the humans around him. "I am getting too old to do this I guess." The tall human with an unruly shave waved whatever he was thinking away before reaching for a small wooden box. "Where is the... human who follows you, Iris?"
"She got sick."
"Uuuu, that's not good. What did she catch?" Ruu grimaced in worry while the humans shifted their eyes between him and Iris.
"It seems that Siri's skin reacts severely with the local subspecies of goblin scum." She responded before taking off her glove and shoving them as an example.
"You mean from where you are from goblins are different?"
"They are, our goblins are covered in fur, are much stupider and don't really reach such numbers. On the other side of the river, we hire adventurers to destroy their layers regularly. It really helps with keeping them in check." All of the humans stared at the elf, who suddenly started to feel the subtle feeling of being laughed at by the nomads.
"Why are you ogle me, Ruuwa..." The tattoed woman snapped at the human sitting across her letting out a bit more of the man's name than was seemingly acceptable.
"Watch it. Just because you no longer have to keep your name a secret doesn't mean you can say mine out loud." Ruu's welcoming and warm voice darkened as his aura hit Iris and everyone around him. "I was just trying to see if you know anything about the outsider's illness."
Iris wasn't familiar with the nomad's customs but all of the humans including Nu beside her seemed to align themself with Ruu and stare daggers at the tattoed woman biting her lower lip hard enough to draw blood.
"Can you forget this I-Iriz?" An unsure voice of a woman sounded from behind an orange and white mask depicting the sun rising in the orange sky.
"Did something happen?" The risen gave the woman a light innocent smile.
"How about you join us for a drink?" Ruu suggested before chucking the cup at the unprepared elf who managed to catch it before the cup flew passed her into the grass.
"Have nothing better to do I guess." Iris shrugged her shoulders before noticing Kia's construct dutifully stand where she had last seen it. "Excuse me for a moment."
Jumping off, the risen jogged to the masterfully crafted construct covered in half-dried blood with chunks of oily flesh pressed deeply into the many small crevices and gaps making its ancient esthetics.
She pulled out the arrow shaft sticking out of the golem's shoulder and tried to scrub off some of the filth before realising how long will it take.
"Clean yourself." She pressed the arrow into the golem's hand and turned to leave it again before seeing the top of Nu's head. Her eyes studied the golem from head to toe trying to judge the constructs perception. The human was a student to a combination of a hunter and a shaman which would mean that Nu possessed at least a basic proficiency in stealth causing a worry to burn inside Iris's mind. Her gaze met the hollow eye sockets carved into the death mask seemingly stared back at the risen making her wave her hand and trust that the necromancer had created an adequate servant to guard against enemies lurking in the shadows. "Actually, head toward your creator and block any human from looking inside where she is resting. Don't kill anyone though." The taller than her animated statue quickly took off toward the back of the caravan, leaving the undead hoplite to feel that the emotionless chunk of topsoil was somehow proud of being issued an order.
"Here you go," A human closest to her gave her a hot cup as soon as she climbed back. "Don't drink it now." Looking into the cup she saw that the wooden cup was filled with boiling water with some sort of seed suspended halfway in the water.
Iris sat down on her knees since she barely felt the hard ground pushing against her knees she caught herself sitting in this strange and foreign way of sitting more and more often. Kia loving to rest her head on her lap and having her hair stroked probably played part in her changing custom.
"What are we waiting for." The clueless risen hesitantly asked as she saw the humans staring into their cups like some sort of madman.
"For alcohol." Some human Iris never heard answered leaving her even more clueless deciding to go with the flow.
"You mentioned that goblins across the river. Do you mean the great river to the west?" A man with a blue mask with green lines under his eyes asked while holding the bandages wrapped around his ankle.
"Yes, I do mean Vitas." Iris answered but her words seemed to ring hollow.
"So you are returning back home into the forest after travelling with the Men-in-steel?"
"No. I can't really say I was returning home since Siri and I are journeying together and my birthplace is in a small human village." The word the man used to describe humans on the other side of Vitas resonated with the elf who had personally witnessed processions of heavily armed paladins in shining armour alongside their retinue marching to purify the plains from the demi-humans scourge.
"Wait, you mean you are not from the forest?!" She suddenly felt skewered by multiple grey pairs of eyes as soon as she finished her sentence.
"Yes," With a single word a split developed in the human ranks between people sceptical of Iris's origin and utterly mesmerized. "Come from a village in Cuna east of the capital of Theocracy, Havenfall." Iris noticed the name of the village where she began her first life was absent from her memory and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't picture the sign beside the well with the village name carved into it.
*Pop*
Something jumped into the air from Ruu's cup causing the masked humans to cheer loudly while raising their own cups high into the air.
Almost hitting the strange-looking kettle a brown shell dripping with water landed on the wooden floor with a splash.
Looking into her cup Iris saw the ordinary-looking bean had its brown skin split open and was slowly peeling away. From where the seed had split a white sponge-like root was very slowly unravelling itself.
*Pop*
*Pop*
*Pop*
*Pop*
*Pop*
Her bean was last to fling itself high into heaven and as it flew the white sponge root disappeared violently instantly filling up the cup with a somewhat cloudy liquid. Sniffing it, Iris instantly smelled the alcoholic odour coming from the small cup mixed with an earthy aroma.
Tasting the exotic drink the risen felt that drink was much thicker than she expected with a jelly-like consistency. Biting a little part she felt her mouth gain a feeling of freshness while a lightly alcoholic jelly melted inside her mouth.
Before she took another bite she was assaulted by questions from a human woman interested in the world beyond the river as the rest of the humans began to chatter once again.
The woman who Iris quickly learned the name of Arda was prodding her knowledge about food which the elf knew a bit about but not enough to fulfil the gourmet woman's appetite for more recipes.
Arda chattered and gossiped with Iris for a while or rather Arda had used the elf to pour her heart out of all the little secrets, hooks and stories weighing her down causing the few humans which overhear their converstation to raise an eyebrow but to the elf the information the cheery woman was supplying her was spoiled as the elf's enhanced senses could comprehend keep up with the woman. Is this how human women talk to each other casually?
With the exception of Kia who was neither human nor normal the only females about her age Iris had interacted causally with were the girls in her village she had beaten with a stick alongside the boys she used to play with when she was much younger. The girl's games were always something boring like dressing up or playing with rag dolls and the like so she had always spent her spare time playing with the boys in their fun games like hide and seek or sword fighting which usually involved "invading" the orchard where the girls played and chasing them around.
After a quarter of a bell, Arda had somehow switched to talking to the human beside her as the alcoholic scent in her breathing intensified.
Iris took her chance and shuffled away from the centre, accidentally bumping into Ba who wisely chose to evacuate a long time ago.
"Sorry."
"Apologies."
Iris spotted a carving knife in the boy's hands. Its beaten-up edge ran along a piece of wood letting a thin shaving of white wood fall. The carving vague shape of the terror birds.
"Can I see it?" She asked as she leaned against the mountain of furs behind her.
"S-sure." The boy handed the unfinished carving into the outstretched elven hand.
"How many bells did it take you to make something like this?" Iris asked as she could only marvel at the number of details the boy had put into his handiwork.
"About three phases today plus yesterday's late phase." The boy answered. "What is a bell?"
"How many phases are in a day?"
"There are three phases in a day plus the night."
"So three phases from sunrise to sunset... sounds simple and logical enough. There are precisely twelve bells in an equinox when the sun is visible so each bell is one-twelfth of a day." Iris tried to explain the concept of a bell she knew innately before handing the carving back to the boy.
"Doesn't sound simple," Ba commented as he frowned at the elf trying to understand why would anyone use such a system. "What happens when the sun doesn't rise? How do you count bells then?"
"If the sun doesn't show itself I think I have bigger problems than keeping what time it is."
Quickly the human boy fell silent and returned to work on the carving in his scarred hands while the bored elf watched him work in perfect silence.