Iris watched as painted tents slowly crept up from beneath the horizon alongside the sounds of everyday life. She covered the ear of the petite girl, resting her head on her thighs while being tightly wrapped in the elf's jacket. Kia had collapsed onto the warm risen as soon as she had exited the tent with her purple crystal pulsing with dull purple light and Iris figured that the undead mage deserved to rest for a while longer.
With her free hand, Iris twirled the black strands of soft silk acting as Kia's hair around her finger as she observed the city made out of tents slowly grow larger. Her enhanced vision allowed her to scan through the far away settlement which seemed to calmly and peacefully go through its day with the humans in masks weaving between the tall white tents with markings painted on their fabric walls. She suspected the markings of being simple decorations or guarding wards rather than actual writing as her talent hadn't activated.
What shocked Iris the most about the human settlement was its lack of any sort of protection which would be an unthinkable thing to have in West Edor as many beings lurked in the dark which easily fooled human senses with even more beings hungry for flesh seeing an unprotected village as a convenient source of food.
A flock, a herd Iris wasn't sure of what to call it but a group of terror birds with a singular rider holding a comically long and thin lance approached them. The saddle-less animals enveloped the caravan from all sides seemingly curious about the contents inside the wagons while avoiding the wagon with her and Kia in it. Iris saw the rider exchange passing words with Ruu and Kasheng causing him to ride back toward the village with haste.
With the rider's departure, the entire caravan seemed to come to renewed life which grew in intensity as they got closer. When the caravan stopped, many humans approached it with cheery greetings which quickly transformed into voices of concern and grief as they saw that only twelve humans had come back.
"Louddd." Iris felt Kia burring her face into her stomach as she groaned through the fabric.
"I know, annoying isn't it? At least the humans here don't do welcoming parades," The tall elf ignored the glares she received from the few humans who had noticed her and comforted the sleepy girl. "Did you sleep well?"
"Mmmm." The necromancer gazed upwards at the elf as the warm and rough elven hand traced the edge of her ear causing the girl to squirm slightly and started chuffing up to the entertained elf.
"You are adorable when you do this."
The undead coddling up to Iris like a house cat seemed to not mind the humiliating comment before her golden and blue eyes focused on their surroundings.
"Where are we?" Her melodic whisper reached the preoccupied elf.
"We are in the human village where we will be paid." Iris answered.
"Will we be staying here?"
"I don't know if they would allow me to stay. Why did you ask? Do you want to stay with these humans?"
"I want to make sure the human healed fully and check if non of my spells had malfunctioned."
"Is it often your spell malfunction." Iris asked. A spell miscasting could mean anything from pitiful white sparks appearing instead of the spell to a person exploding into red mist which the elf had seen once when the hero was killing bandits who had kidnapped an influential merchant's children. Albeit the young pyromancer guarding the children was cursed by Alicia a moment before he could cast a fireball.
Stolen story; please report.
"When I make new spells? Often, but I'm always careful to use the minimum amount of mana to cast them." The girl flashed a proud smile at the towering elf before she massaged her biceps as if remembering old pain. "My mana links hurt though when that happens, because of the backlash they cause if I didn't separate them from me."
"You will not explode on me will you?"
"Explode?" The mage's bright eyes casted a puzzled look at the hoplite.
"Some people in here explode when they miscast."
"Miscast? Do people here often make mistakes in their magic circles?" Kia's uncomprehending gaze stared confusedly toward Iris's direction before shifting onto the silver ring on the elf's middle finger. "When a spell like a frost mine is casted on the ground it does sometimes explode because it was cut into a separate small circuit and something didn't fell into its place but I had never heard of a person failing to cast a spell, never mind exploding from it. How could you explode if you didn't cast a spell?." The snuggled magical being pondered before rolling over onto her back and admiring the clear blue sky.
The hoplite didn't try to prove the girl she was wrong since she would be defeated by some ancient mind-breaking knowledge from the ancient era which both explained everything away and made her feel stupid so she followed the girl's gaze up into the heavens and too admired the painting-like sky.
"-did Kasheng agree to this?" A deep powerful voice caused the elf to look back down at the mortal plain. She reached for Kia's cloak and hid the girl under its green folds. To the girl's mild annoyance.
"She didn't refute it Tserai," Ruu's calm voice full of respect came from right in front of the elf, causing her ears to twitch. "Completely."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Tserei barked at Ruu.
"Throughout our returning journey, the spirits refused to answer her calls, causing our heavy casualties."
From behind the cart two tall and muscular men turned the corner and stood in front of Iris. Beside Ruu who was almost as tall as the elf a slightly shorter mountain of confidence and authority stood with head held high. Even when Iris loomed over the human wearing a black mask with a gilded edge and a singular crimson tear under his left eye from on top of the wagon the human's aura clearly showed who was in a position of power.
Grey eyes scanned the risen with cold patient gaze before turning toward Ruu. "Is she the elf who saved you?" His dim grey eyes flared with power before fading as his head jerked as if something had flicked him.
"Hmmm?" Kia peaked her head from under her cloak, Iris glanced down onto her lap and saw the girl's eyes shine like a striked iron.
"Alun?" Ruu grabbed the man's hand which travelled to the head of a large hammer hanging beside his hip.
"I hate elven mages." The man snuck his hand behind his mask, lifting it a little and massaging his head. "What did you promise her?" He said jerking his hand free from the swordsman and demanded wanting this entire matter to be behind him.
"I figured you would know what we don't need for the upcoming seasons."
"What do you want Elf as your payment and how much?" The human chief grunted after glaring at Ruu for prolonging the two's stay.
"Do you have coins?" Iris asked.
"We might. How much do you want?"
A temptation to say "All of them" flashed inside Iris's mind before she got better at her greed. She figured that even though she was a copper-ranked adventurer killing an ogre was probably as hard as killing a troll which was a mithril-ranked monster so she tried to come up with a fair mithril rank request from the few mithril quests she had seen.
"I say twenty golden coins would suffice." A small fortune worth half a year of labour as a shopkeeper or a blacksmith was spoken by the elf.
"Elf, we are not soft Men-in-steel, the price of a monster's life is cheaper here." Tserei stared down the risen who was very glad for her racial immunities. "The most I can spare is ten golden coins."
"Sure." The elf barely kept herself from smiling like an idiot as the man wearing a mail shirt on top of the thick fur coat everyone wore disappeared behind a tent alongside Ruu.
Iris looked at the girl who was the main benefactor of the reward earning they were about to receive.
"Iris?" Kia poked the elf's stomach with her finger. "Can you ask?"
"He doesn't look like I am welcome, especially since he tried to inspect me and failed." The elf commented to the girl who looked not pleased by the situation.
"You can count them if you want." The shorter man with greyer hair than Ruu and with marks of his venerable age afflicting his sunburned skin tossed a pouch at the elf.
"Could I ask you..."
"I'm Alun the Tserei of this tribe and you call me as such."
"Could I ask you Tserei, could my companion and I stay for a few days to see if Ba returned to full health?" Iris asked but with each word she spoke, Tserei looked ever more irritated before his head snapped at Ruu standing beside him.
"Ba was sick?"
"He was and the girl healed him."
"What was he sick with?"
"...Bloom." Ruu gave Iris a glance informing her she should not have spoken as Tserei's eyes opened wide and his hand travelled to the weapon hanging on his hip. But as he opened his mouth a scream caused the elf's ear to twitch. Turning toward the sound which everyone seemed to not hear and ignored what Tserei was saying. Suddenly a sound of a horn rolled over the village from the same direction the scream had come, peaking the interest of every human and undead present toward the source of the sound.