In the following week, I spent my time chatting with everyone at the temple and keeping a lookout for these supposed new arrivals. The Wolf was right. After the second day had passed, the bell rang and a single man with a weird hat made of straw entered the temple. He had a chat with Glom, asked some questions about where he was and why everything was dark, then left again.

I didn’t manage to overcome my apprehensions to go down and talk to him. He had a long and thin sword, blank steel hidden with a curved wooden scabbard. I didn’t get the impression of him being a very cordial fellow, especially in the way he showed little interest or care for the other folk around him.

At least he didn’t stab anyone.

A few hours later, the bell rang again and a group of three men entered the temple grounds. They could be heard from far away, talking loudly and in a gruff tone. This time, I gathered my courage and went down to greet them at the bridge.

“Hey–“

They immediately unsheathed their weapons and readied for combat, pointing the sharp ends in my direction.

Oops. I think I surprised them.

“H-h-hold your Grugs. I’m friendly! See?” I waved my splinted arm.

They looked at me like I was an idiot. They were clad in a variety of armors, leather bits with metal studs, metal scale, pelt and gambeson. Their faces all looked intimidating, like a variety of rolling boulders. A clump started to build in my throat as they didn’t answer or move much.

Why are they just staring at me? Did I do something wrong? Did I scare them?

Oh. Oh no.

I just showed them I’m wounded. Not a threat. But what if they’re baddies? If they want to murder, want to pillage and… no, no, positive thoughts. Not everyone clad like a marauding barbarian actually is as senseless as the people from the north are made out to be. Or the east. Or west and south. That’s what Da’ said. And he should know.

Then again, he also said that as a small woman, I have to be careful. I grew up on a farm. I didn’t go to the big cities often. And he told me in no unclear terms that if I were to ever go into a city alone, that I shouldn’t walk down the alleyways and never, ever be found alone.

I was currently alone. And there were three grown, armed men standing in front of me. I froze up. If there was a way to serve myself up on a platter that was any better than this, then I had yet to learn of it.

If it comes to a fight, I have no way of winning. They all have bright souls.

A moment of silence and uncertainty hung in the air.

Then, one of the three sneezed quite loudly, like a high-pitched squeak. They looked at each other, and one after another, they started laughing. The tension in the air faded away that instant. The second one cuffed the sneezer on the shoulder and said something in a language I barely understood. But I did understand some of it.

So, they were eastern barbarians from the mountains, despite their clothing. I knew a few words from my Da’, who in turn knew them from his grandfather. Sam too, though she only taught me funny curse words.

I think the first guy just said something about a dog being scared of a mouse. Or a house? No, that doesn’t make any sense.

They sheathed and holstered their weapons. As far as I could tell, the smiles on their faces were friendly and genuine. Possibly even with a hint of relief. Blood and muck covering their armor and one of them was even hobbling on a bandaged foot.

They were probably just looking for a safe place to rest. A safe haven. And now they’ve found it.

They walked past me without much of a fuss. One of them gave me a sympathetic look and a pat on the shoulder which I was too late to dodge. It was more out of reflex than anything that I jerked back, shaking the hand off rather violently. And remembered caution.

Everything’s ok now. I just hope I didn’t insult him with that.

I followed them and went to sit down next to Avice. The first thing they did was find a nice corner to stow their heavy equipment in.

“Who are they?” she asked with suspicion.

“No clue. Warriors from the east maybe.”

“Barbarians.” She said. I didn’t pick up any animosity from her voice. “Do you wager they would want to buy some common furs from a common merchant?”

“Possibly? I don’t know if they’ll understand you though.”

“They will. I speak their tongue.”

She didn’t ask them. Instead, we both sat in apprehensive silence, watching the barbarians unpack pans, knives, swords, shirts, jewelry and clear the dust and dirt from their corner. One of them went out back, probably to relieve himself, as the other two stepped towards Glom. She was sitting in her offering bowl as always. As they spoke to her in their barbarian language, she replied with the same.

All I really got out of it were snippets of words. Trial. Journey. Cheese. Mountain. Fire. Or Lyre. Or Liar. That one was a bit ambiguous.

“What are they saying?” I asked.

“They are talking about their journey. They came from far away. They slew a great beast of many legs and heads. Then, they climbed upon a hill riddled with deep holes and now here they are, to see what truly lies within this vaunted temple.”

Wow. That’ a lot more than I understood. But where does the cheese play in?

I had to look at Avice in a new light as well. She wasn’t weird or inhuman (not that I’d thought that, nope, not at all, totally not prejudiced. Me? Nope.), she just needed a bit to get out of her shell. She seemed particularly educated from the way she talked and the more she did, the more I grew to like her.

They argued for a while between the two of them, but when the third one rejoined the group, he said something like a bark and they all went quiet. Then, I saw the one who had returned stick his hand out. They all had light, much more than mine with at least ten feet bright and thirty dim each, but as the guy put his hand onto Glom, I swear the room got darker. His hand started glowing, from the inside. So much so that I could see the veins through the yellowish-red skin.

Avice and I stared intently. Neither of us spoke a word.

Glom opened her mouth and from what I could see, inhaled the light. The toad started glowing, shining for a moment like a frog-shaped sun. The barbarian’s arm remained outstretched, but his eyes seemed as if they were looking at something very, very far away.

“What did they do?” asked Avice. “What was that? How does it work?”

Moments passed like wading through wet sludge. I held my breath because I both had no idea what was going to happen next and knew exactly what they were doing.

A pact. A boon.

The barbarian seemed to shake from his stupor after a minute or so. His friends patted him on the shoulder, asking questions that probably meant ‘how are you?’ and ‘are you ok?’ or ‘did it work?’. I was filled with impatience.

What did he get, what did he get?

Finally, the man turned to his friend on the right. The friend jumped a bit and so did the other once he saw the man’s face. He looked around and then at me.

His eyes were like that of a snake. Slits so thin and sharp you could cut an onion with them, large and shaded in a yellow that they weren’t before. I saw the blacks of his eyes grow and shrink again as he looked me in mine, then at the wall behind me. His gaze rose higher and higher until he was staring straight up at the mosaic of the world.

He let out an astonished cry and his friends followed suite. They all inspected the fresco with muttered awe. Like children that were seeing the great walls of a city for the first time in their lives.

I smiled. Avice was still hiding behind her stone mask.

“Any thoughts on that?” I asked.

“I was not aware even barbarians had a sense for art.” Said Avice, the tone of her voice uplifting.

I chuckled. “True. But I more meant on what just happened. The magic, the soul-stuff, the light. Whoosh!”

She looked at me and tilted her head ever so slightly, cupping the chin of her stone mask like some misplaced statue of an ancient scholar. It took her some time to come to an answer.

“The eyes. They were beautiful.”

…not the words I’d use, but ok.

We watched them gather and settle down and after a while, when the novelty of it had worn off and one of them unashamedly winked at us, we stopped sneaking glances at them. Time went on went on, and more people arrived at the temple. The sheer variety was both amazing and uncanny.

There were so many, coming in every color, shape, and size. One had the color of roasted nuts, another had skin as black as tar and yet another white like snow. Some had hair red like fire or orange like… oranges. There were tall people, small people, people with spears and swords and clubs, people in plate armor, in scale or studded leather and simple gambeson.

But then, there came the weirder people. One large man with tusks the size of my thumb. A small woman with long fur peeking out between her puffy padded armor. Two guys, one with yellow skin and eyes wide like saucers, the other with ones tiny like a mole. Two people I couldn’t place the gender of with ears like a cat. A completely hairless man with no ears and only four fingers.

It only got wilder from there.

There were two more people with three arms and one even with six. A pink woman with horns like a ram-beast or great stone lizard and a tail like one too. A tail. A mixed group of others had scales red and green in place of skin. I turned around a corner and almost stepped on the feet of what looked like Pim, but larger and much, much more frightening.

The Bekki man actually hissed at me. And that was only the start of oddities, as I grew more and more unsure whether having so many people in this temple was actually a good idea at all.

It wasn’t exactly getting crowded, and the three barbarians were nice at least, and human. It was in part due to them, and Avice, that I swallowed the biggest part of my preconceptions about some foreign folk, at least in part. But I still worried. That with over three dozen people suddenly arriving in the span of three days, they might not all be that friendly.

The next month flew by in a crawl. I enjoyed moving my body, even if the aches and pains in every joint were worse for hours afterwards. They lessened over time and even though my training was working well, I couldn’t convince Avice to join me, even after a lot of pestering and bargaining. She said she was content in the little fur hut she had made out of her merchandise. To me, she just seemed scared.

I didn’t find a way to help her at first. I was too busy undoing the damage I had done to myself by over-training and no matter what I said, she staunchly refused to budge. She was still hoping someone would buy her pelts. When someone eventually did, they bought them at a rate that I thought to be quite horrid. Three feet of dim light of soul for half a dozen of the best pelts.

I didn’t know whether the look on her face was happy or spoke of devastation as the glow of soul went from the customers hand through her nose and settled in her chest. But she talked more about coming with for training after that.

I trained every second or third day with the Wolf and he gave me a fat beetle a week, telling me to eat it alive every time. Said it would help me with my arm. Said it was full of magic and Kalsium.

Kalsium does sound like a magical spell. Kalsium! KALSIUM. Kal-sium!

My arm had stopped hurting some time ago, though the Wolf insisted that I keep the splints on even after four months had gone by since I had woken up. Just because the pain was gone didn’t mean I was in the clear yet. We did expand our training sessions into a series of exercises that by the end of the day left not just my legs, but every muscle in my body screaming for the sweet release of death.

I don’t know how stronger neck-muscles are going to help me in the future, but oh well. Stronger headbutts, maybe?

In short, it was worth it. I could feel myself actually getting stronger and healthier. I didn’t feel my muscles swell, they didn’t bulge or even look toned. But they filled out, becoming easier to move, nearly restoring to the state before I had died. I wasn’t quite there yet, but the progress was palpable.

Surprisingly, one day Avice showed up to my training sessions as well. She followed somewhat through my muscle exercises, though she clearly lagged behind. Especially the daily jogs around the temple in full armor did her in more than me. Though, she was wearing thick pelts and gambeson with a bit of chainmail around the chest that looked like it’d make running a very heated affair.

She also stopped wearing that weird stone mask on her face during training, mostly because it kept falling off while doing laps. She strapped it to the side and honestly, her face looked better with each passing week, even if it never shed its pale color. Over the course of a few of them, I could feel her starting to open up more and more.

Definitely a friend. Hooray!

Unsurprisingly, she couldn’t make tooth or tail of the daily ‘meditation’-magic exercises. She just sat there, breathing awkwardly and otherwise sneaking glances at me or the Wolf in an attempt to copy us. I too was having difficulties returning to that calm place in my mind. No matter how hard I listened to the sound of Ram, it only really worked once or twice in all that time.

It was great when it worked, fantastic even. But compared to all those times it didn’t, it felt like such a waste of time. The Wolf did say that rest was as important as the actual strain of training, and that if I couldn't learn how to unwind the meditation would at least give me peace of mind and train it in alternation with my body. I kept on trying, but I wasn’t feeling as much come of it compared to running in circles or doing handstands all day.

The Wolf didn’t seem so happy about Avice’s presence, but he tolerated it.

One day, I noticed something off about her. It was the way she carried herself. Normal Avice, as I knew her, was always a bit hunched, a bit timid. As if she was carrying an invisible burden besides the mountain of pelts on her back. Her eyes normally darted around nervously, and she didn’t talk much unless spoken to. But on this day, she approached me before training with an upright, dare I say confident and almost regal posture.

“Rye.” She said. “I must go now.” She said.

“Go? Go where?”

“Out.” Said Avice, a serious look on her face. “To hunt for more merchandise. More soul. I must remember. I cannot sit on my… behind and let the world pass me by.” She idly scratched the large tear in her cheek. “I want to be myself again.”

That was… understandable. All of it. I knew that after my initial struggles, my memories and dreams of the past only revealed themselves to me gently and slowly over time. Sudden revelations happened as well, but they were few. I was suspecting that the soul had something to do with those.

“Alone?” I asked.

She shook her head. “There is a group of four. They have agreed on letting me join as another spear-woman. I am not confident in my abilities, but I am also not insane enough to go out there alone.”

Going out in groups was a smart idea. Smarter than running around the graveyard blind all on your own. Still, the change was drastic.

A week ago, Avice told me that in her view, the world outside was filled with nothing but devils and beasts and the worst fates hell could spew onto the land. But now, she was going out to hunt those same beasts. She wasn’t alone. She had a spear that she carried with a sense of familiarity, and some additional padded armor to protect her important bits as well.

Despite that, I couldn’t help but worry.

“Will you be ok?” I asked.

She nearly froze up at the question, but caught herself in the motion.

“I… shall be fine.” But the hands holding her spear trembled ever so slightly.

We stood there in the silence. I didn’t know what to say, how to comfort her or tell her that everything would be all right. How could I? I couldn’t guarantee that everything was going to be fine. I knew very much so that going out there meant exposing yourself to things that were very, very not fine. And I couldn’t even tag along myself. My arm was still splinted, and the Wolf had explicitly told me not to go out before it was healed.

“I… enjoyed our little talks.” Avice eventually said. “They were nice. But I have been keeping quiet about a few things. If I come back, I shall endeavor to be more open.”

I didn’t say a thing. Instead, I stepped forward and gave her a big hug. She didn’t lean into it, instead becoming slightly stiff and making things a bit awkward.

“U-unhand me?” she said, more confused than indignant.

I did and she gave me an odd look as she brushed down her furs, padding and mail.

Ok. Not a hugger. Noted.

“Sorry. But don’t say ‘if’. You’ll come back. Promise it.” I said.

She smiled. “I will return. With treasure and more.”

“Ok. Wait a second. I’ve got something here. Where is it?” I found a pile of training weapons (mostly wooden branches of various sizes) that the Wolf had put down nearby. I remembered him putting something important there this morning and soon enough I found what I was looking for.

I held up a square and rather ratty looking shield made of cobbled together planks of wood. The wood was of dubious quality, but it would offer some protection at least. Maybe even inspire a tad of confidence.

“This” I said. “Is Planky the second. Treat him well.”

I gave her the shield with all the reverence that would normally be reserved for an old wine or the best cheese of the year. She gracefully accepted it with a small curtsy and despite the gloomy atmosphere, I had to chuckle at that. She gave me a smile.

“Thank you, Rye.” She said sincerely. And then she was off.