Pacing, as so often, was quite important. We didn’t want to move quickly, didn’t want to suggest we were in a hurry or truly cared about meeting these people. But at the same time, we needed to cross the distance and I didn’t want to give them too much time to think about the circumstances, an unprepared enemy was generally a less dangerous one, so a bit of speed was necessary. Just not the appearance of haste or excitement.

Still, the time it took us to cover the distance between us and their group allowed them to converge under one of the lights, waiting for us and looking visibly confused. It was fairly obvious that these people had no idea what to make of us, either due to the simple fact that an unknown group of survivors was approaching them at all, or the magic I was displaying or maybe even that we were moving at night. Any of those could be the reason for their confusion or it might be something else entirely, I wasn’t sure but was curious enough to try finding out.

The group itself didn’t look like much. Threadbare, dirty clothes, worn by dirty people with makeshift, and also fairly dirty, weapons in hand, they didn’t look like they had been able to wash up in a while, to say nothing of the stench assaulting my nose. Maybe that was their tactic to defend against people relying on their sense of smell, I was fairly certain that I wouldn’t be able to detect any magical leanings they might have, simply because the olfactory assault was too strong.

“Greetings,” I spoke up, as we entered into a somewhat comfortable distance for conversations. Close enough that there was no need to shout but also distant enough that they couldn’t just smack us if they so desired. Moments later, I felt the use of Observe and reflexively parried it, letting them receive only a hint of who and what I was. Namely, I allowed them to see one of my titles, allowing Observe to read me as The Pale Lady, level ??, a fairly amusing trick that I had worked on with Lia.

“Don’t you know it is impolite to try peeping at a Lady’s intimate details?” I asked, my tone deliberately chiding as if I was scolding a child for being naughty. In addition, I let some of my aura billow out, though I made sure to retain control over the volume as much as possible. I wasn’t really good at controlling the impression my aura made, at most I could hide it from casual observers, but it would have to do. My Charisma was sadly too limited to allow for more.

“Er, what?” one of them muttered, clearly feeling out of their depth. They were geared and mentally prepared for combat and had only a few minutes to shift from attacking Undead to suddenly talking with a powerful, unknown presence and that lack of mental preparation showed.

“I gave my greetings before one of your number rudely tried to peep and observe my intimate details, something I consider fairly rude. But maybe that is a cultural thing, do you walk around simply stripping people of their clothes if you wonder what they look like beneath them?” I prodded, keeping control of the conversation and them off-balance.

“Maybe it is, Mother. I wonder what that one looks like,” Lia grinned, staring at one of their spellcasters, a woman maybe a little older than Lia, who had been partly hidden beneath one of their fighters, though neither the one who had spoken nor the one who had used Observe.

“What?” now it was the turn of the woman Lia was looking at to be scandalised, while the guy she was standing, and now hiding, behind looked both confused and somewhat angry.

“My, I’m certainly neither tall nor black enough to pull off the Pulp Fiction, am I?” I mused for a moment, before shaking the amusing thought off. There were some things my physique simply prevented me from doing and impersonating Samuel L Jackson was one of them.

“Anyway, what I was referring to is that it feels incredibly intrusive to have somebody use the Identify-skill on you, as that one just did to me,” I nodded towards the offender, an archer in the middle of their group. “Maybe it would be easiest to return to the beginning of this conversation and leave your rudeness behind, it wouldn’t serve anyone to harp on about it,” I suggested, showing a bit of largesse.

“Thus, I repeat myself and give my greetings,” I continued, hoping that they were now in a state where they’d simply go along with what I wanted, not that I had an actual plan for where I wanted this conversation to go.

“Ah, yes, greetings,” the woman who had been running earlier replied, stepping forward and a little closer to us.

“As you can see, we are a small group of travellers, exploring the world after it has shifted underneath us all. Could you tell us about your community, and maybe this area, too?” I asked, curious what they’d make of my request. For a moment, the woman simply looked at us, her eyes flickering from Luna to me almost as soon as the woman realised that Luna wasn’t just a petite adult but an actual child, though I couldn’t see anything but confusion in her eyes.

“Er, sure, I don’t think we’ll manage to gather another group of monsters anyway. It takes time to set up, you know?” she asked, after glancing at the rest of her group, making me wonder if they had some sort of leadership or how they were organised in the first place.

“If you say so,” I shrugged, before nodding towards my two daughters, “You may call me Jade, and these are my daughters, Carnelia and Luna,” I introduced us, not quite ready to explain Silva and Alex just yet.

The woman, Sian as she introduced herself, gave us the names of her companions, all fourteen of them, and while I listened to their names and connected them to their faces, I didn’t really care about them. Some of them, like the two spellcasters, divinely granted by the feel of it, were easy, their names were Sarah and Kyle, as was the rude guy who had tried to Observe me, Riko, but the rest of them? I simply didn’t care.

We walked as we talked, though to my surprise, we didn’t move into the fields around the city but alongside the edge of the city, not entering but also not moving away from it. When asked, Sian explained that their group was based in an apartment block at the edge of town, the building being in decent condition and allowing them to house their people in relative safety. It was obvious that they didn’t have all that many people, making me wonder why they acted at night instead of hunting during the day.

When asked, Sian explained that during the day, most of the Undead and Wihtered were holed up in buildings, making it incredibly difficult to draw a group of them out, into prepared ambushes. The shamblers, as she called them, simply didn’t want to move during the day and the survivors here had no desire, and no ability, to flush them out of buildings in some sort of city-warfare. Instead, they made slow and steady progress, killing a few dozen shamblers each night in an attempt to take back their home.

Brave words, but when I considered the numbers for a moment, I didn’t see too much hope for them. This city, at best guess, used to house about half a million people, if they destroyed a hundred Undead or Shattered each night, it would take them over a decade to lay all of those bodies to rest. Even if they had ten groups like this one, it would take them over a year, assuming they could stomach destroying a hundred formerly human beings each night, without turning completely mad. I wasn’t sure that’d work, but I wasn’t about to voice that concern, not until I knew these people better and had an idea about their number. And their levels, from what I could tell, the people around me were in their thirties and forties, level-wise, so not all that impressive, especially as it didn’t feel like they had any real spellcasters amongst their number.

Which is what I began to focus on instead, their magical abilities. Sarah and Kyla had banished their lights as we started to move, an action I mirrored, though I kept the glittering snow floating around me, both as a potential weapon and as a demonstration. Drawing the two divine spellcasters into the conversation was fairly simple and I soon learned that Hestia had come to both of them in their dreams, offering them power to defend their families. They had accepted and gained a modicum of divine spellcasting ability, in addition to an understanding of farming and agriculture. I had a feeling that there was more to it, but I wasn’t about to press them, especially when Luna spoke up at that point, taking over part of the conversation.

If nothing else, Luna’s obvious youth allowed her to speak in a far blunter manner without having to worry about offending people. Not that it was really needed in this case, Luna could speak about Lady Hecate with ease and confidence, making me wonder just how much information my munchkin had been given by her divine Patreon.

Either way, Luna’s clear conviction and understanding allowed her to take the two acolytes in hand, giving them a better understanding of their own place in the world. It also made Luna the clear leader amongst the three, an effect I found both fascinating and highly amusing.

Other than that, the conversation didn’t get too detailed, certainly not until we reached the building these people had holed up in. Now, we could start getting to know them better.