As I watched the pile of rocks animate itself, my hands flicked to the items I usually ignored.

In this world, I hadn’t fought against any major single threat. Humans were only threatening in numbers, and no powerful wild animals existed here. I hadn’t had a reason to fear a single powerful enemy in six years now. The way I fought against a single strong enemy and a large group of weak enemies was very different, and most of my current ability setup was best at fighting other humans.

But that didn’t mean my instincts for combat had disappeared.

In moments, my tarot deck was ready, and I equipped my umbrella, {Breath of the Storm}. My tarot deck hadn't been useful in years, but it was the best tool I had against a single strong enemy.

And then I hesitated.

At least so far, we didn’t have evidence the creature was planning to attack us. If the other side initiated a fight, I had no issues sending them back to the ocean of souls the moment they raised a weapon. They could learn to be better people or nicer monsters in their next life.

But so far, the manta-ray creature hadn’t shown any signs of hostility.

As I hesitated, lost in my thoughts, I saw Sallia and Felix also pull out their weapons and items, and Old Mo started carefully ushering the parents out of any potential lines of fire. In moments, Sallia and Felix were also armed to the teeth, and Anise had settled into a spot where she could fire magic missiles without hitting anyone else. The parents seemed a bit baffled by the fact that both of them had seemingly created several items from thin air, but we could deal with that later.

A few moments later, the rocks stopped moving. I saw that they had assembled themselves into a square, lumpy facsimile of a human face. It wasn’t a particularly good facsimile - it looked more like a mess than a real human face. But I could see that the shadowy manta-ray like creature had made at least some attempts to create a human nose, eyes, and a mouth.

I kept my weapons ready, and kept my strongest extinguish ready to go, just in case. I was at less than half of my alteration essence, but if the creature initiated hostilities, I was more than ready to respond in kind. But I still felt myself relaxing a little bit. Since the creature had created a human face, perhaps it intended to communicate with us instead of fighting?

Old Mo and the parents seemed to get more nervous when they saw the creature assemble a humanoid face, interestingly enough. The four of us felt a bit less nervous, though - the creature might be trying to initiate diplomacy.

“Hello?” I wrote in berry juice upon a piece of Felix’s origami paper, before turning the paper to face the creature.

The creature cleared its throat a few times, and then rumbled at us.

“Hello, ….. ….. dying …… ,” said the creature, words rumbling out of its stone throat like boulders falling down a mountain.

I blinked in confusion.

I could actually understand some of the words that the creature had said - the word ‘hello’ at the beginning had been very distinct, and while the creature spoke with an accent that made it hard to understand, it definitely wasn’t impossible to make out what it was saying.

But the other half of its words were very hard to make out. It wasn’t totally incomprehensible - in fact, I could hear some fragments of words that sounded very similar to modern Vernese. But other fragments of the words were either incomprehensible, or pronounced so differently that they might as well have been a different language.

Then, there was the fact that the creature was speaking at all. Our group couldn't make any sound in this void, so the fact that the creature could was baffling to me.

I realized that the creature was probably speaking old Zelyrian - or at least, that was my best guess for what was happening. I knew that modern languages originated from old Zelyrian, and we were in the middle of an ancient Zelyrian pocket dimension. It seemed like the most reasonable explanation for why I understood some words, but not most of them. I turned towards Anise, to see if she recognized any of the words, and to my surprise, Old Mo of all people looked like he recognized some of the creature’s words.

Old Mo looked at his own piece of paper and then frowned, before he started writing on it. A few moments later, he turned his piece of paper towards the creature.

“I can ……” spoke the creature, much to Old Mo’s surprise.

Old Mo wrote something new on his paper, and this time, I moved a little closer to see what he was writing.

“……. … ... Mo Remithus……. … Hello?” was what Old Mo had written on his paper.

Old Mo’s writing at least confirmed that he was writing in old Zelyrian. The writing looked exactly the same as in Anise’s magic books.

I realized a few moments later that Old Mo wasn’t quite as fluent in the creature’s language as I had thought. Each time he wrote a word he took a great deal of time to finish it, as if he was trying to remember how to translate some words and couldn’t quite remember how. The creature didn’t seem offended by how slow Old Mo’s translation attempts were, and started speaking slowly so that Old Mo had more time to translate its words.

But its eyes remained on Anise the entire time, instead of focusing on Old Mo’s piece of paper. The stone head it had constructed didn’t give this fact away - while the creature seemed willing to move the stone face’s jaw up and down when it ‘spoke’ to us, its eyes were still just hollow sockets. But the shadowy manta-ray figure seemed to always be facing Anise, regardless of what it did or said. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing yet, but I was on guard against it.

Helping Anise pick up the old legacy of the ancient Zelyrians was definitely a good idea, since it would help her form a keyword based on Zelyrian manifestation spellcasting. I had some vague hope that perhaps this would turn out like our first encounter with ‘Ancient Zelyrian Ruins,’ where Anise had shifted her biology towards something that fit her needs better. But something about the creature’s gaze felt off, although that might have just been my imagination.

I tightened my grip on my tarot deck, just in case.

“I …… …..  dying ….. Can I ….. ……. you are …. …… …… …… ….. …….. …… …… … ….. ……… … …….. Zelyrian, …. …… ….. …. …. …. ………,” said the creature.  Despite the fact that it was speaking more slowly than before, it was now using much more advanced vocabulary. That, combined with the fact that its voice was nothing like a human voice and its accent was very hard for me to adapt to, made it very hard to figure out what it had said.

But something about the situation was making alarm bells ring in my head now. Even if I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was bothering me, I didn’t like this situation.

Just because the creature was intelligent and capable of communication didn’t mean it would be friendly, just like with other humans. We had fought with other humans many times in this world already, and there was no reason to believe other intelligent life would treat us well.

“Sorry… could you speak more slowly?” wrote Anise onto her piece of paper.

The manta-ray controlling the pile of stone accidentally slipped out of the stone head for a moment as it seemed to glare at Anise for a moment, before it slipped back into the pile of stones and gave the group an amiable smile instead.

It repeated the same sentence more slowly. As I heard old Zelyrian I was also starting to get a little more familiar with the ‘accent’ associated with the language, so I was able to pick out a few more words than before.

The first sentence, especially, became clear enough for me to at least understand the creature’s statement, after I did a little mental translation. The next few sentences were harder to make out, but I could still understand some word fragments.

Those word fragments set my teeth on edge.

“I am Eyes like Dying Suns. Can I ask ….  ….. here? Trespassing….. … ….. … forgivable, but…. …. …. …….. girl is Zelyrian. I can’t… …….. …… ……. .. pass.”

What was the creature talking about? The way it was staring at Anise as it said something about a girl being Zelyrian made me carefully eye our surroundings. I didn’t like the way it had said something about trespassing and Anise being Zelyrian. I worried about the other creatures in our surroundings doing something while we were distracted.

The other shadowy manta-ray like creatures were still going about their business, apparently disinterested in whatever we were doing. I breathed a small sigh of relief. It didn’t seem like they were doing anything hostile… yet.

Old Mo quickly scribbled another phrase onto his sheet of paper. I glanced at it, and was pretty sure it said “I am Old Mo. Please pass let?” I was pretty sure Old Mo’s grammar in ancient Zelyrian was nonsensical, probably because he only had passing familiarity with it. But the creature nodded, and then looked at Anise again.

Once again, it spoke, and I couldn’t make out what it was saying.

“.... …… ….. Girl is Zelyrian. Cannot …. …… ….. ……….. …….. pass. You must… …….. ….. otherwise I cannot. …. …. …… …… pass. Can you …. ……. …… her to ….. ….?”

Old Mo started scribbling furiously onto his sheet of paper, and a moment later held it out to the creature.

The only words on his paper were Anise is not Zelyrian!

I was still missing a lot of context in the conversation, but whatever Old Mo had heard, he didn’t like it. He reached for the gun hidden in his sleeve.

Old Mo, what’s it saying? I wrote onto my paper and held it out to Old Mo.

It says that it can’t let a Zelyrian leave this place alive, so we’re free to go, but Anise needs to stay here wrote Old Mo, while keeping one hand on his gun.

“Why?” I tried to say, nearly snapping - but just like before, I could make sounds in this place. I wrote it down instead and showed it to the creature, despite my extremely spotty understanding of old Zelyrian and even worse understanding of its writing system.

The creature seemed to understand my words. Perhaps the Vernese and Zelyrian languages shared the word ‘why.'

“The Zelyrians ….. …….. betrayers! We …. ……. …… …… ……… punish!” the creature said, nearly hissing as the venom in its voice was unmistakable. “....... we…. ….. ….. ..Broke this… …. ….. to …… …… realize we…. ….. …. …. betrayed at will!”

Old Mo seemed shocked. I think… the creature said that the Zelyrians betrayed them somehow, but I couldn’t get any more details. It’s talking too fast, he wrote, before showing me his piece of paper.

I transmitted his words to the rest of the group via our friendship bracelets, as I frowned and wrote a response.

Anise isn’t Zelyrian, I wrote, before holding it out so that the creature could see it.

The creature snorted.

Why was Anise being mistaken for… my heart dropped as I realized where Anise might have picked up a trait that would make other creatures believe she was Zelyrian.

The magic surgery that gave her Zelyrian spellcasting abilities. It could have made her resemble a Zelyrian.

I didn’t think we were going to exit this conversation through talking, so I eyed my remaining alteration essence. I tried not to wince as I confirmed that I was less than halfway full, and activated my deck of cursed tarot cards on the creature.

If it wanted to hurt my friends, I was going to send it back to the ocean.