Natali woke from her sleep a few hours after they had arrived at camp. The people here were rather nice. The researchers appeared to be employees from the academies in both Arcadios and the Wisteria Concord. They worked together to try and uncover some of the mysteries of the past.
By and large, the demon language was dead. The only indication of what any of the symbols used in their alphabet meant were the marks that existed on the bodies of the Marked Ones. Those symbols represented the powers they had and by figuring out what those symbols represented, then the gaps in the demon language could be filled.
Their alphabet was strange. Some symbols stood for letters or sounds, yet others stood for an entire word or phrase, and others still referred to concepts rather than a specific word or phrase. Those symbols that stood for concepts were rather concerning as they could mean any multitude of things when paired with surrounding symbols.
Natali had never fancied herself a scholar, but she was interested in learning new things. Jade on the other hand was utterly fascinated by the information. The researchers at Grimspire kept a constant staff at the camp. So much so that a couple of merchants had moved in and started up shops in a couple of the carved out rooms.
Because of their constant work here, they also possessed the most up to date copy of the world's current understanding of the demon language. Jade was ecstatic to learn about this and requested to see it, which the researchers were all too happy to do so long as she agreed to provide them with the definition of her mark.
One of the researchers went up to Lucius to ask about his mark, but then saw how it stretched around his wrist and thought he had tattooed around the original symbol. That made the researcher furious and the rotund man began to scream and berate Lucius for his stupidity.
Before anyone could react, Lucius had quickly struck the researcher in the gut, knocking him unconscious and kicking his limp body to the side of the ravine. From that point on no one was willing to go and talk to him from the researcher's group, though many adventurers had no problems continuing to try and communicate with the man.
All of this, of course, happened before Natali fell asleep. What she was hearing as she woke up was nothing like the series of events she went to sleep to. Screaming echoed through the walls of the ruins and the sounds of metal beating against stone and other hollow-sounding materials. Something akin to the rattling of marbles also met Natali's ears.
"Natali, good, you're here. Lucius left camp an hour ago to prepare for tonight's horde, but it's bigger than we anticipated. We lost contact with them and the horde is closing in on the camp from both sides." She explained quickly then moved to another injured warrior.
Rena's face was pale, but she swallowed the contents of a rather foul-smelling potion, which returned some of her color. "We need a moment to regroup. The creatures can't seem to climb, can you maintain an ice wall?"
Natali nodded and rushed towards the fighting. The adventurer who greeted them when they first arrived was commanding the front lines like a veteran sergeant. In between commands he would lash out with attacks of his own.
It was here that Natali finally saw the enemy. There were hundreds of shambling creatures filling the once empty streets. Almost all of them were made up of bones, though a few had strips of desiccated flesh still clinging to their bones. Among the shambling bones were a handful of creatures that looked to be rotting corpses. They moved faster than the skeletons did and hit harder.
"Stand back!" Rena shouted.
The entire front line retreated backward several paces, opening space for Natali's spell. "[Glacies: Ice Wall]!"
Pale-blue light poured out of her hands, fell to the ground then surged toward the gap between the monsters and them. It spread across the width of the ravine and sprouted a ten-foot-tall wall of opaque ice.
"Normally, I'd ask if we could get that to be see-through, but I think a bit of ignorance of the enemies' faces would do us a hell of a lot of good. Thank you, little missy." The grizzled adventurer was clearly exhausted and his light chuckle even sounded forced. No one could blame him though.