The innocent friendly sincerity is radiating off the elf like sunlight. Brenda could probably have noticed it even without her magic helping.

"I'm doing okay, I think, for the most part. And I've got Seelah and Wenduag helping me. But I could always use more friends. My name's Brenda; what's yours?"

"My name is Ember, and I'd be happy to be your friend."

"Awesome! Want to come with us to talk to Terendelev? I want to ask her for help with diagnosing and repairing the Wardstone so it'll start protecting the city again."

"Sure! I've never spoken with her before, and that does sound important."

"So," Brenda asks as they set off again towards where she heard the roaring, "what's your story? Or the parts of it you feel like telling me, rather."

"There's not really that much to tell; I've lived in Kenabres almost my entire life! My father brought me here from Kyonin when I was really little, so I don't really remember anything about it, but he died pretty soon after that so I've mostly just had Soot for company. Sometimes I get to play with the other children, but they grow up faster than I do and then they aren't interested anymore; it's not so bad when it's just mean words, but the rocks hurt. Occasionally I also make friends with the animals but most of them don't live that long no matter how often I heal them, and they usually aren't as good at talking as Soot is."

"My condolences. Your species ages slowly, then? By the way, Soot, I have two different kinds of language magic going, so I ought to be able to understand you if you feel like talking."

"Yes. I'm an elf, and we usually live hundreds of years. Do you want to talk to her, Soot?"

"If I wanted to talk to people, I would just speak to them in Hallit."

"Soot says they're not interested, sorry. Maybe once you get to know them better."

"Fair enough. It's very cool that you live that long." Her desire to Dragon Fairy Elf Witch Ember is increasing rapidly, but as Soot says, better to get to know her more first. "Have you been here since before the Worldwound opened?"

"No, I wasn't alive then! I was actually born the same year the wound opened, which my dad thought was a sign I would be able to help close it some day. He never told me why he thought that, though."

That has some Fantasy Novel Logic implications. "It would be great if you did, that's for sure. What sort of things do you do when the city's not being attacked?"

"I talk to people when they need help, and heal them when they're injured, at least when they wouldn't rather go to one of the temples. I also end up healing a lot of animals since they don't have families or clerics that can take care of them when they're hurt. Sometimes I sing, or talk to Soot, or watch the clouds go by. I help people with their laundry or cleaning too, since I'm a lot faster at that, and it's nice to eat a warm meal sometimes."

She is going to find an excuse to buy this adorable kid sweet old lady lovely person so much food. As soon as she isn't herself broke. She should find that Horgus Gwerm fellow who came out of the caves with her and ask him to pay up.

"I'd love to buy you a meal as soon as I have some local currency. And you can heal without being a cleric? I didn't know that was possible."

"I'm a witch, so I can actually heal as many people a day as I find, but I can only heal each person so much unless I'm using spells. "

"That's so cool! How did you learn to be a witch?" Greed greed covetousness greeeeed.

"I get it from my grandmother! She sent Soot to help me out with the spells, though I can do most of the healing or the talking with animals or the putting people to sleep on my own."

"Would you be willing to teach me? I'd love to be able to heal lots of people." Technically she has a little bit of healing already but it's once per day and kind of crappy.

"I'm not really sure how to teach it; I kind of just... did it. I think it happened because of how long I'd been a witch for, because I've never heard of anyone who wasn't a witch being able to do it."

Inconvenient how she packed so many books for this isekai and none of them were D&D sourcebooks there's no guarantee they would even be accurate.

"Huh. Was being a witch something you were born with, then? Or is it more like being a cleric but without the god? Sorry for asking so many questions; I got to this planet yesterday and don't know hardly anything yet."

"It wasn't something I was born with, no, I didn't become a witch until my dad died. He was a witch before I was. I've never been a cleric so I'm not totally sure what it's like but I don't worship any of the gods, if that helps. And wow, another world? I know some elves came here from another world a long time ago but I've never met anyone who did."

"My home planet's called Earth. It's got lots of technology and hardly any magic."

"Huh, what's that like? I think I would be pretty lonely if the only animals I could talk to were crows and ravens and magpies, and I'd hate it if I couldn't help people who got hurt, but maybe technology can do all that too."

"We have lots of medical technology! It doesn't work as fast as channeling, but most things are fixable with enough work, and we can prevent a lot of diseases entirely. Basically nothing for talking to animals, though."

It's at about this point that the building where Terendelev is comes into view. It's apparently a moderately large tower, easy identified by the fact that the exterior is currently half covered in ice and not especially happy about it. The interior seems to have been treated significantly more carefully, but there's some dislodged brick work around the entrance where Terendelev clearly decided not to transform into her human shape before forcing the matter.

Brenda is going to go through the somewhat enlarged doorway, about 20% in case Terendelev wants any help and 80% because she wants to see what's going on in there. If any of the others would prefer not to do that that's very sensible of them and she's not judging at all.