"I declare that anyone who takes her up on this before the witch comes here is a dumbass who deserves what's coming for them."

    "...that's kind of judgmental. And very dramatic."

"How many times in the rest of my wretched existence am I going to have a chance to be this dramatic again? Never!"

        "Wow, that's rude, I thought you liked game night."

"—that's not what I mean, my existence isn't that wretched, it was just for effect—"

        "I'm messing with you, dude."

            "You know, you guys are all being very rude to the lady over there that is nearly as confused as we all are."

"Well," says judgmental guy, looking directly at the pool. "I'm sorry Tisvetaia miss lady goddess but it is kind of very suspicious even if also very exciting when new and unexpected things happen and so we need someone who is very unlikely to die to confirm that we aren't going to die if we do whatever it is we'll do with you and your friend. Dying is bad business, see."

    "We don't need to wait for the witch, you know, Roger could come over..."

"Roger's a dick."

"And just who are you calling a dick?"

"Oh, hey, Roger. You're a dick. Wanna talk to the lava pool?"

"'Talk to the lava pool'?"

"Yeah, that pool over there."

    "It showed up after that guy there did. He doesn't speak any language any of us could recognise and then he dropped his rock on the ground and now there's a pool of lava and it talks. She talks. Her name is Tisvetaia and she says she's a goddess of preservation."

"...huh. Uh, greetings, Goddess," says Roger, walking closer to the pool of lava than everyone else is.

(And to Tisvetaia and Tainel, it is very clear that Roger is a lot less, uh, less than everyone else. Which is to say he's more. He's the least less of everyone, how about.)

"Greetings, Roger. Your, ah, associates are hesitant to trust me with the preservation of their eternity for obvious reasons. Which for the record is very reasonable and doesn't offend me at all, just please try to... keep hold of yourselves... while I prove myself trustworthy, yes? But if you would like to test my trustworthiness, you may give my acolyte," explanatory spark of lava in Tainel's direction (he helpfully waves), "a poke, and through him I could keep you from losing... yourself, it looks like."

"Are you just not going to do any translating for me, is that what's going on here?"

"Shut it, you, I'm trying to be at least a little bit imposing," grumbles his pebble, and he laughs. "Also, this is really hard and taking a lot of focus and I can't be translator while doing it. Not yet, anyway."

"What... does that entail. Exactly. This 'preservation' you're talking about."

"It keeps things in the ideal state of preservation. I use this terminology because it is based on intention. For mortals, and uh, once-mortals, that ideal is their own, not mine. So, the parts of you that you want to keep would be preserved. For ordinary mortals they age until they'd like to stop, and then do that, and stay at their ideal body plan once they reach it. I think some even stop having their hair grow, once it's a length they like it at. For you, it'd be different, but similar."

"'The parts of us that we want to keep'," he repeats, slowly. "Like—memories? And our, our whole... you know? Do you know? You seem to be new here, most people don't know until they get here."

"I am, but I am also not a normal denizen of this realm. Some things are obvious to me by looking, and this is one of those things. So, yes. Your memories and your whole... you. It's why I'm a little bit insistent, you're all liable to fall apart in front of me and I can tell. It's very upsetting, I would like you to stay as you prefer forever."

"Hey, we're not gonna fall apart in front of you here, that'd be rude. People who're worse off... well... Anyway we're all fine, everyone here, right?"

    "I don't know, last time I saw Cecilia she seemed a little bit... you know..."

"She's not here, is she?"

    "Guess not."

"Alright, suppose I want to take you up on this," interrupts Roger. "Do I just...?" And he takes a few tentative steps towards Tainel.

"Yep! Just a poke."

Tainel helpfully stands and holds out his hand, for poking. Consensual poking.

Alright. Here goes nothing. Worst case—he's not even sure what the worst case could be. Maybe she kills him? Seems like an awfully loud circus if all she wanted was to kill him, though, so if there's an angle here he doesn't know it.

And besides, he's been here two hundred fifty years and held on fine and been extremely and intensely bored and while he has no idea how the witch has managed a thousand he's definitely sure he won't be able to do that himself if nothing interesting ever happened. And here's an interesting thing that might be happening.

Poke?

It's subtle, but he can tell the change immediately. Like the howling wind that was biting at him has quieted, like the tide that was trying to tug away at his feet has abated, like... his wholeness is not at risk.

"Oh holy shit," he breathes, taking a staggering step back.

"...Roger? Dude, I saw that, what the fuck—"

    "It worked?"

        "You can see him, can't you? Of course it bloody worked, idiot—"

    "Do me next!"

"No, no, me first—"

And now all of the people who were standing a very cautious distance away from the pool of lava are starting to crowd it.

"The dead man over there, please, not the lava, I am not safe for touching at the moment. I'm working on it."

She does, in fact, seem to be cooling. A little. A bit of the top of her is hardening into black obsidian, instead of molten lava.

Tainel is super available for poking, though! He will poke everyone that wants a poke.

While he's in the middle of that someone arrives, and everyone stops what they're doing and steps aside as soon as they notice her, which has the interesting effect of the crowd parting to let her through. "What's this, then?" she says, sounding rather bored.

...also, she's falling apart in a very different way than everyone else. Her—soul or whatever it is that Tainel and Tisvetaia have been picking up on when looking at these people—is the most "complete" out of everyone here, Tainel might not even have noticed that there was something missing if she'd been the only example of the local dead he'd seen. But her body is clearly falling apart, alarmingly so. Her skin is a pale blue, her eyes are milky white, she's bald in places and the hair she does have looks thin and strawlike, she's missing an ear and the way her robes fit suggests that at least a chunk of her left shoulder is also missing. If Arabek has the concept of a "zombie", that would not seem like an inaccurate description of this woman.

"Hello! I'm Tisvetaia, goddess of preservation. I am preserving the populace from the whole... degradation of the soul, mind, and body thing. Though, actually now that you're all reassured that it works, I should warn you that it is not indefinite without regular renewal. Usually I give mortals a tidy estimate of a decade for when to come back for touch ups," this pun doesn't work in all of the available languages projected to every individual, but it comes through when the languages understood provides an opening, "but this is... higher variance, I think. Come back for a poke in a month or two and I'll have a better idea of how quickly my protection will fray."