"Hmm." She squints at the dead, pausing between dead Tainel did and did not poke, then looks at her again. "Acceptable."

"Thank you," says the goddess, who sounds amused at being deemed 'acceptable.' "Would you also like a poke? And is there a better place to, uh, be more volcanic in, it really is very difficult to reach this far and I'm going to need to drag more of myself down Yggdrasil if I want to scale as much as this place clearly needs."

"Yggdrasil?" asks the man who can still only understand the goddess.

"The world tree you traveled down to get here. Most of me is near the top. You know, where you were. Before you died."

"Oh! That thing. I guess it was a long way. But hey, it's working out, right? Are you sad that you now have a brand new world to save?"

There's a puff of ash that blows directly into Tainel's face, and mysteriously doesn't bother anyone else.

"Sure, I can be poked, this magic sounds fascinating."

"Poke the irritating dead man that doesn't speak the language, please, I'm working a bit from twigs and hope right now, and unfortunately he's the best and safest conduit to my power available."

She can be poked by the dead man. She feels cold to the touch.

The preservation works for her as well as it does for everyone else, and is just as immediately noticeable, though it's obviously a bit less pronounced. Still, it's probably nice to not have to worry about one's body fraying further.

"...hm. I shall interrogate you further about this once you are less preoccupied."

And she turns around and leaves.

Everyone watches her leave with palpable relief, the air of wariness and apprehension quickly dissolving.

"...so, what now," asks Roger's ?friend?.

"I would appreciate being directed to a place that is less in the middle of a street to continue being volcanic in, it'll let me handle scaling much better than having everything be reliant on my acolyte's personal intervention. Also, anyone that hasn't poked the irritating dead man, please do so, and those that have, please find and tell your friends to come and poke him, too."

"How volcanic are we talking, here, exactly?"

"It will be very, very hot while I get myself sorted, but I will still be in perfect control of everything occurring. No lava flowing to disallowed locations, no spitting lots of ash into the air, that sort of thing. I will be able to be less volcanic in the future, but right now I'm... essentially being reduced to my basic nature, and have temporarily lost a lot of my usual finesse."

"And how big are we talking, here?"

"... I'm not quite sure, yet. This is a bit of an unusual situation. Let's be conservative and estimate 'as large as reasonably possible,' with the knowledge that I can make it whatever odd sort of shape is necessary, and I will be able to un-volcanic it later. Often I make tidy grids for farmland, but uh, that. Does not seems necessary here."

"...okay but are we talking house-sized, plaza-sized, city-sized, mountain-sized...?"

"City. Plaza might be enough to work from, but I don't want to chance it and turn out to need more room."

He nods. "Alright." Looks over his shoulder. "Someone fetch Cecilia and Yoo Taehee and Wei Lin and see if it's a good day for Xander and if it's not grab Letícia please."

"Who died and put you in charge of things," grumbles his friend.

"I'm sorry, do you want to be the one escorting these lovely people through the hordes of the lost dead? No? Didn't think so. Now shoo."

"Dick."

But he and some others go off to do as instructed.

"Tainel should likely stay here for regular poking, and also because he's not allowed to die again for at least another decade. ... Hordes of lost dead? You... are under siege, aren't you, the hordes of lost dead have degraded so much that they've lost their minds, haven't they. Of course that's what happens when you degrade too far. Hey, quick question, would you like a moat of lava around your lovely settlement?"

Roger's friend and most of the others stop walking and turn around with interest at that.