It was easy to underestimate the amount now that had all spread out into different towers and towns, living alongside the natural inhabitants, but the number of Tamarisian refugees was rather high, it did not seem too impressive within such an immense realm that was far from being densely populated, but everyone had to find something to do, those that had been but mere civilians working normal jobs before being ushered into this place of safety could either do what they knew best, or have to find a chance of plan as their knowledge was worthless in this strange realm.
Some took upon the local customs and beliefs, throwing themselves into worship of the sun or beasts, ending up getting close to the practitioners, often so close that they became fully integrated into the realm through ways of affection.
Toby had already been taken into such a thing despite never actually practising beast worship, he had just decided to approach a girl once and voila, such matters happened quickly amongst the beast worshippers through a combination of their beastly and very much sapient nature, relationships were quickly set into stone.
As for those who instead decided to practise sun worship or simply lived in one of their towers, things weren't so simple, at least due to the fact that decrypting signs of interest was a fair bit harder on their end.
Still, many were harmoniously melding into the Emerald Realm's culture, some other simply couldn't do so immaculately, such as those who had already sworn faith to deities, many monks, priests and paladins had also been forged to flee the undead, despite this apparent clash in beliefs from outside and within, the realm once again proved its near uncanny acceptance of others once more.
Which wasn't so surprising considering that they had already managed to avoid every and all problems with having two distincts faiths within one population, they had just been told that everything, which included prayers, that was directed to something beyond the realm had to pass through the emerald sun, who was said to guard and maintain the void all around in some way or another- And that as long as the emerald sun would allow for this travel, all would be well.
Considering that their kind sun could not care less about it, there were no issues, in fact, as a sign of gratitude, the believers from the exterior also directed prayers toward the sun itself, which seemed to make it shine brighter, as though blushing from the excessive thanks every single time.
The ones who seemed to struggle the most with acclimating were the death hunters, indeed, all felt the weights of failure hanging upon their shoulders, but also, they were rather aimless in this small world, they had never even considered the possibility that they would one day find themselves in a place where death couldn't reach into.
There was something fantastical about a world where corpses would turn spirit life instead of rotting and decaying, in fact, it seemed that things like gangrene did not exist either, infections of wounds would not quite fester.
The life arts and contraptions they had created served little to no purpose here, the Emerald Realm was a celebration of life and its renewal without death and putrefaction, some felt like letting go and just joining this celebration, but most simply dreaded the day this idyllic utopia would be tarnished by decay.
As time passed without anything happening however, all of those that still held fear of the undead slowly began to push it back, starting to just look forward to the future, only those haunted by a particular dread never forgot of the dead.
Molc, who held a talent in wielding crossbows, had only seen Loimos from afar, taking aim and firing at the putrid skeleton without having to ever get within the range of his hands, or smelling the putrescent reek he emanated, but the undead had still reached hum anyways, inflicting deep scars all over the crossbowman's body, all were perfectly healed up physically thanks to Minli, but phantom pain remained without ever weakening, the terrible suffering of his injuries surging up at night, when he awoke from nightmares he could not remember.
The same was true for Marl, the talented cleric, whose voice had been forever warped by a strike of Loimos, although pain was rare and oftentimes simply due to the lasting damage- The faithful of Phanes was reminded of this encounter every time he heard himself, leading to him keeping his sentences succinct and only speaking up when absolutely necessary.
Merno had lost his sight in that battle, the first few weeks of being within the Emerald Realm had truly be difficult as even his mana sense had been unusable then, having to rely on Minli to move around, now that he had regained control over mana, he could navigate around, though still using a cane just in case.
A blindfold was secured over his face, the sensation of any breeze or anything carried by it touching the inside of his hollow sockets was truly a sensation that made the skin crawl, like puking out some thick sludge with such force that some would manage to get into your nose.
The talented mage was rather lucky however, had he not been transported to the Emerald Realm, his wounds would have most certainly gotten severely infected since Loimos had really stirred his fingers like he had been mixing a soup, Merno's eyes had been turned into goop, it was far from a clean injury from a far from disinfected opponent.
Despite knowing that his condition was now stable, he would still often go and visit Minli's little clinic to have them checked, him and the healer had been peers for many years before, but it was only after losing all vision that he began to see the young woman in a new light, to pay closer attention to her voice, to the sound of footsteps, to the sensation of her touch…
Thankfully, Minli was very keen on checking him up often of her own volition, so his repeated visits did not rouse any suspicions, or at least, he hoped that at least the healer did not notice anything beyond the medical.
Because it seemed like everyone else already did.
Currently, as was often the case, the men of the talent holders were hanging out, keeping up with one another even as they had settled in different areas of the realm.
Right now, Ansonio, the talented trumpetist was demonstrating a new rhythm that he had created, his music was especially geared toward motivating troops and such, his talent in the instrument was not only good enough to inspire strong feelings and invigorate people on its own, but it also melded particularly well with arts.
"So I played this, and for some reason, all the ladies suddenly turned all hot and bothered, but that doesn't make sense, this is supposed to evoke joy and nothing else!" he explained, which also explained why he had shown up here sprinting like a devil was running after him.
"What audience were you performing to?" asked Liebeln, the talented architect.
"Hum, they were a bunch of bird-like beast worshippers, why?"
"You must have been playing a melody that the beast they are communing with associates with a mating ritual… That's probably it, I accidentally roared one time and-" Poho, the talented smith, but also bearfolk, was interrupted.
"Don't tell that story again, it's genuinely terrifying" Marl said, not that big on such talks as a good cleric devoted to his god.
"You guys are just jealous of my unrivalled charm"
"I am not jealous of getting cornered by bear-women! Have you seen Toby lately? This poor guy has to deal with one rabbit-woman and it looks like someone tries to rip out his soul every morning! If that's what a bunny can do, I don't want to imagine a bear, and certainly not multiple of them!" Molc shuddered, that was exactly why he had moved into a tower and not a town, he would rather be flicked in the forehead and pranked, than dragged into a cave for accidentally sending a signal to the wrong person.
"It was five actually…"
"I thought it was more?" Merno questioned, distinctively hearing about ten of them last time.
"No, I was just seeing double after a little while"