"Announcing Death Birds" were peculiar Alien Creatures that sought people out with riddles. Failure to answer meant facing the birds' instant-death curse; answering correctly meant nothing happened. Thus, people sometimes used "Announcing Death Bird" to describe the sort of troublesome person one had no choice but to face.
Shade merely stood before the breach in the wall for a moment before giving his answer:
"Since this journey is so troublesome, I won't continue onward at this fork in the road. Instead, I'll immediately kneel and pray toward the moon in the night sky."
The woman in his ear chuckled softly. Shade extended his right hand, and a Holy Silver orb flew from his palm. He lowered his head slightly toward that "moon."
"Praise the Silver Moon Sage. May your graceful form illuminate the path ahead of me."
As the werewolf girl muttered, "Is that how you praise the Moon Ancient God?" Iluna had already left the range of the campfire's light and pounced toward Shade.
Shade opened his arms as well, and the two embraced tightly. The eighteen-year-old girl was truly beside herself with excitement:
"Shade, ever since I came to this awful place, I kept wondering whether there was even a one-in-ten-thousand chance that you would appear too. God really heard my prayers and sent you here as well!"
She and Shade were currently speaking in Sixth Epoch Delarion Common Language, but the language they had used earlier was the language of this era—Saint Byron's taught it.
Everyone knew that Iluna had always been poor at Ancient Language. Combined with the Whisper Element constantly emitting from her robe, Shade guessed that this robe had granted her the ability to understand the writing of this time.
And through the contact of their embrace, Shade could also confirm that the girl