[There's a pause as the duo bring up the souls clinging to the insects. Gnosis cannot see them; he lacks any supernatural gift. There's a brief flash of surprise on his features before it settles back into his typical stoicism. Something to measure, sure; he's not unpinning these theoretically-dead insects from the board. Actually, they should be kept as examples in his mind, but he'll at least shuffle the frame off to the side so that it's less immediately obvious for his more sensitive visitors.]

How horrifying. [Thanks, Forest!] I have a small amount of knowledge containing the legends in Sami, yes, though not as much as I would like. They are an infohazard, and shouldn't be shared, which I understand.

[HOWEVER. Bring him Typhon he has questions for her.]

I know little about the name which you spoke. [The words "Aldric's Grove" can be spoken freely; the name Aldric, when used to refer to the Shopkeeper, becomes garbled and unintelligible.] It's the prior name of Heimr, the Shopkeeper, and the Forest stole it at some point. The same is true of the Trader, Ydalir — she, too, had her name stolen. I believe that's why they're shadows now, but the full details elude me.

[A sigh.]

Now, I'm sure the both of you have seen the moose monster, the gargoyle, and the large fish in the river. Those are the Guardians — said to be minor deities who oversea a certain domain. The moose, Moder, oversees the non-corrupted parts of the Forest. The fish, the River Guardian, oversees the river, and is the reason we have to return the bones from the fish we gather there. From what I gather, Zahliya, the gargoyle, was artificially created by humans to guard us specifically. I've been told that offerings and prayers make them more able, in the same vein as referring to the Creature that controls the forest as a "false-god" or impostor or any other derogatory term will weaken it. As I have no evidence to suggest against this superstition at this time, I recommend listening to their words. I know little about what Moder in particular likes, but Zahliya is fond of food — specifically cheese — and singing.

[Which might be a point of contention for Phantom, but that's fine; no one has to sing to the gargoyle. Gnosis has previously clocked that the small creature gets very embarrassed when people try.]

As for our past lives, I believe the figures I mentioned were relevant then. Zahliya was merely a statue before the escape of the false-god caused him to come to life. Moder has mentioned that she was simply living in the woods and tending to nature, but that she did not often interact with mortalkind. The River Guardian is too weak to provide much information, though I do believe homage was paid to it. Notably, all of us were humans back then — we were not Feline nor Liberi nor cookie-turned-Caprinae. Some months ago, we were all given "memories" of our past lives, and they seemed normal enough. This settlement was formerly a small village, with many more buildings, and those that grew up here simply lived off the land and tried to introduce their own ways of living to the Grove. That said, some relationships as we know them can get skewed. I believe, in his past life, Mizuki had a sister, and Sesa had a different name — those sorts of anomalies consistent with religious beliefs regarding reincarnation were common enough.

[Like how his parents actually loved him in his past life. That was nice. That didn't sting at all.]

I lack the fluffier details of those events. What I do know is that the Grove was beset by tragedy when the false-god was released, and each and every single person here died. A ritual was done to force our souls to reincarnate elsewhere, though this was centuries ago. Either we spent those centuries in blissful nothingness, or there are more "past lives" from other worlds to account for. That doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, however. What does matter is that we were all unquestionably here at one point, and at another, we were within our current worlds.

[He adjusts his glasses with a finger.]

As an aside, sometimes you can find the corpses of our past lives lingering around here as though they're frozen in time. It's quite the jarring experience. I recommend exercising caution if you choose to explore beyond the Grove itself.