Wei Lin leads the way out of town, followed by Yoo Taehee, Roger, Cecilia, and Xander in that order.

People who see the procession watch in curiosity and a couple of them ask what's going on and are told to go to the lava pool and talk to Allan there (there's a lava pool??).

When the party reaches the edge of town, there's a perimeter of people guarding it, one every fortyish yards following the entire line of the town's border. And the line is very obvious; there are very few buildings past it, all of them in great disrepair, and then a vast expanse of foggy plains peppered with trees. The fog gets too thick to see through very quickly, but silhouettes of... creatures or people or things... can be seen moving here and there.

When they reach that point Cecilia casts a spell on the entire party that generates a faint shimmering bubble of grey-green energy that quickly fades to invisibility around each of them, and then hums to her doll: "Hmm hmm we're going on a walk, a walk, a walk~ We're going to the park, park, park~"

Finally, she casts another spell on the whole party that... accelerates them, it seems. They all start moving a lot faster, and with enough precision and care that they're probably all experiencing time dilation.

That's very interesting! And it's understandable that it wouldn't work on her, at least at this level of casting, since she's complicated and mostly not here. The magic here is neat and she absolutely wants to see if a goddess can learn it. But first she needs more of her here, so.

Their holy rock is perfectly quiet. And still warm, though not uncomfortably so. It's clear that they need to pay attention while out here, she wouldn't want to distract them. If they want her to speak they'll have to talk to her.

It doesn't take very long for them to meet the first of the lost dead, though that one isn't violent. It takes the form of a teddy bear, black with dirt and soot, falling apart and held together by the will of the soul inhabiting it. That soul flickers, coming into view occasionally, and it seems to be a child, no older than eight years old. The spirit barely reacts to the moving party, just pauses and turns to look at them as they rush past, not giving it the time of day.

Oh. Oh of course this place would also catch children, and they'd... also get lost. Oh no. The poor babies.

Tisvetaia is now a sad holy rock. But she won't comment on the tragedy in front of her, it's not like her escort is unaware of how their world is horrible.

It turns out that most of the lost are just that: lost. Faint blue wisps wandering on their own, animated possessions that meant a lot to their owners in life, hollow people without a strong enough grip on reality and even themselves, more than halfway into fading out of this world but unable to actually fade. Those don't bother the party, and the party doesn't bother them.

The violent lost, though, those are an actual problem because they aggro. Seeing a spark of life—or, well, activity, if not life, the pieces of identity that they no longer have—enrages them, sends them into a frenzy. Floating skulls spitting fire, possessed armour swinging enormous rusty swords, ghastly apparitions that even the other lost avoid whose touch is enough to wither and at times break the party's defenses.

The party works together well enough, all seemingly used to it, but they're not perfectly coordinated, and although their powers are flashier and more obvious than anything Tisvetaia has known their foes seem to be a close enough match for them, in the aggregate if not in individual power. Their roles become obvious soon enough, too.

Wei Lin has magic that demands you pay attention to her—which can be resisted through an act of will but it does require one—as well as various defensive spells and skills that permit her to weather the concentrated onslaught.

Roger casts a myriad directly offensive spells. They're mostly invisible except in their effects, attacking their foes' very essence at the core, entirely bypassing their armour or other embodied characteristics.

Yoo Taehee's spells seem to be more crowd-control flavoured, altering features of the terrain and imbuing the party's attacks with magic while enfeebling their assailants' own attacks.

Cecilia provides support, maintaining protective enchantments and party enhancements and occasionally healing damage they take.

(Tisvetaia's eye will be able to see, though, that she can't fully heal the damage, and nearly every hit incurs a small permanent loss—or it would have, were it not for her own blessing.)

Which Xander refused, so he's the only one in the party still taking that kind of damage. This is not helped by the fact that his preferred combat style involves getting up close and personal with their enemies and literally punching them. Calling his hits "punches" is sort of like calling a machine gun a weapon: true, but missing rather a lot of very important detail, such as the fact that he can dish out literally dozens of hits per second with sufficient power and precision that a normal unaugmented human receiving his attention would plausibly literally become paste.

Xander still taking a small amount of permanent damage pains her, a bit, but she is accustomed to distrustful mortals that think she might be lying to them. She's also accustomed to them denying her help and dying stupidly anyway. It would be incorrect to say that she's used to it, because it does still hurt, to see a (once)mortal degrade when she could prevent it, but... consent is the mortar the building of trust is built out of. Or something. It's a bit hard to remember things in their specific mortal language phrasings instead of in the divine intention she naturally thinks in. Whatever the phrasing: he does not want her protection, and so she won't make any attempt to force it on him. She will be sad, but that's her problem, not his.

That being said, they should absolutely know what's going on with the way they're being damaged and how it's interacting with her preservation.

"The damage to your bodies is eroding my protection. Not very much, but a little each time. I believe it's taking the damage that would go on to your sense of self in your stead. It's not about to fall off anytime soon, but I recommend getting touched up once you return to the city."

"Acknowledged," is all Roger says, because at this point they're sufficiently surrounded by violent lost that they can't waste much thought to anything other than survival (or whatever passes for that when you're already dead).

But soon enough they get to a clearing that they clear of dead and which Tisvetaia can use as her new powerbase.

"It's very sweet that you mean to protect me, but you don't actually need to clear them out. I'll sort it out," she says, when it's clear they mean to clear out an area for her. "You can just throw the rock and run."

...if she's sure, they can do that. Yeet!

The rock explodes into a brilliant molten shower the minute it hits the ground. It promptly begins erupting. None of them saw how fast she became a puddle of lava from a single rock the last time, but this time is nonetheless faster. She's got more of herself here to work from, instead of awkwardly trying to fling bits of herself down Yggdrasil with only barely an idea of where to aim.

"Thank you very much for your assistance," says the erupting pit of lava. "If you need or want a place to rest and recuperate before returning, I can make something suitably safe and surrounded by lava in about ten minutes. Or you can just head back now. Up to you."

"We're leaving."

"Hey, we should put it up to a vote."

"Little houses with little roofs and little babies in the houses..." singsongs Cecilia, looking at her baby doll.

"...she's really far gone, huh? I vote to stay, too, though, I'm dreadfully curious."

Everyone other than Xander votes to stay and so while he grumbles and twitches he'll abide by the will of the majority. For now.

She will actually need a bit to get everything settled, and they will presumably be a bit under attack while she does it. To help with this, she protectively sets up lava in a great big C that is not quite around them, but still preventing attacks from that direction. While she could surround them in lava entirely, that is likely to absolutely freak at least Xander out, and she’d really rather not. Instead she leaves the exit in the direction of the city, and gives them plenty of space. The lava spreads away from them for a few minutes, giving a nice moat effect, and then the inside of the lava moat starts growing itself a wall.

Inside the little bastion of safety, which is still very carefully not actually under their feet, the ground starts turning dark and earthy, and then… green. Grass and foliage start springing up, and a little section of the ground sinks to make a set of smooth stone stairs down into a pit. The pit then begins filling itself with water. More rock rises from the dirt, making what look to be chairs, and a table. A couple palm trees start springing up, growing much faster than trees really should, and when they’re done, there’s a gentle breeze and a hammock appears between them.

A couple of brightly colored drinks appear on the stone table. Also, a fruit basket.

“Houses are a bit trickier,” she says conversationally, “at least if you want them at all comfortable. But seating arrangements are easy enough.”

Xander is finding this incredibly suspicious and is keeping both a fighting stance and a magic aura of lightning around his body, which makes the edges of his clothes and hair sway in eldritch wind.

...the others are kind of trying not to cry, though.