Normally, a growl would be cause for alarm, potentially indicating that there was so sort of dangerous beast warning us off while ready to attack. But, when such a growl ca from Silva, it indicated sothing else entirely, depending on the aggression in the growl, the volu of it and a dozen other factors. In this case, the growl was soft, almost cautious, but the fur on her neck was standing up straight and her tail sticking out, telling that there was sothing weird going on, sothing that she wasn’t sure if we should be concerned about or not.
Closing my eyes and sniffing the air myself, I tried to figure out what she was slling but, despite my higher Intuition, her canine sense of sll was superior when it ca to mundane scents and I didn’t perceive anything extraordinary. Just the usual scents of the mountains, with a little extra mixed in that told it would rain soon, scents I had tasted repeatedly over the last few weeks. However, knowing that there was sothing out there to be either concerned about or interested in, I signalled Silva to take the lead, so we could check out whatever was out there.
We had to walk a lot further than I would have expected, though given that we were walking into the wind, maybe I should have. Furthermore, the rough and craggy terrain made it impossible to walk in a straight line, forcing us to make a detour or two, and slowing us down even more, turning what might have been a trip of half an hour on even ground into an almost two-hour trek.
By the end of it, we were moving along a stretch of roadway, a few broken cars reminding the world of what it used to be. The road itself showed signs of decay far outstripping what the months since the Change should have caused but then, the entire world had been reshaped and the remnants of the old world were crumbling away at incredible speeds. It made wonder about things that wouldn’t decay normally, plastics and such, would they decompose now, or would they remain as a trashy relic of a bygone age?
If so, it would be darkly amusing, if the complentary supermarket plastic bag would be considered an artefact of humanity’s high period, maybe even revered and put into a museum for future generations to marvel at the ingenuity. For a mont, I wondered what it said about our old culture that a plastic bag might beco its defining cultural artefact, a bag that people living at the ti would readily consider thrash.
Thanks to the signs along the road we had been walking on, there was little surprise when we saw the largely crumbled remains of buildings in the distance, the shadows of the night doing little to hide them from our sight. Looking at Silva confird that the scent was coming from those buildings, or at least from that direction, and now, I could even sll sothing myself. It wasn’t a very pleasant scent, nor one I had really experienced before, but from the undertones of decay mixed with a strangely earthy scent I couldn’t place, I could tell that whatever gave off these scents, it wasn’t anything nice. Or at least nothing that was living a biological life like we were, these scents spoke of sothing entirely different. The closest analogue I could think of were the Withered, and those I considered a serious threat.
They had beco dangerous in a very short ti and given their adaptive and evolving nature, I had little doubt that they could have beco sothing beyond my ability to wipe out, if given enough ti. Ti this infection, if there was sothing similar here, already had, aning it could be a serious threat in its own right. Not sothing we would want to bumble in without taking precautions.
So, to make sure we wouldn’t beco fungal food, we veered off, moving into the open area around town and towards one of the smaller hills in the area. There, I once again used my Earth Magic to dig a shelter for us, sothing I had beco incredibly accustod to. My proficiency in that particular skill wasn’t a real surprise, I had dug a shelter for us every night just before dawn, mostly to make sure we didn’t stumble into a dangerous situation by accident, if we placed ourselves in danger, it was supposed to be by design and on purpose, not because we intruded into so critter’s living room.
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By now, making a shelter took barely half an hour, and a good part of that ti was spent turning the cave solid and sturdy with another chunk used to make it look nice and feel comfortable. There was a part of that wondered if the nurous caves I had dug over ti would eventually be discovered, or maybe turned into so sort of path that connected the different shrines of Hecate we had established. A pilgrim’s path, or maybe calling it Path of the Arcane Seeker would be more appropriate, though for that, we’d eventually have to go back and connect the two parts that had been separated by our trek through the dungeon.
But that would be a project for so later ti, maybe once I managed to reunite with Sigmir we could go on a tour of Terra, exploring all the fascinating sights and visiting the communities that would hopefully spring up all around the world. It would serve to let Sigmir get accustod to an entirely different world and would allow both of us to figure out where we would want to go in the future. Right now, my long-term plans were wholly focused on getting her back but after that? I didn’t have any idea what I would do with myself, other than be with her. Sothing to occasionally think about, though part of it would depend on the area around the Ice Nexus, if it was nice enough, I might just settle down there.
Setting thoughts and dreams of my future with Sigmir aside, I focused on the present and the need to make sure we didn’t run into so sort of dangerous situation. For that, I used my usual scrying construct, a raven ford from Darkness, with a bit of Ice thrown in for physical mass and so Wind Magic so I could make the construct fly without trouble. I might be able to make a construct that could fly without the use of magic as if it was an actual bird, but adding Wind Magic into the construction made it a whole lot easier. Additionally, the presence of Wind Magic allowed a few tricks in regards to sound, letting hear through the construct or even create sounds, though that was a work in progress. Speaking was quite difficult if you didn’t have vocal cords or the inborn ability to use them.
When my scrying construct approached the town, I couldn’t see anything suspicious. That, in and of itself, made quite suspicious, the entire town was far too neat and tidy. Sure, the buildings were crumbling, but that ca from the passage of ti and fairly little could be done about it without a large and dedicated workforce. But the simple fact that the cars, even those that looked obviously wrecked, were standing at the side of the road, as if parked and left there, made suspicious. From afar, the entire town looked as if the people had simply decided to leave and walk away, which I couldn’t believe.
If they had simply decided to leave, where were the Undead and Shattered? Should I believe that the people, after defeating those dangerous enemies, had simply packed up their stuff and left a town filled with completely salvageable buildings and literal tons of material behind, while making sure that everything was neat and tidy?
It didn’t make any sense but, at the sa ti, I couldn’t see any sign of active human habitation, no smoke, no fire, no movent outside, nothing but an empty town. The entire situation was as disconcerting as it was confusing, and so far, nothing explained the strange scent Silva had picked up on.
Given that I couldn’t tell all that much from high up in the sky, I let my scrying construct circle downwards, letting it ride the wind to make it look like nothing but an ordinary bird, no need to give away that it was a lot more than that.
Sadly, despite the lowered altitude, I wasn’t able to spot anything out of the ordinary, nothing to give any indication of what had happened here. Oh, there were a few more strange traces I could see, spots where I was fairly certain pools of blood had dried on the asphalt, but there were no visible bodies, nothing but this eerily tidy town.
Suddenly, as my construct was just dipping below the height of the buildings around , allowing to see into the windows, I caught a glimpse of movent from the corner of my eyes. At that mont, I fully used the magical nature of the scrying construct, making it stop in mid-air in ways no bird could emulate and turn, so I could fully see what I had discovered but the only things I could see before my scrying construct was shattered were a flash of blue flas and a huge slashing claw.
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