Normally, a growl would be cause for alarm, potentially indicating that there was some sort of dangerous beast warning us off while ready to attack. But, when such a growl came from Silva, it indicated something else entirely, depending on the aggression in the growl, the volume 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 me that there was something weird going on, something 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 smelling but, despite my higher Intuition, her canine sense of smell was superior when it came 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 me it would rain soon, scents I had tasted repeatedly over the last few weeks. However, knowing that there was something 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 me 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 complementary 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 moment, I wondered what it said about our old culture that a plastic bag might become its defining cultural artefact, a bag that people living at the time 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 confirmed that the scent was coming from those buildings, or at least from that direction, and now, I could even smell something 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 something entirely different. The closest analogue I could think of were the Withered, and those I considered a serious threat.

They had become dangerous in a very short time and given their adaptive and evolving nature, I had little doubt that they could have become something beyond my ability to wipe out, if given enough time. Time this infection, if there was something similar here, already had, meaning it could be a serious threat in its own right. Not something we would want to bumble in without taking precautions.

So, to make sure we wouldn’t become 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, something I had become incredibly accustomed 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 some critter’s living room.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

By now, making a shelter took barely half an hour, and a good part of that time 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 me that wondered if the numerous caves I had dug over time would eventually be discovered, or maybe turned into some 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 some later time, 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 accustomed 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. Something 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 some sort of dangerous situation. For that, I used my usual scrying construct, a raven formed from Darkness, with a bit of Ice thrown in for physical mass and some 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 me 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 me quite suspicious, the entire town was far too neat and tidy. Sure, the buildings were crumbling, but that came from the passage of time 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 me 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 same time, I couldn’t see any sign of active human habitation, no smoke, no fire, no movement 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 me, allowing me to see into the windows, I caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of my eyes. At that moment, 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 flames and a huge slashing claw.