Approaching Denver Springs, or whatever name I was supposed to use for this strange amalgamation of cities, was a little weird. Given our recent experience with hive-minded Shattered, we moved towards the town with an abundance of caution and vigilance bordering on a serious case of paranoia, even if my observations with the Oculus hadn’t shown a real need for that vigilance. Similarly, scrying with magical constructs had been fairly successful, though I could cover only so much ground that way. On a positive note, there hadn’t been a case of my constructs getting destroyed. And yet, it was still there and all of us had a weapon in hand and our minds filled with magic and ready for combat.

When I didn’t spot any magical emanations that might indicate opposition or ambushes, my nerves got a little taunter, my caution ratcheting up as a tiny voice in my mind warned me that it wasn’t the detected ambush that got you, it was the one you didn’t notice. Finding nothing was, strangely, even more stressful than finding some sort of trap would be.

It didn’t take long for Alex to confirm my findings, that there was nothing we would be detected by, but again, their confirmation didn’t manage to assuage my fears. There might be something here, just like there had been something lurking underneath Queta, ready to pounce on me. This much bigger city, warped by the strange effects of the Change, was a much more likely place for serious dangers, which is why we approached an area that looked fairly boring and ordinary. Not the area around what I thought was a military base, the Air Force Academy or near the strange mountain. Nor did we try to get close to one of the larger warehouses on the outskirts of town or one of the shopping malls. No, we decided to move into a fairly ordinary residential neighbourhood, hoping that its ordinary and boring nature had endured the change. Though, given just how much the buildings had decayed, it was a lot less boring than it had been before, the buildings were now completely distinct from one another. Sure, mostly because they were broken in different ways, but distinct nonetheless.

There was some noise in the air, as we left the forested area and entered the suburban area we had chosen. The noise was partially from the wind playing with the leaves on the ground and in the various trees nearby but that wasn’t all of it. A different sort of noise, cracks and groans, came from the houses. Whether the houses were moving just a little in the wind or whether something was living in the ruins, I couldn’t tell but all my senses, the mundane and the magical, reassured me that there wasn’t anything to worry about.

I couldn’t sense any souls or concentrations of magical power and Luna, using her own divinely granted sight, confirmed that there was nothing to worry about. My taunt nerves started to slowly relax, just a little because maybe the reason why we failed to detect a threat was that there was no threat at all. While absence of evidence wasn’t evidence of absence, it also wasn’t evidence of a trap, though it could be. Vigilance was a good thing, but when I tripped from vigilance into paranoia, it was not.

Still, I couldn’t relax, not out here, not until we knew that we weren’t in danger. And even then, I’d probably keep cautious nonetheless, simply because the situation could change at any time.

The first actual animals we managed to spot were, unsurprisingly, a bunch of rats. Ordinary, grey rats, scuttling away as fast as their small legs could carry them. A quick Observe caused some squeaks and managed to increase their speed just a little, while telling me that these creatures were nothing impressive, between level five and eight. No threat, unless we managed to fall asleep or something, in that case, they might somehow manage to find an important vein and bite through it. Incredibly unlikely, especially with the precautions I generally set up before going to sleep, but it wasn’t impossible. Back on Mundus, Sigmir and I had managed to kill her former chieftain, by breaking into his residence at night and stabbing him in his sleep. It wasn’t impossible and I wasn’t about to discard the possibility, just in case.

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But the rats’ presence meant there weren’t any serious predators looking for food in the area. If there was, the rats would make a much easier meal than the five of us and if there was one thing predators were generally smart about, it was target selection. They didn’t go for the biggest, strongest prey they might be able to take down, they went for the weakest they could catch, simply because weaker prey still gave good calories and meant a lot less risk. Why try going after the elephant or bull-moose and end up gored, trampled or otherwise mutilated if you could take down some wounded youngster and eat just as well?

My considerations ground to a halt when I realised that now, after the Change, there was an actual reason to go after the bigger prey. The system and the EXP it could bestow changed the entire predator-prey dynamic from a pure effort to get calories and avoid being turned into calories into one where both parties had something else to gain from the demise of the other. Given that the general life goal of all animals was to survive until they had offspring and have as many offspring as possible, a higher level would be an advantage. At least until the higher level was balanced against the greater threat of being turned into EXP by a stronger foe.

Additionally, I was fairly certain that animals had some additional way of gaining EXP, not just violent conflict, just as I was gaining EXP for teaching others about magic. Only, I had no idea how their mechanic might work, or if it functioned along the same lines. I just couldn’t believe that some mountain goats had managed to murder their way to level forty-five already but just a week earlier, we had come across a mountain goat at that level. It had been fairly far away and dashed up a near-vertical wall before we decided what to do about it, but its existence indicated that they got EXP somehow, other than killing.

Something to look into, and maybe ask Lady Hecate about. It might not be Her blessing that granted me EXP for teaching others about magic, or it might not solely be Her blessing. Though, if I asked, She might take it as an insult, so maybe it would be best to be somewhat circumspect, or maybe to investigate if others gained EXP in distinct ways.

Thinking back, I tried to remember if there had been people at Apple Gate Farm who gained EXP by farming or something along those lines. Sadly, I hadn’t been too interested back then, my focus had been on Lia, Silva and the army of dogs. Maybe I could investigate some more after we met the people here, I’d have to wait and see.

Shaking off the sudden headache that came with the question of how the dynamics between essentially all living beings would change and had changed with the advent of the system, I focused back on our environment. There might still be predators around but at least I was now fairly certain that they weren’t the stealthy type. Anything that could ambush us would easily be able to hunt down the rats, so we should be fairly safe to continue looking around.

So, we began to explore the area, inspecting the buildings and how they were broken and once again, I was reminded of the unnatural decay that had gripped everything since the change. Normally, one would expect that things would start to decay slowly, after maintenance ceased, with delicate systems like the power grid being the first to go, while robust systems, like roads, would last for a much longer time, especially as there wasn’t anything using the roads. Not like there were hundreds of trucks rolling down the highway, causing a constant strain on it.

But, while delicate systems had broken immediately, so had everything else. It was as if everything had decayed into a broken state, whatever broken meant for different parts of the old infrastructure, and once it was broken, the normal rate of decay started to set it.

Almost as if the system didn’t want people to rely on their old homes and the old cities. Why else would things break this far, I doubted it was some sort of magical coincidence. I couldn’t positively eliminate such coincidences but it felt strange. And, in turn, this was another indication that there was an actual intelligence governing the system not just some sort of automatic algorithm or something along those lines.

And what a wonderful realisation that was, I had only recently accepted that Gods were real and now, there was some sort of Super-God out there, governing the thing that governed Gods and everything else. What a headache.