A few days passed as I checked the house for repairs that needed to be made. The time was also a good test to vet Ska's competence and willingness to follow orders. We also spent an inordinate amount of time refilling the mana heart that powered the house.

It might have gone faster if I hadn't told Martin to keep half of his mana available... just in case. Fiona didn't have mana to speak of, being a spirit and all. As for Ska, he had very little mana. Turns out as a nascent intelligent species they only got a skill every three or four levels and all of Ska's relied on his endurance.

It turned out Ska was very talkative, almost afraid to be left alone to his own thoughts. Finding out that his species only recently, in the last thousand years or so, developed sentience his curiosity wasn't all that surprising.

Ska wasn't dumb, just perhaps ignorant of the greater world. He knew about the system from traders and travelers from his old world.

There had been no issues with his help during the time we remained at this location. Ska had killed off a few smaller threats and brought in some food. This made Martin happy as he loved to cook.

"What is that," Ska hissed, pointing to the salt that Martin was using to season the meat.

"Salt and pepper, it will bring out the flavor in the meat," Martin replied.

Ska's throat rumbled, "I have never tried flavored meat, the Grimalkin only rarely cook their kills."

"Well, friend, you are in for one heck of a treat."

I let the two talk in the kitchen as I moved downstairs to check on the control gem. Fiona was out doing the last bit of scouting as the night got closer.

I had done a final double-check of the lift plates and the pusher plates. The piecemeal ones I had cobbled together had not held up well. One had to be scrapped entirely and I was forced to move the plate from the front of the house to the rear. The others had fared far better since they hadn't been used as much during the journey. I didn't expect them to last past tonight's trip.

This would mean another trip to find supplies, I doubted we were anywhere near a Bazaar in the direction we were heading, not with the one in Biloxi being so close.

I heard some ruckus from above, something about this being the most delicious thing ever. I shook my head, finishing up my pre-flight check. 'Ha,' I thought, 'I bet I was the only person that could say that about a house.'

The gem was full, a painstaking process with Martin and I being the only two working on it. It kind of made me want to get some more mages but I quashed that idea. I wasn't the kind of person that got along with a bunch of people, even before the System. Now, I was quite picky.

Ska had made the cut, only because he wasn't afraid to attack me and also apologize. I use the word apologize loosely here. He told me he was sorry for losing in our battle and would train and ask for a duel sometime later.

That's more than ninety percent of the people I met could say and it made me sad for the state of humanity.

I went upstairs to try this amazing food before our journey began. I got to admit, it was pretty damn good.

***

I set the house down at the edge of a town that Fiona said was devoid of life. Not that that was a necessarily good omen but it made for a good hiding spot. For once the trip had been uneventful. We crossed the remainder of the forest that Ska's people lived in, passing into a river valley.

There were plenty of sightings and signs of creatures as we passed over but they were smart enough to stay well clear of our path. I couldn't tell if this area of land was pre-system or not. It looked rather normal to me and the town at the far side of the valley looked Earth normal.

It wasn't some weird dungeon either, Fiona had checked some buildings to make sure.

As soon as we set down, Ska practically sprinted from the house.

"Land," he crooned, rolling around on the ground and purring happily.

He had not been a happy flyer, I couldn't blame him. The house was rocking quite a bit more than our second flight, although, not as much as our first trip. Controlling the house was a lot like piloting a boat, more than flying a plane.

As the night wore on the house got more sluggish and more unstable as the wind caused it to rock more. If it wasn't for the wind dying down I may have set the house down in the middle of the night just to keep the floors clean. Thankfully it did and we managed to continue through the night.

Martin was the next one out of the house. He didn't bolt out or kiss the ground in relief but he did walk around, stretching his legs.

"Well... it could have been worse," I said, looking at the two.

I looked around at the abandoned houses and buildings, Fiona was still looking through the town... for anything. I turned to Ska, "how's your nose, Ska?"

The grimalkin stopped rolling around and stood up in one fluid movement. "Hmmm, likely better than yours, but not as good as our animal kin. Why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering if you smelled anything out of the ordinary here?"

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Ska looked around and I could see the nostrils flaring on his shorter snout as he sniffed the air. It seemed that the grimalkin had a more catlike snout than their namesake.

"Hmmm, I smell many things. Nothing living... or dead nearby, other than us," he replied after a few minutes.

"Ok, we'll wait for Fiona to return and have a look around."

I wasn't worried about the house. We had plopped it down in what had been an empty lot, that once sported a house. It looked like it almost belonged if it wasn't for it sitting on flood stilts. I did rune-enhance the closet and door where the control crystal sat. It would be nigh impossible for anyone to get into the room unless they had the matching runic plate, about the size of a credit card, that would unlock the door. I also left the teleport scrambler inside.

The device was a bit finicky, it could cover the entire house but as soon as you closed a door that room would be cut off from the device's effects. I was able to test this function with Fiona's help. Since I couldn't use it to protect the entire house that room was the logical choice for now.

Eventually, I would do away with the key plate and tattoo the design on myself and the others. I just had to convince them this was in everyone's best interest. I actually thought it would be easier to convince Ska, than Martin. Mainly because I had ideas on how to enhance Ska's natural weapons, using runes. And if it was one thing I learned about the grimalkin in the last few days is he would do just about anything to become a better hunter.

The three of us walked down the empty street and into the city. It was like most American cities, spread out with residential on the outskirts and commercial areas near the main thoroughfares.

We checked a few houses, managing to find some dry goods that we swiped. There was always a possibility the food had caused the death of the entire town but I somehow doubted that. If it had, there would be dead bodies, food left out to spoil, or even unwashed dishes.

I don't know if Martin noticed the inconsistency yet but all five houses we had checked looked like they were in pristine condition and the people were just out at work. It worried me enough to rub my storage ring in concern.

"Hey, Martin."

"Yeah?" the man replied.

"Do you notice anything... odd, with these houses?"

Martin paused, looking around. "Hmm, now that you mention it, I do. But I can't quite put my finger on why."

I decided to throw the man a bone. "There's no mess."

He paused in realization, "you're right. And this house shows kids in the pictures, there should be at least some mess. Can we check the upstairs real quick?"

"Are not all human houses like this?" Ska asked in curiosity.

"No," I replied, "your village had children right?"

"Yes," Sha replied, hanging on the s.

"Are they always clean and well mannered?" I inquired.

"No, grimalkin children are barely a step above wild animals," he hissed in amusement.

"Well... human children may not be quite that bad but they are overly curious and that tends to make them do stuff adults wouldn't normally do."

"Hmmm," he rumbled, while we headed up the stairs.

I wasn't surprised when we found the same, almost sterile environment, upstairs as we did downstairs.

As creepy as it was, I didn't see any reason for concern... just yet.

"Ok, I think we've seen enough, lets go."

Martin nodded and Ska just growled softly, I understood that to mean affirmative.

We left the house and Fiona found us shortly after.

"There you are. I think I found something, follow me," she gestured.

She wasn't rushing so I figured whatever she found wasn't an immediate concern.

We made our way toward what appeared to be a government building. It was built in the Greek style similar to other capital buildings I had seen in the US. That made it seem out of place as the town was not that large.

We might have passed into Louisiana, but I didn't think we were close to its capital. For the life of me, the name of the state's capital escaped me. Even if we were, I doubted this small city was its capital. That's when another oddity hit me, it was the street signs. It had been months since I even bothered looking at one. These were not written in English, instead, they were in binary. That struck me as odd until I saw what Fiona had found.

In the rotunda, I think that's what it was called, was a large pile of dead bodies. These weren't human bodies but the remains of some form of mechanical humanoid. They all sported some form of damage, from burn marks to gouges, and large caved in sections.

After looking at a few it was easy to see they had been killed by magic and weapons. Who killed them was another matter.

"Any sign of who did this?" I asked.

Ska was the first to respond to my query. "Hmmm the scents are old and muddled," he said, sniffing the air in the room.

"How about you, Martin, anything to add?"

"Afraid not, no skills that would help either."

I nodded, staring at the pile of refined metal. I used Identify to see what it got me.

Gargon corpse

Not exactly a font of information, I really needed to upgrade my skill again.

"You think we could melt these bodies down?"

Martin looked at me with a slightly horrified expression.

I shrugged, "They're dead, not as if they need it."

"But they were alive," he argued.

"Yeah, and so are Orcs but I've seen humans killing and eating them as if they were pigs. At least I'm not killing these myself. Plus they have sat like this for months."

"It still feels wrong somehow," Martin added.

"Fine, I won't harvest their bodies. But I do need to find some metal to make replacement plates or we're going to have a repeat of our maiden flight."

Martin fidgeted at that, giving the pile of metal a second look, "let's get looking then."

It took a few hours of wandering around town but we located what amounted to a factory... or maybe a birth center would have been a better description.

Row upon row of unfinished Gargon hung from the still factory line. As with the government building, there was a stack of bodies that had died due to fighting. Not all of them were Gargon though.

A few human corpses were tossed into the pile of bodies, the smell of rot and decay permeated the area, causing Martin and me to gag. I had seen plenty of death and dying in the last few months but there was just something about the smell of prolonged rot that still got to me.

The four of us moved away from the dead and toward the start of the assembly line. I was curious to know who had set this facility up but I had a good idea that they were in the pile of dead. Someone had taken great offense to this operation, wiping out anything alive.

When we reached the end of the line, we found large tanks of now cooled and hardened metal. It was useless for my purpose as it would take far too long to cut out a usable piece. That turned out not to be an issue. There was a secondary line that produced large flat plates of the metal for use in the stamping process.

"Jackpot!" I exclaimed, hurrying over to the stack of metal.

When I used Identify on the material it told me it was something called steelium.

"Fiona, any idea what steelium is?"

"Magic enhanced steel," she replied quickly. "Not as good as Mithril or more advanced metals, it is usually used for simple enhancements due to its low cost."

"Good enough for me, let's take all we can carry and head back to the house."

"What about the dead?" Martin asked.

"What about them? We can't save or avenge everyone," I replied, "nor do we know who or why they were killed. For all we know, they could have been creating an army to take over the world."

Personally, I didn't believe that but if it helped Martin get over this hangup, I was ok with the little white lie.