A gentle rain fell, each drop flowing off Elijah’s sleek scales as he leaped from one rock to the next. Beneath him, a river raged, spraying a mist into the air as the swift-moving water crashed into the boulders. Elijah had spent hours trying to find a crossing – the current was far too strong to safely swim across the wide river – and not for the first time, he cursed the harpies that prevented him from taking flight.

Their numbers had begun to thin, but he couldn’t help but liken them to a swarm of locusts. Except these particular pests were as large as a lion, and with a wingspan to match, rather than the size of a thumb. Regardless, so long as he was careful, they didn’t pose much of a threat. That would change if he failed to use Guise of the Unseen, though, so he remained cloaked in his camouflaging skill.

Still, despite the relative safety he enjoyed, Elijah couldn’t help but lament the slow pace of travel. When he’d set out, he’d hoped to be in Easton in a couple of days. And that would have been a viable expectation, given the speed he could achieve with Shape of the Sky. However, traveling overland was much slower, especially when he had to do so under the effect of Guise of the Unseen. It didn’t prevent him from running flat out, but moving that quickly would strain the ability, which would chance exposing him to the harpies.

So, as frustrating as it was, Elijah exercised every ounce of his patience to maintain his pace.

He leaped from the final boulder and to the riverbank, then left the river behind. Elijah wasn’t certain if the river had originated with Earth, but he doubted it. The thing was half a mile wide, a size that wasn’t usually conducive to such a rapid current, but he didn’t know enough about rivers to say for certain if such a body of water had existed before Earth’s transformation.

What certainly hadn’t existed back then were the creatures that called the river home. They could only be described as monsters, though for once, Elijah chose discretion rather than confrontation. Not only would a fight bring the harpies down on his head, but he also had no interest in letting himself get distracted by one side quest or another, as he had throughout his travels before discovering his sister’s fate.

With that in mind, he continued on, crossing a few other, smaller rivers along the way. He also saw a couple of settlements in various states of development. One had high walls and seemed well-protected, while another was open to attack and was barely holding on. The residents of the latter looked like they could use Elijah’s help, but as was the case with the river monsters, he chose to ignore them.

Perhaps that made him selfish, but with every step closer to Easton, his mindset focused on the conflict to come. He refused to dilute that by getting sidetracked.

Days passed until, at last, he left the harpies behind. Or put more accurately, they chose to continue on, launching themselves into the sky and flying off as one ridiculously huge flock.

In the beginning, he’d estimated that they numbered in the tens of thousands, but after traveling beneath them for more than a week, Elijah amended that estimate to millions. One day, that might prove to be an issue, especially for any settlements in their path. Fortunately, the harpies seemed willing to avoid the populated towns and villages Elijah had passed along the way, which engendered hope that harmony was possible.

If not, then someone would have their hands full with dealing with the monsters.

But not him. Not now.

Elijah didn’t immediately take to the skies. Instead, he remained with his feet planted firmly on the ground, though he did abandon Guise of the Unseen. After a day of traveling out in the open, he judged it safe and used Shape of the Sky, and once again, flew high above the landscape.

From that vantage point, he saw the terrain far more clearly. It wasn’t particularly mountainous, but it wasn’t flat, either. More importantly, the area was absolutely littered with remnants of Earth’s fallen civilization. He saw overgrown subdivisions, stores, and even a couple of complexes that looked like they’d once served as schools.

He also saw people.

Not a lot of them, but there were enough small groups out and about that Elijah expected he was getting close to a sizable population center. Still, it wasn’t until he saw the tall wall brimming with ethera that he realized that he’d arrived in Easton. Carmen had spent some time describing it, so he knew precisely what he was looking at.

Still, Elijah didn’t immediately head into the city. Instead, he circled for a couple of hours until he saw a familiar sight.

He landed in the center of the street that cut through his sister’s old neighborhood. The surrounding homes looked little different than any other place Elijah had visited. A few of the houses remained intact, but most had been subjected to catastrophic damage. That had been exacerbated by time and the weather, which had collapsed most of the structures.

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Elijah remembered the last time he’d visited. Back then, Miguel had only been four or five years old. Just about to start kindergarten. Carmen had been working on her dissertation, while Alyssa had just started her career as a police officer a couple of years before. For his part, Elijah had just gotten a job after finishing his doctorate, and he’d decided to visit his sister before starting.

In those days, the apathy concerning his chosen field hadn’t truly set in, and he’d been eager to do important research that he’d hoped would change the world.

“I was so naïve,” he muttered to himself, having shifted back to his human form.

They all were. Alyssa thought she was going to help her community and change police practices for the better. She’d tried. For a while. But eventually, she’d come to realize that there was only so much a single police officer could do, and she’d shifted her focus toward the pursuit of a law degree.

Carmen might’ve been the most realistic of them. She knew her chosen field wasn’t particularly important, but she was no less enthusiastic for it. Who could have predicted that she would use those skills to become one of the strongest crafters in the world? Certainly not Elijah.

For what felt like the thousandth time, Elijah wished he’d chosen to come back home sooner. If he’d taken a flight even a day earlier, he would have been in Easton when the world had transformed.

But would that have helped?

Without Nerthus’ guidance in cultivating his Body, the cancer would have remained. And he’d been close enough to death that there was almost no chance that he would have discovered the means to cure himself without the spryggent’s help. So, as easy as it was to second guess the past, Elijah knew that it wouldn’t have mattered. There was nothing he could have done to prevent Alyssa’s death. In fact, his presence would have been a hindrance.

With that in mind, Elijah continued down the street, the iron cap on the butt of his staff clicking against the pavement. Most of the street was covered by a layer of dirt or vegetation, but there were still a few bare patches. There were animals all around, many of them having created nests inside the houses, but none of them bothered Elijah as he strode toward his sister’s house.

His path unimpeded, he reached the site only a few minutes later.

The low-slung, single-story house was just as overgrown as all the rest, and half of it had been entirely destroyed. The other half remained strikingly intact, though, so Elijah hoped that his reasons for visiting the house would bear fruit.

He stepped forward, and an audible flapping sound announced the sudden ascent of a giant bird that had nested atop the house. Flashing back to his ordeal with the harpies, Elijah immediately shifted into his lamellar ape form. His heart pounding, he wheeled around, ready to fight. However, the bird was just a normal, if overgrown, crow. It circled a couple of times, cawing loudly, but it clearly had no intention of picking a fight.

His heart beating out of his chest, Elijah steadied himself before shifting back to his human form. The experience with the harpies had clearly taken their toll.

It took a few moments for his heartbeat to normalize, and when it did, he continued forward. The door had been knocked from its hinges, and it lay to the side, half on the porch and the other half tangled in the overgrown topiary that hid most of the house’s façade.

Elijah stepped inside.

The sun was still high in the sky, but the interior of the house was mired in darkness. As a result, it took a few moments for Elijah’s eyesight to adjust to the gloom. While he waited, he focused on One with Nature, cataloguing the various organisms in the house. There were a few rodents, plenty of reptiles like lizards and snakes, and more insects than Elijah wanted to count. He did make note of a large colony of termites that reminded him of his experiences in the Magister’s Estate.

But there was nothing inside that would threaten his life. So, when his eyes adjusted, Elijah set about his task without fear. The first place he visited was the kitchen, where he found a bunch of rusted pots and a host of empty cabinets. After the world’s transformation, Easton’s residents had survived in no small part due to extensive scavenging efforts. So, the fact that the house had been picked clean of immediately useful things – which included the cabinets’ contents – wasn’t particularly surprising.

Still, Elijah did find a huge cast iron pan that he thought would be useful. It was marred by a patina of rust, but he knew that wasn’t enough to ruin such a sturdy pan.

Not that he could use it for its intended purpose. After all, he didn’t have a cooking skill, which meant that anything he prepared would be bland and tasteless. Maybe he could gift it to someone. Or perhaps his packrat tendencies were making themselves known.

In any case, it didn’t take him long to move on from his sister’s kitchen.

The next stop was the living room, where he’d hoped to find some photos. However, that hope was quickly dashed when he saw that anything that hadn’t been taken was rotted, probably due to the area’s humid climate.

Still, Elijah spent a while sifting through the ruins, hoping to get lucky.

He did not.

And after some time, he moved on to what had to be Miguel’s room. There, he found much of the same. The bed had been stripped of its mattress, and the chest of drawers was entirely empty. The television remained, as well as an old gaming system. However, Elijah knew that neither would work, even if he managed to provide electricity. In its ruined state, the house offered minimal protection against the elements, which didn’t mix well with electronics.

Elijah did find a few shirts hanging in the closet, though they were far too small for the current Miguel. So, it wasn’t long before he moved to the master bedroom, where he found more of the same. Decayed photos. Inactive electronics. And rotted clothes. However, he did find a pistol in a case under the bed.

“Useless hunk of metal,” he said aloud, tossing it back to the floor. The other discovery was in that same case, and for a long moment, Elijah stared at the wad of cash. He knew it was an emergency fun, intended for use if the electrical grid went offline and cards stopped working. A reasonable thing to have, but ultimately, it had proven entirely useless. What use was a few bills when monsters were trying to rip your face off?

The rest of Elijah’s search bore no fruit, so when he found the basement, he didn’t have high hopes. He descended the steps, his shoulders slumping in both fatigue and frustration. Yet, that all disappeared when he laid eyes on an item in the corner.