After we step inside, I hear Vari close the door behind us and drop a solid wooden board to bar it. It’s a good precaution. It’s generally known that monsters react to essence density first and foremost, so people like Vari and I are far more likely to attract more dangerous monsters than a random farmer on the road might. I don’t even remember the last time I saw a slime, for that matter. Add in the aftereffects of a Calamity acting as a sort of calling card for monsters once the things are gone, and we’re very likely to run into something that's a legitimate threat.

  But that’s not an immediate concern. So I start to direct light around the space.

  The inside of the barn is spacious. There's two floors, with a sturdy ladder connecting them attached to a central stanchion. The first floor has enough stalls for a dozen large livestock, but no signs of anything having been in all but two of them. The two with signs of habitation are filled with old, saggy hay at first glance, but as I look closer, I see one is just covered in a fine layer of null dust coating the hay. It’s a thorough enough coating that I didn’t notice at first in the unreliable light and just mistook it as discolored hay.

  Opening up the stall and stepping inside, I kneel to sift my hand through the powder. There’s nothing else it can logically be, but thoroughness is in my blood, so I spend some time gathering the powder into a phial and attempting to force Ignia essence into it. Holding the phial in one hand, I wrap my other around the bottom and concentrate, imagining simple fire running through my veins and out my palm into the phial as heat builds in my core. It resists the attempt with such force that I burn my hand when the essence recoils from the powder.

  It’s definitely the remains of an aetheric collapse, no question.

  “Found your horse, Nyssa.” Vari’s voice sounds strained, so I start to steel myself for something unpleasant as I stand and head his way. He’s kneeling in the rearmost section of the barn, back away from the stalls amongst boxes and barrels.

  Arriving behind him, I see the other stalls presumed occupant. A dark-coated horse. It’s got a sleek black coat and is enormous compared to most horses I’ve seen. Clearly a draft breed of some kind. It’s laying down on its side in a long dried puddle of blood — the source of which is quite clear. Five large gashes that are clearly festering and untended have been raked across its flank. “That would have needed to be something huge to leave marks like that.” Vari adds with some surety, as the horse flinches away at his touch, weakly. He withdraws his hand quickly with a frown.

  “But not a Calamity…” I trail my voice off, thinking aloud. “The other stall has remnants of an aetheric collapse, probably another horse this size if I had to guess based on how much dust there is. Which begs the question of why one but not the other? Would a Calamity ever just wound something and leave it to die?” The question is rhetorical, but I kneel near the horse's head and pull out one of my four healing phials. As I reach for its head with my free hand, it gives me a pained whinny but leans its snout into my head affectionately.

  ‘“Still got the knack with animals, Nyss?” Vari’s voice carries a smile that I mirror as the horse nuzzles my hand. With my other, I crack the healing phial with a touch of essence. In short order, the liquid mixture starts to flow around my gauntlet looking for damage to address, but before it can go too far searching for it, I press my hand to to the wounds. The fluid leaps from my hand immediately, easily identifying the considerable wounds on the horse while I stroke its snout to keep it calm. Healing major wounds like this can be uncomfortable for a person who’s aware of what’s coming. Let alone for beasts who tend to respond erratically to magic being used on them, so I want to try to soothe it as much as I can.

  “Something like that…” Vari’s right in that I’ve always been good with animals. I’ve never really understood why, but most beasts I interact with tend to warm to me quickly or immediately. This horse being a good example of it. I watch as the wounds work to pull themselves closed with tendrils of red, green, and pink essence and the horse lets out some panicked cries. In response, I lean down lower, pressing my head against the side of its neck, stroking it slowly and consistently. Before long, it calms to weather the alien sensations with a soft sigh. “Let’s get it some water, it’s going to need it after the healing.”

  Between Vari and I, we pull, smash, or pry open the various crates and barrels to find some containing clean water and others containing feed. Whoever took care of these horses was well stocked, it seems. And not with low-quality stuff, either. The grains here are essence-enriched — which raises more questions about why the Calamity had come in here, only gone after one horse, and seemingly ignored the other essence-rich materials. My first thought would be that the horse returned after the fact, having been wounded by another monster. But the age of the wounds and there being no signs of forced entry in the otherwise sealed barn leaves that as another anomaly.

  Unceremoniously, Vari kicks over one of the heavy barrels of cereals and sweeps them into a pile with a broom he apparently found nearby before beginning to scoop it into a feeder. “So, what’s the plan, Nyssa? We can’t really stay and watch over one horse.” Again, he’s right, but I can’t abide leaving it here to suffer if there’s anything to do about it. I know everyone in that town is dead, so if I can save at least one thing out of this debacle, I’ll gladly do so.

  I say and explain none of that, though. Too many people think me weak as it is, I don’t need to expand that pool to one of the few people who seem to like me. “I’m going to shift the horse over into its stall so it can lay more comfortably, then I’ll leave a note for the Order procurers who will be coming in the next few days. There’s enough food here to last months for the horse, and water enough for at least a couple weeks.”

  “Why not let it free?”

  “Because it’s freezing out, and this isn’t something bred for winter. Not to mention the increased monster activity following the Calamity. Letting it out would be consigning it to either a slow death at the hands of the weather or a terrifying, violent death at the hands of a monster. I’m not comfortable doing either. It’s a survivor of a Calamity, and we’ll do what we can for it. Simple as that.” My explanation sees Vari give me a look of approval that I feel a bit of pride at despite myself.

  “I’m not going to be much help moving the horse, though. My armor isn’t suited for it, and I don’t have Ignia buildup in any meaningful way.”

  I wave him off, kneeling back down by the horses head and clicking my tongue at it soothingly while patting its forehead. “Gonna move you now, don’t worry.” I call upon Ignia, what preciously little exists in the environment here ambiently with how cold it is, and imbue myself to bolster my strength further.

  With a final couple pats and calming words, I reach beneath the horse’s front shoulder and heave. While I wouldn’t be able to lift the entire horse without hurting myself, I can scoot it along. With strain in my muscles and my armor heating as all of its strength-enhancing enchantments kick in, I get its front half off the ground and move back, step by step. Vari, being the insightful man he is, opens the stall doors as wide as they can go to ease our passage and allowing me to settle the compliant beast in amongst its hay bedding.

  That task done, I turn to see Vari giving me an appraising look. “What?”

  “Nothing, really, just thinking about Puff and Reign.”

  It stings. He doesn’t mean it to. But it stings. “Ah yeah, fair. The horse has a similar coat to Reign, yeah?” I say a little dismissively before continuing. “I’m gonna check the second floor. Mind seeing if there’s any heating constructs in here?”

  Vari clearly recognizes the deflection but lets it lie. “I’ll poke around.” I'm glad for his social awareness. I haven't seen either Reign or Puff in close to ten years, something that surely will have needled the two royal gryphons. Puff because she'll feel spurned, and Reign because she more or less adopted me the moment she met me as a child.

  But that's something for sometime down the road. Pushing that aside, we separate, which gives me a few moments of personal peace after I haul myself up the ladder. It creaks a little under the weight of my armor and self but holds steady otherwise. I lever myself smoothly onto the platform to see a living space. Cabinets, nice-looking soft carpets, open windows with no blinds, and a shockingly nice-looking bed next to a desk overflowing with loose paper sitting next to a couple of utterly stuffed bookcases.

  It’s hard to take in the whole room at once, what with my limited light source, but the desk seems the most promising place to find an artifact of some kind of whoever lived here, so I start there. Approaching, it looks like a bomb went off at some point. I start sifting through, organizing things into like-stacks — loose paper that’s been scribbled all over with drawings and notes and what appear to be journal entries, small pocket journals, countless writing implements, and books.

  Leafing through the writings, it seems like whoever this was had a penchant for writing, or maybe planning. Nothing really has enough context to glean, since it was clearly not written with the intent of anyone else ever seeing it — the invisible hand of the author at work.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  Moving onto the journals, they are easier to parse. They’re semiregular entries from the same hand, detailing their day-to-day local social goings-on, speculation about a couple of people the writer felt belonged together but were too blind to see it, and a constant uncertainty about staying where they are instead of moving on like a mother would have wanted them to. The most recent entry I can find without truly poring over everything is dated for the day of the Calamity. The individual was worried about people realizing it was their birthday — something that seems like a repeating thread — but that they were excited to head out to hunt a beast for a festival that was supposed to be held that evening.

  So, tending horses, being a general busybody around town, helping anyone who asked, and hunting to provide for people who couldn’t provide for themselves. A normal, kind person. The sort of one who probably rushed to the monster, not away from it.

  I pull out the chair and sit down hard, tossing the journal onto the desk, sucking in a sharp breath through my teeth and taking ahold of my head from either side and trying to quell rising emotions.

  The posthumous viewing of people's lives feels so wrong. It always does. Seeing the aftermath of people who lived fully realized lives feels like the worst kind of voyeurism. But I have to do it. Nobody deserves to have their whole self and everything they were forgotten.

  Lifting my head, I mutter to myself to commit things to memory more easily as I dig through, trying to find something that specifically mentions the name of whoever lived here. And after a few minutes of searching, I find a utilitarian note folded into three sections with “Allanius” on the outside.

  “That’s something, at least.” I think to myself as I skim over it. It’s a request from a local craftsman — Karth with no surname stated — who apparently asked this Allanius to work over some knives for sharpening to help the tradesman with a bulk order. He asserts that Allanius needs to consider moving on from the town…

  I grab the stack of self-contained journals and the identification letter and fold them together neatly before tying them together with a string on the desk. Them gathered, I set them into my carryall and continue tidying up. I close the windows to keep the cold out — Hydrus essence likes to sneak in like that with its tendency to sink and Ignia’s tendency to rise — and go about organizing what I can in the room.

  As I finish a passing attempt at the bed, I hear Vari from below. “No heating enchantments. I carved some simple runes into the stall walls, but I can’t power them to get them going. Could use a hand.”

  “Sure, gimme just a second.” I return to a cabinet and pull out a small stack of unimpressive, gray blankets. They’re fairly rugged and far too large for the bed here, so I’m hedging my bets that they’ll be a good option for the horse. I drop off the ledge and land softly with a controlled release of Aero at my feet.

  Vari waves me over and gestures at the crude sigils. “They won’t last forever — I’m no enchanter — but if you can empower them, they should be good for a day or two. Hand me those blankets, I’ll get them squared away.”

  Between the two of us, we do everything possible to get the horse comfortable, and I take a loose sheaf of paper and jot down some basic instructions to see the horse ferried back to the keep — no different than any other survivor. From there we travel out and get back on the road for the brief walk to the town proper.

  Full night has fallen by the time we cross the distance, casting the entire area in a blanket of deep shadow without either moon in the sky. The only light coming down from on high is the patches of color painted across space that are normally hidden by the ambient light of the moons or by light pollution from population centers. Vast swathes of the sky that are dimly tinted the colors of the primal essences: Ignia, Aero, Terra, Hydrus, Perditio, and Ordo. It’s something I seldom see, as it’s less common to have a night with no moon whatsoever and to be far enough from population centers that they aren’t drowned out. Though they're less vibrant than they normally would be, being here in a region that's been so effectively drained of essence in the wake of the calamity.

  It’s beautiful in a sort of haunting way that sets the tone for what we’re walking into. A place devoid of life or magic that even the night sky takes a dim view of.

  “Alright, Vari. Let's get inside and see about securing the gate behind us. When I came through before it had been partially knocked off its hinges but should be salvageable if nothing damaged it further in the intervening weeks.” I unstick and hand him back the glowstone. “My eyes will serve me better here.”

  He nods as we pace alongside one another. Both of us keep our hands on our weapons. Monsters love abandoned settlements for whatever reason, so we’re both primed for a sudden and violent fight. With a hand gesture to stop, I slink forward silently. With my armors dampening effects on both my natural essence aura and my sound, I stride ahead and peek inside the gate. It’s still knocked off of one of its three hinges and flexing around the remaining deformed ones.

  Looking to either side, I see nothing. The area is rendered in the hues of gray and I can see with near-perfect clarity out to thirty feet before things get hazy. Luckily, I remember the general layout from that night, so as I stalk inside I keep my eyes and ears peeled.

  Spotting nothing concerning in the immediate area, I make a short whistle to call Vari in while I keep watch around the area.

  “Can you sense anything, Vari? You’re better at that than me.” I ask him as I move over to the gate and square myself up with the end and prepare to lift it.

  “Sure can, Nyssa, but I can’t direct it with the fine control I would need to avoid you." He cautions.

  “It’s fine. I just don’t want to be surprised by anything, is all.” I know my voice comes out sharp since I’m focused, but he’ll understand, I hope.

  As I finish shifting the gate into as close of a “closed” position as it can be considering the damage, I hear Vari speaking an incantation about awareness. Watching, he goes through his full process of obfuscation irrespective of the fact that nobody is here other than us. Most magi focus on using incantations, sigils, runes, or somatic gestures. Vari uses three of them any time he casts, usually with the intention of hiding the actual nature of his spellcasting and for the purpose of multicasting surreptitiously.

  Unfortunately, his doing so makes it harder for me to defend against it, so I just call and shape Aero to my mind

  [Thoughtshield]

  [Barrier | Aero]

  It’s a crude defense, but with Vari not making an active attempt to force past it, I’m not too worried. Though I’m quite acutely aware of the fact that if he wanted to, he’s plenty powerful enough to blast through any defenses I could ever hope to prepare. Another reason I’m usually on edge around him despite my general trust.

  After about a minute, he opens his eyes to reveal gray, luminous smoke wisping from them as the last vestiges of his mentally focused spell release through the nearest escape points. “Town is empty unless something is managing to hide its presence entirely — in which case we’re getting jumped regardless. So, just be on guard, but we’re probably fine.”

  “Good to hear, Thanks Vari.” I release my spell, feeling the momentary boost in my perception and speed of thought as the waste essence settles into my mind. “I suppose that means you didn’t spot Garrick or any signs of him?”

  “Nothing. If he were around, he wouldn’t be able to hide his presence from me. He’s…much too obvious to have any chance of it without making a concerted effort.”

  “And he’d never hide his presence in a situation like this, anyways. If you didn’t sense him, he must have followed a lead out of town. We should wait the night out and see if he left behind any signs of his passage. He’ll usually mark where he goes — it’s something he does on the outside chance he gets killed that people will be able to know where it happened.”

  Vari chuckles as we start to walk down the street. “I would never have expected Garrick to plan to be killed.”

  Shaking my head, I make a negative grunt. “Nah, it’s not like that. If Garrick goes, he’s going out on his own terms — like anyone fighting a Calamity should. This is to make Bane recoverable. Not planning for a death, accepting that it will happen someday.” The thought sobers me. Garrick isn’t slowing down, even at his age, but it’s not like you get the chance to make many mistakes when those monsters are involved. If he made it back from the fall of my homeland, nothing here should ever put him down though. Trying to redirect my focus. “It’s odd that we’re not finding any signs of aetheric collapse, and I haven’t spotted any of the bodies from that night, either.”

  “Garrick may have gathered everything up for a sort of burial. It would be trivial for him, I imagine.”

  Something about the option doesn’t settle well for me, so I make a noncommittal noise as I gesture to a three-story building — the tallest in the town aside from the steeple of its chapel to the Watcher. “Let’s post up in there.”

  The building was clearly an inn, but its uppermost reaches are in a similar state to most of the roofs in the town — burned out, partially collapsed and fully abandoned. Its walls are stone and still fairly sturdy from the looks of it. Laying in the dirt near the front door I see a scorched sign. It was clearly hand-carved, but all that remains is the vague remnant of an image of a teacup sitting atop a dainty plate. Slightly farther on, the door is laying on the ground about ten feet to the side of the doorframe, apparently ripped off its hinges and tossed aside.

  After Vari agrees, we both head inside to see what we’ve failed to find up until this point. The whole interior looks like a bomb of faint gray paint went off inside. Null dust coats every surface and stops both of us still as Vari’s light picks out every matte mote of powder.

  “Is that…?” His voice trails off.

  “Yes. Give me a few minutes and I’ll sort it out.”

  I step forward and start to call on the surrounding Aero, shaping it into a series of directed bursts.

  [Zephyr]

  [Burst | Projectile | Aero]

  I direct each weak pulse towards one corner, the light powder being carried along effortlessly since it lacks any real weight of its own. One of the many properties that make the powder useful when it’s created deliberately. It takes a couple of minutes, but by the end I’ve cleared the remains off and into a hidden corner. As much of a burial spot as I can manage for these people.

  “Well, sleeping in a graveyard: do you want first watch or second?”

  My gallows humor doesn’t land but instead seems to make Vari uncomfortable. Well done, me.

  “I’ve got more endurance for distance than you, and you see better in the dark than me. I’ll take the first watch.”

  I consider apologizing but decide against it. Vari will understand, I think. “Will do. No taking a longer watch because you think I’m more tired than you. Calen always does that to me.”

  I pull out a fire-starting kit and toss it to Vari — he seems to be traveling incredibly lightly, so I just assume he doesn’t have one. After he starts to gather loose wood from nearby debris I settle in to sleep. Which reminds me that I gave away my blanket and left all of those extras with the horse. In hindsight, we could have just slept there, but it’s too late for that now.

  Instead, I pull my cloak off and lay it over me and lay down in a corner of the destroyed front room. Sleep comes quickly after the bit of stress I was under all day. Being strung out is great for falling asleep, as it turns out.