"This place sure is a dump, huh?"

As much as I wanted to be charitable and disagree with Sigura's assessment, I couldn't disagree in good conscience.

I hadn't seen a single store without some sort of damage or wear. A broken window, walls tainted with grime or graffiti, alleys covered with the contents of overturned dumpster or ripped bags. Some were even lacking a door, a clear sign or their front walls.

As massive as the buildings were, and as bright as the lights and signs could be here and there, it seemed derelict. Worn out. Even though it was night, I couldn't help but wonder if this city was abandoned. A small part of me hoped that was the case, only if so we'd have a place to rest without worry of being attacked.

I'd heard of a small kingdom to the south-east, back when I'd lived in Addersbrook. The kingdom, Daya Arla, was one that had been quarantined by the local governments. Some sort of mental plague, where the people had been acting like zombies. They'd become paranoid, only capable of focusing on a single task or idea to the point of obsession. Until the plague was understood, and a reliable cure developed or a suitable Caster found, it was completely sectioned off from the world.

I imagined it was a place like this. The streets empty, completely devoid of life, but with faint signs of civilisation hanging over the area, a grim reminder of what it once was.

We hadn't gone far from the sewer tunnel yet, but I'd expected to have seen someone by now. The streets of a city were said to be bustling with life and activity, yet I hadn't seen a soul.

"[Do you think the city has been quarantined?]" I asked, voicing my concerns.

"Not a chance," Sigura said. "We... must've just picked a bad spot. We should keep moving, maybe we'll find somewhere to camp out."

She was probably right. If this was the city the adventurers had come from, there'd surely be some semblance of community here, wouldn't there?

One upside of this place being so desolate was that we could use it as a base of operations. If people never came here, we could scavenge safely and keep our things here. Maybe we could even refurbish one of the abandoned stores. With the amount of floors these buildings had, we wouldn't be pressed for living space.

The others looked unnerved, and I couldn't blame them. Toya was casting wary glances down every alley we passed, as though expecting something to leap out at him. Streiphen kept close to me, keeping one hand on my side at all times. Fareel... looked fine. He was peering through every window we passed, cupping his hands around his eyes to get a better look inside, even if he didn't seem to find anything of note. I heard the sound of a dog barking off in the distance, a sound that made Streiphen jump.

I wasn't sure what to make of all this. It went against my expectations. I couldn't-

"Beggar, dead ahead," Sigura intoned abruptly.

I felt my body deflate, as though to let out a sigh. Thank the Gods there was someone here.

Even if it was a beggar, a person was a person. As we approached, I felt a sense of apprehension. What would happen if someone saw us? I was certain the reaction wouldn't be a positive one. If he ran off, would he send for the Watch, or warn adventurers? As much of an issue it could be, I almost wanted them to come to us. Just to prove this city wasn't completely without civilisation and stability.

The beggar was Human. His scuffed boots and thick, raggy jacket were the first to blur into my bubble. He was lying on his side, shivering on the pathway by the mouth of an alley. He had a blotchy red patch of skin on the side of his face, next to a wide nose, frizzy unwashed hair and a thick woolen beanie.

In front of him was a sign. It was made of cardboard, the edges torn. I presumed he'd ripped it right off of a box. In black marker, the words 'Will use fire for Dia!!!' were scrawled on the side. But... had it been drawn with a marker? Now that I looked, it could have been the remnants of scorch marks.

My bubble continued to absorb information, pushing around the man. There was a bottle of something beneath his jacket. Not alcohol, by the looks of the label. It read-

"[Boost?]" I asked aloud.

Sigura's head snapped back towards me, her eyebrow raised, mouth twitching with irritation.

"Where'd you see that, Yur? On this guy?"

I nodded.

Her mouth contorted into a snarl, and her shoulders tensed. She tore her eyes from the beggar, taking a deep breath.

"It's a drug, Yur. A magical one. He'll be unsafe to be around if he wakes up. If he panics and attacks with magic, he might end up hurtin' himself more than us."

Toya's face darkened. He nodded in my direction, presumably in agreement. Leaving the man who could have given us some answers behind, we continued on.

We left more stores behind us. Another abandoned [Alchemists]. One shop with a symbol of a shoe hanging limply from a single metal hangar, swaying in the breeze. I presumed it had belonged to a [Cobbler]. We passed a tavern with both of the doors broken off. Seeing a tavern without some sort of light or laughter coming from within seemed more alien than anything else. All of these places were empty.

Once again, I wished I'd still had conventional sight. Being able to look away would have been preferably. The best I could do was take my focus off of it, but it would always be there, at the edge of my peripheral vision.

We found a fork in the street, with the narrower path on our left leading to an open area, one that deviated from the structure of the winding streets.

The path broke off to either side, the pavement surrounding a rectangular pitch. White lines had been drawn around the edges with chalk, partially obscured by a coating of old, dried blood. That same coating adorned the pair of poles set up on either side of the pitch.

Only the one on the far end still had a hoop attached, while the post closest to me had theirs torn off. They served as the only indication that this place had been a basketball court. Something loose hung from the post nearest to me, dangling from the bottom. It was so thin, so fine, that I nearly missed it. Spider webs.

Sigura stepped around the wire mesh surrounding the court, heading towards a building to our left. Without thinking, I followed her, my mind in a hollow daze. It was as we got closer to a shop for knick knacks that I began to hear what Sigura must have detected long before me.

Heavy rumbling coming from within the store, like someone upending boxes or rifling through drawers. Not long after, Streiphen must have heard it too. Without saying a word, he climbed up onto my platform, pulling his legs over the side.

"Hey! You, in the store! Come out!" Sigura barked, the suddenness of the action causing the flesh of my body to roll.

Something crashed and shattered within the store. It was a sound I'd become acquainted with since becoming a Chimera, a sound that brought mixed feelings with it. It was one that instantly put me on guard.

The breaking of glass.

The silence dragged on, right up until Sigura walked up, glancing inside the store. Narrowing her eyes, she called out again.

"I won't say it again! Whoever you are, get your ass out here, or I'll drag you out myself!"

Whatever was in there had gone quiet after the first shout. If it had been an animal, it would have scurried away. Even if the rummaging had been caused by a person, running would have been the smarter option.

I saw her [Mantle] flare to life around her fist, a rolling sunset forming around clenched fingers. Her fist came forward, shattering some of the glass still clinging to the store. I took a step back.

The person inside didn't wait for Sigura to come in after them. A sunburnt looking hand gingerly gripped the red brick of the wall, climbing out over the window frame. Their skin was a deep, vivid red, a colour that seemed natural rather than burnt. His cheeks were sunken, his arms thin and gangly. His skin wasn't the colour of sunburn, nor that of blood, but more like that of a ripe apple.

On his forehead were a pair of horns, curling back over long, greasy black hair. The back of his baggy pants had a circular hole torn in them, allowing a long tail to snake out. It too was that same red colour.

I'd never met a Darkling before, but despite everything I'd heard about the Demon-tainted folk, he seemed far more scared of Sigura than she did of him. I wasn't sure what to make of that.

His eyes lingered on me, his breathing heavy as he dropped the heavy sack he'd had slung over his shoulder. The bottom of the bag turned dark and damp as something cracked within. Instinctively, I turned my [Telekinesis] inward to make sure my own bottles were stable and secure.

"Good," Sigura said. She turned her head towards me for a moment, giving me a knowing look I couldn't grasp the meaning of. I stared back, not knowing what to say, and she looked towards the Darkling once again, arms crossed.

"Answer my questions, and we'll let you go. We're not here to fight you, but if you try anything, or lie to me, you'll regret it. Got that?"

It was just a threat. Something to scare him. I was confident Sigura wouldn't follow through.

The Darkling nodded.

"First, where the fuck are we?" she asked. It was the question at the forefront of my own mind, too. I'd kept an eye out for a telltale sign, or a billboard, or a stray newspaper blowing in the breeze, but nothing of the sort had come my way. This was... an alternative way of gathering information.

The Darkling glanced down from me, his eyes landing on Streiphen. He paled, his eyes widening. Did he feel threatened by Streiphen's nail? Hardly, when there were other things to worry about.

"Answer me!" Sigura barked.

"The Don's territory!" the Darkling blurted out. "I know I shouldn't be lootin', but I didn't have any-"

Sigura unfurled her arms, an action that made the Darkling go stock still. She raised her hand, pinching the bridge of her nose. "The city, dumbass. What's the name of the city?"

The Darkling began to breathe more heavily. He reached into his jacket pocket with the subtlety of a Minotaur [Spy], gripping the handle of a switchblade within. The action itself was rebellious, threatening, but I felt no fear. Not from an action like that. For his sake, I hoped he didn't pull it out.

"D-Divastyr. This place is Divastyr."

I'd never heard of it, but I finally had a name. Even if it was some sort of nickname or slang, it was better than nothing. It was a label I could assign to the world around me. The buildings around me almost felt more... real, with a name that could be attached to it. One little piece of order and stability to help put my mind at ease. It helped to ground me, and I felt a little better.

"And where the fuck is that?" Sigura asked, her tone becoming more riled up, agitated.

"Mid... mid-western coast of Scander...?" he made the answer sound more like a question, his voice barely a squeak.

The indecision was what pushed him to the breaking point. He whipped out the weapon, flicking open the blade from the handle.

With how badly he was shaking, I was surprised he didn't drop it. He held it in front of him with both hands gripping the handle. It looked more like he was holding it for his own peace of mind, rather than to attack us. Like a security blanket. I was put in mind of how Streiphen seemed to think of the nail, or how I'd felt about the rose pin, or my gadgets.

"I... I don't want any trouble, please... My Soul's weak, no good for eating... I don't have any money, so... please... just... please let me go..."

Sigura seemed calmer. It wasn't the reaction I'd been expecting, and that alone made me worried.

"I'll give you five seconds to drop it," she said, her voice even.

The Darkling gulped. He tried to take a step backwards, his foot bumping off the sack. I saw Toya tense, his fingers curling into fists.

"Five."

The Darkling's hands instantly dropped the weapon. By how heavily he was breathing, and how much he was shaking, I wondered if he'd even dropped the weapon by choice. His eyes never left Sigura's.

Sigura's hand shot forward, nearly faster than my awareness could track. For a moment, my heart stopped. I wondered if she was truly going to attack him. The next moment, the knife was in Sigura's hand, snatched away in an instant. I hadn't even heard it hit the ground. The man began to quiver like a newborn lamb, truly terrified now. I felt the three slashes on my back sting against the cold night air.

Sigura's [Mantle] formed around her mouth as she brought the end of the blade between her teeth. She bit down hard, wrenching the handle downwards as it broke. With protected teeth, she spat out the length of the blade, tossing him the handle once again.

Instead of trying to catch it, he raised both hands over his face and chest, as if to defend himself from it. The handle bumped harmlessly off his sleeve, falling to the ground.

"Stop wasting our time," Sigura said, more exasperated than angry, now. "Answer the damn questions and you can go."

The man nodded, not saying a word.

"We're from out of town," Sigura said dryly, gesturing towards the rest of us, as if it were something obvious. "We don't have a place to stay. We want somewhere we can crash for a while without being bothered, so where should we go?"

The Darkling blinked, looking back towards me. Strangely, he didn't seem as afraid as before, despite being disarmed.

"Are... do you have money? If... if you have coin, you could go somewhere nice further in, but-"

"Do we look like wealthy [Merchants] to you? We're squatters. Where do we go that isn't drenched and crawling with rats?"

The tidbit was one that gave me hope that not all of this 'Divastyr' was the same. Though I wondered what was considered 'nice' by this Darkling's standards, if he was stuck raiding stores like this.

"There's... fuck... umm... don't go to the Death District, the, um, warehouses to the left of the sewer tunnel," he said, pointing to the street back the way we came. "They're dangerous. People that went there to search for survivors lost limbs, or got cuts all over. If you want to squat, go to Dronrowth... the... to the old shopping center."

Dangerous? Infested with monsters, maybe? I had a hard time believing that, since we were in a walled city. The security would surely be tighter than that, wouldn't it? It had to be something else. Traps, maybe? Why?

"Where?" Sigura asked again, casually looking around the clearing at the signs.

"Back towards the main wall," the Darkling said, pointing towards the street we'd come from once again. "Four streets down, look for the Big Tooth... uh, the mark of a bloody Orc on the wall. Inflated head, big cheeks. There's a staircase down."

Sigura turned her head towards me, jerking a thumb in the Darkling's direction. He stiffened.

"Well? I can tell you've got something to ask too, Yur."

I did? I had questions, but they could wait. First and foremost, I wanted to get to that base of operations and secure the area so we had somewhere to work from. I needed time to process the sheer distance we'd been taken from Addersbrook, too. It still felt unreal to me.

I would have said that we could go, but I knew Sigura wouldn't like that, not after she'd given me the floor.

"[Where can we find food and water?]" I asked. I knew there must have been better questions. My list hung just out of reach while my head whirled with thoughts, scattered and disorderly.

The Darkling gulped, moving one leg in front of the bag he'd been carrying.

"This place was picked clean ages ago..." he replied. "You might find some in storage in the shops, but there isn't much. If you go out of the deserted districts, you'll find more."

But he himself was looting these 'deserted districts', and not the place where there was more resources. It was telling. What it was saying though, I couldn't be certain.

"Go," Sigura said, dismissing him with a wave of the hand. I wasn't sure how long I'd let the silence drag on. She turned away from the Darkling, heading back the way we came. "C'mon, let's hope this shopping center isn't as much of a dump as the rest of this place."

I turned the platform around, leading the way out of the open space on heavy metal legs. The Darkling pocketed the useless handle and steel of the switchblade, hoisted the bag over his shoulder, and began to half-run off, huffing and puffing from... exertion? Relief? Fear?

"Fareel," Sigura said, not looking down towards the Fishfolk. His bulging orange eyes stared up at her. "Use your Familiars. Make sure we're not walking into a trap."

"Didn't you hear his voice?" Toya asked, his brows furrowed. "You think that guy was lying?"

Sigura threw him a dirty look, shaking her head.

"I don't give a shit if he was lying or not. Even if he wasn't, any good place to squat might have other people. If we have to fight, it's better we know before we go down there."

I saw Toya's fists clench, but he looked away, dropping the subject.

We backtracked through the streets, keeping our eyes peeled for any stragglers. The beggar was still asleep, shivering. The sight bothered me, but right now there wasn't anything I could do. I had spare wood, easily enough to make a campfire to warm him up, but it would have been meaningless. The night air would have put a quick stop to that, snuffing out the flame. Besides, I needed to conserve the supplies I had. If I found a way to help him later, I would.

Once we'd backtracked, we found that the Darkling hadn't lied about the graffiti. It truly was difficult to miss, once you know what to look for. We found the mark on the wall, a spray-painted image of an Orc's head.

Both of the Orc's ears were bloody, as if segments had been torn off or beaten to a pulp. It was difficult to tell, really. It wasn't a very well-made piece of street art, either. The proportions were distorted, as if someone had stretched the head upwards, making it too long and not as wide as it should have been. If someone hadn't told me what it was, I may not have figured it out. I was no expert in the arts, but it was clear this person wasn't, either.

The alley we passed through was dark, littered with shards of broken glass, damp boxes and a dumpster that must have reeked, if Sigura's grimace was any indication. She skipped over the glass, while Toya seemed to walk over it, barefoot. The glass left jagged cuts in his feet, which sealed up after he passed. Fareel hopped up onto the platform next to Streiphen until we made it through.

Without the cover of the alley, the world brightened once again with the presence of street lamps, revealing a larger street than before, one with gaudier, brighter looking shops. For a moment, I felt a spark of hope and apprehension rolled into one, until coming to the realisation that those too looked abandoned. The dry, peeling paint littering every surface reduced the street to what must have been a shadow of its former glory.

When the Darkling had spoken of a staircase, I'd expected something subtler, like the tunnel leading down to the sewers. The entrance to Dronrowth was anything but subtle.

Instead, it was a wide, gaudy entrance formed of red stone. A metallic sign in the shape of a rainbow hung overhead, but held none of the light or wonder of one. The lights within the cursive letters had been long destroyed. From the looks of it, one of the runes in the lights had warped and burst, taking some of the other letters with it. Now the sign just read 'D owth'.

One of the doors was missing, and the other was a thin plastic sheet that was barely hanging onto its hinges. We gathered at the top of the stairs, peering down into the darkness.

"[Light]" Sigura said, squeezing past me and Toya to take the lead once again.

Another ball of light answered Sigura's call. With a nudge of her hand, the ball drifted down into the darkness, illuminating the steps. Fareel took a moment to stop, preparing his own magic. His stomach bloated with the weight of the eggs before expelling them once again. The membrane was torn as the insectoid Familiars within climbed out, skittering off of my platform and down into the darkness. I removed the side panel of my platform, taking out a small metal plate to scrape the egg residue off.

"Can your Familiars see in the dark?" Toya asked, looking down towards the Fishfolk.

He gurgled in response, shaking his head.

"Doesn't matter much," Sigura said, leading the way down the stairs. "He'll know if something kills his bugs. If that happens, it means we've got company."

Deciding to add my own light to the mix for the sake of those without [Darkvision], I brought a flame to life over my body with [Ignite], guiding it forwards towards the end of the stairs. It couldn't go as far from me as Sigura's, but I hoped it would provide some help as the rest of us followed close behind.

The floor below had a tiled black and white pattern to it, marred by long gashes and the occasional pool of dried blood. Shops lined both sides of the underground corridor, even if all of them looked broken into and raided. Blurry shelves, naked mannequins for a variety of body types, and empty racks drifted in and out of my awareness. Clothes stores?

It was only now, looking at the mannequins, that I felt a sense of modesty creep into me. Now that the thought entered my mind, I realised I was effectively naked.

This body had nothing to cover, but the thought still wormed its way into my mind. Should I get something to wear? An article of clothing may go a long way towards making myself more presentable. Perhaps if I had something like a ribbon or a tasteful hat around my body or the platform, I could come across as less... unnatural. Clothing may give some sense of familiarity.

The mental image looked strange in my head, but maybe it wouldn't be as odd in person. I had my doubts. I wouldn't have felt the same way if I'd been in another person's shoes. If something like what I was now had approached the 'me' of the past, I would have been frightened. Frightened, but not irrational. I would have at least heard them out. The actions of those adventurers still needled me, as much as I tried to cast it from my mind.

"Have we got any neighbours? Anyone out there?" Sigura called out into the gloom. Nobody answered. She looked towards Fareel, who took a few moments to get the message. He shook his head.

"Good," Sigura murmured, her shoulders slumping.

"Is that blood?" Toya asked. For a moment, I wanted to point out that there was no shortage of dried blood around us. Before I could do so, I saw what he was looking at.

There was another piece of graffiti on the wall. A piece of modern art that I could easily identify in its simplicity. It was an eye, wide and tall, taking up an entire wall between what looked like a former restaurant and a pharmacy. It... it was painted in dried blood.

"What the fuck even happened here, anyway?" Sigura said, crossing her arms as she brought the [Light] over to the wall, illuminating it for Streiphen and Fareel. "Looks like some freaky cult shit."

Streiphen didn't seem any more eager to leave my side, now that he'd seen that.

"M... maybe it's a sign of territory...?" he squeaked.

Sigura turned to look at him, her expression exasperated. Toya stepped into the abandoned restaurant.

"The fuck're you talking about?"

Streiphen tensed, and I guessed he was close to losing his nerve. I didn't like seeing him being afraid of speaking, especially with Sigura. The idea bothered me on a multitude of levels. He may have something worthwhile to say, and I wanted to hear it.

I extended my [Telekinesis] to the blade on his back. I found it harder to soak my influence into the blade than it had been before. It wasn't the first time this had happened, but it still caught me off guard. I gave the nail a gentle wiggle, hoping he would understand my silent reassurance.

"The- aah!!" Streiphen whirled around, looking around with wild eyes. He... must not have realised what I'd been doing.

"[I'm sorry if I frightened you. I'd like to hear what you think, Streiphen,]" I sheepishly told him, once again glad my body didn't blush with embarrassment. Sigura rolled her eyes.

"Oh... okay... The Darkling was talking about territory," he began. "Maybe this is... a way of marking it? Like an animal leaving it's scent behind."

Sigura raised an eyebrow, sniffing indifferently before looking back at the eye.

"Yeah? Why's it made in blood then? Looks like something out of an old [Witch's] book."

"To send a message, maybe?" Streiphen blurted out, his shoulders stiffening. "If... if it was done in blood, it promises danger."

Sigura's eyes widened at the thought. Streiphen couldn't see it, but I caught the smile.

"Yeah... Maybe you're right."

She turned away from the macabre art, linking both hands behind her head as she continued to walk down the corridor.

"Nice catch, squirt. You could be on to something."

Streiphen blinked in surprise, his worried expression turning into a small, proud smile. I was proud for him, too. Toya simply looked unnerved, glancing between Streiphen and Sigura.

"There's something else, too," Toya called out.

Sigura stopped walking, taking a few steps back as she gave Toya a dry look.

"Yeah? And what's... oh."

I extended my focus into the diner, one filled with overturned tables, a counter with a hole busted into the front, and tables that had been broken to splinters.

What Toya had been looking at was the wall. With the state it was in, I was surprised it was still standing. In the center of the wall was an indent. Four rounded, rectangular lines next to one another. It was a pattern I could recognise, even if the implication didn't parse. They were four fingers making up a fist.

Surrounding the indent was a web of cracks spiraling outwards to the very edges of the diner. Sigura whistled at the sight, moving her hands from her head as she stepped inside.

"Shit... this is intense," she admitted, pressing a hand against the wall.

Toya nodded, his expression grim. "Yeah..."

"Whoever did this was strong. Enhancement Magic or a Skill, probably," Sigura noted, stepping back out of the family diner that had been broken beyond repair.

She continued to walk, and the rest of us followed. I felt numb, but I needed to focus on the positives. This place seemed more like a battleground than somewhere we could find rest. B But... it didn't seem like it had been occupied for quite some time. If that was the case, it was ours for the taking.

"If that eye was drawn as a show that this place is claimed, someone'll come to defend this place, right?" Sigura asked nobody in particular. "People fought here before, and it wasn't some drunk bar fight or a minor scuffle either. Still, I don't see why anyone would want to guard this dump, unless there was something important here."

Or we were wrong, I thought.

"Maybe not..." she mused, looking into the cold, empty storefronts. "No guards or traps, either..."

She turned back to look at Fareel.

"Right?"

The Fishfolk scratched at his neck. He seemed bored by the conversation, if his lack of usual enthusiastic leaping and exploration were any indication. Perhaps he was just tired. He nodded up at Sigura.

"Right," she confirmed. Her expression became pensive, but she pushed the [Light] further ahead. We came to the end of the corridor, a red wall covered with letters and words of differing colours and styles, a jumble of language with no meaning.

I was relieved to notice there weren't any more eyes.

To our left, I saw a curling staircase leading deeper into the shopping center. Did it just lead to a second floor? How deep did this place go? Why was it abandoned in the first place?

"Looks like the coast is clear, then," Sigura commented, jogging to the stairs. She jumped, landing lightly on the banister of the metal staircase, sliding around and down along it to the bottom. Her claws clacked lightly against the tiles, sending up a small cloud of dust.

I pressed one leg down against the stairs experimentally, to see if they would hold my weight. The stairs were strangely designed, having rectangular ridges along the front of the steps. Was it a defunct escalator?

"We'll set up camp here," Sigura declared, running back up the steps, five at a time. "It's spacious, and we might be able to salvage some of the crap around here while we're at it. I'm going out to scout around outside."

By herself? My skin wriggled uncomfortably at the thought. My awareness drifted towards Toya, expecting him to disagree, or offer to come with her. He said nothing.

"[Okay... just be careful, Sig. We still don't know if there are people around.]"

She took a deep breath, but nodded in agreement.

"Right. I won't go far then, Yur," she said to me, grinning. Then, she cast her gaze over the rest of us. "You lot won't either, right? The four of you should stay here where we know there aren't any people. If we get seen by anyone else, we might have company before we're ready for it. Don't split up."

Toya closed his eyes, his face darkening in the gloom. He brought both hands to his temples, rubbing as he uttered a muffled "right".

Sigura turned back towards me, practically glowing with anticipation, hopping from foot to foot as though she were covered in fleas.

"See what you can do while I'm gone, Yur. Experiment a bit. If we figure out what you can make, we can arm ourselves, get some footing around here if we need to. If you can make traps or something, we could need 'em."

I'd never made traps before, but I supposed there was no better time to find out if I could. Anything that would make it easier to defend this place would be worth crafting. I nodded, my entire form following the motion.

"Great. I'll only be out for a while," Sigura assured me, turning away. "Three hours tops," she finished, jogging away as her voice trailed off. I kept my focus on her as she crouched forward, head low. She burst into a full sprint before she disappeared from sight, becoming a blurry blob at the edge of my vision.

With our leader gone, I decided to take up the role, casting my bubble outwards as far as I could push it, extending into clothes stores, the pharmacy, an alchemists, the diner and a blacksmiths, among a few others I couldn't identify from the lack of signs.

"[Would you all be willing to help me gather materials? I can try to make us weapons or tools if I have the supplies.]"

Toya's gaze lingered on the corridor we'd come from, and he nodded.

"Yeah... right, sure. I wanted to go scavenging for better clothes, anyway."

Had we been on a similar wavelength? The thought was somewhat reassuring. Fareel had already darted off into one of the stores. Judging by the metal hooks on the interior wall, it might have been a [Butcher’s], or a [Fishmonger’s]. I knew what his priorities were now, at least. Food and water should be high on our list of things to secure, even if I didn't need the former.

"[If we find a source of clean water or food, we should make the most of it before we leave. Search the area, pick up whatever you can salvage. We have shelter, but now we should focus on stability.]"

Streiphen nodded with a smile, hopping off the platform to follow the Fishfolk.

I wanted to fortify the shopping center. Maybe a makeshift wall or gate would help to keep out intruders. If I found thread, I might be able to craft tripwires. It wasn't the most sophisticated or advanced of protection, but it would do in a pinch.

I curled my legs in close to my body, gingerly heading down the escalator, praying I'd accurately assumed it could hold my weight. It creaked and groaned, but the worst case scenario was avoided. I breathed a silent, internal sigh of relief, sitting down next to the escalator. If there were still runes that handled motion I could salvage, maybe I could use the steps for something. If not, it was still metal. No matter what, I could find a use for it.

"[Don't go far, everyone! We need to stay together!]" I called to the floor above. The last thing I wanted was for our group to split apart. I still remembered what happened the last time that had happened. This body served as a constant reminder.

The panel was unlatched from my side, clanging to the tiled floor beneath me. I pulled out everything I'd gathered. Metal, glass bottles, red and blue potions, plastic handles, acid, Selarium, firewood, and the bronze remains of a cheetah. I had plenty of materials to work with. We had a place we could call our own, even if only for the time being. It wasn't home, but it was something. In it, I had people watching my back and searching for materials. For now, I was content. I felt... safe.

Now, it was time to see what I was capable of.