Getting to the edge of town was trivial. The beasts that had roamed the fields during prior nights were gone, they likely fled during the night and when we reached the town, I realised I really couldn’t fault them for it. When we left the city, the smell had started to get truly bad. Not bad enough to cause physical pain but bad enough that staying was incredibly unpleasant. Thoughts of a sewage treatment plant in the heat of summer came to mind, or something equally disgusting, but compared to the odour we were bathed on our approach, that had been a pleasant summer breeze.

“Do we really want to head in there?” Lia quietly asked and for a moment, I wondered if we truly did. There were EXP to be made, sure, but what use did EXP have, when we lost our sense of smell, and, given how vile it was, likely taste as well. As if to agree with Lia, Silva started to let out pitiful whines, making her opinion on the matter clearly known.

“We should at least try to get used to it. Maybe if we climb one of the buildings, that way we can secure the high ground, make sure our enemies can’t get to us, all that good stuff. Hopefully, the scent is concentrated at ground level, not up in the air,” I suggested, before pausing for a moment, as realisation dawned on me.

Smells were carried through the air, carried by the wind. If so, I might be able to ward them off, by using Wind Magic, or maybe a bit of Wind Rune Mastery and a lot of focus and intent. A filter, so to speak, as simply keeping the air around us moving wouldn’t help a lot, the stench was everywhere, so moving the air would only get us fresh stench from the area around us.

Focusing on my Wind Magic, on the movement of air to get into the right mindset, I tried to fix the image in my mind that a gentle breeze constantly carried fresh, unsullied air to me. The idea was somewhat similar to my concealment spells, only that now, I was lacking a direct rune and the best I could come up with was the generic wind rune, keeping it firmly fixed within my mind.

It took me a minute or two of mental testing, prodding and pushing, but I managed to get a gentle breeze, one that even smelled quite good. I was about to rejoice when I realised that the testing had taken quite a bit of Astral Power and keeping the breeze going took even more. I might, possibly, be able to keep it up, but it would require me to submerge my secondary thought stream into the Astral River to draw in more power, while the rest of my mind was focused on keeping the wind magic going. No fighting, not even without my magic, making the idea sadly unsustainable, at least for now. But just dipping into the experimental frame of mind had been enough to briefly activate my Titanic Ambition, the overall boost to my attributes allowing me to easily push aside the obstacle in my path. I wouldn’t be hindered by something as mundane as malodour. It was merely physical discomfort, nothing that would truly harm us, at least not if we took the right precautions.

But thanks to my experimentation, I had gained another point in my Wind Magic, bringing the skill up to a mighty eight. It still had a long, long way to go. Luckily, I didn’t really need to master the different elements, certainly not in the short term, it was a long-term project if there ever was one. Just like gaining more elements, like Nature Magic I had been discussing with my students the other day, or Alchemy, where I had a few ideas that might prove useful.

Alas, before I could continue experimenting, I wanted to find out just how many undead there were and how dangerous it all was.

Given that none of us had any interest in getting mobbed by shambling corpses, we made sure to remain quiet, concealed by magic and ever-growing skills, as we made our way through the town. By now, the once-prosperous town looked rather demolished, with about a third of the buildings damaged or outright destroyed by the earthquakes, the many undead shambling around only adding to the atmosphere of desolation. All around us, I could feel the Astral River, the very essence of this world, get influenced, as if the world itself was getting a depression.

There would be long-term effects but even just trying to understand them was nearly impossible. It might cause a new dark age, with only a few clusters of light left in the world. A snort escaped me, when I realised that this might just be what the deities had intended. A few clusters of light, their light, allowing their worship to become the bedrock of a new, rising society. There would be no questioning their priests if those priests were what drove back the darkness. Make the world sick, before providing the cure.

Shaking my head, I looked around and pointed to one of the remaining high buildings. It looked a little crumbled, some parts of the facade had crashed down, but otherwise, there didn’t seem to be a problem. It stood alone, giving me confidence that only the stairs and maybe the walls would allow access to the roof, something I thought important.

“How confident are you that we’ll be able to kill everything that might come at us?” Lia asked quietly, as we made our way up the stairs.

“Relatively confident, I don’t know whether the world threw a curveball at this area, but I strongly doubt that there’s anything with enough power to stand against me. Just think how difficult some of your battles were, how often you might have died if Silva and I hadn’t helped you. And that was with your, frankly, insane attribute boosts for being the first of your kind,” I reminded her, “And now, consider that even with that, I have quite a few levels on you and that I have my own attribute-boosting trait. So unless there’s something out here that is strong enough to kill all the survivors with ease, I should be able to handle things, at least if you and Silva make sure I have room to work.”

“So, confident but not certain?” Lia prodded, making me nod with a frown.

“Mind if we make sure to have a second exit? I don’t care if it’s a slide that you conjure or a rope that we can glide down with, just something to make sure we can get off the roof before dawn. I don’t quite know what sunlight would do to you, but the few tests I’ve done convinced me to never chance getting roasted,” she implored and looking at it this way, I could only agree.

The undead didn’t have to kill us, just clogging up things to the point that the sun came out would be enough to put Lia and me out of commission. Maybe Silva would manage to protect us, but it was doubtful.

“How good are you with your hook-chain?” I asked, referring to the thing she had taken from the dungeon. That led into a brief discussion of potential ways to get off the roof, if we really needed to escape, the ideas ranging from the frankly hilarious, a waterslide of conjured Ice depositing us down the road, to the incredibly painful, jumping off the roof, aiming for a nearby tree, while hoping that I could heal any injuries sustained by the impact, before we decided on a reasonably workable plan.

Namely, that I would Ice over the sides of the building, maybe a metre from the top, which was a good idea anyway to make sure no undead could bypass the stairs, and if need be, I could transform the conjured Ice into an escape ramp. It wouldn’t take us all the way to the ground but it should be enough to reach the next building, a rather damaged supermarket. From there, we’d be able to make our way to the ground without too much trouble.

The preparations too more time than I would have liked, it all cut into our killing time, but if they turned out to be necessary, I knew we’d be glad for them.

Soon, the building’s top was nicely iced over, I even conjured some water to make the ice extra slick, to the point that there were no handholds anywhere in sight. The only way to climb that last metre of space would be to break the ice or use claws to pierce into it or something like that.

Hopefully, it would be enough.

Now, we just had to draw in our first enemies and start the harvest.