And so the story continues…
Day 42: It would take her a few days of hard walking to reach it, but the longest part of the journey was through.
It would take her a few days of hard walking to reach it, but the longest part of the journey was through. As she settled for the night, Anna studied the edges of the city. She knew the maps and was pleased to see that the base outline was still in the same place as the maps. She knew that out here in the wilds, nature returned. Eventually the drought ended and growth returned. Even Anna could see that much of it petered out as the mountain sloped downward. In fact the trees had become sparser, smaller and more twisted with each day she walked. The other side of the mountain got the bulk of the rain.
The light rain she walked through most of the day continued and she smiled. It was nice to see rain returning to the area. She suspected that the return of plant life assisted with the moisture retention. All of the cities were set up in the same manner, the city at the center and fields surrounding it. Here the fields were no longer artificially cultivated. She could see the growth on the mountain trickle to a few hardy plants before the short twisted trees became infrequent dots across the landscape. There was a low sort of grass covering patches of the ground with occasional longer tuffs of something else.
These fields would never be plowed again. The water needed to turn them back towards agriculture was too much and wouldn’t be able to support a city the size of this one.
When Anna looked past this to the city itself, it seemed unchanged. She knew that the warding around the city would keep anything out, unless they had magic to pass the barrier. It would prevent people from returning, but it would also prevent seeds from being blown in by the wind and taking root. As a result the city looked much like it had when it was abandoned.
Anna imagined that there were sections that collapsed, but she had no plans to go near the damaged areas. The archives were set in a rocky outcropping that formed part of the hill in the city. She could see it’s outline from where she sat. The damage would be further west, on the opposite side of the city. There buildings collapsed into the giant sinkhole occurring when the city’s main aquifer dried up.
She knew that that section of the city would not be safe and had no plans to risk herself simply to see it. ‘Besides, I can probably get a good view from the archives,’ Anna thought. She expected that the space would have good views of much of the city. ‘It is certainly high enough.’
Anna snuggled deeper under the overhang of rock she managed to find as cover for the night. The waterproofed covering she put over her blankets rustled a bit but she knew she would be the only one to hear it. The shielding spell covering her would take away any sounds she made as well as any sight of her. It even erased her footprints and her scent if anything was to try tracking her by smell. ‘And as an added bonus it wiped her magical signature away as it worked so that too would be untrackable.
It was an addition of which Anna was most proud. She took the standard cloaking spell and played with it, modifying it to be what she needed. Her efforts helped her out numerous times.
Ten til Midnight 