Chapter 64: Greylands’ Strange Scent
Basil adjusted the volume, increasing it that little bit as his smile grew and he glanced through the mirror back at Dion. "You know it?"
Dion had asked the question, but he was certain that it was Debussy’s Clair de Lune.
"My ex’s mother was... really into classical music. I was close with the family for a long time, so it rubbed off."
Basil nodded at that and settled back into his seat.
The topic had clearly sounded to be a sensitive one to him and thus, the older man, and Anton and Madeline, who looked to be the most curious, didn’t push him for anything further in response.
The song brought back some bittersweet memories.
Dion sat himself back a little, his eyelids falling to listen as his fingers drummed precisely along with the beats of the piano.
’They... would be okay even with everything that’s happening.’ The sigh he released within himself quivered a little.
The woman had been the one who taught him everything that he now knew about the piano.
And her daughter...
He shook his head a little, clasping his hands harder to stop himself from playing along with the song.
Thereafter, Anton took them south through side roads, away from the main stretch, and twice he killed the headlights and let the car coast through intersections where they would often have to drive through a number of zombies... or over corpses.
’I should try to tell them about the incoming rain at least...’
And strangely, there wasn’t a gnoll in sight despite all the noise.
Nobody spoke during those stretches.
The Greyland Capital building came into view after another ten minutes of side streets, a dark slab of glass and concrete standing taller than most of what surrounded it.
Anton pulled the car around to the rear and parked it within one of the empty parking spots nearer to the exit, killing the engine.
A number of straggling zombies had followed the car into the area.
The first of them all to jump out to deal with them had been Irvin, and without anyone else having to do anything else, they were then able to go into the building.
They climbed in silence.
The stairwell was dark past the fifth floor, and the only light came from whatever leaked in through the cracks in the barricades as they passed each one.
Dion could see them clearly even in the dark, how they had stacked and packed together the thick slabs of office furniture, filing cabinets and desks, wedging them all tightly between each other against the walls to block all the windows.
In his vision he could see a faint blue aura leaking from all of the constructs.
’How much mana would the Marcus guy have to spend to reinforce all of these?’
He wondered to himself with a slight grimace.
Clearly he wasn’t the only one whose ability retained mana that he had put into its use and thus it didn’t need a constant flow.
But still, the activation and usage would cost mana.
’It’s hard to imagine that there are many who would have started with as much mana or magi as I have... so he would have needed to do this constantly for hours as soon as he recovered whatever mana that he could have.’
Ultimately, Dion could only bring himself to respect the hustle.
If anything, the guy understood what it would take to protect the one place that they had made safe for themselves. Or perhaps he had perfectly adapted the dreadful grinding mindset of the average capitalist citizen.
By the ninth floor, the barricades stopped, and the stairwell opened out into a corridor lit by battery-powered lanterns spaced along the walls.
And here is where, suddenly, drawing everyone’s attention to him, Dion had stopped in his tracks.
His brows furrowed within moments, and he felt his breath clog his throat. An exhilarating rush ran through him, and his chest began to burn a little, his heart rate increasing.
’What... is that smell?’
"Is something wrong, Dion?" Anton asked as he turned back.
The mention of his name snapped him out of the reverie that he had been dragged into, and his leg briefly hesitated to carry him forward.
"No... It’s nothing. I just remembered something."
The group accepted his answer and didn’t push for any more information, though the curiosity on their expression was clear as day.
But in that, he could not say that he could bring himself to care. His expression had only briefly eased when he had spoken to them, and now with everyone’s attention back ahead, his brows furrowed, and he lowered his eyes.
His hand raised to brush against his face, and he struggled to control his eyes from sharpening.
’That was fucking close! That good smell in the air almost...’
Dion caught himself mid-thought there as he realised something.
The only thing that his body could at this point consider such a drawing smell that it immediately filled him with such possessing desire... was blood.
’But whose...’
For a long time thereafter, he had to keep his breath shallow and his mind as occupied as possible to distract himself, as it only grew stronger the closer they got to where all the people were meant to be.
Anton pushed through the door to the eleventh floor and held it for them to walk.
Up on these floors, the light was finally that of the building’s offices’ white lighting.
The floor had been an office floor once.
But now, all the cubicle walls had been torn down and rearranged into partitions, carving the open plan into smaller sections where people slept on whatever they had found.
Sleeping bags, couch cushions pulled from a lounge somewhere below, blankets draped over chairs pushed together.
It was late enough that most of them were asleep, but a handful of faces turned toward the group as they came through.
"Anton’s back," someone said, and a few more heads lifted.
Then they saw Dion, and the quiet lifted that little more with the growing murmurs.
"Who’s that?"
Anton stepped ahead as they all walked in. "He’s a powerful awakened we brought back with us. Helped us deal with two gnolls and a pack of zombies on the way back."
A woman sitting against the far wall with a blanket over her knees looked Dion up and down.
"We’re already stretched thin on food."
"We’ll figure it out," Anton said, and kept walking.
Some of them just looked and went back to sleep. A few nodded at Dion while one man near the window gave him a long stare and then turned his back.
Two people were still standing at the far end of the floor, and they hadn’t gone back to what they were doing, all of their attention on them.
’That must be Marcus... and the other is the woman with a mana-based ability like Madeline.’
Marcus was a man around Anton’s age, heavyset, with black hair and his arms crossed.
His expression looked just as tired as Dion thought it would be, with heavy eye bags and a bit of a constant furrow to his brow.
The other was a woman who seemed perhaps a little older than Madeline, or maybe just about her age with longer dark hair that was a little curly, watching Dion with her head slightly tilted in curiosity.
"Did you get the guns?" Marcus immediately asked, looking past Dion at Anton.
"Place was already ransacked by the time we got in. The only gun that we found is the one he owns, but honestly, he might be worth a couple himself."
The woman’s expression tightened, her brows furrowing as her attention bounced from Anton, whose hand was gesturing to Dion and Anton himself, then to Basil.