16 The world around us - the shelter

Dark, heavy clouds were traversing lazily upon the blue sky. Their presence helped to maintain a tranquil balance between the shadows and the sharp gaze of the sun. Occasional snowflakes dancing on their way to the ground were trying to repair black holes in a thin blanket of snow. Together with the gusty cold wind, they were akin to warning signs that this calm prelude could at any time give place to a turbulent snowstorm.

I held my sister's hand and stayed with her in the shade of a huge boulder. The door we came from was placed on its side. Eri kept her eyes closed and was silently fighting with pain, in no way capable of upholding a conversation. She had been right, my inability to activate the night vision had one positive side. I required only a minute to get used to the drastic increase in brightness. Being able to see the sky was refreshing and uplifting, but that feeling changed as soon as I lowered my sight and saw the grim reality beneath it. In the distance, I spotted Crea who was making her way to us, but it was going to take her a while. Time after time she was stopped by groups of skinny elves who dotted the area.

"Crea's coming, let's wait for her here." I announced.

It was a good moment to take a look at the city's architecture and make a first estimate of how useful my knowledge was going to be.

One thing at a time.

After a glance at the cobblestone streets, I could already tell that this place used to be a sizeable, lively city. The widest road could easily have stalls placed on its sides with enough space left for two carriages to pass each other. Albeit now, the only traffic was created by small groups of elves bringing more firewood to the numerous campfires scattered around. The snowy blanket was sprinkled with black zones that revealed the poor state of the stone-paved ground. No one had maintained those streets in years which allowed the nature to make considerable progress in its patient and never-ending reclamation process.

Yet, when compared to the rest, the roads were still in good shape.

The big boulder behind us wasn't the only one. At least a dozen of them could be seen all over the city as they easily dwarfed the surrounding two and three-story buildings, or more like the piles of stone that once used to be buildings. Just a sparse number of the city's structures kept their initial shape, most seemed to have collapsed inwardly.

Only after noticing that the roofs of the still standing buildings were made out of countless interlaced leafless branches. And that there was something like a central trunk, or whatever was left of it, inside each ruin. I realized that the main reason behind this situation was probably… the death of the building material itself. What I took for stone slabs and bricks was in fact wood, bark, and maybe coal. After all, I just saw as one of the crippled elves took a piece of rubble, no different from black stone, and added it to a campfire.

I had no idea how they made wood and bark look like rocks, even the remains looked more like piles of rubble and not broken trees. I also wanted to check from up close how the roofs were secured against leaks. However, I had to admit that it was impressive. Making a house inside a tree was one thing, growing a tree to look like a solid three-story house was another.

Thought it seemed that the good old method of putting one real stone block atop the other was still superior. It didn't have a lifespan, and you didn't have to worry about watering, or whatever it was that those house-trees required to stay healthy. Which they clearly lacked. Concrete was added to my list of things to amaze the elves with. I just had to work out a few missing details concerning the composition of cement. I knew what to mix, but not the exact proportions. And if they had nothing against a lot of fire and smoke, then I also knew a thing or two about building a proper kiln to produce bricks. Moreover, the metal elements in the surroundings were scarce. This was also worth investigating.

Overall, the initial estimate ended on a positive note. There were many basic improvements I could introduce, but most of those potential ideas depended heavily on the available resources.

In the distance, among the sea of rubble, were three big mountains of debris. They probably used to be some kind of palaces of castles. Simply put, the entire area was drenched in an aura of ruin and neglection, but at least there was no need to worry about running out of things to burn any time soon - in theory.

I was certain that this place had been once abandoned, and was wondering why. Maybe the climate changed, and winters became more severe, but abandoning a whole city just because it was slightly cold wasn't the smartest move. Depending on how those trees grew into buildings, maybe there was some kind of a problem with lighting a fire inside, but a bit of creativity was all it took to resolve this. On the other hand, if it turned out that the house-trees were susceptible to cold, then why even bother with trying to resurrect this place as a zombie of its former glory? Wouldn't it be better to build a new city in a warmer climate? Unless this time, the elves were planning to use more traditional construction materials. However, since some of those structures were still standing, there had to be more to it.

Wouldn't be strange if bloodshed and no other place to go was involved.

As for the current temperature, it wasn't more than a few degrees below zero. But the ground was frozen to the point of being hardly different from the cobbled roads. This winter must have started a good few weeks ago.

'Hmm… if the underground district is big enough, then maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to move everyone there? It's in a way better shape than this place, warmer for sure, and requires only some source of light and a little spider extermination. But, heh... nothing's ever easy. One look at those guys and I can already see a new set of annoying problems to resolve. And I doubt that Crea would keep everyone here if she could move them underground without worries.'

After thinking about this topic some more, I reined in my thoughts that moved a few steps too far, put this matter aside, and moved to the next thing that required a more detailed analysis. A thing that I still didn't know how to tackle.

The lifeless elves who were walking around apathetically.

But first, we both needed a morale boost…

"In case there's some little girl who's trembling from cold, give her this." I said quietly and removed my doublet.

Eri's body was not only much smaller, but her green clothes provided less warmth than mine. Not to mention that her still damp hair was already slightly frosted. I wanted to take her in my arms and hug closely, but she was in an agitated state I never saw her before. Probably the combined effect of the pain she was going through and the smell of death coming from the surrounding elves. It wouldn't be strange if she really impaled me with both of her tails if I tried to carry her.

My little sister didn't say a word in response, but neither did she resist when I put the black doublet on her. When I wanted to return to holding hands, she moved to my other side and gave me her ice-cold one to hold. This time it wasn't the escort type in which her hand was ready to escape without warning, it was the interlocked type that made it clear that we were close to each other.

This small, sweet victory nearly made me forget about the increase in cold's severity.

Nearly.

I thought about leading us closer to the nearest campfire but couldn't do that. Not after noticing that additionally to keeping her eyes closed, and despite standing in a full of confidence proud pose, Eri positioned herself in a way that used me as a shield against most sources of light. The other reason I couldn't do that was that I probably wouldn't be able to stop myself from vomiting.

The smell… the stench of decay was terrible. And it would be many times worse if the air's temperature was higher. Those idiots should at least move the corpses away from campfires.

I tightened the grip on my sister's hand, she didn't have to see to notice that the situation around was bad. Heavens, I was so glad my sister held my hand.

Our ticket out of here was coming, but we still had to wait a moment for it. There was a line of elves waiting for a chance to talk to the goddess, and she made sure to exchange at least a few sentences with each of them. All that while maintaining a kind smile, it wouldn't be strange if this was her 'kind smile number seventeen' or something.

Our presence here wasn't left unnoticed. We gathered some curious, jealous, shocked, and intrigued stares, but the overall commotion was kind of… weak. No one came closer to strike a conversation or take a better look. After all that Crea's talk about the importance of making us unique, I was expecting something more - at least a crowd of onlookers. In reality, only the several dozens of elves crowded around the goddess were showing some signs of liveness and verve. The remaining few hundreds camping around were immersed in a thick aura of resignation and lack of meaning.

'I wonder how many more of such depressed groups are in the city.'

As soon as this thought went through my mind, I couldn't avert my eyes any longer. That sad bunch of elves was a far cry from what I expected to see based upon Eri's tales, but it was hardly their fault. In my old world, half of them would be hospitalized straight away.

The state those elves were in… I saw such scenes a few times already, but never outside realistic war movies and brutal documentaries. I had no idea how Crea could walk around with a smile, even a fake one.

The three women closest to us were starved and exhausted. In addition to their sunken cheeks, missing teeth, and many old scars, they had no energy left to keep standing and watched the sky with lifeless eyes. Many other groups of similarly devastated elven women and broken-down girls, who looked no older than twenty, were huddled together, away from any males.

A slim man with a huge festering wound in his side was leaning against a half-collapsed wall. He was blue from cold, yet his shirt and cloak remained tied around his waist as he was busily rubbing snow into his inflamed injury. Despite him being several meters away, I still took an instinctive step back to avoid splattered droplets of pus. His frostbitten swelled fingers were blackened and disfigured, the nails were either gone or barely held on. I couldn't watch him any longer.

A little to the left was another group of elves trying to warm themselves around a campfire. They looked better compared to others and were even talking among themselves in hushed voices. I also noticed them drinking wine from a barrel similar to the ones we found in our pantry. More of such barrels were stacked here and there on simple carts. I used that group to distance myself from the unpleasant sights that were starting to affect me a tad too much.

All of the elves around seemed to belong to the common elven subrace. Their main features, based on the wine drinking guys, were dark-green hair and deep emerald eyes. I had yet to find any golden haired ones like Crea, or any silver ones like us, and was in no hurry to conduct a further search.

But then, a silhouette in the background caught my eye. Someone kept staring at me with unblinking green eyes that sent a shiver of dread down my spine. A pretty elven girl wore an expression as if she finally found the answer she was looking for. I sent her a small smile, hoping that she would stop the foolishness she was about to commit and came closer to us instead. I didn't mind putting to use those unique mixed elven features of mine if it meant saving my peaceful sleep. However, the girl responded with a warm, last smile and made a single step forward, falling off the makeshift gallows.

"Don't!" I yelled when the noose around her neck tightened sharply and broke her spine. However, a firm pull from my sister, and the hiss of pain that escaped her lips after I dragged her into the sunlight, prevented me from running forward.

It also reminded me of my priorities, and on shaky legs, I led her back into the shadow.

'Don't mind it. Happens all the time.' A telepathic message from Crea reached me together with the notice that she re-established the connection between the three of us. 'Look around you. Do you see the way they look at that dead girl? All of those disgusting failures wish they were brave enough to follow her example. And I wish they would either hurry up with dying or stopped crying about their 'oh so miserable fate' and get to work.'

I didn't know how to respond to the elven goddess who finally stood in front of us. I was lost. Not entirely angry... more like disgusted. But the source of this disgust didn't originate from Crea's words, it came from the hordes of injured and apathetic elves all around. There were many standing way closer to the makeshift gallows, yet no one moved even a single step to stop that girl. They only removed her body afterward, literally tossed it aside, to make a place for another 'brave elf'. I wished that Crea would take us from here so I wouldn't have to watch this madness any longer.

A pretty girl with dead eyes, smiling in my direction before committing suicide.

How the hell do I stop my elven brain from replaying this scene in full HD from now on.

Shit.