The prairie swept by in a blur.

I only paid enough attention to my surroundings to ensure I avoided the scant obstacles in my path. A herd of cattle passed before me. Were they from Dodge? Animals kept for meat and milk, now set loose by the destruction visited there? Or maybe they were feral.

A small bird flitted from the grass and passed before me, vanishing beneath as it twisted in the air, its flight path disrupted by whatever it perceived my streaking form to be.

I didn’t quite understand the Footfield’s interaction with obstacles. Long grass bent before me as it would if I were running under my own power. Maybe it was a matter of mass?

My eyes remained fixed on the distant structure. The plains were so flat that I could see the twisted remains of the monastery’s walls even from here, miles away. Under Footfield, I would be there in a minute or two.

The voice appeared in my mind. It said, "Hey, kiddo, I just want to make sure we have our expectations in order."

"I know what to expect," I replied.

"Let’s make sure, okay?" the voice continued. "I don’t want you to get your sensitive little human emotions all screwed up. Best case scenario... Best case now, is that you find a headless corpse and at least know Daddy’s gone to the big market in the sky. Most likely, you’ll find nothing. The Horde would have seen his relics, seen the way the bodyguards surrounded him, and presumed him to be a chief of some kind. They’d have taken the body away to do their weird shit with it. It’s important we set our minds straight, otherwise this could get pretty upsetting."

"This conversation is pretty upsetting," I muttered.

I raced on, covering another mile. I glanced over my shoulder, uncertain if I should expect to see Chowwick’s field behind me. Nothing but the distant crippled walls of Dodge. He was giving me this moment. I didn’t need a Shield out here—nothing could hurt me here. Physically, at least.

The monastery loomed closer, a little more than a mile away.

"There’s a chance he’s al—" I began.

The voice cut me off, exasperated. "Holy shit, you’re not going to start talking like that. Your big brute of a new best friend is afraid of the Horde, what chance does Pops have?"

"He’s got relics," I insisted.

The voice was curt. "Warriors with full Griidsuits fear the Horde."

"He had a reason to go to the monastery," I countered. "There was a refuge there, someplace he could protect himself."

The voice scorned me. "He was getting as far from the Horde as possible. He was leaving them a city full of people to devour, hoping he could get away."

I slowed and let the Footfield dissipate. Time came juddering back to normal as I dismounted from the strange distortion that had catapulted me across the plain so quickly.

SCENT quickly reported the odor of decay. The smell of rotting corpses rushed to me. I tuned it down, as the scent had an oddly intense impact on my emotions. Reality awaited me here.

The walls of the monastery crouched before me. It hadn’t been used for a long, long time. There must have been a battle here once. The walls were made of stone, but they were cracked and crushed, much like the walls of Dodge. Vegetation grew in the cracks and hollows of the rubble. These walls had stood for a long time before this destruction.

I walked quickly to the largest gap in the walls. It wasn’t a large monastery—almost more like an outpost than a settlement.

I met the first corpses before I reached the opening in the wall. An army of turkey vultures alerted me to what lay ahead. As I approached, the birds screeched, unappreciative of my intrusion. Some hopped away. A couple took flight and found perches on the shattered walls, watching me. Most seemed to assess my proximity and deemed it safe to continue their meals, though they eyed me warily.

A handful of horses and men lay scattered in a rough circle at the entrance. These were the ones who hadn’t even made it inside the walls. Maybe they had reined up to delay the Horde, or maybe they’d just been caught.

The voice said, Gross.

The bodies had been exposed to the elements for days. The sun had cooked them, and the beasts of the prairie had fed on them. There were scraps of meat left, but much had already been consumed. The stench was gut-churning, though perhaps less intense than it might have been if scavengers hadn’t already taken so much.

I continued through the walls.

Beyond lay what had once been a yard of some kind. There was only a single building beyond, a low rectangular structure of stone and brick. Three walls and the roof remained mostly intact, but the wall facing me had been obliterated by some force long ago. It felt like a cavern—so bright where I stood, yet so dark and lonely in the shadows of the sagging, broken roof.

More bodies. More carrion eaters. A fox moved among the turkey vultures, raising its head to inspect me with nearly human curiosity.

The voice said, Oh, this is all so gross.

The corpses of men and animals were now little more than ragged skeletons. The birds had pulled away clothing and armor in places, and in others, they had simply buried their faces and necks into gaps to find the putrefying morsels that had once been the innards of living men with families and futures.

Father wasn’t among them.

I continued into the shade of the building. More corpses here, but fewer. These were the ones who had lasted the longest, getting closer to their goal. The vultures inside didn’t appreciate feeling hemmed in, trapped by my presence. They scattered, hopping and flapping, complaining savagely at my intrusion.

Beyond, in the center of the floor, was an opening. A set of stairs had been carved, forming the entrance to a path that led down into the ground.

The voice said, Maybe he did have a refuge…

As I reached the top of the stairs, the body came into view. It lay tangled on the top steps, elbows jutting out, legs twisted in a terrible testament to the violence visited upon it in death.

The voice said, Or, you know, nevermind.

This one hadn’t been as badly gnawed on yet. It was still largely consumed, but being farther from the others, it hadn’t been stripped as thoroughly of its flesh. It wore no armor. The clothes had been shredded where the meat was most abundant. The exposed flesh of the face and neck was long gone. White bone stared back at me, set with empty sockets where I had once longed to see the approving eyes of my father.

If nothing else, I knew him by the relics. It was him.

The voice said, They didn’t take his relics. Strange, that. Maybe the storm shifted, and they didn’t have time to loot. These are worth a pretty penny—you’d think they’d have risked a moment to grab—ah, oh, am I being insensitive? Is this one of the times I should be respectfully silent?

I wasn’t listening.

I was staring down at the corpse of my father. Sempronius, the wealthiest man in all of Boston, a titan who had built an empire from nothing. Now he lay in disarray, his flesh a meal for vultures, his partially skinless skull staring at the ceiling. His dirty, tangled hair remained ridiculously intact atop the perfect picture of horrible death he had become.

I bowed my head.

The voice remained silent.