Chapter 374 Horse Shit!

I started walking down the alleyway, looking for a better place to check out the area, when a bundle of dirty clothes shifted in front of me. A woman slowly stood up from where she had been lying on her side as she eyed me warily before looking around like she was making sure I wasn't followed or something similar.

"Who are you?" the woman asked quietly, and I frowned at her as I watched her rub her scarred arms. She was an older woman, maybe getting into middle age or so, as she looked to be just a little bit graying around the temples of black hair that stuck out every which way. She had a skinny build to herself, but it was hard to tell what kind of shape she might have been in under all those clothes since there were no curves about her, not even from the filthy dress that she wore.

"My name is Galio; who are you?" I asked curiously as I looked her over and then eyed the empty alleyway to make sure no one else was around.

"Marie," The woman said with a shake of her head before looking me over. "You look clean. Are you from the city?"

"No, I am just passing through," I said, and Marie shook her head as she walked forward and grabbed hold of my sleeve to pull me down the alleyway.

"Bad idea to talk in the open like this… too many people that might hear us talking," Marie muttered as she kept walking.

While this woman seemed bat shit crazy, it might be good to let her take me wherever she wanted. I needed to learn more about what was going on with this city and then find out who took Hilda, so I let the woman drag me through alleys and across streets after some waiting and uneasy looking. I really hoped that this woman was nuts because the way that she was darting around and looking in every direction was starting to put me on edge.

"Where are we going?" I asked curiously after a while, and the woman just squeezed my arm tighter as she ducked under a clothesline that was strung between two buildings.

"Shhh," Marie said, quieting me down as her grip on my arm loosened some. "Not much further now."

We turned down another alleyway that was so narrow I had to turn sideways to get through it. The stench of shit seemed to get stronger, but the building also seemed to be getting more run down as we went. From my mental map that was far from done, I could tell that we were now in the northwest corner of the city. We were heading to one of the more rundown parts of the city that I had noticed when looking around from the center.

When we reached the end of the alleyway, Marie released me and turned to look at me with a shake of her head. "You should get out now…before it's too late for you."

"And why would that be?" I asked as I looked down at Marie, who stared up at me with haunted eyes. She was looking around us like she expected someone or something to jump out from one of these dark and rundown buildings that surrounded us. "I came here to fix things, not leave them as they are. Take me to your place if you have one, and then we can talk there. I would like to get out of the shit smell for a bit."

Marie looked at me for a bit longer before she finally nodded her head and walked over to the door of one of these buildings. The door had a mark on it that said '#3' with what looked like blood. I knew that this city needed some serious help, but this was not going to be something that I could just cast a couple of spells to fix. I was going to have to fix this place up in sections, or it would be like me trying to build my massive boat all alone. If I could split my mind up, then I might be able to do something like that, but even gods had their limits.

"Come on in," Marie said as the door opened, and I followed her into a small room that had barely enough room for a bed, table, sink, and stove. All of it looked like it was ancient and about to fall apart. A ratty old curtain was pulled across the single window in here, making the place seem dark even though there were two oil lamps burning. "Sit down."

I stayed standing and looked around the room at the dimensions and everything that was in it. I still didn't have a full view of this area, and its buildings, so I couldn't make any big changes without making a big fuss.

"If you don't mind, I am going spruce this place and you up a bit," I said with a smile through the smell of horse shit that had followed us in. I suspected that it was from the cloth shoes that Marie was wearing.

"Who are you?! What are you talking about?!" The woman asked in clear confusion, but I snapped my fingers, and air bubbled around her, and my cat spirits burst from my body.

This made the woman scream, but the air bubble kept all the sound in as my cats cleaned, tailored, and exfoliated Marie. She looked like I was killing her, but sometimes it was easier to do something and then apologize and explain after the fact. The rest of the room was also changing, but it was more of an upgrade since I couldn't make the space bigger without changing the entire building.

I turned the shady rundown room into a luxurious small apartment. I kept the single room but made it look like it belonged in a palace. The walls were covered in expensive-looking wallpaper that had a floral design, and the floor was a beautiful hardwood. I placed some furniture around the room, but not too much since there wasn't enough space for it. The bed that I had put in here was a four-poster bed with thick silk curtains tied back so they wouldn't be in the way as one slept.

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