Chapter 79

As they walked toward the small agriculture town, Shannon and Natalie were flanked by their three biggest bruisers. Today was going to be the first day in a short while that they were entering into what once was civilization. That was why Bryden, Sol, and Luna decided to act as their guard today. With Bryden taking point, and the warg pair covering each flank, they all felt confident about how the day would go. Granum was small, and while it would for sure have goblins, hobs were only a maybe. There had to be something relating to town size when it came to monster spawns. Otherwise, none of it made sense to Natalie. There weren't even any hobgoblins in Waterton, nor any of the other small towns she had been to. But as soon as she got to Lethbridge, there were monsters suddenly ten feet tall throwing around cars? It did count as a city, but arbitrary things like that were most likely not an indication of how they were considered for monster to be spawning in.

As Natalie theorized why and how monster spawns were designated, if they even were, the group entered into Granum. Immediately as they were about to pass by a building to walk by a parking lot, Bryden growled. At this, everyone paused and dropped lower to the ground, while Nat was no longer playing what if games in her head. Nocking an arrow to her bow, she slowly walked around to the corner where Bryden was. As she peered around, she noticed that there was a bunch of goblins milling about in the lot in front of them. Why they chose to hang out in front of a gas station was anyone's guess, but they were in the way of direct travel. Thankfully, there only seemed to be five of the buggers. Letting everyone know to prepare for a quick fight, Natalie drew her bow back. Aiming at the group, two of the five were walking in opposite directions. As their paths lined up, Natalie released her arrow, and watched it fly straight through both of the unlucky monsters. Screeches of confusion rang out from the five, but before they could do anything the two wargs had descended upon them, making quick work of the remaining three. A sixth goblin, who was for some reason dressed rather extravagantly, walked out to see what the others were screeching about. As he left the double doors into the station, all he was met with was an arrow between the eyes as Nat picked them off. The entire group stood still and surveyed their surroundings, waiting for more goblins to show up.

When no more creatures came to investigate after five minutes, did everyone lose the tension they were carrying. Quickly checking in with where the wargs who ran out were feeling, they were all about to continue down the road until Natalie noticed something peculiar. Walking over to the station, she followed the path of her first arrow, up until it found its way into a tanker truck marked with the word gasoline on the side. While that in itself was not terribly unusual, what was out of the ordinary was the liquid flowing out from the hole punctured in the side of the tank. It was a clear and viscous fluid, that looked to be water at first glance. Confused, Nat made her way to the open driver's door and checked inside.

"What's up Nat? You are acting a little weird." Shannon questioned. She did not understand what had driven her partner to such actions.

"Just looking for something. Where is it... Aha, found it!" Natalie exclaimed, stepping out of the cab and back down beside the truck. In her hands was the manifest for the shipment. Looking it over briefly, all it did was raise Natalie's confusion regarding everything. The truck and manifest both clearly stated that gasoline should be in that tank. However, what was flowing out of it was clearly not. Was there some sort of mix up? Doubtful, as it already was marked on the manifest that he had already offloaded some gas before the event. Did the event change what the gasoline was? If so, then was this now water, or something else.

'Kali, could you please take some of this in the Soulscape and let me know what it gets registered as? Also, if you could please do it with as minimal direct contact as possible.' Kali's paw instantly shot out of Nat's leg, touched some of the liquid and then disappeared inside.

'I do not know why you did that; it just comes up as clean water. No need to be so worried.' Kali replied a second later. This info really drove home the point that nothing they knew was the same. The world as they had known had completely changed. Monsters ran amok, no power to be seen anywhere, and what should have been flammable gasoline was now water. Chemical compounds themselves had changed. All the medication they had grabbed could now be basically worthless, or have completely different effects from what they knew. The ramifications of this were huge.

Sharing her findings with Shannon, her jaw now matched Natalie's. Where did the changes that were happening stop at? With no idea, and no way to get any answers, they both tabled the thought. While that affected many things, there was nothing they could do to figure things out as they were. Right now, survival was the biggest thing they needed to focus on right now. If they were unable to live, none of the answers they wanted would mean anything. Together, they walked with slightly confused canines through the rest of the town. They had no idea what any of the things that were now plaguing Natalie and Shannon's minds were about. Instead they just did their part and kept watch as they walked down the main street of Granum. Thankfully, no other monsters were found as they exited the west side of the town and came up to Highway 2. Turning north, the five of them kept walking, with the mountains on their left and the sun up in the sky on their right.

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Jake, Viktor, Nikolas, Saganatsu, Eeleater, Eric, Corgi, Lachlan, Adam, John, Nicholas, Jacob, Onean, Hades, Neal, Sebastian, Sir Hellington, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times. Our next goal on Patreon will be getting up to 25 patrons, which I will then open up an official discord for everyone to come and discuss the story in and hang out!