Faye eventually climbed back to her feet. Although the loneliness was crushing, she knew that crying wasn't going to help her. She decided to head into the city, or what was left of it, to maybe find out what happened. Then, she planned to hold a funeral ceremony for her friends and loved ones.
Although they were probably dead for many many years, to Faye their loss was recent.
Slowly, she approached the fallen and broken walls. It was almost impossible to tell where the original gates were, if she hadn't knows ahead of time. The walls were covers in ivy and the stone was broken and falling apart. On the left, they seemed to have been protected in some form by a few over hanging trees, but on the right, most of the walls were missing.
Fat didn't need to go through the gate, but for some reason she felt the urge to. Maybe it was just a habit, or maybe it was nostalgia. Either way, she strode through where the gates should have been and stopped just inside of the walls.
The sight that greeted her was unexpected. The city before she died was grey and loud. The roads were stone and there was the constant noise of those selling wares and beasts of burden pulling carts. The smells within the city were hard to ignore. The scent of shit, both human and animal, filled the air.
Now, however, what greeted Faye was not the former stink of the city or the noise that polluted the air. The grays of the stone buildings and stone roads were hidden away. Covering them was grass and weeds. Ivy grew on some of the remaining buildings. Many of the buildings had withered beyond recognition. Only that were made strong with stone remained and even they seemed to be struggling. The scent was clean and clear, the sounds were peaceful.
Faye felt an emptiness fill her as she walked forward along the now unfamiliar road. Her memories flashed through her mind as she made her way forward, over lapping with what was in front of her. Her eyes contradicted her memories and each time, she felt that emptiness grow deeper inside her.
Slowly, Faye turned down the forgotten roads, making the familiar and yet entirely foreign trek through her former home. She came to a stone building that was falling in on itself.
The roof was gone, it was originally thatch and wood, so it wouldn't have been able to withstand the tears of time. The wooden door was gone, and the walls were partially fallen in. Faye made her way into the building, however.
A face formed in her mind. An older husky man with a dark beard and thick hair on his forearms. He seemed a bit intimidating, but was kind once you got to know him. He was a talented blacksmith. He had a young apprentice, Rory. He was a little younger than Faye was when she died.
Faye felt her tears burning behind her eyes once again, but she blinked them back, cleared her throat and shook the images from her head. She took a deep breath and strode further into the building.
The swords that she'd taken from the goblinoids were not the greatest. Faye hoped she'd be able to find something here.
Looking around, it was pretty clear that a number of decades had passed since anyone had lived here. There was still a large grinder for sharpening blades and the main part of the forge was left behind. However, other than the general outlines of these items, everything else seemed to be gone. The stone floors were almost entirely covered in grass and weeds. The forge itself was over grown and unusable. The grinder was useless as well. It was hard to see that if any thing had been left behind, it was lost to time, or looted long ago.
Still, Faye moved with purpose from the blacksmiths. She knew that there were some places that would be more likely to have under ground cellars and she hoped she could find something useful in them.
She found one of the major inns, or where it used to stand, as the inn itself was built mostly from wood, it was difficult to pin point exactly where it would have been in the city.
Faye searched through where the inn should have been, walking and investigating the ground where she assumed the cellar would have been. She's almost given up, when she found what she was looking for.
There, after digging around for no small amount of time, Faye found an area where the ground was less firm.
She used one of the swords to help leverage the cellar door. The wood of the cellar door was almost entirely gone. The only thing that kept the ground from sinking in was the roots of the grass and weeds that had grown over the cellar door before. After growing, they'd become impacted and kept the ground appearing to be level. Slowly, Faye dug and ripped the grass up. She used the more tattered of the two swords to leverage the grass and door up. Unfortunately, the sword was unable to handle the pressure and snapped as she was finally getting the grass to move.
Faye cursed as she tossed the two pieces of broken sword aside. It wasn't much of a loss, but she only had so many options for weapons at the moment. Her purse was too light to pay for new weapons and she didn't have much to trade.
Faye deliberated for a moment then decided against using the other sword as she had the first. Instead, she crouched down and began pulling the grass up, roots and all, with her bare hands.