Heldinot cities did have a few things that separated them from cities in Rootriska… It was a certain piece of architecture, created with the intention of taking advantage of space to have as many people as possible living in one structure, rather than sprawling further and further into width.

  This particular city only had one. The idea was still experimental for the most part, especially since building such things was far from being an easy task, or a cheap one–It was only natural that some test runs would be desired before expanding on the idea and beginning to build more.

  Already, certain issues had begun to arise for those who had agreed to live inside of this structure… Namely, beastfolk diversity naturally meant that different beastfolks could have very different standards of living, or quirks to them. As such, certain beastfolks felt suffocated inside the small living spaces given to them inside the structure.

  Others, who were very active and mobile, also felt quite restrained, and of course, no one felt very pleased with having to live near a beastfolk with a naturally strong body odour. The stink was especially awful since most beastfolks had enhanced senses of smell, and the living spaces were all very close to one another.

  Tonight, another issue of such architecture revealed itself.

  Namely, its enclosed nature meant that if something, or someone who shouldn’t be here, were to get in… The guards patrolling the city would have no way of noticing it. Giving any intruder free rein unless they were noticed by someone inside and alerted as to the unlawful trespass.

  Right now, however? Everyone was none the wiser as a hulking creature of steel and flesh roamed the halls…

  Inside a small habitation of this new and great architecture, a lizardfolk yawned, finding himself unable to sleep tonight. After much rolling around and repositioning in bed to no avail, he rose and headed for the kitchen area, which was tucked into a corner, melded with the living room and entrance.

  Everything was rather tight in the homes of this place. Larger beastfolks definitely couldn’t live in them at all. They literally wouldn’t be able to stand up inside of them, and would find the doorways to be far too narrow for them to get through easily.

  The lizardfolk was fine with it, though. As was everyone else here, he had been offered to live here as a test of the viability of such compact architecture. Before this, he had been renting out a much worse room in a small inn. It may be far from the best, but it was still better. There were more commodities, and the best of all–It was free. He could save some money and perhaps actually buy himself a real place in the future.

  With a house to his name, he would feel more comfortable looking for a nice lizardfolk lady to spend the rest of his life with. After all, it was a pretty bad look to try and talk about long-term plans like life together and children when he had been living in a shoddy room.

  Actually, there was a nice lizardfolk lady right on the same floor as him.

  “I need to try and talk to her more…”

  He moisturised his eyes using his dexterous tongue, reaching for a cabinet where he had bottles of water stocked–Another advantage of this place was that for living here, he also received some free food and water. The latter was never very hard to find. If you actually tried, you could always drink for free from wells around the city, but the food in particular was very much welcome.

  However, he stopped as his claws grazed against the bottle.

  The moon was bright outside, but the windows were few and rather small inside the habitations, so only a sliver of the pale moonlight made it inside… But it was enough for him to notice from the corner of his eyes that his front was wide open.

  “...Did I forget to lock it?”

  His mind went to the most logical assumption first. He merely began walking over.

  The way his and every other habitation in this grand structure was arranged was very simple. When you opened the front door, you would be met with a wall right in front of you and to your right.

  The left would be the living room and kitchen mixed together–The largest room… The wall in front of the entrance was actually the back wall of the bedroom, as for the bathroom it was a very small room you could access from the bedroom only.

  In simple terms, the entrance area and living room, kitchen mixture formed an L shape, meaning that from where the lizardfolk was standing, there was a dead angle.

  As he approached the door to close it, he frowned. The handle and lock were gone. Missing entirely. He figured that someone might have stolen it so that they could melt the steel and resell it. After all, it made no sense to remove the whole thing just to gain access to the inside. Anyway, he only paused for a moment. He would have to go down and get some help with this now…

  Just as he passed the corner, he froze.

  The dead angle was flooded with impenetrable darkness, but for a split moment, the dark was pierced by two deep, dark purple dots.

  “Who-”

  He could barely open his mouth. Two giant hands burst out of the darkness, picking him up, bringing him directly into the open jaw of a twisted predator. The bite was swift, but without the usage of excessive force–Almost appearing gentle, at least if one ignored the fact that the lizardfolk’s head was separated from the rest of his body.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The intruder devoured the man whole, picking the clothes that got stuck in the teeth, and throwing them onto the ground. The creature, despite its impressive size, made no noise, moving slowly and with deliberate steps.

  It checked the rest of the habitations for a few moments, but finding no one else, it instead looked through drawers, bringing out items made out of steel, feasting upon them in the same manner the lizardfolk had been feasted upon.

  The trespasser left, going in search of another place to break into.

  ___

  What is this place anyway? This is no way to live. They are stacked like a bunch of crates, and so many of them are all by themselves, too! Where are the families? I want children to terrorise! They are so much easier to scare out of their wits, and the best part is that they stay scared for a very long time afterwards.

  I think it is because you leave them traumatised. Using ‘Embodiment Of Negativity’ when scaring them is a bit heavy-handed. They are less resilient than adults, after all

  A bit heavy-handed, yes… But is it funny? It definitely is hilarious. It is also very much worth it. They scare themselves very easily with their own imagination. They always produce great amounts of negative emotions for me–Also, I am fairly certain that the aura of gloom emitted by bearers of ‘Remember Me?’ is stronger the more the carrier emits negative emotions.

  I didn’t have proof of it yet, but it was just a feeling that I had.

  In any case… My attention had fallen upon this oversized block of stone precisely because the guards of this city were way too… What could be the way to describe it? Mmh… They are just too focused on actually doing their job!

  Clearly, whoever was in charge of this city was not stingy when it came to hiring guards. Considering how hard these dastardly patrollers were roaming the streets in the middle of the night, the pay must be quite fat as well. There were groups of at least three of them marching in the streets, solitary guards flying in the sky, and duos posted on some roofs!

  I am but a poor little gal used to the incompetent, underpaid guards of Tolten and some other city I forgot the name of! Have some mercy on me, damnit! I need to be in my base form to cast curses as well. Even with the ‘Quietness’ upgrade, it’s pretty difficult to go unnoticed as a tall, wide abomination of steel!

  Honestly, it was probably three-quarters of luck that had brought me here undetected.

  I needed to make the best use out of this night as possible, and plant as many instances of my favourite curse as possible. I needed to absolutely flood this structure with it… This made me wish I could put ‘Remember Me?’ on an inanimate object as well.

  Normally, applying a curse to an item or even a whole place should be possible, but ‘Remember Me?’ only worked on people.

  People… I never tried to use it on a beast, animal, or monster, now that I think about it…

  I don’t see why it couldn’t work… I never saw any of those show up in a final trial, though.

  There were no such things to test this around at the moment, so I merely continued on my merry journey through the various floors of this tall and wide structure. My ghostly little sisters moved ahead of me, phasing into the habitations to check if people were inside. It saved me the trouble of checking empty places and allowed me to prioritise places with several prey over the lone ones.

  I marked a pause, Poppy did the same, and my other sisters took a few more seconds to notice something was off.

  The concentration of negative energy… Had suddenly spiked, and I was certain it had nothing to do with me.

  I didn’t activate that ability you think is from the ‘Pure Spirit Form’, did I?

  You did not. This negative energy comes from somewhere else… It’s weird. I can’t pinpoint a direction for it. It seems to have equally manifested over a wide area all around us

  I recalled my spectral darlings. If something could do this with negative energy, then it definitely could affect them. I wasn’t going to allow this to happen.

  …Looking around, nothing came to my attention at first, but eventually, anomalies began to occur. It reminded me of what I thought I had seen back in the restaurant’s backstage area.

  Tell me, Nara. Do you see anything off, right now?

  …I do not

  Maybe you could try seeing directly through my eyes?

  She was silent for a few moments, indicative that she was trying to do something.

  Oh… I see it now. That’s a bit concerning. I didn’t know you had enemies of this variety, Big Sis

  Pretty sure I, in fact, don’t have enemies of this sort.

  The walls all around me had turned grimy, as though mould and soot had accumulated all over them. The ceiling was bleeding a black, tar-like substance, and words were written all over the place.

  Some of which I was familiar with.

  REMEMBER ME?

  I REMEMBER.

  THEY REMEMBER.

  WE ARE AMNESIC NO LONGER.

  FATE WILL FALL UPON YOU.

  YOU WILL FALL.

  YOU WILL FALL.

  FALL. FALL. FALL.

  I WILL NEVER LET YOU DIE.

  I WILL KEEP YOU ALIVE.

  I WILL MAKE YOU SUFFER FOR ETERNITY.

  FATE. WILL. FALL. UPON. YOU.

  As quickly as the anomalies appeared, they vanished. The negative energy coating the air disappeared completely as well. In the blink of an eye.

  Heh. Thanks for the free negative energy, jackass. I will make sure to use it to curse more people.

  …Seriously, though. What the hell was this? That looked a whole lot like some ghostly activities. Since when did I make trouble with a ghost capable of this? And if it can do this, then why isn’t it showing up to fight?

  It is certainly scared. It probably knows of your frightening ability to devour spirits. It is most likely afraid that being seen by you could mean being eaten without a chance to fight back

  Shouldn’t I have a thread of negative emotion telling me where that thing is, then?

  I would assume that its mastery of negative energy allows it to prevent the leakage of negative emotions… I am more worried about the identity of this being, however. It seemed incredibly mad at you, Mara…

  Well, I don’t know what it’s so mad about.

  Also, it was speaking like it wasn’t alone… How could I have angered multiple spirits? I steal the soul of everything I kill, and all spirits I ever met, I ate them. It doesn’t really leave much room for anything else, does it?

  I bet someone else sent this thing after me… I do know one person who was interested in the usage of negative energy who might have cooked up something like this…