The symbol was a compass needle. I followed it, my sharpened rock held tight, moving from one marking to the next. They led me out of the twisted memory-forest and towards a low, throbbing hum that got louder with every step.
The fog began to thin, replaced by a hazy, twilight glow. The ground under my feet turned from ash and petrified regret into rough, cobbled streets. And then I saw it.
The capital. If you could call it that.
It wasn't a city of buildings. It was a city of impressions. Structures woven from solidified sorrow, towers that were spirals of screaming faces frozen in moment of anguish, bridges made of tangled, unresolved arguments. The air wasn't silent here; it was a low, constant murmur of a million overlapping regrets, a psychic static that drilled into my skull.
And the spirits. There were so many. Not just the shufflers from the beach. These were... more. Spirits with sharp, anxious energy, darting through the streets on unseen errands. Hulking, bruised-looking spirits that radiated anger. Others that were so faded they were barely more than a sigh in the air.
They all had purpose. A direction. I was the only one standing still.
A wave of pure, claustrophobic panic hit me. The pressure of all those minds, all that concentrated misery, was like a physical weight. My breath hitched. The murmuring swelled in my head, becoming a deafening roar, and a single, terrified thought broke free of my mind with the force of a snapped cable:
shouldn'thavedonethatwhydidIsaythatIfIcouldjustgoback—
The thought didn't just echo in my skull. It condensed. It became a solid, cold weight in my palm.
I looked down, stunned. The sharpened rock I'd been holding was gone. In its place was a small, dark, smooth stone. It pulsed with a faint, miserable light, and I could feel the regret emanating from it—my regret. The city's psychic pressure had literally pulled the thought from my head and made it real.
The item fell from my numb fingers against the concret.
I stumbled back, running away.
I turned down an alley that seemed darker, quieter, and just ran. I didn't look where I was going. I just needed out.
The alley ended not in a wall, but in a sharp drop. My foot met empty air.
I fell.
It wasn't a long fall, but it was enough to knock the wind out of me. I tumbled down a steep, scree-covered slope, landing in a heap at the bottom in a cloud of foul-tasting dust.
I lay there for a second, groaning, my panic momentarily replaced by sheer pain. I'd landed in some kind of sunken pit on the outskirts of the city. The constant psychic murmur from above was muted here. Thank god.
I pushed myself up, spitting out dirt, and froze.
I wasn't alone.
The pit was a nest. But not for Ashen Hounds.
Dozens of them were there, maybe hundreds. Sleek, low-slung shapes of polished obsidian and shadow. Devileaters. They lounged on rocks, paced in silent circles, their featureless faces turning slowly, scanning for prey. This was a den. A central hub.
And I had just fallen into the middle of it.
One of them, closer than the others, stopped its pacing. Its featureless head swiveled towards me. A vertical maw split open on its face, revealing rows of needle-like teeth. It didn't make a sound, but a wave of pure, predatory intent washed over me—a psychic sensation that felt like ice water down my spine.
It took a step forward. Then another. The others began to notice, their heads turning in unison. The air grew cold.
I was on my feet in an instant, my back against the steep slope I'd just fallen down. No way to climb it fast enough.
The lead Devileater crouched, its powerful haunches coiling to spring.
This was it. I'd survived Ashen Hounds and Memory Leeches only to become a snack for a higher class of predator.
Suddenly, a rock whizzed past my head and smacked the lead Devileater right in its featureless face.
It recoiled with a silent snarl, more surprised than hurt.
"Hey! Ugly! Over here!"
The voice came from a ledge above the pit. A man stood there, silhouetted against the hazy sky. He wasn't a spirit. He looked… solid. Like me. But different. Flames wreathed around his arms and shoulders, not burning him, but dancing over his skin like a living garment. He held a sling in one hand and was already loading another rock.
"You just gonna stand there and get eaten, newbie?" he yelled down, a cocky grin in his voice. "Or you wanna actually live through the day?"