Definitely not haunted (Surely that dark pit is innocent and blameless)

Paul was mildly pleased to know that this fantasy world had horses, and carts to go with them. These were things that, at least superficially, made sense to his poor little culture-shocked mind: even if he, Bao, and Trudy had been packed rather tight with a collection of men and women, both human and “syhee”, annoyance at such a thing was a delightfully familiar feeling that reminded him of the trains back home. Funny that he now fell back on those moments for “happy memories”.

Given the combination of sullen and morose expressions around him, Paul knew better than to ruin the quiet by being curious, even if it meant that all he could do was watch the scenery, which started from a court where Liev’s commissioned workers had gathered before loading up. From there, they had taken a wide road that cut through the heart of Fortress Town until the densest parts of the community slowly faded into ever smaller and ever more scattered buildings, and more animal farms, which was the best that could be raised locally when so much of the land still seemed perpetually covered in snowfall and gray skies.

Paul was among the first to guess at their destination, which looked like a haphazard arrangement of walls and stone slabs jutting out of the ground. The remnant of a past city?

“What’s the story with this place, anyways?” Paul asked, as the carts came to a halt, and people started jumping off and moving towards a particular carriage that was filled with picks and levers for prying apart stonework.

A surly cat-syhee shrugged and threw him a shovel. “The Menace is just next door. Before Fortress Town came up, it laid waste to everything around it. It was only near the end that all the Kingdoms pushed it back enough to retake this place, and I guess this is all that’s left.”

“I guess the leaders gave a nice speech about how these rocks are going to find new life defending the border as a monument to our dead?”

That got Paul’s companion to give a sharp laugh and a welcoming sneer. “Looks like you’ve heard your fair share of garbage pleasantries.”

“Some things transcend all boundaries,” Paul answered, with a knowing smirk of his own. “Still, I heard this place has a bad reputation.”

“Yeah, but it’s hard to tell if it’s real, or just rumours,” the syhee admitted. “People always say workers disappear here, but we keep getting new guys coming in all the time. This is hard work, maybe they hated this and didn’t come back. Maybe they left town. Maybe they got reassigned. It couldn’t be because the Menace “cursed” this place, or troops would come down on it.”

“And you’re still here?” Paul asked, and got a shrug in return.

“Hey, I know what to do, and I get paid a lot for it.”

Once Paul got a length of rope wrapped around his shoulder, the cat-eared man gave a nod of approval.

“Let me know if you need any help around here. Name’s Lidian,” Paul’s new acquaintance said, hand stretched out for a shake.

Trudy gave a coo of happiness, as she watched the gray haired man approach her and Bao after parting ways with his companion, one fresh handshake added to his previously non-existent tally.

“Aw. See, Paul? You can make friends even if you seem to hate fantasy stories.”

“Ah, stuff it. I’m not one of those people who don’t know basic manners,” Paul grumbled. “So, think we’ll find your bad dream here?”

Trudy’s good cheer faded a little, with her expression firming up. “You don’t feel it? Maybe it’s just me, but this place has my teeth on edge. I actually kind of feel something. Maybe if you focus…?”

Paul hummed, before losing his eyes for a moment. He never had time for meditative nonsense since all that constituted was sitting around doing nothing. But this time, he humoured the notion and asked the darkness of his sight to bring up anything relating to the Menace and then—

Rushing out towards him came an immense pressure, and the grasping of countless restless memories that were screaming to him, of all people, to be relived. The ground under his feet pulsated and writhed with dying veins that spread out like fungal strands leading down, down, down into darkness—

“Paul!?” Trudy’s gasp of shock cut into his not-so-quiet time, and the man realized he was staggering back until he stopped, nearly tripping.

“K-pssh-ssh-gghd-” He choked, and looked at the woman with commiseration. “This place is messed up.”

Bao looked a little pale too, apparently having given his own try at sensing the Menace’s leftovers, but stolidly tried to wave off onlookers with a laugh and a wane grin, before he looked back and whispered.

“Did we just get really lucky finding this place, or…?”

Trudy frowned in contemplation, recalling Liev’s expression, and opened her mouth to speak, only for a louder voice to cut her off.

“Are you three, uh…Paul, Trudy, and Bao?”

Her train of thought was interrupted just as she and the other two saw a man wearing far neater and well kept clothes walk up to them with a sheath of papers and a stick of sharpened charcoal. It certainly screamed “foreman” to Paul.

Bao tilted his head, quizzically. “Yeah?”.

The man hummed, nonchalantly scratching his head with the wrapped end of a worn pencil. “You’re new, so you don’t have any experience breaking down these walls.”

The three followed the thumb the foreman jerked backwards over his shoulder as he kept looking at the sheets, and indeed saw a busy collection of workers carefully dismantling the ruins around them, even prying up the stone flooring before loading them onto the carriages for delivery.

“What, we can’t practice?” Paul dryly sniped.

The foreman shrugged, dismissive and unflinching. “The defensive wall wants as much rock as possible and won’t take any delay for an excuse. Not today.”

“We’re giving you something else.”

That “something else” turned out to the crumbling remains of a stairway that led down into the darkness. A few faded flickers in the depths suggested there was lighting, but the yawning darkness did a better job suggesting unease to the trio, something that went completely unnoticed by the foreman as he explained their task.

“We need you to survey the basements of these places and call out for any weaknesses in the structure. We don’t want workers falling through the floor or anything.”

“Isn’t this place haunted?” Bao feebly inquired in protest.

Their nominal boss pulled a face, before jabbing his pencil at them. “Rumours. Look, you came here by choice. If you don’t like it, you can just walk on home, and I’ll remember your faces.”

As one, they all looked down into the darkness, which offered no respite to their worries. Instead, all they had was a resigned sense of awareness that they had walked into this problem.

Paul scoffed in burdened resignation. “Well, I guess we have a job to do.”