Orou forced himself to stop staring at the bats above and started slithering together with Grizz. The road that they were walking on was uneven stone, the same stone that made the rest of this underground city. As they continued walking the road, Orou noticed that while spirits were interesting, they weren’t a reliable way of making sure the entire city was illuminated. They would float off and leave an entire chunk of the city completely dark and they had a tendency to float up and hang out together with the bats until they were shooed away.

The under city had many resemblances to Belor, numerous shops and inns on every corner of the city, houses in various conditions and people walking around haphazardly. A fox-like beastman stood by a lavishly decorated building and winked to Grizz, to which he responded with a grin and a wave. Orou saw bottles of the same stuff he had once tasted, the dream-wine as Grizz called it being drunk by a few beastmen who immediately after closing their eyes and passing out on the street, the people around them simply ignoring them.

The combination of flashy and crude signs being placed on ancient stone buildings was a new sight for Orou, though he was still bitter about the fact that he couldn’t read any of them. As Orou continued examining the signs, they made their way past an inn and turned the corner to enter a back alley. Grizz took the lead and went quite a bit down this alleyway before eventually, he opened a door at the side of one of the buildings and slowly stepped in.

“We’re currently closed, go and find a different place for all your spirit collar needs.” A loud shout could be heard coming from inside as Orou started to slither next to Grizz. As he entered the building, he saw a mole-like beastman sitting on a run-down couch, holding a cigar in his hands and making smoke rings in the air. He was clearly annoyed and dissatisfied by the sudden intrusion, but as soon as he saw Grizz he practically leaped in the air, almost dropping his cigar to the ground.

“Warn me before busting in like that Grizz,” the mole beastman hugged Grizz and heartily laughed before inviting Grizz to sit on the coach. He looked at Orou for a few seconds before spotting the collar and nodding to himself.

“Sorry that I’m on such a short notice here Dar, but I need this collar gone and I need it gone before tomorrow.” Orou was surprised to see Grizz slightly embarrassed, he pointed to a room to the right of Orou and continued: “We can catch up while you work, I’ll even pay you this time.” Both of them laughed at that sentence and before Orou knew it, Dar entered the room and came back with a box full of various metal tools. He rummaged through it for a while before eventually, he pulled out a small hammer, some nails and a strange, curved instrument, completely flat with indentations in the middle of it

“This is for your own good, don’t struggle and jerk around too much. If the pain gets very intense all of the sudden, don’t panic and try to bear through it.” Dar was lecturing Orou like a child while he got prepared, Orou’s spirit vision was already on but he saw nothing magical about Dar himself or the instruments he was wielding.

Dar approached Orou’s head and told him to not move his head as he stepped around Orou and started working on the collar. He felt something sliding along his scales and below the collar before he felt a sharp pain at the back of his neck. Orou desperately tried to contain himself from turning around and eating Dar whole as he bore through the pain, but that was only the start of the pain.

He heard the sound of metal striking metal right next to his ears which nearly deafened him, but more importantly, each time that something hit his collar, it would release a bit of whatever it was that had tortured Orou a month ago into his body. Orou’s mind was filled with memories of him nearly dying thanks to this thing and while the pain was still manageable, he shuddered each time the collar injected something inside of him. The only good thing about this was the fact that Orou noticed the waves inside of him practically devour whatever was ravaging his body, clearly a notch above what they could do the previous time.

Both Grizz and Dar seemed to relax and nonchalant about the whole matter, chatting with each other and catching up for old time’s sake. Orou was suffering each time the collar was hammered, why did he need it gone when it hadn’t done him any harm in the beastman kingdom yet? Orou resentfully glared at Grizz, but he was ignoring whatever evil looks Orou gave him.

A sudden sharp burst of pain came from inside of his body as he heard the collar hit the ground, releasing more of its vicious poison inside of him. His tail whirled around, not quite hitting Dar with its full force but definitely pushing him against the wall. Orou was no stranger to battles within his body, but it wasn’t a pleasant feeling, to say the least. He felt powerless as the inside of is body was being corroded, the waves aggressively taking bites of the thing. It was over half a minute later, Orou’s body worn down but finally, he was without a collar. The first thing he did was glare at Grizz, but he saw something that dissipated his anger almost instantly.

In Grizz’s hand was a small crystal shard, completely red in color. He was handing it over to Dar, but in Orou’s irritation and sudden attraction to the crystal, he rushed over to snatch it from Grizz’s hand. He successfully gobbled up the crystal, but in the process he crashed into both Grizz and Dar, knocking over the few pieces of furniture that were there and smashing everything in his path.

“What’s wrong with your snake Grizz, I don’t think beasts are supposed to eat those.” Dar looked at his still unfinished cigar that got crushed by Orou with sadness before staring at Orou. Grizz shrugged and scratched his chin, both of them curiously staring at Orou. Orou slowly slithered backwards as he felt a burning sensation going down his throat and entering his stomach. The waves inside of him rushed towards the crystal-like mad, fully enveloping it and retreating back to their original position.

While he didn’t feel any different, he felt a sense of accomplishment come from deep inside of him, like he had defeated a great enemy or accomplished something great. While Orou didn’t usually question his feelings, he knew that this wasn’t natural, he didn’t even know why he lunged for the crystal in the first place. Although now that he thought about it, it did look very delicious, so perhaps he didn’t need a better reason than that.

“You can’t eat those, do you know how much you can buy with that single half diluted crystal? Enough to feed for a month at least. Rumor even has it that they’re made from Noble Beast’s blood, you eat one too many of those crystals and you could be in dire shapes.” Grizz pulled out a much and dimmer crystal to use as an example, but Orou had to try his best and resist from lunging forwards to eat the crystal, he somewhat trusted Grizz’s word after all. Grizz handed a small pouch over to Dar and apologised for the broken furniture, promising to stop by sometime before starting to leave.

Orou felt a burning heat coming from his stomach once again and while he couldn’t see what was happening inside of him, he felt the crystal sort of liquidate and become a part of the waves. The rest of the waves spread out through his entire body, battering his insides with an even higher intensity this time. As they exited Dar’s house, Orou started to wildly flail his tail around simply to make the waves do something instead of battering his body. As expected, they rushed to his tail and as his tail hit the building by his side, a massive crash resounded through the area and after the dust had settled, Orou could see that a huge chunk of the wall was gone.

“I know you’re excited and all, but these are buildings preserved for thousands of years, there’s no need to destroy them wantonly.” Grizz turned around only to see a scene of destruction before him, his mouth was agape once more as he stared at Orou’s tail before slowly calming down. The waves in Orou’s body were still restless, but his venting had helped him calm down.

“I hope that there won’t be any more surprises for me today.” Grizz sighed as he started walking down the alley with Orou by his side, resisting the impulse to ruin this place.