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Cleo awoke to the sound of something toppling over, as well as the barking of several angry dogs.
Cleo sat up abruptly and accidentally slammed her head into the top of the crypt. She winced and, more carefully this time, got out of the chapel crypt. Rubbing the forming goose-egg on her head, she grabbed a lantern from the confessionary booth and lit it with a candle.
She carefully opened the giant spruce doors and peered out into the graveyard. The church grimms that usually hung around the entrance were no longer there, and Cleo could hear them barking at something behind the chapel. A couple of spirits were playing blackjack atop a tombstone, waving at Cleo as she trudged by.
“Ther’s a big ‘un in the back, lass,” one of the ghosts pointed to the graveyard behind the chapel, “Grimmies have been havin’ one hell o’ a time with ‘im.”
Cleo sighed, “I think I know who it is.”
Cleo made her way to the graveyard behind the chapel, finding a pair of big black dogs with red eyes growling at a tawny wolf twice Cleo’s size. The wolf was digging through one of the graves, pulling up a faux corpse and gnawing on it. The armor stand split and cracked underneath the weight of the wolf’s jaws, falling to the dirt in giant shards.
“Ren, quit eating my armor stands, I just put them back,” Cleo huffed, and the giant wolf turned to her with a guilty look.
“Sorry,” the wolf spat out a large chunk of the armor stand, including an entire grey tunic, “I got hungry.”
Cleo sighed, dismissing the church grimms back to their posts and watching as the black dogs warily trotted off, “Did you not have any meat left?”
“I did, but I wanted to eat out of an actual graveyard.”
“Not the food, but the place?”
“Yeah…”
Cleo rubbed the bridge of her nose, “You could’ve told me, Ren. I can make you a graveyard.”
“But bothering you at three a.m. is more fun,” Ren snickered as he walked over and gave Cleo a giant dog kiss.
Cleo sputtered, playfully whacking Ren on the shoulder, “Eugh, Ren! Jeez—alright, I’ll get you some rotten flesh so you can finish eating, but then you have to go home and leave me alone until morning.”
“Can do!” Ren grinned.
Cleo shook her head fondly, returning to the chapel to get some rotten flesh she had cooling in the freezer for just this occasion. She returned to the cemetery, chucking some of the flesh down in the pits Ren had dug and leaving him to his meal.
Werewolves traditionally ate from cemeteries, digging up corpses and eating them. Considering, however, that their server had respawns, there weren’t any corpses to bury. Cleo had the closest thing to a legitimate cemetery on the server, so Ren frequently visited looking for food.
To be entirely fair, though, Cleo had done similar things. Cleo would occasionally run out of fresh meat and steal from the Octagon’s chicken coop. Ren and Doc had found her on multiple occasions eating live chickens like crisps late at night.
Cleo climbed back into the crypt, blowing out the flame in the lantern and falling back asleep.
“I want to purchase this chapel off of you.”
Cleo did a double-take, “Sorry, what?”
“Yeah!” Jevin grinned, “I’ve always wanted to live in a cemetery. It’s super creepy, like something out of an Edgar Allen Poe book.”
Cleo raised an eyebrow, “…And you’re entirely sure you can handle the responsibilities of maintaining a cemetery?”
Jevin bobbed his head, “Yup! I did a bit of reading up before I asked you, so I’m pretty familiar with dead people stuff.”
"All of the dead people stuff?"
"...As much as I can?"
Cleo hummed, grinning internally, "Well alright then, how does half a stack of diamond blocks sound?"
"You've got yourself a deal!" Jevin grinned, shaking Cleo's hand.
Jevin tossed and turned on his little bed in the chapel, already regretting his decision to buy it off of Cleo.
It was dim and creaky and unbearably cold. Cleo was dead, sure, but she could still feel temperature. It was like sleeping in an icebox. Jevin shivered, pulling the blankets further over him in an attempt to keep warm.
AWOOO--
""OI REN SHUT THE FUCK UP 'YA BIGASS--"
"I'M EATING DINNER--"
"YE BUT 'YA CAN BE FUCKIN' QUIET BITCH--"
"TELL THE GRIMMS TO STOP ATTACKING ME THEN--"
"MAYBE 'YE SHOULDN'T BE EATIN' OUT 'O THE FUCKIN' GRAVES--"
Jevin started out of bed, grabbing a nearby lantern and rushing outside.
He paused, a feeling of utter terror climbing through his slimy body.
There were ghosts, wraiths, and a variety of spirits lounging around Cleo's graveyard. There were a few in the front playing poker on top of a gravestone, each with drinks in their hands. A lanky creature without a face nor fingernails wandered around the graveyard, seemingly chatting with a couple of spirits that looked like wailing women with their jaws ripped out.
One of the spirits, an Irishman, turned to him with a grin on his face, "Ay, lad! You're the 'un who took over for Miss Cleo, eh?"
"Uh--yes--yes sir, I am," Jevin stammered.
The ghost him off, "No need for the formality, lad, 'ya can call me Rick. These bunch are Brian, Carlie, and Mona."
The other ghosts waved at Jevin who hesitantly returned the gesture.
"I've got whiskey!" Another voice said.
A voice that Jevin distinctly recognized as Etho's voice.
Etho looked like a ghost, with pale and nearly translucent skin. There were shiny tear tracks running down his face, seemingly etched into his skin. His white hair waved in a nonexistent breeze, and the sound of wailing screams seemed to follow him around. Etho set the bottle of whiskey down on the tombstone, turning to Jevin with a grin.
His mask was off, revealing that he, like the wailing women in the corner, was also missing part of his jaw.
"Oh, hey Jevin! Are you helping Cleo or something?"
"I uh, bought the chapel from her," Jevin explained, "I'm starting to regret it."
Etho laughed, taking a sip of vodka that another spirit passed him, "Yeah, is this your first time dealing with specter grounds?"
"Sorry, specter what now?"
"Specter grounds," Etho reiterated, "Y'know, like graveyards and cemeteries? Burial sites with lots of ghosts and dead people."
"Cut the young 'un some slack, Slab," Rick playfully whacked Etho on the shoulder, "It ain't every day 'ya see a fuckin' ghost."
"And I don't count?" Etho grinned.
"He didn't know about 'ya until just now, fucker," Rick laughed, "I don't think that counts."
Etho shrugged, "Fair enough. Hey Jev? Is Ren in the back?"
Jevin turned around, facing the back of the cemetery, "Ren? Why would Ren be here?
Etho floated over to the cemetery behind the chapel, Jevin following close behind.
Standing over an open grave was a giant brown wolf chewing on an armor stand made to look like a fake corpse.
"Ren, quit eating the armor stands," Etho laughed, "Cleo's gonna have your hide if she finds out you've been chewing on them again."
The wolf spat out the chunk of wood with a frown, "You can't make a cemetery and then tell me not to raid it! That's like telling you that you can't wail at three in the morning."
"You have told me that I can't wail at three in the morning."
"Yeah, but I'm hungry, Etho."
Etho rolled his eyes, "You have rotten flesh at the Octagon, just eat there."
The wolf flopped dramatically on the dirt, "But it's not the same, Etho!"
"If I can't wail at ungodly hours in the morning, then you can't eat Cleo's armor stands."
"REN?!" Jevin exclaimed, finally getting back his bearings, "Ren you're--Ren you're a giant wolf--"
"Werewolf," The wolf, Ren, grinned, "I don't really like telling people, since werewolves get a bad rap."
"Probably because you eat corpses," Etho snickered.
"You eat people too!" Ren huffed.
Jevin did a double-take, "Sorry, what?!"
"I'm a werewolf," Ren explained, "And Etho's a banshee."
Etho gave a two-fingered salute.
Ren stood up and shook out his fur, "Werewolves come from a lot of different folklore, but my specific brand of wolfishness makes it so that I don't have a tail and I have human eyes. I also typically eat fresh corpses from graves, but this isn't hardcore and bodies don't stay, so I can't."
"Banshees, on the other hand," Etho began, "Are spirits that die or are harbingers of death. They wail and scream at night to haunt people living nearby."
"So you eat dead people," Jevin pointed to Ren, "And you haunt people by screaming and crying at them?" Jevin pointed to Etho.
"Yup," Etho grinned.
Jevin sat down on the dirt, "Jeez, this server makes being a vextouched slime look human in comparison."
Ren's wolfish form melted and contorted back into his human one, "Well, hey, you're one of the few people that actually know what Etho and I are!"
"So now we have to kill you," Etho said.
"ETHO WHAT--"
"I'm joking, Jev."