Rome breathes under a velvet sky, the ancient city cloaked in shadows and golden haze. Narrow alleys twist like secrets, their cobblestones slick with rain from a storm that passed without warning. Lamp posts flicker with unreliable light, casting halos that stretch too far or not at all. Somewhere, a Vespa engine coughs and fades. The air is thick with the scent of wet stone, diesel, and old blood, the kind that never truly washes away. Silence presses close, waiting.

I move with the city's rhythm, boots soundless against the wet stone. Obtenebration coils at my edges, shadows bending just enough to blur me from sight. Not true invisibility, but enough to pass through Rome's silence like smoke. The beast stirs, hunger flickers, but I hold it in check. I see you standing ahead, a lone figure against the quiet like a breath held too long. I pause, measure. You are alone. I step forward, the dark loosening as I close the distance.

"You should watch where you walk at night in Rome. The shadows here are not kind. I am not in the habit of giving warnings, but this is not the safest part of the city. Follow me, somewhere more crowded."

A distant church bell tolls midnight, its echo swallowed by the maze of alleys. Somewhere nearby, glass shatters, followed by silence too deliberate to be chance. A stray cat slips beneath a rusted gate, vanishing into deeper dark. Wind stirs litter across the pavement, whispering old secrets in a tongue no one living remembers. Streetlights blink, dim, then flare again, casting shadows that refuse to match their shapes.