#41 Frendsi the Cursola has been murdered by the Stalkers.

Safen hated this detail, but when another murder was called in, she had to be there on the scene to figure out what happened and get the details from the investigation team. At the same time, the Sunberry Hotel was supposed to be one of the safest places in Exacta City, save for the military compound. Despite the military’s best efforts, they had failed. The refuge area was supposed to be safe for all survivors, but somehow, the Stalkers were still getting in and killing innocent Pokémon in secret.

This time, it had been Frendsi, found dead outside the Sunberry Hotel. While a few Aurorawatch soldiers were assessing the scene, Ancho the Claydol was analyzing the surrounding area in the back of the building, finding that Frendsi had been wandering around aimlessly along the dusty grounds and stone paths, as if lost in a place that should have been very familiar considering she lived here. Meanwhile, Frendsi’s ghostly white coral body was lying on its side with her eyes still open, but with a bewildered and hopeless look in them.

What was unusual was her walking paths were always in the form of straight lines with 45-degree turns, as if she was navigating down corridors that simply didn’t exist. Her paths didn’t go sporadic until the very end before she fell over and died.

“I take it this was from natural causes,” Safen the Politoed said cynically to Ancho as she looked at Frendsi’s body.

“No,” Ancho simply stated. “Precise cause of death was stroke brought on from fatal levels of stress that started mild before gradually escalating. The movement pattern suggests she was in a very deep trance.”

“Dumb sleepwalking from the sounds of it,” Safen grumbled, still believing it was from natural causes.

“No,” Melka the Medicham replied, politely correcting her as she focused her psychic powers on the deceased Cursola’s forehead. “Frendsi’s mental state was tampered with and she gradually became braindead before passing away. Her last memories appear to be in fragments, but what I’m piecing together is she was imagining herself trying to navigate through a maze of briar thorns and leeching vines. Eventually she gave up, ran into the wall, and just allowed them to devour her. These memory fragments correlate with her walking pattern in this dusty field.”

It was still hard for Safen to believe, as she felt this could have easily been just a freakish nightmare, much like a natural heart attack or a brain aneurism.

“There’s a rumor there’s a Stalker that’s known for this kind of modus operandi,” Melka stated, looking grim about the outcome. “I believe they call themselves ‘Labyrinth.’”

“Just a rumor,” Safen stated. “To me, this isn’t evidence of that and there isn’t anything here that says this was even a murder in the first place. Our vic here could have had a history of hallucinations or mental dementia and it finally caught up with her. No one knew her that well, did they? I sure didn’t.”

“She worked at the Prairie Bank,” Melka informed him. “Her boss Uraff might know something about that. Any medications she was taking or prior medical history.”

Safen nodded, but only for show. In truth, she had no intentions of asking Uraff anything. She wasn’t even convinced this was a murder to begin with, just a freak accident and likely a medical condition.

What she wanted was hard evidence, and until she had that, she wasn’t going to let this incident cause rumors about Stalkers and other hysteria. Until there was something that could prove it beyond all reasonable doubt, she was going to keep her doubts…

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