Before he hit a bed, his Mind marched adamant with the idea of Evalyn being the sure culprit behind the subterfuge of the System and behind scrambling his brain processes. After the rest, his vengeful Spirit slowed down and he got the opportunity to rethink his hasty conclusions. He still went to Roth for the information, in case it might save his backside in the future, but the longer he investigated the details of the last night, the more he doubted his own accusation. Evalyn and her mercenaries were not his friends, that was a guarantee, but the question of her true capabilities remained open.

Even then, he had no desire to see her face anywhere within a hundred-kilometre radius.

Stone buildings of old, polished brick shacks, shy huts made of wood conducted their way forward, towards the tavern at the end of the trampled, vast road. The road itself stretched from the west to the east, serving as the main connector between landmarks and as the main street, all at once. The wind lightly pushed Joe ahead. Another group of people in black passed by, almost touching shoulders with the ‘Morning Star’ duo. The dark, raunchy jokes lingered in the atmosphere, supported by the light trail of wine.

Joe and Ralf followed the group with their sight, until thugs dived behind a corner. Ralf sniffed the air.

“I smell something fishy.”

“Literally?”

Ralf’s grimace resembled that of a wary dog.

“Not sure yet. Outside of these black clowns, we have seen only a couple of honest sailors. An unusual activity so soon during a day, on Mad Festival. I might be wrong…”

Ralf bit his lip.

“...Let’s keep going. I need to clear my head before I start blasting anyone who looks at me the wrong way.”

The cook hurried towards the familiar building at the end of the road. Joseph glanced around and followed suit.

The ‘Rattlebones’ greeted their arrival with an unnerving silence. The floor had so much empty space compared to yesterday, Joe felt shivers in a moment. Only a few people found their sanctuary here this afternoon, with a grim wardrobe-built man watching them from the bar counter.

“You want anything, kid? I’ll treat you today, no problem.”

Joseph had no inclination for getting drunk early in a day. That, and a faint inner voice whispered to him that he could use a clear head during his stay in Ghastly Wail. Joe found the advice reasonable.

“Just water, or something non-alcoholic, if there is anything.”

Ralf’s brows rose up for a moment, but then the cook simply nodded and approached the bartender. Joe sat down in a chair at the table they used yesterday, put his hands together and lay his chin on them, thinking.

Two Mages. Maybe. Both times the Inner State detected an interference of some kind. The first time, it rebooted into the Safe Mode, preventing him and Stats from confronting the presence. The second time, the System went apeshit, spamming red messages and letting the attack overwhelm his defences. If Understanding did not hold out for as long as he did back then…

Wait a second.

I heard you, brother. I have no idea, truly! We wouldn’t be able to hide anything from you - we are part of your being, remember? What you know, we know. What you don’t know, we can’t know.

Joe was claiming a lie on that. Stats already proved to be capable of independent action apart from his own desires.

Action, brother! There is a difference. You and the System still have the authority on anything we can do. If you order us to acquire knowledge, we will, but then you’d learn about it too the moment we complete the task. We depend on you. Both you and the Inner State. By the way, you should check the Status.

What happened?!

Just… see for yourself.

His blood froze. What else the attack mauled inside of him?…

He took a few deep breaths, trying to steady himself. The embers of inner anxiety made it a challenge in its own right. After the eternity of forcing his Mind to shift the focus away from worrying about the possible damage, and onto actually looking into himself, he finally broke through right into his Inner State.

He saw the problem immediately. The entire Status screen glitched out with torn shades of green, white, and red, like his computer during the agony of the GPU, with only one sensible message hanging across the middle of the gruesome junkyard of visual artefacts.

Data Corrupted. Non-compatible sources. Error 000 - AD.

It seems that the System is still operational, but for some reason, it cannot correctly process the information, and some kind of source has something to do with it… At this point, I can only use my coding experience and pray that this mystical mumbo-jumbo, disguised as an application, works like I think it does.

A programmer he may had been, he had no qualifications for the alien brain-installed software that was capable of accessing his body functions in full, along with going forward and producing self-aware personalities just because he pressed a wrong button. He could only guess and poke various parts, hoping that he stumbles upon the fix blindly. Which would make him no different from a user that tries to read a code without knowing any basics.

The ghoulish chuckle reflected his overall state without any need for the Status screen.

Open Stats screen.

The screen stirred, stretched, and screamed with a screeching sound. Joe gritted his teeth as the noise drilled into his brain. After the torturous transition, glitches returned with the vengeance and some more graphical gore, with the same exact text in tow.

Data Corrupted. Non-compatible sources. Error 000 - AD.

Manual. This time, the sound didn’t catch him off guard. Still, he would never call it a relaxing experience either.

The message on the screen gave him a taste of disappointment. Same old ‘Data Corrupted’.

System, can I do anything even?

Data Corrupted. User functions unavailable. Self-Repair does not detect the issue. Safe Mode unavailable. Debug Mode enabled. Maintenance unavailable. Connection with Database available. Unable to download recovery data. Unable to recognize the extension of processed information. Processed information has an unknown source.

What is Error 000 - AD?

Unable to process the request. No information available.

Joseph grabbed his head in frustration. Whether it was the mental invasion or not, the information he had on hand seemed to paint a sinister picture. The System got smashed into the wreck beyond recovery. The pain clawed him on the deepest level - seeing software in the state of agony brought him some colourful flashbacks from the not-so-distant past.

Relying on himself would be his only indication of progress from now on, or until he discovers a patch for his problem. Still, if his Mind kept the benefits of the Inner State even without relying on numbers, he would not object in the slightest. His memory worked as pristinely as before, his body seemed to retain the physical bonuses during the morning exercise and a long walk to the settlement, which meant that the strings of visible confirmation suffered the biggest casualties. Thank Kon’jar for that.

Nothing else to do in his mangled Inner State. He let it go.

“You fell asleep, kid?” he heard the inquiring voice at his side, along with loud approaching steps. “Here, got some refreshments for you. Had to pay double, you know!”

“Thank you, Ralf.” The thoughts about the glitches stood in a way of expressing his full gratitude, but the cook seemed to have understood.

The drink in the cup Ralf gave to him had a deep crimson colour to it. The stern odour of mint pumped the energy into his overwhelmed ball of nerves even before he tested the taste of the liquid. The volatile mix of something resembling mandarin, remarkable stimuli of before-mentioned mint, coupled with the sweetness of… an apple(? Joe had mixed opinions on that odd one out) streamed down his throat. The sun hid its shy face behind prideful puffy clouds, who then chased the gleam of light away from the tavern.

“What’s on your mind, sailor?” he heard Ralf asking.

Joseph put his thoughts into words and laid them out. The cook did not interrupt once, only speaking after the last word escaped from Joe’s mouth.

“I see. You have two schmucks who seek to make your life a strife. One of them is within our reach. That’s very good.”

The glint of crimson in Ralf’s eyes enveloped the figure of the armsmaster with a dark aura.

“I have something to tell too. Remember when I said that I found some things?”

“Of course,” Joseph nodded.

“Somebody hid a stash of weapons inside of the fishing shack at the west side of Ghastly Wail. Not just any weapons either - I’ve got toys that I’ve never seen before. There were only a few of them, and the shack was ransacked just hours before I stepped inside, I’m sure of it. The dust hasn’t even settled properly.”

Joseph furrowed his forehead.

“Could it be contraband of some sort? A fishing shack is not the safest place for valuables, is it?”

“Not if that place is long forgotten. The fishing shack had been in use several years ago, when Ghastly Wail was a simple hideout. Nowadays, if one wants to catch something in this boiling pot, he would bring his own rod.”

“Do we have any idea who the stash belongs to?”

Ralf’s hand grabbed a bottle. The man himself didn’t react to his own gesture until the glass poked beneath his lips. Ralf’s eyes widened slightly, and he put it back down.

“Ideas are endless, Joe… question is, who is lucky… or has enough know-whos to bring armaments that look like hand-held cannons right here. Armaments, most likely ripped, or traded, from the clutches of the Empire. And why? If they wanted to sell them, they would’ve done it ages ago, I think. Ain’t no use letting them eat the dust in the dark corner.”

Joseph drew only one conclusion from Ralf’s explanation.

“They are stashed there for their direct purpose, then.”

The cook scratched his chin. The floating expression told Joe that Ralf had other ideas.

“Might be. Might be not. Tell you what, Joe. Wanna join me in a bazaar patrol?”

“You want to check if somebody is selling them?”

Ralf nodded.

“Pretty much. I did promise to show you some trustworthy folks earlier too. Time to fulfil it.”

“Shouldn’t we grab whatever’s left in the stash first?”

“Good idea,” the cook gestured his agreement. “Let us not waste the time, then. Are you done?”

“All done here. What is this drink anyway?”

Ralf chuckled.

“A milk from a certain Threshold spawned abomination that looks like a white pig with horns, mixed with mint and pentaari fruit. Don’t make that face kid, it’s the best refresher you’ll ever get in these parts, aside from Grutch. And not only here - Forgotten Ridge sells gallons of this milk for unimaginable profit. Old Daniel knows his stuff, right?”

The cook waved to the gloomy man behind the bar counter, who answered with a cold, sharp nod.

“As sunny as ever. Let’s move out.”

They left the tavern behind. Their pace was not one of a courier on a horse, but one of a hunting predator, looking for any signs of lurking movement. The sky marched with the battalions of grey, guarding the sun against the face of the land. The wind streamed down the alleyway, ravaging Joseph’s body and raising dust clouds on their way. The island of rogues and creeping shadows was fully intent on showing what its name stood for.

The lonely sailors here and there accentuated the lack of laughter and excitement that the last night wallowed in. A grey rhevalian glanced at their duo near another wall tower and turned away before Joseph could investigate his face.

The pathetic ruins of a brick structure stood as the ultimate reminder of the night well spent. Kon’jar statue looked at the scene with its elaborate silence, still in one piece, with an increased number of bottles at its base. An arid and a mimic played cards on the ground underneath the shadow of the War Deity.

Life was marching on. Yet, why Ghastly Wail wore a mask so colourless?