A powerful force practically pushed him to confront him about it. Joseph silently grit his teeth and shooed the force away. Imagining the worse time for a history trivia would grind the gears in his brains to a complete stop, and he needed them in working condition for the day ahead. So he grabbed a bottle instead and downed the juicy cocktail.

“I knew that,” he growled. The bottle wanted to slip from his fingers, dangerously hanging between his ring finger and his palm. “I do not understand - what’s it to you? The ‘Morning Star’ you cherished is still there, it’s only that the symbols of old became rusty and bothersome, so they had to go. You consider pirates as sub-people, mate? Want to look in a mirror?”

The arid jumped up, tossing the chair away. The bottles on the table shuddered and stumbled down in miserable cacophony. The whispers flooded the tavern, when the sea of eyes ate the scene with the appetite of a hungry dragon.

“What did you say?! Who is the sub-human here?! Wanna repeat the last night, you piece of shit?!”

Evalyn’s image came roaring back, bringing his humiliation as a companion. Joseph shut his eyes.

Fuck off, woman. I have nothing more to say to you.

He could practically hear the demeaning giggle.

His eyes opened to witness an interesting picture. Four mercenaries glanced around, with not a single drop of panic in their movements. None of them paid much attention to their hurt comrade, who stood in front of Joe’s face, leaned on the table, and tried to burn him on spot with the glare that could serve as a nuclear weapon.

He should have been intimidated, frankly. But instead, a small cold flame arose within his Spirit. Pity was the name of the flame, and he found no hostility within himself.

“You really care about our reputation that much, huh?” he sighed, slouching back just as Ralf did before. “What are your plans for the night, then? I’m sure Ralf wouldn’t mind answering all the questions you have, why not drink with us?”

The armsmaster nodded. The arid shivered. The realization became more and more apparent in the mercenary’s posture.

“The night?… I… we are…”

The grey rhevalian grabbed the arid’s arm from his seat. The baffled horned mercenary shuddered and turned his head around.

The brown man intervened.

“We are going to watch the fireworks tonight, friends. I am sorry, today is off-limits. We gotta-”

“We were not asking you, we were asking the person over there, friend.”

Ralf did not hold back. The mercenary’s brows twitched.

The arid collapsed into his chair, catching his runaway breath.

“...Yeah, the fireworks. It would be nice to talk… but I cannot…”

Joseph cursed within his Mind. It was such a good moment!..

“Why not?” Ralf saluted with the empty bottle. “It’s a rare opportunity, after all. Might not get another one, mate!”

The hostility emanated from the grey rhevalian, intense enough to beat the summer heat. Joseph caught someone staring from the corner of his eye. He looked up and crossed gazed with the wild-haired man. Joe sent him a questioning nod.

“Joseph…” the man began, slowly straining words. “Are you, perhaps, a Mage…?”

The Mind emptied itself in confusion.

“...Where did that come from?”

The mercenary studied his reaction, then shrugged.

“No, nevermind. I was wrong. I thought Evalyn was interested in you, but I guess not.”

“She has interest in Mages?”

“Similar attracts similar, you know,” the ‘brown hair’ answered from the side. “Just like pirates and mercenaries.”

“I thought the phrase was ‘opposites attract’”, Ralf chuckled. “Pirates and mercenaries have only a coin and a bullet as common threads.”

The background voices returned back to their usual business. The bald man ran a hand along the top of his shiny head.

“That is true. But would you prefer to be a target of many or a target of one? Piracy is a gamble. ‘Firelight’ is a business. I’d rather not look down the barrels of Navy each time we travel through the Threshold. I already lost the hair on my head, cannot afford to lose the one below the belt too!”

The arid stiffened his giggle, while the grey rhevalian only shook his head.

“It’s just as he said. After all, it’s only a matter of time before Admiralty will start getting all itchy from the mosquito bites…”

The dragoncat coughed and continued.

“Hear my advice - take the Royal Pardon you got and leave the pirate life for good.”

Ralf and Joseph raised their eyebrows.

“How do you know that?” Ralf furrowed his forehead.

The background voices disappeared like ghosts on a silent graveyard. The light on the ceiling twitched and drowned mercenaries’ faces in shadows.

“I mean, it’s obvious, right? We got the same document,” the wild-haired man smiled. The smile could pass as genuine, but Joseph had better ideas.

“Why would you?” the armsmaster stabbed the mercenary with his gaze. “You are a legal company, registered in all necessary and unnecessary Imperial papers. This Pardon applies only to ‘illegal thieving parties’. The bureaucracy of Sumeilien, abhorrent as it is, does not make mistakes of that kind. So, do tell me, before I get angry and loud about a spy in our quiet Ghastly Wail.”

The man with the brown hair laughed.

“A spy, you say? Simply because we know about the Pardon? Friend, this paper was rumoured to be in the works for months. Her Imperial majesty needs soldiers for the war. What better way than to hire her enemies to do the work for her, am I right?”

“What kind of rumours are you speaking of?”

“The usual… folks whispering, newspapers spreading foggy foreshadowings, clients dropping a word or two… Friend, come now. Is it seriously that suspicious that we know about the paper? Any smart man worth their salt would guess it, with the way things are going in the Capital.”

“But you are standing as far away from a smart man as Ghastly Wail does from the Capital.”

That cold smile could freeze the steaming lake in moments. Unfortunately, the mercenary only rolled his eyes in response.

“Picking a fight over an argument you cannot win? One classy move. Nothing I wouldn’t expect from a pirate, Ralf Howlung.”

A shock drilled through Joseph’s body when Ralf nodded, genuinely agreeing with the mercenary’s words. The cook stood up, walked over to Joseph’s side and grabbed a bottle that the grey rhevalian was holding. The confused dragoncat stared at the giant man with wide eyes, when Ralf tore the bottle out of the mercenary’s hands. The dark liquid inside streamed down into his mouth, practically illuminated by the burning gazes, emanating from the group in black.

“You drink this?” he shook his head and looked inside the bottle. Hesitated, and turned it upside down, catching the last drops with his tongue. “This shit even hobos in Red Hills wouldn’t touch. Tells a lot about where your minds truly are. So, here’s the deal, gentlemen. We can play a long game, toss meaningless wordings and jokes each other’s ways, and waste our time for nought. Would you like that? I know I wouldn’t.”

He twirled the bottle around his thumb and gently laid it back on the table to its fallen comrades, which suffered from the arid’s outburst before.

“Your presence spells trouble for Ghastly Wail. Don’t avert your eyes, you dirty street rat… or cat, whatever. You have been near the tower this afternoon, and I want to know the exact reason why. Right now, right here. If I smell even a pinch of a lie, you are dead to me. If your comrades will chime in at any moment, you are dead to me. Are we clear?”

The grey rhevalian kept his face still. His companions did not make a single move against the two of them.

Joseph slowly put his hand on the belt. His fingers travelled down and found the grip of the fouder revolver.

“Are we clear?” Ralf repeated. He did not raise his voice, nor did his tone sound particularly threatening, at least to Joe. Yet, the mercenaries froze in place all the same. The whispers invaded their broken circle, intensifying with every passing second.

“What’s the commotion, big man?” a butch female voice reached their little corner from afar.

“These ‘Firelight’-s here had been snooping around the hub this morning and afternoon. The previous night their boss Evalyn shoved her slimy tendrils into the Mind of my crewmate. I will not stand for that.”

The big, warm hand laid down on Joseph’s shoulder.

“I have a feeling these five are up to no good. Therefore, I want to ask them a few questions as the honest citizen of Ghastly Wail…”

A few laughs burst across the first floor of the tavern.

“...Just so we can clear their consciousness and our own, if they truly mean no harm to the fine people here. Which is why I only want to know - what reasons did you have for visiting Karl’s headquarters yesterday, ambling around the north guard tower this afternoon, and scouting the entire settlement through this day? Give me honest answers, and we all go home happy.”

Joseph could only delight in Ralf’s audacity. Any lawyer worth his money would annihilate the hollow accusations with a snap of his fingers.

Visited Karl? ‘Hold on a second, where is the proof that it was our group? Where is the proof of our visit in the first place? Denied!’

Ambling around guard tower? ‘Excuse me, who are you and why do you think you can tell me what to do in this place, that has no laws to begin with? Next!’

Scouting the settlement? ‘Mad Festival is here, what else are we supposed to do? Begone, idiot!”

Not to mention beating the confession out under duress.

Ralf had no ground to stand on, yet he imagined himself walking, and successfully at that. The mercenaries clumped together at the table, looking at the sailors with calm conviction, yet not saying a single word to counter Ralf’s manoeuvres.

“Ar’ Y’r s’re y’r not ov’rreacting, Howlung?” the grouchy voice of another arid cut through the air like a blade. The accent whipped Joseph’s ears, causing him to sneer.

“That might be, but why they are not saying a squeak of a word? Shouldn’t be that hard to refute me if their intentions are innocent, don’t you think, Nikos?”

The arid grumbled something positive and responded with a short nod.

“And here is something else I’ve got. The day before yesterday, we ran into ‘Thunder Blade’, the ‘dragon’ class ship under the command of Amelia Wolfhound. We got away. Then we decided to bring the news to the meeting, and told our crew to keep their tongues from going wide before then. Not a single soul should be aware of that encounter at all.”

“...Besides military?” the butch voice returned, with jagged notes within.

“Exactly.”

The melody stopped. The entire tavern fell into stasis.

Ralf spat bullshit through his teeth. Yet, even Joe, who remembered that exchange with George and Rayk yesterday, almost believed the lies this man spread around. Joseph grinned inwardly.

The mercenaries did not appreciate the attention. The arid glanced around with a wavy smile. The grey rhevalian furrowed his forehead, slowly scanning the crowd. The bald guy held an awkward grin, with visible sweat rolling down his shiny skin.

The outliers caught Joseph’s attention. The man with the wild hair had no fear on his face. Hell, one would think that he went out to shop for breakfast instead of sitting in a pit of spikes, where a wrong twitch would spell Death in a fleeting instant.

The guy with the brown hair, the one Joe dubbed ‘Negotiator’, demonstrated a half-smile. Joseph focused and found it to be shimmering with a subtle smugness, so faint, you wouldn’t even realise it is there without looking at the man’s confident posture.

Quite an unusual demeanour for a man who is looking down at no less than fifty barrels of pain, potentially.

“What’s hangin’, folks? Answ’r to uncle Howlung and roll back home like docile kids. He is a kind man despite lookin’ like a slab of fat, am I right?”

Ralf only smiled at the horned sailor’s words.

“Very kind.”

The mercenaries left arid’s call without an answer. Some sailors stood up and walked closer to the walls, freeing the space around the table.