The staircase to the second floor shuddered and threatened them with a creaking note. Its threat fell into the void since there was nothing useful, aside from more footsteps of mysterious origin.

Or not so mysterious, Joseph?

Even a five-year-old kid would connect these dots. Who else could be here not too long ago, hm-m?

The stench on the first floor lost its vigour. Or Joseph got used to it. Either way, neither he, nor Ralf, could dig up anything discriminating other than a single pile of ancient, dirty clothes in the far corner of the house.

The armsmaster scratched his head.

“We’ve searched both storeys. The footprints and that trash pile don’t tell a whole lot, Joe. Should we move to the tower, then?”

Joseph furrowed his brows and walked back and forth. Was this place a dud? A distraction? He visited two aggressively anti-sanitary dwellings within a single day, and both times their opponents foiled their triumph. At least the finishing shack had a hatch underneath the-

The hatch!

It could be their chance.

“Ralf, remember the hatch at the fishing shack?”

“Say no more, kid.”

They descended down the staircase. Ralf pulled out the pistol and began to knock on the walls with its grip. After a couple of minutes, he stopped at the furthest wall from the entrance, exactly above the rags.

“Kid, listen!”

The sound was disappearing into nothingness right behind the wall. Joseph and Ralf nodded to each other, took a step back and slammed their shoulders into the wall.

The piece of grey brick wall rammed into the side, outing itself as a disguised door. The opened passage breathed its foul odour and revealed another staircase, leading down into the darkness.

Ralf inhaled the air around him. Joseph’s Mind shortcircuited from such a reckless disregard of one’s health.

“That smells different.”

Joe recovered. Somewhat.

“Different how?”

The armsmaster glanced down the passage and shrugged.

“We will see, I gather. You know what, Joe? Let’s close all the doors behind us, just to be sure. Then we go down there.”

As much as his instincts hysterically argued against both ideas, Joseph decided that he could rely on Ralf’s experience in such grizzly endeavour.

The preparations passed by in a fleeting moment, reminding him of the dreadful descent ahead of them. Ralf placed his leg on the first step. The wide bulwark of a man prowled down, with a gun in his hand. Joseph exhaled and took out his own.

His own first move recoiled into the body like an electron current. His heart galloped in a desperate attempt to escape from the prison of bones. Joseph grit his teeth and forced his leg to land on the next stair.

Then the other leg onto another step. And another one. And another.

The way down barely took a minute. The steel gate the size of a small door ceased their progress, enjoying the protection of the rusty chain, until Ralf rammed the bars hard enough to snap the chain in half. The rusty hinges clamoured from the indignation, but allowed the duo to pass through. Joseph closed the gate behind them.

As he laid his sight on the scene in front of him, a small room presented itself. Or rather, a small cave, almost perfectly round in shape. Whatever force hollowed this space out, the smell of that force had a stench far surpassing the physical stink of the house.

In other words, nothing good could ever come out from meeting that force. And Ralf seemed to agree with him.

“This ain’t no work of a human. A beast, perhaps. A Mage? Probably.”

“Evalyn?”

The very name almost physically wormed into his brain. The cook’s mouth shifted into a thin line.

“Would make a lot of sense. I know not about other Mages on Ghastly Wail, except… nevermind. I reckon you are correct, kid. Let’s check this out. Whatever this is…”

These words referred to a large leather curtain in the middle of the cave. The black sheet stretched across all four directions in a square formation, guarding the core from the outside world.

It was long enough to wallow on the ground. And long enough to reach the very ceiling. The hooks that hung this black monstrosity grinned in the darkness, picked out by the torchlight. Someone literally launched them with a great speed, and pierced the soil hard enough for hooks to settle on the ceiling, judging by little cracks around their bodies.

Joseph briefly thought that they wouldn’t be out of place in a slaughterhouse. He lowered his eyes and sneered.

“What is this, a bomb?”

Ralf shrugged and touched the leather with his finger.

“A golden quality. It’s practically new. Whatever’s behind this curtain, it better not be something dumb. I’m going to cry.”

“Says you in a monotone voice.”

Ralf grinned.

“We can sell the leather later, anyway. Ready?”

Joseph nodded and grabbed the edge of the curtain.

“Three, two… one!”

They tossed the leather curtain up and dived underneath.

Joseph’s body staggered and froze, as the view behind the curtain formed into the clear picture. His stomach rebelled, the words left his entire being, escaping in haste. The set of letters he released was hardly a competent comment, but a desperate resolution.

“...Jesus fucking Christ!!..”

Ralf looked marginally better, but even his confidence took a hit.

“So that’s where he was… I don’t know what that Jesus thing is, though… a Deity of some kind?.. Nevermind. Karl, Joseph. Joseph, seems like Karl will not be able to shake your hand today.”

While Joe felt immense gratitude for Ralf’s attempt to provide some levity over his shock, his Mind stubbornly refused to acknowledge the presence of the room, the cave, and the person in the middle of said room.

Finally, he managed to muster enough Spirit and fully analyze the situation.

The pale husk of a muscle-bound man laid in an iron chair. Iron cuffs kept the body from falling, grabbing it by the wrists and the legs. The dark spot surrounded the chair, enlightened by the burning candles on the floor. The wax sticks formed a circle around Karl, as if the perpetrators prepared the body for a twisted ritual. Joseph grimaced and turned away, looking for literally anything else to focus his thoughts on. His sight stumbled upon a small wooden table by the left side of the chair. The body separated Joe and the derelict piece of furniture, painted by the faint stains on the surface.

He shuddered. Ralf, meanwhile, closed in on the body and leaned forward, inspecting it. Joseph growled and slowly walked closer too, trying not to look at the victim for too long.

The cook pulled out a sword, put it on a stomach and bent the edges of the wound in the same place.

“He was not here for long. The body had barely begun to decompose. Less than a day, maybe. I don’t even see maggots yet, weirdly enough.”

Ralf glanced around.

“Or any flies at all. Hm.”

Joseph slid down the body with his eyes, fighting nausea the entire way through. Wounds were but small pins on the map of the torturer’s malevolent creativity, who shattered the knees of the man to the point where the bone pieces were sticking out. Whatever did this job didn’t even consider itself above mutilating the private parts of the person.

The hollow eye sockets burrowed into Joseph’s soul. Joe stumbled back in haste, frantically looking for something else to keep his Mind on. He picked out a locket on Karl’s neck, left behind for whatever reason.

His consciousness shattered in two. One half wanted to run outside and wash the memory away with several barrels of Grutch. Another half, while mortified, considered diving into the thinking pattern of the sadist to find the reasoning behind the torture - the idea, which Joseph protested with unbelievable zeal. Trying to put oneself into the shoes of the abomination, who would willingly inflict the agony on a scale of that would never end well.

…But cursed be that day when he dropped into the world. The day, when his curiosity became the excuse for his eagerness to dive headfirst into every single burning well on his way. Salvaging the sensible explanation for the actions of a maniac was a task, that made building the nuclear reactor from duct tape and a pipe sound comparable to a picnic in Hawaii.

And yet. And yet!…

“Ralf… do you think they were just… having fun with him?”

The armsmaster lifted his widened eyes.

“What makes you say that all of the sudden?!”

Joseph licked his lips. His tongue felt like it ran along a sharp part of a saw-blade.

“There is… might be… no point in damaging the man to that extent, then leaving him underground for no one to find. It feels like.. the one who did it… didn’t need the information, but satisfaction…”

He took a deep breath. His stomach calmed down somewhat, but saying these words dropped a lot of weight on his body.

The locket grabbed his attention again. There was something about it that he couldn’t let go of. His eyes hung on the item for a little longer.

“You might be onto something…” he heard a distant voice, belonging to someone. Maybe it was Ralf?.. “But… no. No, it’s the opposite. They wanted us to find it, I bet. That’s why they left it behind. Either that, or they never cared about the body at all!”

His thoughts clouded and felt like they gained physical weight…

…The room?… It didn’t really interest him anymore…

The body?… Which body?… Only locket was there, hanging in the midair. He stood in front of the item. The locket called to him with a sweet voice, that dripped around his ears like the sweetest honey he ever tasted.

“Joseph…”

The dark grey ambient concealed his fear. There was nothing to worry about in the stillness. Nothing to be afraid of in the dark fog. It was just him and the female silhouette in the distance.

The call led him forward.

...Yet…

The room… where is… the body?…

His ‘leg’ hesitated to make that step.

Karl… torture… No. This place… it’s not what I think it is…

His ‘hands’ fell down alongside his body. The strong tug ceased his hesitation, with the powerful sense of deja vu confirming his faint suspicions.

The Mind Magic… The confines of the Mind… The awareness of the world… But not the awareness of oneself.

The wavy ambient lost its ambiguity. The horizon between the ground of madness and the fog of reason solidified. The abyss beneath refused to drown him in the eternal darkness, while the grey fog accepted the light, painting the shadow of a woman in perceptible shapes.

He knew who he was facing now. The line was drawn. He became aware of the boundary.