The Mind is trapped, but the Spirit is not.

He put the second ‘leg’ down, right beside his first one. He made one ‘step’ closer to the epicentre of the distortion.

He locked his thoughts on the silhouette.

The Mind is the Unknown. I have become aware of myself.

If I am aware of myself, I can perceive my Mind as it is.

If I can perceive it, I can control it.

If I can control it, I can shape it however I see fit.

The Mind is corrupted, the Spirit is not. I am what I am.

He stopped. The distance had no meaning to him. He could always reach his destination just by willing the desirable result.

The agitation between him and the enemy hanged as the tensest of threads, ready to snap from the slightest stir of any emotion. Neither could afford to hesitate. Neither could afford to lose.

On a technical level, Joseph had already lost the duel. His Mind found itself in a trap, with the Spirit as the only reminder of his own existence. The awareness of oneself shone as his guiding fae, paving the way through the grey cloud of disorder.

Towards his opponent.

The message was loud and clear.

The reason clung onto him still, as the uneasiness touched his heart. The shadow of the memory was so far, yet closer than ever before. He only had to reach his hand to claim his reward…

...But it was not the day for Evalyn to claim another victim.

The senses rushed at him all at once, his Mind stubbornly refused to dive into the dark. The fleeting feeling of false serenity was no more.

“Evalyn.”

The figure stood still, emanating the hollow light of its true nature onto his mindscape.

“J… o… s… e… p… h…”

He concentrated on his own feelings. Zaid’s teachings, feeble as they were, surfaced from the graveyard of his memories.

Perceive the enemy as the enemy. Nothing more, nothing less. Her influence spread across the Mind. The Mind, that belongs to me. Therefore, it is only my influence that can affect my own thoughts. Not hers. Not anybody else’s.

He ‘looked’ straight into the shadow’s ‘eyes’.

My Mind is my realm. I shape it.

The intruders do not belong in my realm.

I think, therefore I am. My awareness of myself influences the awareness of the world around.

Therefore, I can shape my Mind with my Spirit.

…It has to work.

No. It will work.

He closed his ‘eyes’. The tranquil flow flooded his senses, leading the confidence back to its owner. It was not about whether or not it should work.

Joseph full-heartedly believed it would. And it was more than enough indeed, as the light invaded his mindscape, scorching away the dark and wither. The abyss screamed in desperate agony, cleansed from the realm by its resolute ruler. The fog ran away as a coward right after, taking the confusion with itself. Gone were the clutches of madness. Standing was the conquest of reason.

The refreshed mindscape bloomed into the sight of inspiration, when stars and auroras laid the foundation where the abyss once was. The fog returned, along with the memories of the lazy, fluffy clouds on top of Ghastly Wail, with mountain peaks smiling in the perceived distance.

It seems that his Mind drew a piece of the Threshold from his memories as the base for his confidence. His Spirit chuckled, concluding for it be a fitting image.

Only one irregularity remained to deal with. The shadow’s jagged edges crumbled and waned, when the familiar face stepped out from the shell.

That green venom could not be mistaken for anything else.

They were both aware of each other’s spite. But while his enmity was honest and straightforward as a stone, Evalyn sprinkled hers with a sweet smile and a bright visage, both in Body and Mind. She lured her prey with honey and ambush, like a Venus flytrap. She spread the venom through the words and pain. She was the spider on a web.

And once caught, the fly struggled in vain until all the strength crumbled, leaving with the hope in tow. Joseph didn’t need to read her Mind to realise what Evalyn wanted to do with him.

Then there was only one way he could negotiate his way out.

“Evalyn… you are a bitch.”

“Wha-?”

The memory of the pistol laid in his ‘hand’. He pointed the barrel and pulled the trigger.

 

*****

 

The reality repainted itself back with a speed of light, when Joseph jerked his arm away from the pendant and jumped back a few steps. The remained energy fled from his body, collapsing his queasy frame right onto the floor.

“Kid?!”

His thoughts lacked any coherence in their core. The black leather curtain convinced him that it looked hilarious for some reason… Maybe it made some sense?…

The ceiling speeded away into the distance, stretching the reality around it into infinity. His body fell into the endless void. The floor was not a concern no more.

“Joe, what happened?!”

His peaceful descent was rudely interrupted by someone familiar. Ralf grabbed his shoulders and shook him a few times like he wanted to splat his brain across the entirety of the skull box.

Needless to say, the self-preservation galloped back hand-to-hand with his cognitive abilities.

“Enough, enough! I am not a cocktail, stop shacking me!”

Ralf let him go. Joe coughed a few times and felt like the weakness slowly retreated, giving him the treasure of clarity back. He pushed himself off the ground and set straight, taking a deep breath.

“Ralf… don’t look at that locket. Evalyn put a surprise onto it.”

The armsmaster glanced at the item despite his warning. Although, to Ralf’s credit, he reacted way quicker than Joseph could hope to. The cook winced and jerked his sight away with a painful expression.

“Joe, you've managed to save your sorry arse a second time on your own… we don’t want your continuous encounters with the Mind-bending trickery to become a habit now, do we?”

Joseph shook his head. Now that his Mind recovered and fought off the fatigue, he readily admitted to himself that he had not a speck of an idea as to what he was even doing. Every single action within his Mind was fuelled by his survival instinct and his drive to do something. Anything. He threw a wrench at the wall and hoped for it to pierce the dartboard, despite the common logic and reason voting otherwise. Hoped, that the maddening logic of Magic or the Threshold, however it was working, would show him the way somehow.

Reason, ha-ha… And to think I was so confident that it would get me out…

The nervous laugh betrayed his inner monologue. Ralf tiredly grinned.

“I hate Mages, kid. Roth is a good man, but I’ve had my fair share of encounters with those scumbags. Never again would I shake the arm of the practitioner of the unknown that isn’t named Roth. Well, maybe one or two are still on my ‘good men’ list… How’re you feeling now?”

Joseph tried to smile. The result mirrored Ralf’s almost one-to-one.

“Better… is your body the reason why you hate Mages?”

The armsmaster lifted his right arm up and scanned it like he had never noticed it existing before.

“This?… No, not really. The bloat is my birth condition… How it came to be, even doctors had no idea.”

Ralf stood up. His back straightened, his shoulders squared, his fists hit his sides. With that pose, he could pose like a president of a country. The torchlight enveloped him in the veil of brightness.

“Listen here, Joseph! No matter how hard life breaks your knees, no matter how many rogues try to claim what belongs to you, don’t stay and wallow in your own tears! Cry if you must, but then drown the foes in them all the same! The condition I got has nothing on me! I am exercising every single day, consuming the healthiest food a pirate can get, putting my brain into work all the time by fixing rifles, checking cannons, and cooking! You can’t go wrong with cooking! It’s the meditative technique, practised by the ancient cave people, that!… That…”

Ralf cut off his election speech and started coughing.

“Anyway…” the cook chuckled. “You get the point. Karl is dead, and his death was not the prettiest. Evalyn is onto you now, and you almost got caught by her again. Don’t let it bother you more than it needs to. Use it as fuel for your plan. The plan, that sends one clear message - Don’t. Screw. With me. Give yourself time to get your skull box into one piece, and get a move on!”

Ralf reached out his hand.

“Here’s my word, Joseph. Whatever your plans are - I will help you accomplish them. That mercenary had a point - the ending for the age of piracy is long overdue. For four years, ‘Morning Star’ was furrowing the void…”

Joseph grabbed the hand. Ralf laid his second one on top of Joseph’s.

“...Too long. We all gotta move on, someday. Shame that Xander doesn’t understand that. But I do. Wanna find your home together?”

“Sounds like a confession to me. Where are the rings?”

Ralf laughed and pulled Joe up from the cold ground.

The pale corpse of the Ghastly Wail owner measured them with the empty sockets. Joseph slowly walked over to the body and closed the eyelids.

“Rest in peace, Karl. I hope your next life will not end on the same note.”

The armsmaster glanced aside in his direction and gently nodded.

“The old bastard deserves a way better send-off than that. We need to get back and shake these assholes down for more clues. Digging Evalyn out from her hole and burying her in this very chair will make for a worthy funeral gift.”

“For sure. I just hope nothing went down on the surface while we were here.”

Ralf gathered his lips into a line.

“Don’t Curse the Fate while it sleeps, kid…”

“I thought you weren’t superstitious?”

“Magic exists.”

Such reasoning was an unbeatable opponent for Joe. He accepted defeat and followed Ralf towards the exit, when the armsmaster raised his hand, signalling him to stop. Then, rapidly gestured to him to fall back behind the curtain.

The rapid-paced steps echoed through the cave, supported by the rough voices that Joe had never heard before.

“Why didn’t Evalyn herself clean up the body?! She could’ve just burned him, and that would be the end of that!”

“Ponder more, champ. I don’t have the slightest. Let’s get it done and prepare for the actual work.”

A couple of humans in black stopped after they passed the steel gate and pulled out their pistols. Neither said a single word. Joseph could figure out their location only by the shadows their fouder lantern cast on the walls.

But they were definitely aware of potential intruders. Joseph held his breath when one of the mercenaries approached the corner that served as his cover, spreading the sharp alcoholic smell from his mouth.

“Fuck!!!”

Someone screamed from the entrance.

A loud bang thundered throughout the cave. The mercenary turned around.

There was no time to think. Joe grabbed the first weapon he could find on his own body.

The man in black dashed away, when Joseph jumped forward, choked the foe with his left arm and stabbed the mercenary with Ralf’s knife right into the neck.

The foe tried to tear himself out of Joseph’s grasp with a shocking level of strength. They both collapsed on the ground, with the mercenary fighting back with the never-before-seen vigour, ignoring the wound altogether.

The rapid beating of the enemy’s heart hammered Joseph's body. The pulsating warmth touched his glove. The sharp hit pierced his stomach, knocking the breath out. Joe grit his teeth and poured every last bit of his energy into ripping out the knife.

The man released a gargling sound. His limbs shuddered a few times and went limp. Joseph laid on the warm body, trying to find his lost air.

The only sound knocking into his ears was his own pulse.