Sailors, rogues, and other nicest people of society were indulging in their vices, not even caring that Joe stood near the sculpture. A couple of pumped drunks unloaded their pistols into the skies, which earned them cheering from an equally enthusiastic crowd. Someone brought a load of paper rockets on sticks and tried to light them up.

Joe backed away from the danger zone.

The first firework rained the sparks down. An arid and a dragoncat, that got these fireworks in the first place, nodded and prepared a lighter to send the second one into the night.

The second rocket proved to be a stubborn one. It turned around and ignored skies altogether, charged into the wooden hut at the edge of the square and exploded into a ball of fire right near the window.

“Water! Water!!!”

The screams of panic merged with the thunderous laughter.

Joe glanced around. He felt like someone was staring at him from beneath an archway.

Nobody was there. Maybe he was getting a bit paranoid. Just a bit…

Another curious sight walked in front of him.

Xander and Iliana rambled by his spot. Or rather, Iliana was marching forward while Xander strode behind the orange rhevalian.

Now… how would his quartermaster respond to his ‘student’ stalking them?

It was time to find out!

Joe lowered the hood over his eyes, pulled the Archrhyder coat closer and dived into the crowd.

*****

“...and then he screamed, ‘Enemies!!!’! I’m turning my eyes around, and waaah! - there is a ship, armored like a tin can, with golden bars all over! Rayk shits right on spot, runs to George, we get our rifles up…”

Joe was disappointed.

He was following the pair for ten minutes and during the entire time, Iliana was the spark that kept the ‘conversation’ fired up. If Xander talked, he would do his best to limit himself to a short sentence or two. Or even worse - simply nod without even a basic comment. Even when his partner asked to tell her his story in turn, Xander would default to something boring and tasteless on the level of a sword sparring or crew training.

No wonder this idiot couldn’t get a girl. He had no casual conversational skills at all!

But at least Iliana’s tales brought Joe himself a lot of fun. From hearing about an Anomaly that makes unfortunate victims suffer from diarrhea (the entire month!), to the borderline heroic epic about running away from guards in one imperial town, just because her brother Rayk robbed a brothel, Joe was absorbing the stories with the same level of enthusiasm as if he was drinking a premium Swedish beer.

Joe glanced at Iliana. Her short tail was wiggling back and forth, hitting her own legs with a noticeable amount of force.

“Hey, Zan, wanna go to ‘Rattlebones’ and celebrate?”

Xander froze mid-step.

“Celebrate what?”

“Your discoveries?… Your return to Ghastly Wail after several months of the voyage? Argh, do we really need a reason?! Mad Festival is now!”

Oh. She got dangerous notes in her tone.

Joe shook his head. He felt pity for the desperate woman.

But this brick wall was going to take a very advanced battering ram to crumble.

Xander pondered, then nodded.

“I am not against it.”

Joe sat down on a wooden floor, leaned on the nearest wall and pretended to be a drunk, lost reject of a good society. He was hiding on a porch of a building, hoping that the quartermaster would pay more attention to Iliana rather than to his surroundings.

The pair of dragoncats paced past his spot. From the very corner of his eye, Joe saw Xander looking in his direction. He tried to calm down his traitorous breath.

I am just a sleeping drunkard, nothing to see here, nothing to see…

Good thing that The Oblivious One had someone else with him.

After a couple of minutes passed, Joe stood up.

The ‘Rattlebones’ had three floors. The third floor took a part of the wall, with this part becoming a wide balcony of sorts. There, the builders of the tavern placed a terrace that provided a stunning view at the steaming underground lake and the horizon beyond. The only part they didn’t take into consideration was the searing amount of water vapour, making spending time there during daylight an unbearable challenge.

But each time the night took the reign over the land, the breezy air over the terrace soothed the atmosphere. The warmth of the place provided the perfect scenario for a date, despite all those rogues around the spot.

Joe didn’t risk going to the terrace. Not because he dreaded the punishment from Xander - there wouldn’t be any punishment, because the man wasn’t even aware what he and Iliana were actually doing - but because Joe himself feared that he would ruin everything for the woman. He was an exceptionally bad wingman, and he had enough points in self-awareness to recognize that…

Not to mention one little accident back in a day…

So entering the terrace was the fool’s choice. He needed another path.

Two buildings stood nearby. The stone one with two floors sat on the right side of the ‘Rattlebones’. It had some potential, but Joe couldn’t dig up enough courage from himself to climb up on its roof and then on the wall. There were no visible cracks or edges he could use. So he scrapped the plan quickly.

The structure on the left, however, attracted his attention the most.

It was a fortress tower.

No way he would be allowed to climb that tower.

So he did the next best thing.

He walked up to the entrance and pulled the door. It opened without any complaints.

That’s a serious security breach…

Joe climbed up the metal, spiral staircase inside. Crystal lamps guided his way to the top, from where he could lay his eyes upon the magnificent view of Ghastly Wail in the process of being taken over by a battalion of drunk pirates.

Truly the picture worthy of its own chapter in history books.

“I don’t think you are supposed to be here, friend.”

Despite the rough accent, the voice definitely belonged to a man of affability.

The rifle, pointed at Joe’s chest, belonged to something else entirely.

He put his hands up.

“I was just passing through.”

“That’s what they all say, friend.”

He really should learn how to think ahead one of those days…

“I was trying to climb on the wall and get to the terrace.”

The guard chuckled.

“Do you think I care? But, go on.”

Joe coughed, keeping his hands up.

“You see, there is a date I want to check up on. Not mine.”

The man even lowered the rifle for a second.

“What?!”

Joe sighed.

“There is a certain rhevalian, who got roped in with another rhevalian. Unfortunately for him, he has bricks for brains and doesn’t understand that there is a girl pining for him. Right now they are on the terrace, and I want to make sure that they get somewhere.”

The guard stood still for a whole minute. His hood covered his face, so Joe could only wait for the man to process the information.

“So…” the guard began slowly. “You want to get on the wall to spy on someone’s date and make sure that the guy gets laid? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“Yep.”

The man stared at Joe. Joe stared back.

The guard lowered the rifle, hung his head down and put a hand on his face.

“Are you… what circus have you escaped from?”

“The ‘Morning Star’.”

The armed man leaned on the nearest wall.

“That’s a circus, alright… Who’s the guy?”

“The quartermaster.”

The guard bent over, laughing.

“Really?! Xander Knight?! Oh, friend…” He wiped his face with his palm. “That’s one serious task. What was your plan, anyway? Shuffle closer to the terrace and do what, friend?”

Joe scratched his head. That wasn’t the plan… Wait. He had no plan!

He heard a faint chuckle.

“Friend, you need to do better than that. You can’t just trespass and expect me to let it slide. Your story gave me a good laugh, and it was one of the best I’ve heard yet, ever since I was stuffed into this coffin.”

The guard rubbed his chin. Joe patiently waited for the resolution.

“Tell you what. Do you have any coin on you?”

“How does three hundred sound?”

The man nodded, satisfied.

“Good. One-fifty now, the rest tomorrow. Meet me in the tavern after midnight. If you won’t be there, you better watch your back.”

“What stops me from going straight to your boss and telling him?”

The guard raised his rifle, only to meet the barrel of a pistol.

He grinned. Joe saw not a single droplet of fear in his posture.

“Quick thinking, friend! I like you. But would you really shoot this poor man just because he wants his free drink?”

“I don’t like threats.”

The guard shrugged.

“No one does. It’s my job, silly. You are the one who is a criminal here, friend. See, even rogues have rules. We might not love the letter of the law, but we have respect for each other. Spiteful, backstabbing, corrupting, but - respect. You seem to be fresh, so I’ll let you off the hook for a small fine. Does that sound better?”

How can every single person in this place tell that I’m new at the first glance?! Give me that foresight, Kon’jar!

Joe hesitated for a second. Then he lowered the gun. He was trespassing, after all…

“A good point… Sure, that does sound better. How do I find you at the tavern?”

The guard tossed the rifle on a shoulder.

“No need, friend. I will find you. Also, you better take a hatch and jump down on the wall. A safer way, believe it or not.”

Joe nodded and reached for a pouch.

*****

Only when Joseph landed down on the stone wall and stood up, only then he realized just how lucky he was to get past the encounter unharmed. Three hundred Zinks was a negligible amount to pay for avoiding the tab of shit he could have crashed into. There was no way he would be able to get away with murdering the man.

Even if the ferocious populace wouldn’t eat him alive, the guilt would.

He really, really had to learn how to control his worst impulses. This world poisoned him, not by seeping its gruesome morality into him, but by removing the restraints that modern times kept over his desires. Joseph was aware, even before he woke up on the slaver ship, that the violence wasn’t much of a turn-off to him. Quite the opposite - the violence riveted him. To a certain limit.

And the Threshold was chiseling off this limit, layer after layer.

Until now, he could hold the craving down quite well.

He crouched behind the parapet. He could see the entire terrace below him.

His targets were close to the wall, almost right beneath the parapet. Xander sat on a chair, with his left side facing Joe.

Judging by the number of bottles on the table, Iliana made barely any progress. The orange rhevalian took the spot near Xander, sitting almost shoulder-to-shoulder with him. Close enough to hug him at one point, but the quartermaster didn’t even acknowledge the attempt, sipping his drink.

The words could reach Joe’s ears, barely. He had to focus to actually understand what they were talking about.

“...leaving again? When?”

Xander shrugged.

“Tomorrow or the day after, probably. Maybe we will stay for a week, but no more.”

Iliana nodded. Joe couldn’t see her face, but her shoulders slouched, which gave him a pretty good guess on her general mood.

He had to do something. But he had absolutely no idea, what!