“What do you think, Joe?”

The words of his handler caught him off guard. Joe bit his lip, giving himself time to answer.

“I admit, she has a nice figure. Would she be willing to share a night on the ‘Morning Star’ with me, then? I remember her invitation. Shame we didn’t get to continue.”

Something stirred within his thoughts when he said it. The second later this unusual feeling drowned within the explosive laughter of the mercenaries. Ralf shook his head, but Joe could see in the corner of his eye that the big man pointed his thumb up behind his back.

“Look at this galloping stallion, mates!” the bald man could barely contain himself. “He’s got places to be! Unfortunately for you, the invitation has expired after your retreat. You should’ve stayed, friend, women love brave and powerful!”

“Evalyn certainly does,” the grey rhevalian added.

Joseph raised his eyebrows.

“Really? You know her that well? I thought she was your boss. Professional relationship and all that.”

The arid shrugged and cracked his neck.

“Ain’t no sharing the bed together while in a town, true. But she is a soldier, man, not only a leader. She swims in the same mud, eats the same trash that we do, drinks the same drinks, and sleeps on the same ground. Woman or not, she is as much of a force as we are. Gotta respect that.”

“Should’ve moulded a golden plate with these words, comrade,” the man with the brown hair grinned. The others supported the arid’s praising words by nodding.

Evalyn was active on a battlefield, and yet, she still looked like the incarnation of a ‘Playboy’ cover model? Joseph furrowed his forehead.

Ralf suddenly stood up from his chair.

“It seems we found some things to talk about, huh? How about some drinks, then? I am not paying - telling you before you get all giddy.”

The mercenaries looked at each other. The bald man nodded and got up, following Ralf’s example.

“Sure, let’s sweeten this stale day. Always wanted to share a cup with the most annoying pirate gang of the Threshold.”

“I ain’t sharing my cups with you, buddy. Get your own.”

Before Ralf left, he winked at Joe. The programmer half-closed his eyes and turned his eyes back at the table.

“Most annoying gang, huh…” he suddenly chuckled, surprising even his own Spirit. “Is that what ‘Morning Star’ reputation devolved into now?”

“Devolved?!” the arid accidentally spit out from sheer astonishment. “Oh, man! What kind of tales have you heard? It was never good to begin with!”

“I thought you’d know by now,” the wild hair man had a weird half-smile on his face. “Your crew is considered dangerous, but for all the wrong reasons. And they will never be able to put their nose beyond the Sumeilien border, so even kittens scale higher in importance than Alchfrid and his clowns. And, well, you.”

The words stung, but Joe gathered all the stoicism he could find and returned the smile in his own way. It got out, albeit a bit crooked.

“Oh, really?” he felt like his blood began to boil. Not good, not good! “What stories do you have, then? Saving merchants, robbing treasure hunters? Anything nice to share with this poor, irrelevant me?”

Joe immediately felt a pain in his chest. He screwed up. He let the fury leak out and exposed himself.

The mocking laugh reached his ears from somewhere far away.

He shook his head. The noise stood in a way of focusing on the real problem. The problem, that struggled to rise up as his number one priority. He and Ralf followed the group not for tossing passive-aggressive remarks back and forth - however amusing it could be - but for digging up the information. Joseph noticed the grey dragoncat sitting near a tower this afternoon, and while it didn’t smell like a crime in itself, he didn’t like these mercenaries. He didn’t like their attitudes, their clothing, and their presence in general.

A small part of him sheepishly mumbled - you are overreacting. Mumbled that they pissed him off by proxy, because of their association with Evalyn.

He didn’t care. He didn’t want to see their faces, their plastered smiles, that were laughing at him during the entire conversation.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder.

It knocked the flame out of his Spirit. Ralf, who came back with two bottles and two cups, gestured with a short nod. His blue eyes spread a strange serenity around.

Joseph inhaled, exhaled, and returned the motion. His handler’s presence allowed his Mind to quell the silent rage and shift his attention on the more immediate task.

The clanking of glass shoved away the relaxing melody of the background voices. The thumping of metal on the table called to the ‘Morning Star’ duo like the drums of war. Joseph and Ralf glanced at each other.

No words were said, no gestures exchanged. There was no need for either.

“Well,” Ralf lifted his cup up. “To your health, gentlemen!”

The mercenaries responded in kind, two of them with waning enthusiasm. Joseph pinned a mental note on his Mind board - the man with brown hair, together with the rhevalian, appeared to be the most guarded members among the group. On the surface.

It was too soon to make decisive conclusions anyway.

He grabbed his cup and took a sip. Seemed like Ralf got him the same refreshment he tasted the very same afternoon. A smart decision on his friend’s part.

“So, what about some tales?” he pushed the conversation back into the flow. “You got to have something worthy of bragging about, right?”

“Is it truly bragging when it happened, friend?” the bald man shrugged, briefly flashing a grin.

The mercenary with wild hair rubbed against his chin.

“Well… There was one time when we ran into a pack of Menaces chasing a slaver ship…”

“...And?” Ralf raised his brow as the man’s voice trailed off.

The arid and rhevalian looked at each other in confusion.

“...Wait, that happened? When?”

The mercenary with brown hair shot his glances between his companions, covering his mouth with a cup. The guy with long hair, who became the cause of the confusion, shrugged awkwardly.

“I mean… I remember something like that… I think it was near Lord’s Maw, no?…”

Five pairs of eyes almost buried him beneath the table.

“He is not wrong,” the bald man chuckled, being the only one not perturbed in the slightest. “He only forgot the details. Menaces weren't there, but an Abyssal Crawler was, and the slaver ship got dusted in seconds, so we were left to deal with the abomination.”

“Right!” the arid threw his hands up, spilling liquid from the cup. “Our captain turns the ship around, screams lethally, then the entire control room explodes! I run up there and use whatever’s left of the wheel to turn around, while we charge Razor Cannons and cut the thing through!”

“It was hilariously one-sided,” the grey rhevalian giggled. “One-sided against us, that is. The thing was still perfectly capable of bringing us down, but then our boss gathers the spreading flames and burns the Crawler, pushing it back. After the second taste of the Cannon, it didn’t want to play with us no more.”

The stretched cat face, showing a weird smile, left no doubt that the grey rhevalian enjoyed his memories.

The mercenary with brown hair (I really should learn their names at some point…) slammed a cup down and leaned on his left hand. Then he laid his head on curled fingers and sneered.

“Do you have anything to tell us, Ralf Howlung? You gotta have something to write about from your experience, don’t you?”

“Why so official, mate?” the giant man half-heartedly laughed. “I do, indeed. How about a story named ‘The Imperial Barbecue’?”

“...What would that be?” the wild-looking man inquired.

Ralf slouched back in his chair and brought a bottle up to his lips.

“What taste would Imperial soldiers have, you think?”

Four synchronous disgusted expressions threw Joseph underneath the table.

“Want me to tell you all about it?”

“...I’ll pass,” Joe heard the arid’s despondent voice.

“I don’t mind learning the expert’s opinion about it!” the grey rhevalian interjected.

Joseph emerged back to the surface. The enthusiastic face of the dragoncat and the disinterested expression of the brown guy overshadowed the mortified figures of the other three. Joe barely held back a laughing fit and considered returning into the under-table realm.

While Joseph was trying to recover, Ralf grinned and relaxed his right hand, letting it fall down on his thigh.

“You see, the raw human flesh is filled with nasty stuff. Alcohol, salt, parasites, and diseases are swimming within. So, just like any other animal, what you have to do is… First, gently hack off the limb, cut it alongside its length, remove the bones and preserve the rest of the body in a freezer…”

The expert in human meat pointed his finger at every member of the mercenary group, still holding the bottle in the same hand.

“...Then, remove the skin, pour some wine all around the meaty parts. Add a fair amount of salt, pepper, spice it up with herbs and anything that adds to the taste. Last, roast it over the fire. Watch out - it has to be well-grilled, if you don’t want to vomit your insides out because you are a lazy arse. If you are a lazy arse-”

“Sto-o-op! I already feel like vomiting…” the arid doubled over the table.

The more Ralf talked, the more Joseph’s hesitation grew. The cook didn’t stutter, didn’t waver a single time, describing the process with a shining smile.

He looked at his friend. The armsmaster caught his wary signal. Ralf’s face briefly changed and showed concern, then the cook’s eyes pointed down.

Joseph saw Ralf’s right hand frantically waving at him. He sighed in relief.

“You still didn’t say anything about the taste, however,” the grey rhevalian pointed at Ralf. The cook took a sip from his bottle.

“It’s not that fancy to write about. Take a piece of pork, imagine a somewhat richer taste with more fat. There, human meat.”

…Hold on, how does he know that, then?!

The rhevalian’s utterly crushed face was worth framing in platinum. As soon as his mind clicked, however, Joseph found himself too distracted, feeling seriously concerned about Ralf’s hobbies. He didn’t truly believe that his friend was a cannibal, but that remark at the end made his hands all cold and shaky…

“Seems like the reputation of the ‘Morning Star’ was not undeserved…” he mumbled to himself.

“I know, right?! I thought you were just pirates, who lost the flame a long time ago, rusting and withering in Lower Reaches! Now you became cannibals too?!”

Joseph could relate to the arid’s burst of indignation. It remained a wonder as to what exactly caused such fuming reaction, however. Why would a mercenary be pissed about some pirate ship and their unusual practices (if there were any)?

He decided to make it simple.

“What’s wrong with an evil pirate ship practising cannibalism? Why would you care so much about that?”

The arid’s face twisted, becoming a sight to marvel in.

“An evil pirate ship?… Evil pirate ship?… You… you…”

The mercenary’s breath seemed to be running on sheer fury only.

“They were heroes!! They were soldiers everyone looked up to! How can you not know that?!!”

Joseph looked at Ralf. The cook kept a marble mask on. Not a single muscle twitched.