A week later, at the shrine at the three-way intersection of Faithful Street, the rotting smell was still there as the bodies were still in the middle of the advanced decay stage.
Not much had happened with Jack during this time. Jack went to the Salted Fish Inn near the church to eat early in the morning almost every day, and at midday, the carriage stopped down the street to pick him up.
He consulted Victor about the position of clerk for the Clay excavation but was advised not to go. In Victor's words, "It's not about what you know, it's who you know." He told Jack that he would be searching for work on his behalf and that it would bring him more money than the position of clerk ever could.
As for other matters, Varen discovered the missing crystal, and after some investigation, he became convinced that Jack was the one who took it.
It was both plausible and confusing for him. The day before he took the crystal, he entered the Apothecary Shop owned by Farma, who was the daughter of the Count and the one who was very easily convinced to lift the blockade that had been placed under the assumption of an illegal Warped Crystal.
After he took it, he apparently used the Church of Mardrago as a meeting place with a foreign noble, Victor Vast Lehatot, whose family had rumors of researching devils.
And Warped Crystals are known for making devils.
It then clicked for Varen: Victor located the Crystal, took the opportunity to send Jack on the day he was not at the port, and stole the crystal. This was also a plausible explanation as to why he kept meeting with Victor every day, and publicly visible at that.
It was a warning from Victor to Varen: that if he attempted to retaliate against the man whom Varen believed betrayed him, he would face consequences. And the reason why he was not arrested for holding the illegal Warped Crystal was because Victor purposefully stopped them.
Varen felt played; not only that, he felt an anger that only subsided when he heard that the Count of Lut would be returning with only his personal guard and not his troops to protect him. Due to all of this.
As for the reason why he liked this development, it's unknown.
On other notes, Jack's lessons on instability were going smoothly, with him learning how to make instability artifacts that help in the making of others.
One such item was the drafting paper Victor helped him create, a layered instability artifact designed to analyze written definitions and reduce unintended outcomes during artifact creation.
The paper did not understand intent perfectly, nor did it create artifacts by itself; instead, it acted as an interpretive assistant, detecting contradictions, undefined references, recursive logic, and potentially dangerous wording before the instability structure was finalized.
To avoid running out of space, the written content could be shifted onto connected surfaces without losing meaning, allowing continuous refinement of definitions and calculations.
Among instability engineers, such tools were considered essential, as even minor wording mistakes could produce catastrophic effects during artifact creation.
As for the Wasteland's Black Skeletons, they began mixing words together and different gestures; their intelligence could be considered, for lack of better words, similar to that of a dumb toddler.
Not only that, Jack began to think of ways to walk further out of the zone. While doing all of this, he also discovered that if he were to go the other way, further inside the Wasteland, he would eventually wake up ahead of his normal time for waking up.
He also looked for signs of the spider creature from his first day, but he still had yet to find them.
His emotional and mental state was worsening; sometimes he would descend into panic attacks when he was alone, due to not having a mental clean break of real sleep, which was replaced by the wasteland.
He also lost the feeling of proper time perception. This entire week felt like a day to him, with the moment of him first waking up feeling like morning and him now being in the evening.
Jack eventually decided to tell Victor about this today, after the funerary rite of Faithful Street, to see if he could help him.
…
Now in front of the Way Shrine, it was morning, the air was cold, and the sky had dark clouds blocking light.
Priest Aldwin was preparing to begin the funerary rite. Jack was standing at the front of the crowd holding a candle; many of the neighbors from the nearby streets and the friends of the deceased were gathered.
The houses behind them had hay around them, and a few guardsmen with torches waited for the signal to set fire to the houses.
On the street to the left of the shrine, the luxurious carriage of Victor waited in the distance.
Priest Aldwin, with Deacon Lucius beside him, began.
"We look North-East to the infinite storm of your might," Aldwin intoned.
"We humbly say thy name."
"Mardrago," responded the crowd, Jack included.
"May The Lord the Storm draw from his might," Aldwin continued.
"With His mercy to harvest, and guide their spirits to the Sea of Stars."
"Mardrago! If He heard us, He will surely assent."
"And look upon them, Welcoming them into His kingdom!"
At that moment, the guards began to light the fires. Slowly, the entire street was set alight. The smell no longer seemed to bother Jack as he walked with his candle in hand towards one of the buildings.
It was the same building the woman who had washed that ragged cloth used to live in. He used the fire to light his candle.
Walking to the shrine, he placed the lit candle, after which he waited for the rest to leave theirs.
After that, Aldwin walked alone through the street, chanting until he reached the well at the end of the street, pulling from it as the houses slowly burned, leaving behind only the bricks.
He took the filled brass bucket and detached it from the well; this was the bucket that was granted to any street well specifically for this.
He chanted something at the bucket before carrying it in his left hand.
With basil in his right hand, he began to dip it inside and, in a back-and-forth manner, let the water droplets fall on each and every one of the buildings, including Jack's. This was at his personal request, under the excuse of his parents receiving one again, but in truth, it was for the original Jack who died as well.
When he reached the Way Shrine, he let the people drink from the bucket one by one. After all of this, the buildings were mostly burnt, leaving behind their brick walls.
As if on cue, the sky began to pour, extinguishing the flames. Seeing this, Aldwin raised three fingers to his forehead and shouted.
"The Lord Assents!"
After a while, the crowd dispersed. The first funerary rite at Faithful Street was done, with the second being held in the evening at the church.
Jack walked through the pouring rain and moved inside through the open door of the carriage, where both Victor and one of the blonde twins, who wore a blue dress, waited for him.