Rudy swallowed.
The pause stretched long enough that even fear seemed to hesitate.
Finally, he set the cloth down slowly and raised both hands, palms open, careful not to make any sudden movements.
"All right," he said, voice low now, stripped of the bartender's casual tone. "I'll talk."
The frozen room pressed in around us, dozens of unmoving figures caught mid-breath. Rudy glanced at them once, then back at me.
"The Hollow Star doesn't operate the way people think," he began. "There's no single office, no obvious headquarters you can just march into. What they've built is… distributed."
I tilted my head slightly, listening.
"In the center of the Rubble Maw Ocean," Rudy continued, "there's an island. Most maps don't mark it clearly. Storm patterns blur it out, Essence currents bend perception. Locals call it Mystery Island."
