Barin was ecstatic to go with Hirrus to the Violet Plate. It didn’t seem so on the surface. His decision tree was forcing him to blurt out indignant one-liners, insisting that he’ll be back on the street before his cell door was locked. That Hirrus would pay for presuming to arrest him. But he walked with his head tall, and he walked side-by-side with Hirrus without any coercion.

Shoving him into the inn room at the end of the trip didn’t require the physical element of grabbing the man and shoving him through the door, but it was some nice catharsis after enduring all the verbal abuse.

Barin glared over his shoulder at his ‘captor.’

Alric looked up from whatever he was doing at the table. “What’s all this about? Who’s this guy?”

“Barin,” Dahlia said with a thin smile.

“Dahlia!” Barin scrambled to his feet. He rushed to her side and quickly accepted her hand, kissing the back of it. “Dahlia, my dear, it’s been ages since I’ve even spared you a thought. What brings you back to Inoha?”

“I was arrested,” she said, flicking her hand toward Hirrus with a dismissive gesture. “Same as you.”

Alric looked between the two, still confused. “Who’s Barin?”

“Rumormonger,” Hirrus said simply, closing the door behind himself and finding a seat at the table. The room wasn’t small, but it was starting to feel that way with everyone gathered. “Last of the Strong are either going to kill him or use him to kill me. I would prefer they don’t do either.”

“So you’re just adopting all the strays?” Alric asked. He said it with a smirk, but there was uncertainty in his eyes.

“Decision tree or no,” Hirrus said, “I’m a guard. It’s my nature to help people. To protect them.” He made a gesture that encompassed all three of them. “Last of the Strong would hurt you all for their own gains, whether it’s superficial nonsense, a temporary reprieve from the consequences of their own actions, or even just for the feeling of being a big person hitting a smaller one. I joined the guard for the express purpose of stopping people like them from doing things like that.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but he didn’t want to explain his past and Julissa’s encouragement in front of the rumormonger. As friendly as he was now, Barin would use Hirrus’ words against him the moment he had the opportunity.

It’s just what his decision tree would do.

“I guess I shouldn’t criticize the way you do things,” Alric said with a shrug. “If I tried to talk you out of picking up random assholes who need help, I wouldn’t be here either.”

Barin clapped his hands together to gather everyone’s attention. “Well. As much as I hate to interrupt whatever it is we’re doing here, I’m not sure how much time you have to waste. Not if you want to catch Orlina.” His smile spoke of a conspiracy Hirrus couldn’t find.

“How?” Hirrus said, whirling towards Barin. “You know where she is?”

Barin tilted his head as if confused. “Of course I do.” He motioned at himself with a wide gesture. It’s my business, after all, to have all the information.”

They sat in silence, all watching the rumormonger.

When he didn’t speak, Alric clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Well? Are you gonna tell him or just keep us all in suspense?”

“I-” Barin opened and closed his mouth a few times. “Of course not,” he said at last, though his tone was resigned, not contemptuous. “Not for free, at least.”

Hirrus wanted to be surprised, but he just couldn’t fake it. He understood what was happening. Barin’s decision tree was ordering him to keep his mouth shut.

Giving up information for nothing was physically impossible.

It wasn’t Barin’s fault. He wanted to help, but was unable.

Fortunately, Hirrus knew of two ways to deal with Barin’s decision tree. One of them was morally repugnant, but the other suited him just fine, making it an easy choice.

He stood and crossed the room to Barin without saying a word. One hand clamped onto the lapel of the man’s fancy shirt. Barin didn’t so much as utter a whimper of confusion before Hirrus pulled him to his feet.

With a single, smooth motion, Hirrus whipped the rumormonger across the room and slammed his back against the wall.

“What are you doing?” Dahlia demanded.

“If he doesn’t want to give up the information for free,” Hirrus said, “then I’m more than willing to pay for it.” He pulled out the icy greataxe with his free hand, lifting it gradually to menace Barin’s face. “Name your price. Would you like an ear? Maybe a nose? I could offer you an entire head, but that would have to wait until after I have the information.” He inched the axe closer to Barin. “But you know I’m good for it, don’t you?”

Barin’s eyes boggled out of his head with fear and surprise. He looked to Dahlia and Alric, as if he expected to find help from either of them.

But neither made motion to stop Hirrus. They knew the price of not learning what Barin knew.

Once it was clear that he was on his own, the rumormonger couldn’t tear his eyes away from the glowing blue edge of the icy weapon.

“She’ll be at her house right now, where you just were,” Barin said in a much calmer voice than Hirrus expected, even as he could see the terror swimming in his eyes. “You killed her friends - all the people in Last of the Strong she actually cared about - and so her first reaction will be to stake the place out in case you’re still there, and try to take you down if you’re still weakened from the fight.”

Hirrus took note of his badly battered health pool, and resolved to borrow some more bandages from Dahlia before leaving the inn to deal with Orlina. Maybe employ some of his new Arcana.

He’d regenerated quite a lot in the time since the fight, but he was still a long way from topped off.

“Once she realizes you’re not coming out, she’ll go inside,” Barin continued. The words rushed out of him at speed, as if searching for the one that would push Hirrus' axe even just an inch farther away from his neck. “I don’t know exactly what she’ll do inside, but she’ll be very upset, and need a way to deal with that emotion. Smashing furniture, punching walls, whatever. Adventurers are weird about that stuff. She won’t stay there for long, though. As soon as she’s done expressing her grief, she’ll retreat to safety.”

“The Last of the Strong’s manor?” Hirrus guessed, trying not to think about how Barin’s description of the irrational behavior of an adventurer mapped very closely to his actions while he was transformed by the Merciless effect.

“Yes, exactly. She’ll go there next,” Barin continued. “It’s in the inner part of the city, in a prime location along the south bank of the river at the north end of the Lamp Borough. If you killed Juri in her own home, you were likely only five or six blocks away.”

“Fuck me,” Alric said. “It was that close? We could probably fucking see it from there.”

“Orlina will travel along the river,” Barin pressed on, ignoring Alric’s question. “She might take side alleys if she’s genuinely afraid of you, but I don’t think she will. She’ll be angry. She wants to see you. She wants to fight. She’ll be on the river’s road, brazen as she can be. You have between fifteen and twenty minutes to catch her before she reaches the Last of the Strong’s manor.”

That soon. He had to move. “Thank you,” Hirrus said, letting Barin go and putting away his axe. “That’s all I needed.”

Barin didn’t just sag back with relief, he dropped almost all the way to the floor. His hands came up defensively to shield himself from Hirrus.

“Relax. I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

“What do you mean?” Barin glared up at Hirrus from the floor. “You just threatened to dismember me!”

Hirrus shook his head. “Hardly. You wanted to help, but you couldn’t violate your decision tree. You’ve already shown me two ways that supersede your financial demands. All I had to do was threaten your life.”

“What was the other?” Alric asked.

“Not one I could stomach,” Hirrus said. He turned towards Dahlia, then looked away with a wince. “And we don’t have time to discuss it. I need to recover as many hit points as I can before going to face Orlina. If the last group of her friends are any indication, underestimating her might be just the advantage she needs to win the fight.”

“It was her,” Barin said in a mewling tone, lowering his hands from their defensive position. “I knew a pregnant woman was here when Last of the Strong demanded I tell them about Hirrus. I didn’t tell them. I couldn’t. I told them everything else, as was demanded of me - the location, the room number, the adventurer, even what he ordered for dinner - but I never mentioned her.”

Alric snorted with laughter. “That explains why they kidnapped my useless ass. Thanks a lot, buddy.”

Despite Alric’s derisive comment, Dahlia’s hands hesitated as she reached for her inventory for more bandages. It was just the slightest pause, but for a woman like her, it spoke volumes. She was as stalwart of will as Hirrus was of body. A hesitation that small told him that the brush with danger - kidnapping and torture at the hands of lunatics - hadn’t escaped her notice.

He moved as if to help her. “That’s why,” he whispered to her, keeping his voice down so that Alric and Barin couldn’t hear from across the room. “That’s why I can do this. Whatever ‘this’ is.” He shook his head. “My decision tree ordered something that I couldn’t do. Something so abhorrent that I couldn’t submit to it. It wanted me to forget about everything that happened in Yenon and go back to normal life. And…” He swallowed, forcing himself to keep speaking. Dahlia deserved to know the cause of all this. “I couldn’t let Julissa’s death go unanswered. Every time it tells me to do something that involves letting Last of the Strong walk away, I can’t… I can’t stomach it.”

“Yenon is well cared-for,” she said, “with you looking out for it.”

Hirrus supposed he had to accept that as her answer as she produced another roll of medicated bandages and started to patch up the wounds on his chest and shoulders.

He didn’t know what he wanted for her. His overall goal was to keep her safe and comfortable, but did that demand that he free her from her own decision tree? Didn’t she deserve the freedom he enjoyed?

Didn’t she - of all people - deserve the ability to speak her mind and act of her own volition?

And, most upsetting at all, was he any better than whoever had created the decision tree in the first place, for arresting her and manipulating her limitations to force her to do what he wanted?

“You don’t have time to dawdle,” Dahlia said, interrupting his train of thought. “You have work to do.”

“Thank you,” Hirrus said, taking a deep breath. He watched his health recovering more rapidly, thanks to the medicated bandage buff. If there was anything left missing, he would just use Arcana.

Barin echoed her words. “Time is running out. Orlina might be on the road by now.”

Hirrus nodded. “I wish I had a chance to deal with a few more things.” He was still wearing all the BUR-focused gear, and there was still over an hour remaining on his Inoculation effect, locking him out of the Merciless debuff. “But I can’t let this slip away. If Orlina is with the remaining power base of Last of the Strong, my final attack on them will be that much harder. Perhaps even impossible.” He shook his head quickly. “I can’t take that chance.”

“The enemy deserves no mercy,” Alric said, holding up a hand, clenching is his fist. “Sweep the leg.”

Hirrus nodded, even though he had no idea what that meant.

“I’m going to need some time, anyway. I need to get you a way into the Last of the Strong’s manor. It’s going to be more complicated than my home, or Clive’s, or anyone’s, really.”

“Alric,” Hirrus said, turning to the adventurer. “Can I trust you to get Barin what he needs?”

“If he can explain to me how it leads to Last of the Strong going down,” Alric said with a nod, “you can count on me.”

“Good,” Hirrus said. “Then I have a leg to sweep.”

“That’s not-” Alric started, and then sighed. “Nevermind. Ignore me.” He waved a hand through the air, and Hirrus turned away, determined to do just that.