Despite his promise to do whatever it was he was going to do, the grinning man went catatonic, staring off into space for several minutes. Zog immediately left the table, hurled himself into a nearby bunk and went immediately into a deep sleep. He even left his pile of coins on the table. It reminded Hirrus of when Alric had slept while they were approaching Rumi’s camp.

The others seemed even more amused by this outcome than by his losing, declaring that he had “ragequit.” The dealer started telling the others that he was trying to talk the man down from uninstalling, which threw the rest into renewed gales of laughter. Hirrus had no idea what was going on, but it seemed appropriate to wait for the grinning man to come out of his strange trance.

“East wing,” the man said after a few minutes. He made an extremely dramatic show of wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, which the rest of the adventurers seemed to find disgusting. “East wing, top floor of the southeast tower. Ontario will be late getting there, but some of the officers are already there. Just wait for one of the officers to open the door and you can follow them in to talk to who you need if you act casual enough. Gooseberry is always like ten minutes late, so there’s no hurry; you just have to beat her there.”

“They won’t be suspicious of a stranger following them in?” Hirrus asked.

“It’s the Western Hemisphere officer group,” the man said with a laugh. “There’s like sixty of them. They don’t know all of each others’ names. Just keep quiet and act natural and you could sit through the whole meeting if you want.”

With more direct directions, Hirrus left the dormitory with purpose in his step. He marveled at how frustrating his task would have been without this stroke of luck. Even if he’d stumbled upon the officers’ offices, he would likely have found them emptied by this meeting. And from the information he had, there was no way he could have found them without searching the entire building. Such an exhaustive search would have taken hours. More than long enough for the officers to relocate again and again, so that he would never find them.

Hirrus entered the east wing at the fourth landing up the spiral staircase. The east wing appeared to be something of a training area, where small groups of adventurers were sparring or doing weapon drills. He was able to move past it all easily, as the central stairwell delivered him to a long balcony that ran along the sides of the training area, letting him walk the length of the wing without needing to navigate around all the activities.

At the far end, just before the towers, there was a bit of a stable where monsters were being kept, with an arena surrounded by amphitheater seating. There were no beasts so large and impressive as what Fire’s underlings had been delivering to Hirrus’s waiting blades, but it was still something of a concern that dangerous creatures were being housed so deep in the city limits. Despite the potential danger, the place was swarming with adventurers and the grounds were enclosed by a defensive wall. If these monsters escaped, it was unlikely they would harm anybody outside of this guild.

When the location of the meeting had been described as the “southwest tower” Hirrus had expected an enclosed space. The tower itself was not at all what he expected. Having entered the wing from the central staircase, he was on the fourth floor of the tower, which appeared to be a small meeting space. A group of ten people were standing around a table like some manner of war council, moving about little plastic pieces on a map and arguing about Arcana. But the group was dwarfed by the size of the room, which held several other tables - now empty - and a two doors at the far side of the room, beyond the group.

Hirrus headed across the room towards the doors. The first one he checked led to a stairwell, and he began to ascend. The switchback stairs were wide, with enough space for three people to walk abreast, but otherwise were empty. Even though a meeting was supposed to be at the top of this tower in only a few minutes, there was no one else in the stairwell.

He didn’t stop until he reached the door at the very top of the stairs. Opening the door made him feel very silly, as it opened onto the open and empty rooftop of the tower. Grumbling to himself, he stomped back down the stairs to the second door from the top.

The second door opened into a cramped antechamber. The walls were lined with plush-cushioned chairs, and dozens upon dozens of paintings hung on the walls, crowded together so tightly that their frames touched, covering the wall nearly from the ceiling to the backs of the chairs. Each painting depicted at least a dozen people in groups. A few faces were repeated, but there were so many paintings and so many people Hirrus couldn’t take in the whole scope of what he was looking at.

He was reminded of the tapestries he’d seen in the secret stairwell behind Last of the Strong’s meeting room. These were the officers of Intricacy. Their faces preserved so that they would always be remembered for their authority here. These memories of past glory had not protected the Last of the Strong, and they would not save Intricacy now.

At the other end of the antechamber was an opulent double door of fine mahogany, carved with a pattern that looked like a man with legs crossed, but reduced to simple curves. On closer inspection, the edges of the carving were rough in intricate and detailed ways that he could not understand without closer examination. He had no opportunity for that examination, as the door was flanked by two halberd-wielding guards, the weapons crossed over the door to bar his way.

To his surprise, as Hirrus approached, the two guards looked at him, then at each other, and slowly raised their weapons.

“Sir,” one of them said quietly, offering a respectful nod.

These were mercenary guards, and not adventurers, but they were of Hari. Their authority to bar entry to strangers did not extend to guards in the employ of the kingdom. Their decision trees didn’t allow them to interfere with him. And from the respectful nod, it seemed they wouldn’t have wanted to anyway.

As Hirrus pushed the doors open and entered the meeting chamber, he wondered if those guards knew who he was. Had word of his existence spread so far so fast?

Despite the relatively low ten foot ceiling, the meeting chamber felt immense. Larger than he would have thought possible for how high off the ground this part of the tower was. At least forty feet in diameter, with three long rectangular tables running the entire length, lined up and down with chairs. Despite the huge number of seats, more than half of them were filled now. Along the walls were a few open windows letting the cool autumn air in, but they were sized to be arrow-slits, presumably to eliminate them as security flaws. The place was abuzz with conversation, the lower ceiling meaning that despite the size of the chamber, the innumerable conversations echoed and mingled together, giving the whole chamber the feel of a busy farmer’s market stuffed into an echo-y cavern.

Even though Hirrus felt incredibly out of place, no one had noticed his entry. He seemed to be free to wander the room unhindered, true to the grinning man’s word. He started to walk a circuit around the room’s wall, trying to figure out who among these people was Ontario.

He’d expected it to be easy. It seemed reasonable to assume that they would all be acting with deference towards one person, but the politics on display in the room were staggeringly difficult to follow. Every small group conversing seemed to have one person who was obviously the ranking member of the group, but with so many people divided into so many small groups, it seemed impossible to gauge each individual leader against each other. Before going after the next target, he needed Nidra to give him a physical description of them. By the time he got all the way round the room, he was no closer to identifying if Ontario was even here yet, let alone which of these adventurers was him.

As he stood at the door and tried to figure out his next move, he was struck with the mad impulse to just activate a bunch of Arcana and blast the room. There was no way of telling which was Ontario, so wasn’t the most reasonable solution to stand in such a place that Civilization Buster would hit the most targets? Even if Ontario wasn’t present now, obliterating the guild’s other leaders would be a very clear and unavoidable demand for his attention.

He shook his head. It was a bad idea. Even if it didn’t represent the laziest possible approach, it was a tactical disaster. Until he set eyes on Ontario for sure, he didn’t want to foolishly call the entire guild down on his head in the heart of their power. Even as a last resort, it would be-

“Oy,” someone said behind him. Hirrus turned to see three people coming in through the door. The woman at the head of the group was eyeing him suspiciously. “Are you sure you’re supposed to be here? You look like you don’t belong.”

“I don’t recognize him,” the man on her left said with narrowed eyes. “Might be a troublemaker.”

The man on her right drew his mace and started bouncing the head of the weapon on his palm, giving Hirrus a threatening look.

Without thinking, Hirrus called up Rumi’s Ivory Thorns Arcana. A wall of glittering metallic brambles erupted from around the door, cutting off the exit. At the clanking creaking sound of its growth, the dull roar of conversation in the room died down, and all eyes turned to the sudden disturbance.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the woman who had first confronted him said quickly, raising her hands with a weak laugh. “People sneak in all the time, I was just giving you the business. It was a joke, mate. You can stay if you want. This doesn’t have to become a big deal.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t,” Hirrus said as he started activating his buffing Arcana. “But I think I prefer it this way, regardless.”