Hirrus had never considered public speaking as one of his fears. Just the same, Nidra assembling her forces and putting all their eyes on him made him feel extremely self-conscious.

He was forced to hesitate and marshal his courage before he could speak.

Looking around the room, it seemed that Nidra rescued all her lieutenants, as well as enough of the others to give them a decent force. Considering he’d just fought a group of fifteen adventurers and considered it a challenge, seeing more than fifteen allies before him made him feel like they could still put up a significant fight.

Despite that - and despite his return - their faces were drawn. They looked exhausted. Forlorn.

Defeated.

Those few who didn’t appear to be mourning the loss of their friends had grim looks.

These were not survivors who had been snatched from death by fortune and skill. These were the walking dead waiting for their death to come.

Hirrus needed to dispel that notion and put them on the right path. Victory was still possible.

“Half of the shadow council is dead,” Hirrus said, looking around the group. “Dozens of the strongest adventurers in the country have felt a defeat that they never expected. With your help - and only with your help - we have struck a blow that will never be forgotten. The dead will return, but the resources they spent - their gear, their palaces, their confidence - will be forever shattered.”

That didn’t seem to improve the mood. Hirrus wasn’t sure why. That was his favorite part about all this. The idea that the adventurers would fear the people they’d viewed as furniture for so long was fiercely satisfying. The realization that they were more than objects had already changed Alric and GM Dave for the better. But perhaps this audience had different long-term goals than he did.

“The blow struck against us was very real,” he continued, “but irrelevant. Their deaths are not final. They will return. And we have the power to choose to make the lives they return to better than they were.” He looked around the group, making eye contact with each Awakened in turn as he spoke. “The Shadow Council makes us slaves for their profit, and we have the power to break their hold. They tried to knock us down to protect themselves. But we can stand back up. We can fight. The sacrifices of those we’ve lost were not in vain, so long as we do not give up.”

His conviction seemed to be raising their spirits. The promise of a better tomorrow went a long way, especially with the reminder that after the mythical weekly reset, they would all be returned to their normal lives. They only had their autonomy for a short time. Improving the quality of their lives under the yoke of their decision trees was the most rational motivation Hirrus could think of.

“I need you,” he said at last, looking first at Nidra, and then at her lieutenants, and then at the few remaining underlings still living. “Because I am just the weapon. You are the hand that wields me. Find my target. Find Keynes and JudoThrow. Illuminate the path between me and them. They will die, and Hari will be in its rightful hands once more.”

As one, the group was nodding along with him. The grim reality of what they’d suffered hadn’t been entirely dispelled, but he had parted the illusory veil of defeat.

He couldn’t undo the blow that had been struck, but he couldn’t allow it to bring their fight to an end.

“I appreciate needing the time to mourn,” Hirrus said, “but our first and foremost concern should be to keep moving forward. Time is running out. We can’t allow a setback - even one of this size - to turn into total defeat.” He looked to Nidra. “We need to find our next target, slay him, and then find the target after that to slay him, too. We’ve shown these adventurers fear and broken their confidence. Now we need to show them defeat, and break their hold over our nation.”

“Keynes should be the next target,” Nidra said, stepping up to Hirrus’s side to address the group. “We know what district his guild is in. We just need to find the building, and confirm that he’s inside. Hirrus can handle the rest.” She reached over and clapped a hand to his shoulder.

“I feel like Cerberus gave me something to work with,” Hirrus said to her. “About JudoThrow. I don’t know if you can help with it, but it seems like it might be useful to know.”

“Considering how little I know about them,” Nidra said with a grimace, “anything is useful.”

“She said that they weren’t a normal person,” Hirrus said. He furrowed his brow, trying to remember her exact words. “Not person. Player character, whatever that means. He doesn’t have a sleeping body, and I can’t force him to log in.” He shook his head. “It’s all nonsense to me, but you seem better at this than I am. Is that something we can use?”

Nidra pressed her lips together in a thin line, tapping her chin with one finger. She was thinking for a long moment before turning to the group before them. They looked as puzzled as she did.

“I don’t think we have any answers,” one of the lieutenants said at last. It was Deanna, the large woman who had owned the warehouse. “But it sounds like more than nonsense. It sounds like adventurer nonsense. It must mean something.” The others among them nodded, and while Hirrus agreed that it had to be meaningful, it wasn’t helpful.

“I was hoping to convert her loose lips into a lead,” Hirrus said, trying to sound more patient than he felt. “If she was telling the truth, it sounds like finding him physically with boots on the ground is not going to be effective, even if we could scour the castle inch by inch. Or even the whole city.”

The group fell silent again, and Hirrus tried to consider if he knew anything of any of them that might be a help.

Moirna seemed to be the most lost in thought, but that might have been because she was simply the most eager to help. Sarit and Ten still seemed a bit rattled by the ordeal they’d been through, but Hirrus knew their expertise would be dealing with the real world, not with whatever imaginary nonsense adventurers talked about. Prompting them to consider the issue was unlikely to bear fruit. That only left Kamar, who seemed to be content to glower silently at Hirrus, not trying to hide the obvious distaste the man had for him.

“If we could reach GM Dave,” Nidra offered, interrupting Hirrus’s train of thought, “perhaps he could enlighten us. But we have no way of contacting him.” She cast a glance upwards at the ceiling. “Unless he were to conveniently appear now.”

The other awakened looked around, as if searching for the man in red armor. Hirrus didn’t bother. It would have been pleasantly convenient if he appeared, but he didn’t expect to get that lucky.

“How can we reach him?” Kamar asked, though Hirrus noticed that he was pointedly directing the question to Nidra. “Surely there must be some way to make our need for him known.”

“We had a way,” Nidra said with a grimace. “But he fell in the fight against Rumi.”

The reminder of Alric’s loss soured Hirrus’s mood. In the back of his mind, he realized that he had never really showed the man any respect until after he’d died. And even then, he’d only offered him as long as it’d taken to bury him. But he couldn’t very well tell all the other Awakened to forget the loss of their comrades and then allow himself to become depressed about his own failures.

He didn’t even need to feel that bad. Alric was going to be back after the reset. Hirrus was fuzzy on the details of what his death would cost him, and what he would retain, but he would be back. It was strange how death in this world meant so little to adventurers, materially, but so much to their psychology.

They would always keep coming back, but they were still so offended by their own defeats that they would-

The revelation hit Hirrus like a bolt of Arcana.

“Find Keynes,” Hirrus said, turning for the door. “I’ll be back once I’ve spoken to GM Dave.”

“Wait,” Nidra said, grabbing Hirrus’s arm to stop him. “How?”

“I got GM Dave to come to me in Inoha,” Hirrus said. “He came to me several times. If we hadn’t become allies, I likely could have deduced exactly how, but he’s told us directly why he tracked me down.” He produced his icy greataxe from his inventory, pointing it out the door and at the city before them. “I may not know how to reach him, but I know how to send a message.”