Once their course was set, Onirioago dismissed them. It seemed the meeting would continue, as only the four of them stood up to leave, but Kaldalis was happy enough to just get out of there having received only minimal eye-fucking from the expedition leader. As much as he hated taking the lead, he had at least kept her attention off of Myrin. It also had helped to keep her focused on her display of political power instead of positioning them for further manipulation.

“It’s been a long day,” he said once the door closed behind them. “It’s hard to believe it’s even still today, considering how long it’s felt. I don’t think anyone would fault us for waiting to begin this next mission until tomorrow.”

“There’s a lot of cleanup to do as well,” Balrim said, gesturing around at the encampment. “We should probably make sure the walls get properly repaired.”

“And I have to handle things with the Censer,” Haldir added. “Now that we have the cores, we need to stop dragging our feet and get the incense ready immediately.”

“As much as I want to get to farming gear,” Myrin said, “we can’t really drag people away from getting the defenses back up, both the walls and the censer.”

“So we’re in agreement, then,” Kaldalis said. “We have other tasks to manage tonight, and first thing tomorrow we start getting people through the dungeon.”

“At dawn,” Myrin said gravely, “we plan.”

Balrim snorted a laugh.

“Then let's get to work,” Kaldalis said, turning and heading for the central square of town.

He wanted to look for the crafters to see what they needed, since they were probably going to be a good starting point for quests that would be getting overlooked by everyone heading straight to the engineers looking at the walls. Balrim was heading that direction, and Haldir had his own job to do with the Infernal Horde cores.

“Wait up,” Myrin said as she ran up beside him. Kaldalis realized quickly that he had to slow down to let her shorter legs keep up with him without her having to break into a jog. “I wanted to talk to you, nerd.”

“Well, nerd,” he shot back, “here I am. What’s up?”

“I can’t figure you out, so I feel like I just gotta ask,” she said. “Are you for real? Are you a player like us?”

“Um,” Kaldalis stopped walking and stared at her, confused. “Yes? I am? Why do you ask?”

“Well, we had that conversation about the streaming thing, so I thought you were, but I don’t know. Regular NPCs seem to be mostly just going along with the real-world conversations as they get thrown at them.” She made a vague gesture towards the direction Haldir had vanished. “And that one didn’t admit to not being one of us straight-up until it was literally his life on the line.”

“Well, I’ll tell you right now I’m a real person with a real body made of meat in a tube back in Monsoon headquarters,” he said. “If you want me to prove it, we can go out into the wilds and I’ll let myself get killed by a bunch of cougadiles or something and then respawn after thirty minutes.”

“That won’t prove anything. I don’t know for a fact that all NPC deaths are permanent,” she said with a grin. “What if you’re a dev insert and just have plot armor?” She squinted at him suspiciously. “What do you have to say for that, Indigo Jesus?”

“Indi-” Kaldalis laughed. “Alright then, I’ll put it to you. What can I possibly say to convince you I’m not an NPC?”

“I don’t know,” Myrin admitted. “Say something about real life. Something only you as a real person would know.”

“You don’t know the real me,” Kaldalis said. “So how is that going to work?”

“Just try. Tell me something.”

“Well, I’m not going to dox myself on both our streams,” he said, after a moment of hesitation. “But I’m an accountant. So, uh… Something only I would say… Quickbooks can eat my entire ass? There’s way better programs out there. I had one class where my professor taught us on Compier, which is cloud-based, so we could turn our work in online easy, and I honestly enjoyed working on it, so I-”

“Alright, alright,” Myrin said with a roll of her eyes. “I’m convinced. No self-respecting AI would ever put the words ‘quickbooks’ and ‘eat my entire ass’ together in the same sentence.”

“Alright. I’m glad that helped. I guess.”

“So what you said about the streaming thing is legit? You have someone on the outside? The rewards aren’t in yet?”

“Yes,” he said, giving her his best smile. “I promise. I know that stuff is important to you and Balrim, so I wouldn’t lie to you there. It would be a real dick move.”

“Alright.” Myrin sighed. “Thanks.”

“How are you feeling about that, anyway?” he asked. “I mean, we did some great stuff in the dungeon there. And you were the heavy lifter in terms of damage on the critical kills of the malum captains. You gotta have a following now.”

“Yeah,” Myrin sighed, “but I’m just a DPS. No matter what I do, I’m competing in the largest group of players. There’s so much competition, even though it’s considered the easiest job. It’s a struggle to be good enough to get on people’s radar.”

“If it helps, I meant what I said earlier,” Kaldalis offered, patting her on the shoulder. “If there’s anything I can do to help, I’ll help.”

“Why, though?” Myrin asked. “Just out of the goodness of your heart? You have to have an angle, but I don’t see it. It sounds like you’re going to hurt yourself more than help me. Why would anyone watch you if you’re just going to be spamming ads to watch other people?”

“Think about the streamers you like watching,” Kaldalis said, “what do they all have in common?”

“Good gameplay? Cute dog cam? Meme soundboard?”

“The power of friendship,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “They had good friends they played with. They supported each other. And together, they built a community.” He put a hand on Myrin’s shoulder. “I want to be a streamer, too. I mean, why wouldn’t I? It’s a great gig, right? But I don’t just want to be another asshole. I want to be good at this. I want to be big. And that means community.”

“And you want me to be a part of that?” Myrin asked with a tone of suspicion. “I mean, I wasn’t lying, you’re starting to become a big thing around here. You could probably have your pick. Hold Mystery Men tryouts.”

“And leave you and Balrim behind?” Kaldalis asked. “You’re the first people who were nice to me when I got here. You’re my friends. Abandoning you right when good things start happening to me sounds like a dick move. You don’t build a community off of dick moves.”

“Alright, so then what do we do?” Myrin asked.

“We join forces,” he said, “and work together.”

“On what?”

“I’m on a mission from the devs.”

“So you are Indigo Jesus?” Myrin asked.

“Not… Not really,” he looked around, making sure no else was nearby.

No one was. Everyone was still concerned with the smoldering walls and broken gates, from what he could see.

“My friend on the outside worked on the game. She’s going to join us in here at the last possible moment. She got me in ahead of her for a reason. I can’t really get into it because it’s complicated. And we’re on stream. But there are some simple steps that can only be performed from the inside.”

“Alright,” Myrin leaned in conspiratorially, arching an eyebrow. “So you’re the one with the main quest to hand out?”

“Sure,” he said. “If that helps you come to terms with it.”

“Alright then. What are we doing?” Myrin asked. “What’s the mission?”

“Well, there’s going to be another group of people coming into the game soon,” he explained, “but the problem is that they’re going to join up in Baimer, meaning weeks of boat travel to arrive here.”

“Right, and that’s bad.”

“But we can make them start here.”

“Okay, and that’s good?”

“Right, that would be great,” Kaldalis confirmed. “Not only for them to not suffer on the boat like we did, but also to provide reinforcements to the encampment immediately.”

“Okay. So how?”

“What we need is to upgrade the encampment. If we can turn it into a town, then it becomes a valid spawn point.”

“Okay,” Myrin repeated. “So… How?”

“I…” Kaldalis hesitated. “I don’t know.”

“Kaldalis?”

“What?”

“You’re the worst Jesus I’ve ever heard of.”

“Ah,” Kaldalis said with a grin, “but you have heard of me.”

Myrin laughed. “I’d love to help, though. Really. If you point me in the right direction, I’ll hit the things you need me to hit. But if you’re dealing with game mechanics, I’m more of a ‘look it up on the wiki’ kind of gal.”

“I couldn’t really ask for much more than that. But if we’re all working towards it together, that’s another person who might catch whatever bit of lore I need to know to accomplish my goal.”

“I’ll get Balrim on board for you,” Myrin said, giving him a playful punch on the shoulder. “Did Haldir have anything to say about it?”

“I haven’t asked,” Kaldalis said, “since he’s been so focused on the censer, and considering the safety of the encampment is probably part of the process, I don’t want to fuck with him until that’s done.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Myrin said. “But once he’s done with whatever he’s doing now, that’s your opening.”

“For now, though, we’re wasting time.” He gestured at the area of the encampment ahead of them that had become a flurry of activity. “Regardless of what we need to turn the encampment into a town, we need to make sure we still have the encampment.”

“Then let’s get to work,” Myrin said with a grin, gesturing for him to go first.