Kaldalis knew better than to try and look for Balrim and Myrin. They’d gone out to gather crafting materials, and if he knew them, they’d be out for the rest of the day. With dungeon runs being what they were, they had gotten used to spending all their free time out in the jungle. So he didn’t expect that they’d return until nightfall.

Or, at the earliest, until dinner.

That said, it wasn’t a terrible idea to wait for them. If Onirioago was right, he wouldn’t be able to catch the deacon tetra until nighttime - like the slippery tuna that he caught in the ocean at night.

They’d be back at camp before he actually had to leave, right?

Unfortunately, it seemed that wasn’t the case.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to sell anything like that,” the quartermaster said, “not while the Infernal Horde was around. I guess they were feeling brave.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Kaldalis said, concern for his friends covering up his disappointment. “Do I need to go out and find them?”

“It should be,” she said, reassuring him with a smile. “The tent is designed with a low profile and a mottled coloration to camouflage it. It’s perfectly safe. I’m just surprised anyone was feeling like camping out this early into the trip.”

“I guess they won’t be back tonight, then,” Kaldalis grumbled. “So much for that plan.”

“Sorry,” the quartermaster shrugged. “You could still go after them? They weren’t gone too long.”

“No, no,” Kaldalis said quickly. “It’s not your problem. I’ll figure something out.”

It was just what that something would be, he wasn’t quite sure.

It irritated him that Balrim and Myrin had made good on their earlier plan.

They intended to use their free time to explore more of the island, which required them to travel farther than a single day could take them through the jungle. He hadn’t expected them to follow through on that so quickly. He supposed he was lucky that the quartermaster recognized him as their friend, otherwise he’d have never known.

“Was there something you needed, though?” she asked, running a hand through her grey-streaked hair. “I didn’t mean to interrupt when you walked up.”

“Oh, yes,” Kaldalis said, shaking off his irritation. “Foturns told me that you sold fishing lures, and I’m looking to expand my arsenal.”

“You’re not still using that handmade wooden stick, right?” she asked with a click of her tongue.

Kaldalis retrieved his new bamboo fishing rod to an appreciative whistle from the quartermaster.

“That’ll do,” she said, “so what are you looking to buy?”

“Well, I’m not sure,” Kaldalis admitted. “I’m going to be headed into the jungle to do some freshwater fishing for a change. Bait is all well and good for what I’m doing in the ocean right next to camp, but if I’m going to be headed inland, I want to be using a lure. If I’m stuck out there for a long time, I don’t want to have to trek all the way back here and then all the way back out if I run out.”

“A reasonable idea,” the quartermaster said. She turned and started to sift through the crates of supplies arranged around her. After some time, she picked her way to the bottom of a stack on the far left of the storage area and started to dig around inside. “If we were anywhere else, I’d have a lot more questions about where you were fishing and your goals, but fish in the jungle have some very common qualities.” She pulled out a cloth roll and unfurled it on top of a displaced chest. The cloth was studded with various lures. “The long and short of it is that they’re territorial. They’ll strike at anything that moves even if they’re not hungry, so you could get away with something cheap and replaceable.” She gestured towards one end of the unrolled cloth, where it was mostly simple spinner and spoon lures.

They were basically just hooks attached to shiny metal ovals. Didn’t exactly take much skill or material to throw something like that together.

“I should probably pick up a couple of those,” Kaldalis said. “I’m flush with cash right now, so there’s no reason not to make the investment.”

The quartermaster nodded. “Now, I will add that jungle fish can be particularly vicious. One of these will do the job, but it might not last depending on the size of your target. If you’re looking for an investment, there’s more expensive fare that might be more durable.” She gestured down towards the middle of the unfurled cloth, where the lures became a bit more complex.

There was one she pointed to in particular.

It was a minnow lure - shaped like a small fish, with hooks hanging from where the fins would be - about an inch and a half long. It was silvery along its metallic length, with a smear of bluish paint across the top and red paint along the bottom.

Kaldalis considered that the fish he was looking for was supposed to be rare. He wasn’t sure all the exact mechanics for fishing in this game, but it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that a nicer lure would have a better return when it came to rarer fish.

“That sounds like a good call,” he said, “but I’d hate to lose it on my first cast.” He gestured up towards the spinner lures at the top of her unrolled cloth. “I’ll take a couple of spinners as well, just to start. Once I’m feeling a bit more comfortable, I’ll work my way up.”

“Seems a bit extreme to me,” she said, “but I’m not going to try and tell you how to spend your crescents.”

“It’s for fishing,” he said with a shrug. “It’s not like I’ll spend a fortune on lures and then put them all in a little box and only ever use the same jar of bait every trip for the rest of my life.”

In the end, he found himself spending over thirty crescents on fishing tackle. He got five various spoon lures that ran him a full doubloon each - twenty crescents total - while the minnow lure ran him ten crescents on its own.

At that point, though, he was feeling the rush of joy from buying new toys. He splurged a bit, handing over two more doubloons for a pair of jars of the cured roe he’d been using already.

It seemed a ridiculous amount of the bait, but he needed to catch a ridiculous amount of pale perch. He wasn’t worried about it going to waste. It also wasn’t like thirty-eight crescents was that much money compared to what he’d raked in from his stream supporters.

“This is a lot of money to part with all at once,” the quartermaster said as she counted the doubloons he handed over. “Are you sure you want to pay in crescents? You could eat some of the cost with guild credits.”

“Yes,” he said with a firm nod. “Crescents are fine. I actually have more of them than I have credits.” There was also still the chance the guild credits would be needed for specific things that he couldn’t get with crescents. Any time he could choose to spend cash instead, he needed to conserve the more rare resource.

“You got lucky then,” the quartermaster said, digging around in her pocket to hand him a half-doubloon change. “Fishing lures were on the list to sell for credits only until just this morning. The Expedition Leader herself came down to order them to be made available for crescent purchase.”

“Yeah,” he said in a thin voice. “Lucky.”

Kaldalis grimaced, but tried to hide it.

Onirioago had planned this. She knew he would come here and she knew he would need lures to pull off this quest. She also had to know that he’d upgraded his fishing rod for the quartermaster to sell him lures in the first place.

Creepy. She was keeping tabs on him and everything he was doing. Why? How?

He wondered if, even now, she was hiding somewhere nearby watching his every move and cackling evilly at her successful puppeteering.

He wouldn’t put it past her.

With his business concluded, he went back to looking around the camp for an escort. He wasn’t sure if it was because of his initial concern, or because now he wanted to throw whatever wrench he could in Onirioago’s machinations, but he definitely wasn’t going out by himself.

His first stop was to look for Haldir. He knew the teal-skinned vathon had some work to do with the team putting together the censer, but he hoped the NPC would be available to accompany him later in the evening.

He only felt more defeated when he found out he had been outmaneuvered before he’d even know the game was on.

“So he’s not here?” Kaldalis asked again to confirm.

“Yes,” the bhogad woman said evenly, keeping her hands steady as she manipulated a pair of vials, carefully combining their contents in a larger jar on the table before her. One of them was full of a pinkish powder, and the other held a cloudy orange fluid. “He was supposed to be helping me with this today, but he’s been called away for a dungeon run at the last minute.”

“Sorry,” he said, not sure why he was apologizing. “But a dungeon run? We finished the last of those yesterday. Why is he out on another?”

The bhogad woman was silent for a moment as she finished combining the vials in the larger jar. The pink powder ran out before the orange fluid, and she slowed down, dripping the orange fluid into the mixture one drop at a time, carefully counting. When she was done, she capped the vial and turned back towards Kaldalis. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you what I don’t know for myself.”

“Alright, then I have a question you can answer,” Kaldalis said, “and I suspect I already know it. When he returns, he’ll be busy making up for lost time with you.”

“That’s not a question,” she said, the edge of her mouth curling up in what could possibly be called a smirk. “I can’t answer a question you don’t ask.”

“Sorry,” Kaldalis said. He was trying to be irritated at the pedantry, but something about her affable manner made it charming. “I meant to begin with ‘would it be correct to say’ to make it one.”

“Then yes,” she said with a smile. “We’re approaching the end here, and even a small delay could be the difference between having it ready in two days and having it ready in four.”

“So he’s not going to be available for hijinks and peril tonight,” he observed. And then, after a pause, added: “will he?”

“That would be correct,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Kaldalis said. He looked around to see if he could catch a hint of sky blue horn poking out of a hiding spot. “It’s someone’s fault, all right, but not yours.”