After moments of mulling through his options, Kaldalis settled on one.

Balrim and Myrin had gone out of their way to set up tents next to each other. This meant that, once Kaldalis made up his mind to get them first, it was an easy course from there.

After standing awkwardly between the two tents for about a minute, Kaldalis decided to wake Balrim up first. He slapped his hand against the outside of the tent a few times before poking his head inside.

“Balrim?” Kaldalis said as soon as he confirmed that the talsar was in the tent and still asleep. “Hey, Balrim, I need your help.”

Balrim made a grumbling sound and rolled over, but didn’t say anything.

Kaldalis sighed and entered the tent. It felt a little rude to be barging in, but he needed guidance.

And if things escalated like he feared they might, he’d need backup.

He thought about his approach for a moment, and then patted Balrim on the shoulder. “Wake up, Balrim,” he said again, “it’s kind of an emergency. I need your help.”

Balrim groaned, grumbled, and rolled over again, but this time one slit-pupiled eye opened. “Whaaaaa-aaat?”

“This is a fucked situation and I don’t even know how to begin approaching it.”

“So you just want to talk through it?” Balrim asked, groggily. “Do I need to be awake for this? Or can you just talk and I’ll make helpful noises until you go away?”

Kaldalis shook his head, then shrugged. “It involves Onirioago, and I might be an accessory to some sort of crime. Maybe something big enough to take down the whole expedition. I don’t know what to do, and I’m afraid whatever I can do will be more dangerous than it seems.”

“And whatever it is, it’s bad enough that you, Kaldalis, dungeon solo hero, are coming to your friends looking for help instead of bull rushing into it blindly?”

“Yes,” Kaldalis said, trying not to laugh. “It’s that serious.”

Balrim’s eye closed and he sighed heavily. “Alright. Alright. I’m up.” The talsar struggled for a minute to sit up, and then gestured for Kaldalis to leave. “This lizard body doesn’t have external genitalia, but I wouldn’t mind some privacy. And if it’s that serious, you should go wake up Myrin as well.”

“Right. Ah, sorry,” Kaldalis said. “I’ll go do that now.”

Kaldalis went to the next tent down the line and slapped at the canvas door to Myrin’s tent. And then again for good measure. He’d felt anxious enough invading Balrim’s space, but the prospect of entering a woman’s bedroom while she slept was even more uncomfortable.

From inside the tent he could hear the sonorous rhythm of her snoring with relative clarity, and knew that the only way he was going to wake her up from out here was by making a noise loud enough to startle the occupants of every tent in the immediate area. As much as he might not like it, he was going in.

Despite the heat and humidity of the jungle, Myrin was bundled up under at least three blankets. At least one of them was pulled over her head, turning her into a tiny burrito. Kaldalis wondered how much louder the snoring would be without that layer.

“Myrin?” Kaldalis tried from the door. He didn’t know why he thought it would work. Unlike Balrim, though, she didn’t stir at all. He grimaced and tentatively entered her tent. “Myrin, I need your help,” he said louder, reaching out and gently shoving her. “It’s an emergency.”

The snoring stopped and the blanket burrito made an extremely angry sound. There was some movement, but then silence, and the snoring started again.

“Myrin,” Kaldalis said, raising his voice. “I’m not kidding around. Shit is fucked here. I need your help.” He reached out and shook her. “Wake the fuck up.”

The snoring cut short suddenly and Myrin let out a muffled yell. Instead of just a little twitch, she began to thrash. After a moment of slightly amusing struggle, Myrin emerged from the wad of blankets in a fury. Unlike Balrim, she wasn’t naked, but she appeared to be clad in nothing but a shirt - so hilariously oversized, he could safely assume it had been designed for a bhogad rather than a suyon.

The distraction of her wardrobe meant Kaldalis didn’t realize what was happening until her fist collided with his jaw.

The punch didn’t do damage - there wasn’t an unarmed weapon skill so that wasn’t really a surprise - but it still hurt like fuck.

“Easy,” he said, backing up and clutching his jaw. “It’s me! It’s Kaldalis!”

“I know who the fuck it is!” she snarled. “What the fuck are you waking me up for?” She leaped off of her cot and aimed another punch at his face.

He ducked under the swing, but her body weight slammed into him, carrying him to the ground. Kaldalis put his arms up over his face defensively as she started trying to punch him again. Her fists were much less painful on his arms than his jaw, and so he used the opportunity to explain.

“It’s Onirioago! Onirioago is doing something nasty,” he whisper-yelled through the pummelling. “Something so bad it could be the end of her!”

Myrin hesitated. “What?” She shook her head and blinked her eyes for a moment. “What’s going on?”

“Can you get off me? I’ll explain everything once Balrim gets dressed. I don’t want to go through it twice.”

“Do you think there’s going to be a fight?”

“I’m talking about taking down Onirioago. Do you think she’d go quietly?”

“I’ll get my armor on, too,” Myrin said, scrambling towards the wooden chest at the foot of her cot. “I’ll meet you outside.”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what you’re wearing now,” Kaldalis said, “but suit yourself.”

She whirled on him and he scrambled out the door of her tent before she could visit any more violence on him. Once outside, he saw Balrim was already there, with a potion in hand.

“You knew that would happen,” Kaldalis said.

“I absolutely did not,” Balrim said, but the talsar was grinning.

“No, you did,” Kaldalis said, trying not to break into a grin as well. “That’s why you sent me over here, so that I’d be the one waking her up. You knew she was a ‘destroy the alarm clock’ kind of person.”

“Oh, I knew she would hit you,” Barlim confirmed. He held up the potion in his hand. The liquid inside churned and bubbled, revealing that it was one of his ability potions, not an inventory item. “I didn’t think she’d keep it limited to her fists.”

“Lucky me, then,” Kaldalis grumbled, rubbing his sore jaw. “At least I’m already purple. None of the bruises will show through.”

Once Myrin was dressed, the three of them stepped back inside her tent, and Kaldalis explained. He started with the quest, naming and describing the deacon tetra to them at last. He even produced the extra he’d kept in his inventory - though only briefly. Nothing happened to him, his quest log, or his guild credits, so he supposed there was no system still binding him to secrecy. Once that was out of the way, he described the scene he’d just witnessed, explaining that Onirioago sent out a mob of fishermen to farm up hundreds of them, and, most importantly, that her words implied that these fish were somehow dangerous.

“That’s not a lot to work with,” Balrim said, “but there are some courses of action available to us.”

“Yeah,” Myrin said with a firm nod. “We can go to her tent and try and take her out in her sleep, or we can wait until morning and challenge her to a dramatic duel on the walls.”

“So tell me about the courses of action,” Kaldalis said to Balrim, ignoring Myrin’s interjection. “Because I don’t know who to even begin to talk to. Onirioago is the authority I’d go to if I caught anyone doing something this suspicious. Who else is there? Ikzoz? Sardol? The, uh. The ship captain? I never learned her name.”

“I don’t know,” Myrin grumbled. “They all answer to her, right? There’s no way to tell if any of them are more honest than loyal until they’ve got us bent over a barrel.”

“Ikzoz might be okay,” Kaldalis said. “Haldir was running him through the dungeon, and he said something about her being a pain in the ass for him as well.”

Balrim shook his head. “Regardless, we need more information first. We can’t go to the second-highest tier of authority on the island and demand a mutiny until we know what we’re mutinying against. Is this fish actually contraband? Is Onirioago perpetrating a crime? Or are the fish extremely valuable and she’s being a greedy bitch?”

“Two things can be true,” Myrin said with a shrug.

Kaldalis paced back and forth briefly. “You’re right. We need to understand the nature of the crime. If we’re tattling on her for fraudulently low quest payouts, that’s a way different thing than if she’s in serious enough legal trouble to remove her from office.”

“Alright. We’re in agreement, then,” Balrim said, “we need to know what that fish you have is.”

“Right. How?”

“We go to the research team,” Balrim said, rolling his eyes. “They can tell you the use and value of any harvested item you bring them. That’s how I’ve been levelling cooking, by asking them what random shit I come back to town has a recipe on the books. What have you been doing, just throwing all your spare materials out?”

“I mean, not really,” Kaldalis lied, apparently unconvincingly as both Balrim and Myrin snorted with laughter. “I’ve just been asking around what people will find useful?”

“Alright, alright,” Myrin said, “then this is a learning experience. That’s good!”

“Let’s go find Bangen,” Kaldalis said, ducking his head so they couldn’t see the embarrassed flush running up his dark cheeks.

“At this hour?” Balrim asked.

“That’s why I said Bangen. If anyone on the research staff could still be working right now, it’s her.”