Onirioago shoved Kaldalis out of the way and stalked towards the flap of the tent. Bangen’s hand vanished with an audible squeak of terror. Sword and shield appeared in the expedition leader’s hands, and Kaldalis could see that he could probably just keep his mouth shut and let this unfold to avoid the consequences of his actions.

Unfortunately, Onirioago looked particularly murderous, and after the unfortunate mental gymnastics that connected her to Ara, he couldn’t stomach the idea of leaving a friend to her mercy - or lack thereof.

“Stop,” Kaldalis said, grabbing Onirioago by the shoulder. “I can explain.”

She whirled on him, and her blade lanced up towards his face, stopping just an inch from his nose. He instinctively held his hands up, showing her his empty palms in surrender.

“What have you done?” she demanded.

“I’ve given you a choice.” The tent flap opened, and Myrin started to step in with her greatsword in hand. Kaldalis quickly met her eyes and shook his head.

Myrin didn’t leave, but she also stopped advancing.

Onirioago didn’t miss the exchange. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed to the expedition leader that Myrin there, and Balrim was right behind her. With a snarl, Onirioago darted around Kaldalis’s back, holding the edge of her blade to his throat as she took cover behind him.

“Don’t try it,” she snapped. “Not unless you want to see his blood hit the floor!”

“Easy,” Kaldalis said. It was a mental struggle to allow himself to be taken hostage, but he still saw a peaceful solution available here. “We can still talk this out. This doesn’t have to end in violence.”

“What have you done?” Onirioago demanded again. He felt the cold steel press against his neck, and knew she was looking for an immediate answer, and not a bunch of runaround.

“I found out what the deacon tetra is for.” He winced as the cold steel at his throat moved against his skin when she flinched. “I saw you send out a crew to catch a few hundred more, and immediately knew something wasn’t right. Bangen told me all about the deacon tetra - after threatening to stab me for having one.”

“So this is your mutiny attempt, is it? Sneak in here to rub up on me until I incriminate myself, and then use that to justify my assassination?”

“It doesn’t have to be like that. Assassination was never the plan. And mutiny doesn’t have to be!”

“What are you...” Myrin stared at him from across the room. “Of course mutiny is the plan.”

“It doesn’t have to be, though!” Kaldalis cried as he felt Onirioago’s sword turn to put the edge against his skin. “You have a choice now. You can hold your course and force us to oust you. Bangen is a reliable witness, and heard you ask - in no uncertain terms - for fifteen deacon tetra.”

“And a bit more, besides,” Myrin grumbled.

“We can take her to Ikzoz,” Kaldalis said, ignoring the interjection. “And with her testimony we can force your inner circle to turn against you to save their own skins. You’ll be imprisoned or worse - I don’t know what the punishment is for this crime. But even if you can come out of this with your freedom, you’ll never work for the Adventurers League again.”

“So what’s my choice, then?” she snarled in his ear. The edge of her blade scratched slowly up his throat. It felt like an old razor, and he knew there would be more than a few little dots of red on his neck after this, even if she agreed to his proposal. “Go quietly, or cut your throat and make a fight of it?”

“You don’t have to go at all,” Kaldalis snapped. It was getting harder to stay still, but he knew if he tried to fight her she’d open his throat before he could get control of the weapon to stop her. “Abandon your current course. Go to your inner circle. We destroy the deacon tetra I caught, start up a quest for adventurers to fish them up and destroy them as well. It’s in line with Adventurer’s League policy, right? You could be the hero of this story. You don’t have to be the villain.”

“I don’t want to be a hero,” she whispered in his ear. Her voice dropped an octave and her hand wandered down his side to his hip, pulling him against her. “I don’t want to be a villain either. If you think that your petty case will stop me - that your paltry compromise could ever appease me - then you’ve never met what I want to be.”

The world spun. He wasn’t sure how she’d thrown him to the ground, but he was glad she didn’t open his throat to do it. Maybe that meant that she still needed him. Or maybe it was because it would only take him out for the thirty minute respawn time, even if it did kill him.

But for whatever reason she chose not to cut him open, he managed to scramble onto his knees, diving to try and grab Onirioago’s legs before she could attack his friends.

Except she wasn’t there. She didn’t charge the door.

Instead, she ran for the back of her tent. With a flash of her blade, the canvas at the back of the tent opened up and she dove out into the night.

“Next time you see me, it will be once my Geas Venom is already in your veins!”

“Fuck,” Kaldalis blurted, unable to come up with anything more coherent. “After her! After her!” He scrambled to his feet and ran for the opening in the tent. “If she makes good on that threat, we’re all fucked!”

Kaldalis didn’t wait to see what his friends were doing. As soon as he was out of the tent, he saw Onirioago vanish around the corner three tents down.

She was fast.

But as a sword and shield user, she didn’t have mobility options.

Kaldalis did.

He popped his Jump cooldown and hurled himself into the air towards where she’d vanished.

Kaldalis landed at the corner where she’d vanished, and he caught sight of her cutting across the narrow aisle between tents to vanish between two of them. As before, he only saw a bare glimpse before she disappeared.

A moment later, Balrim and Myrin appeared nearby, bursting into the aisle with Bangen in tow.

“That way!” Kaldalis yelled. “She went between those tents. We can’t let her get out of the camp!”

“Get Ikzoz,” Balrim said, grabbing Bangen by the shoulders. “Run as fast as you can and don’t stop for anything. The most important thing right now is for the threat she represents to be known. You’re the only way that happens.”

“O-okay!” Bangen stammered. She turned and bolted back the other direction. Kaldalis hoped Onirioago wouldn’t circle around for her to try and remove her as a threat.

Kaldalis wanted to take a moment to regroup with his friends and make a plan, but there was no time. He hurled himself into the air again, leaping towards Onirioago’s escape.

He could see her at the edge of his vision globe.

A sky-blue shape darting between tents.

She wasn’t making much distance on him due to all the twists and turns in her route, but her positioning was carefully measured.

Kaldalis knew he couldn’t leap ahead of her to cut her off if he couldn’t tell where she was going next. As soon as he hit the ground he leaped again. The important thing was keeping eyes on her. As soon as he picked out the sky-blue horns poking over the tops of tents, he pointed and kept his finger fixed on her course.

Hopefully Balrim and Myrin could see him and were using him to identify her location.

Having spent some time chasing grizzled dragons in the wilderness, this was extremely frustrating. Regular monsters moved predictably. Rationally. They followed basic pathfinding logic.

Onirioago was smarter than that.

She knew she couldn’t move as fast as Balrim with his passive speed boost, or as freely as Kaldalis with his Jump, or escape as quickly as Myrin could close the gap with her charge cooldown.

Zig-zagging like this was her only chance. She had maneuverability he didn’t while he was in the air, and if she managed to keep out of line of sight, Balrim and Myrin might get lost entirely despite their straight move speed advantages.

“The beachside gate!” Kaldalis yelled. “It’s the only way she could get out from here! Beat her there!”

He wasn’t sure if Balrim and Myrin had heard him. He feared that taking his eyes off of Onirioago would ensure her escape. If she found someone sympathetic to her, she could hide in their tent.

Keeping on her would force her to run instead of hide.

He just had to hope that they could corner her before his jump duration ran out.

A few dozen seconds of wild zig-zagging from her, and a handful of Jumps from him later, the beachside gate came into view ahead of them. Myrin was nowhere to be seen, but Balrim was standing there with his arms out like a goalie. Onirioago pulled up short about ten feet in front of him. Kaldalis landed about fifteen feet behind her.

“It’s over,” he said, trying to pretend like he wasn’t out of breath. “It didn’t have to be this way, Onirioago.”

“You’re right,” she snarled. “We could have been partners in this, rather than enemies. But that’s going to be your loss, not mine!”

She made a break for the gate, darting to the left to get around Balrim. Despite her attempt to evade him, the talsar lunged for her. He didn’t need to attack, he just needed to trip her up. All Balrim and Kaldalis had to do was get on top of her and it was over. The two of them dogpiled on her could hold her still until one of them could figure out a way to restrain her more permanently.

The three of them. Myrin burst out of a nearby alley and beelined right towards Onirioago. Her Aggressive cooldown was clearly active, and she practically flew towards the sky-blue vathon. Balrim and Myrin were going to sandwich her between them. That’d take the fight out of her. Then Kaldalis could walk up with some spare vine rope from his inventory and finish the job.

Unless she had a plan.

Onirioago wasn’t making any attempt to dodge. She wasn’t even raising her shield.

It was obvious that she had an out.

Kaldalis just didn’t know what it was.

He had to get in there. Whatever she was about to do, his friends were going to need his help.

Kaldalis hurled himself into the air, aiming to pounce on her. If she just ran face-first into their attacks, this was going to suck to land on top of the pile. He risked hurting his friends by landing on them. But she had to have a plan. Otherwise, she wasn’t going to escape, even if she managed to bait him into kicking Balrim in the face.

Suddenly, right before their collective collision, Onirioago vanished.

Fuck!

It suddenly seemed so obvious. Kaia’s Flicker would evade them all and she would pop back in in one second without a hand on her.

The trap was perfect.

Balrim and Myrin were about to run face-first into each other, and Kaldalis was going to land on top of them. They were all going to end up in a tangle of limbs and she was going to just bolt out the gate, home free.

He had an out, though.

It was the same out that she’d used.

Kaldalis activated Flicker.