Instead of the well-deserved cussing out Kaldalis was expecting, Garyung turned on himself. “Fuck!” he snarled. Garyung knocked his knuckles against his own head. “I’m so fucking stupid! What the fuck was I thinking! I can’t believe I just pushed the fucking button like that! Shit!”

Considering his involvement, Kaldalis was pretty surprised Garyung wasn’t putting the responsibility on Kaldalis. Just the same, though, this wasn’t helping.

“Hey,” Kaldalis said, grabbing both sides of the Bhogad’s breastplate and shaking him as violently as he could shake someone built like a vending machine. “Get a hold of yourself. The decision is made. It’s done. You can beat yourself up about it all you want once we’re not about to die!”

Something hardened in Garyung’s eyes. “Yeah. Okay.” He slapped himself across the muzzle, grunting at the impact. “I’m good. Yeah. Alright. I’m good. What do we do?”

“We?” Kaldalis sighed, suddenly reminded that Garyung needed Kaldalis to make the decisions, if they were going to be made. “You need to get the council. You need to find them, wake them up, and get them moving. If anyone knows how to handle a siege like this, it’s them. They’ve got the tools, the teams, and the knowledge. That’s your job.”

Kaldalis hesitated a moment, imagining the entire council bearing down on him in a fury when they found out he told Garyung to do this. “Don’t let them slow you down with questions,” he added. “Now is the time for action. We need to survive first. Explanations will come after.”

“Okay,” Garyung said, nodding, as if he were oblivious to Kaldalis’ manipulations. Kaldalis almost felt bad. “What then?”

“We need people to battle stations. As soon as you can, get a raid group started and get out there.” Kaldalis pulled Garyung down to eye level with him. “You need to lead from the front, okay? As soon as the wheels are turning with the council, you get your biggest baddest friends together and get to the fight.”

“Of course,” Garyung nodded with enthusiasm. “If I’m in the thick of the fight, no one will be asking me to make any big decisions.” He shot Kaldalis a broad grin. “Thanks.”

“Glad you get it. You get to do what you do best, right?” Kaldalis thumped the center of the Bhogad’s enormous breastplate. “You help by supporting and inspiring everyone else to greatness. Got it?”

“Wait, what do I tell them to do?” Garyung asked, even as he stepped around Kaldalis to head off to run for the council members’ tents.

“Priority one for anyone who isn’t you,” Kaldalis said, “goes to Sardol. His task force finished the censers. We need one ready and burning for this fight. It’ll be ten times fiercer than the last, and if we don’t bring every advantage we have, we’re toast. Everyone else needs to batten down the hatches to defend the camp.”

“Of course,” Garyung said, dashing off. “I’m on it!”

Kaldalis sighed.

The new leader of their camp had executive dysfunction. He wasn’t stupid, but he needed things outlined the right way for his brain to recognize and process. It was going to be an adventure being the right hand of an Expedition Leader who couldn’t handle leadership when it didn’t come with a bullet point list.

But Kaldalis’s focus at this moment was keeping everyone alive.

Preparing a daily agenda for Garyung was a problem for tomorrow.

Kaldalis knew where he needed to be. He’d just told Garyung to lead from the front, but there was going to be several minutes where nobody was at the gates if he waited for the Bhogad to return with his Alpha Player friends.

Someone had to hold the line for him.

Considering how he felt like he’d caused this catastrophe, he nominated himself, voted for himself, and accepted the responsibility.

It was a landslide victory.

He ran for the front gates of the camp. Either through luck or foresight - or game mechanics - they were closed when they came into view, but Kaldalis could hear the roar beyond.

Unlike that roar at the start of the event, this one didn’t sound immediately next to him. It was more distant, muffled by the thick wooden barrier.

Kaldalis sprinted to the nearest ladder next to the gate and rushed up onto the top of the wall. He crested it right as the immense impact of dozens - maybe hundreds - of bodies hit the other side. The force nearly knocked him off the ladder, but he managed to just barely catch the top rung before he fell. He scrambled a moment before he got his feet under himself at the top of the wall.

There was a veritable ocean of monsters below. In the time it had taken him to run here, they’d crossed the gap between the treeline and the walls, and were now hammering against them, trying to break through - if not push them down entirely with their sheer weight. The outer gate was open, and so the Infernal Horde had rushed in to slam against the inner gate. It was only syncoresi and malum again, with a number of the larger generals in the back. There was no sign of his four-fingered rival though.

Not yet, at least.

The reinforced wall was holding up to the punishment. So far. Much of the wall had spikes added near the halfway point that seemed to be stopping the syncoresi from simply scaling the walls. The larger monsters were staying to the back of the crowd, and would be a real threat, but the army was still surging forward, enveloping the walls.

Things were sort of under control for now. The walls would hold for a while, but not forever. Their numbers needed to be thinned.

Eventually, the spikes would be shattered and the syncoresi would start scaling the walls into the camp.

That would mean that, eventually, the gates would be breached and they would be overrun in moments.

This wasn’t a siege they were going to outlast.

It was a battle.

They needed to fight and win.

The only way this was ending was by driving them off, or being killed to the last. Which meant he needed to get down there and get to work. Only by attacking them directly could the camp thin their numbers and bring this attack to an end.

But could they do it?

The forces arrayed against them were too numerous. The camp was straight-up outnumbered now. They couldn’t party up and tackle one enemy at a time. They needed to thin their numbers.

If that was even possible.

Kaldalis remembered that the syncoresi den wasn’t that far from the camp. He wouldn’t be surprised if this was a multi-stage event, and the den would be a part of it. Even if it wasn’t, it couldn’t be allowed to remain so close to the town.

They just had to push through this mess first.

Of course, he couldn’t do that alone.

Solo Dungeon Hero Kaldalis wasn’t cut out for multiple boss-level monsters alone.

He turned around and looked over the camp. As expected, people were pouring out of their tents at the commotion, trying to figure out what was going on. Some were still getting dressed.

About a hundred yards down the wall from him, Kaldalis could see a single person - a Human man he didn’t recognize - with a bow out silently firing a steady stream of arrows into the horde, one at a time.

Despite almost everyone tumbling out of bed and panicking, only a few got their shit together in a hurry and rushed the gate. Kaldalis was glad to see Balrim and Myrin at the head of the pack. The Talsar healer reached the ladder behind him first, and swarmed up it with a blinding speed borne of panic, with Myrin coming up slower, but with more relaxed body language.

Balrim stood on the wall next to him, staring out at the mess of monsters in open terror, wordlessly.

“What’s the sitch?” Myrin asked as she scrambled up the last few feet of the ladder.

“Garyung hit the button to upgrade the camp into a town.” Kaldalis gestured out into the army arrayed against them. “Apparently we have one more challenge to get that done.”

“That’s good,” Myrin said, getting to the top of the wall and then hesitating as she stared out at the mess stretching from the walls below them all the way back to the treeline. “You have been working on that town thing for a week.”

“Yeah,” Kaldalis said. Silently, he extended a party invite, first to Myrin, and then to Balrim. She accepted almost immediately. Balrim was still stunned by what he saw. Kaldalis reached out and shook his friend by the shoulder. “You in there, Balrim?”

“Yeah.” Balrim blinked and shook his head to clear it. He accepted the invite immediately after that. “I’m okay. What do we do?”

“We need to get down there. We need to start thinning the numbers.” Kaldalis pointed below them at the enemies that were in the killbox between the inner gate and the outer gate. “There. We need to be able to open this gate when reinforcements arrive. We need to clear a space.”

“But look at that,” Balrim cried, gesturing with both clawed hands. “If we go down there, we’re going to get chewed into mulch!”

“Certainty of death?” Myrin asked. “Small chance of success?” She shrugged, calling her sword to her hand. “What are we waiting for?”

“Another DPS,” Kaldalis said, “that’s all. Where’s Haldir?”

“Can we afford to be picky?” Myrin asked, pointing back behind them.

A figure with a spear was leaping through the camp, hurtling towards them. It took Kaldalis a moment to recognize that they were using the same Jump cooldown he had. Only theirs obviously had some extra oomph behind it. He quickly recognized who they were.

“Let me try,” Kaldalis said. With an effort of will, he invited Aurigeant to the party. Acceptance came instantly, and the leaping figure altered course, heading for the trio on the wall.

Aurigeant landed on the wall beside Myrin with elegance and grace Kaldalis had come to expect from Finnians as a whole, let alone an experienced Alpha Player.

He didn’t say anything, but gave Kaldalis a nod of respect.

“Let’s go,” Kaldalis said, stepping up to leap down into the innumerable army below them. “We have one more raid to repel. Hopefully for the last time.”

He jumped.