Garyung gathered every adventure he could find. He stood before them, not pacing, with a determined frown. “Listen,” he said, his voice clear and loud. “I have a plan.”

The wood of the gate behind them shook and rattled under the force of the army outside.

It wouldn’t hold forever.

Everyone was visibly anxious and rattled by what they’d seen so far. That there was still so much more fight ahead was more demoralizing than any one death could be.

“We’re outmatched and outnumbered on our own doorstep,” Garyung said, “but we’re not up against a real army. This is a force of nature. A raging river. How do you fight a raging river?” He held up a hand and slammed his fist into it. “You dam it upstream.”

It was amusing to see how in control Garyung was, considering he was in shambles just moments ago. Now that Kaldalis had explained the course of action they should take, the Bhogad was projecting all the calm confidence he needed as a leader.

“There is a syncoresi den to the north of camp. We’re going to send a team there. Assaulting the base of the horde’s power is going to be nearly suicide, but it will demand a response. The syncoresi will leave. Once the victory here is going to be swift and certain, our primary force will march out to finish this fight.” He thumped a fist to his breastplate. “I’ll lead that charge myself.”

“I’ll be leading the assault team,” Kaldalis said, stepping up beside Garyung. “I need a strong crew, but I won’t deprive the home team of the best and brightest. They’ll be needed here in case the enemy breaches the gates, and to ensure victory when the time comes to march out to repel their attack. I also only want volunteers; this is going to be the most dangerous thing I’ve ever intentionally walked people into. I won’t demand it of anyone who wouldn’t choose to march into hell alongside me.”

Balrim and Myrin didn’t wait and stepped right up beside him.

A few dozen hands went up.

But some of those hands belonged to NPCs. Haldir’s final words to him echoed in his head.

“Uh,” Kaldalis said, eyeing Bangen and Heluna in the front row with their hands raised, “in the interest of full disclosure, our victory condition is to be sandwiched between the syncoresi in the den and the syncoresi who rush back there from the attack. There’s only one way I can see that ending.” He met Bangen’s eyes, and then shifted to Heluna’s. “Please don’t volunteer unless that’s something you’ll come back from.”

Bangen’s hand snapped down quickly. Heluna held his gaze and didn’t lower her hand an inch, even after Kaldalis looked away and started inviting other people to his party.

Balrim and Myrin were easy pickups, and Aurigeant was eager to join as well. Kaldalis didn’t want to take too many alpha players, but he needed at least a couple to have a chance to succeed on sheer numerical output. Yosini and Balrim had worked well together as healers, so he accepted him, and also grabbed Droto the overzealous archer.

He tried to stick his other selections to people he knew were PCs. He picked up an alpha player healer - a navy blue vathon named Deytambos - and another tank - a finnian woman named Courbois covered with as many scars as the character creator screen would let her have. He brought it up to an even ten with two more DPS - two humans, one with a bow and one with a greatsword. After that, he figured they were as prepared as they were going to be without becoming a detrimental drain on the resources the camp would need.

“Alright team,” Kaldalis said, still pointedly avoiding Heluna’s glare from her spot still among those staying behind. “We need to move fast. We have one stop to make, and then we need to get to the forest.”

“What’s the stop?” Deytambos asked.

“Our secret weapon,” Kaldalis said. He started to lead them back towards camp, but stopped just inside the inner gate, where someone had respectfully lined up the bodies of the fallen group. He stared down at Haldir’s corpse, his skin now a sickly pale green from blood loss. “One a better man than me got us.”

Kaldalis tracked down the alchemy tent in the crafting area. There he found what he was after.

The two censers.

“This is our trump card,” Kaldalis explained. “I cleared it with Garyung. We burn the first one before we go in so that we can dig ourselves a safe spot to fight from. Once we see the reinforcements from the attack we burn the second to last as long as we can. We only have to hold until our quest clears and the attack is over. There’s no telling how long that will take.” He passed the censers to Balrim, since he would be standing near the back of the fight. “But we can do it. Since the last time we faced the horde, we’ve leveled a ton of times, everyone has Kaia’s Flicker, and we’ve all got dungeon gear. Make no mistake, we’re marching to our deaths. But we will go down fighting, and we’ll take so many of them with us they’ll think twice before fucking with us ever again.”

A little cheer went up at that.

He hadn’t intended that to be a speech, but he supposed it served well enough to rally the group.

“We’re leaving through the beachside gate. We might have to cut our way out, but once everyone is clear, we’re booking it straight for the syncoresi den,” Kaldalis explained. “We don’t have time to get bogged down fighting literally anything between here and there. I know there’s going to be some temptation to lead a bunch of them away, but we have to focus. We need the big win, not the small win.”

Everyone made sounds of agreement, so Kaldalis lead the way to the beachside gate.

He was surprised to find it standing open. A mob of adventurers were there, flitting around like bees on a hive. The Infernal Horde wasn’t pressing in, though, so he fought down his panic on their approach.

“What’s going on?” Kaldalis asked the pack of archers near the back of the group when he approached. “Why are these gates open?”

The nearest archer just pointed, and Kaldalis could see what was happening. There were six tank players arranged in a loose semicircle, holding back the tide of Infernal Horde. It looked like it would have been a doomed endeavor, spreading their resources too thin, but Gabriel, the imperious-looking finnian, was leading a group of healers in the center of the storm of activity, the four of them producing ample healing for everyone, holding the line.

“Garyung sent word ahead,” one of the archers said. “Gabriel pushed us out to open the path for you.”

The Finnian turned at the mention of his name, and gave Kaldalis a nod. He produced a potion and tossed it to Gavinkim, the tank at the head of the group, and a shift took place as the greatsword-wielding Bhogad started to push forward, breaking an opening in the Infernal Horde line for him.

“What the fuck was in that potion?” Balrim asked. “When do I learn how to do that?”

“No time to find out!” Kaldalis shouted. “We can’t let our opening slip! With me!”

Kaldalis rushed through the crowd of DPS buzzing around the opening Gavinkim had made. He wanted to say something dramatic. Something about carrying the hopes of the camp. But the longer they were here, the more chances there were for something to go wrong.

Instead, he rushed out onto the beach. Immediately the group circled northwest, hurrying to get clear of the mob of Infernal Horde filling the immediate surroundings.

“Stay close,” he called as he finally turned and led them into the jungle, “I don’t have much to say about what we’re up against, but we’re going to have to make do with what little intel we have.

“First and foremost, there’s a lack of serious structure. It’s more like a wolf den, not a village. A cave full of them. There are some rudimentary structures around, but mostly just for drying meats and cultivating food. They clearly need to eat, but beyond that concern, there’s not much else. No defenses, no homes, just a big hole in the hillside.”

“So what do we do?” Myrin asked. “Just run in and start digging holes everywhere?”

“I imagine this is going to be more combat-oriented than vandalism-oriented,” Kaldalis said. “There will be syncoresi there. Those are our targets. Not the den itself, but the horde that remained behind. We need to force the attackers to retreat. A few drying racks can be rebuilt. A garden can be replanted. Their sense of safety and security is what we need to threaten.” He smashed his fist into his palm. “It’s like they need to crush us mercilessly, to send us a message that their home is not to be fucked with… So we’ll do the same”

“Right. Force them to divert their forces,” Courbois said with a vicious grin. “That’s how we send them our message in return.”

“Exactly,” Kaldalis said, giving his co-tank a nod. “We let them know that as long as they want to treat our home like a battleground, we’ll do the same to them.”

The last time Kaldalis had taken this trip, it had been as a ghost, running from the first raid back to his corpse, but not much had changed. The minimap was a huge help in figuring out where to go - it was one of the few areas in this part of the island he’d explored - and it wasn’t long before he reached the waypoint he’d been looking for.

Kaldalis knelt down next to the skeleton. It had only been here a few days, and so some dirt had covered parts of it, but the surrounding grasses and plants hadn’t started overtaking it.

“Hey look,” Myrin said with shock in her voice, “a dead body!”

“What the fuck,” Balrim cursed, averting his eyes. “Who was this?”

“You can’t tell?” Kaldalis reached for the skull, grabbing it by the eye sockets and wiggling it out of the dirt, holding it up next to his head. The horns were a dead giveaway.

“I guess that explains how you know the den is here,” Yosini said with a grimace. “But I could have done without the grim reminder of what’s to come.”

“Light up the censer,” Kaldalis said to Balrim as he put the skull back by the top of his former spine. “We’re not far.”