As the Zaran diplomats closed in, Kaldalis barely had time to get back to his feet.

As a group, they were visibly upset, but there were at varying levels. Cerh and Jetmorpan looked about ready to commit murder, but Demriv and Kensah looked to merely be enraged. It was a fine line, but definitely there. Big Mike in the back looked more upset than angry, and Kaldalis figured that if the ship captain wasn’t here for his blood, then he might have achieved his overall goal of making sure no NPCs died.

“You knew this would happen,” Jetmorpan began as soon as Kaldalis was in earshot. Considering the volume of his voice at the moment, the council still had quite a distance to cover before Kaldalis had to explain himself.

That was good. It gave him time to think of what he was going to say, since he wasn’t going to shout back at them.

“This represents an enormous loss on the part of the Kingdom,” Jetmorpan continued as the group stormed towards him, “one that we have paid already for Cotanaku. One that we will not suffer to pay again! Do you think this was free? Do you think the crescents that paid for your quests came from thin air?”

Kaldalis tried to formulate a response. The first thing that came to mind was that yes, he did think the money was coming from nowhere. That was how videogame quest rewards worked, right? Apparently Monsoon had built a more complicated economy than the average MMO.

The accountant that lived in the back of his mind immediately went to work. He was getting something between fifteen and twenty-five crescents on every quest turn in. Each run was between six and eight quests. There had been about fifteen total runs of quests since he arrived in Panbu.

He had made, personally, something like two thousand crescents from these quests.

Looking around at the fifty-odd adventurers who he knew had helped the quest spam, that was over a hundred thousand crescents. And that wasn’t counting whatever was being paid to the workers who actually did things with the materials they were gathering. Considering that the adventurers were also being paid in experience points, he suspected that the craftsmen and workers would likely receive more compensation than them.

Considering what Jetmorpan was saying, it sounded like they expected him, personally, to front the money for rebuilding the town. Obviously, he couldn’t afford that. Without more data, he couldn’t extrapolate the cost fully, but just the quest payout he’d already come up with dwarfed his current purse.

“Okay,” Kaldalis said once the council had finally approached him, “obviously first and foremost, I have to apologize for my failure. You were right that my rush to complete this led to disaster, but I swear I had no malicious intent. I’ll do whatever I can to make amends, but-”

“I would also like to apologize,” Garyung said, cutting off Kaldalis’ thought. Despite the Bhogad’s enormous size, he just seemed to appear at Kaldalis’s side as if he’d teleported there. “This is, above all else, my fault. I was unprepared to render the assistance required until it was too late.” He put a hand on Kaldalis’ shoulder. “Kaldalis personally asked me to be here, which would have ensured success, but I dismissed his concerns. I realize my mistake now. I shouldn’t have sent him here if I hadn’t intended to listen to his council.”

Kaldalis was struck speechless by this development.

Garyung was speaking like a real politician. Not just that, but he was taking initiative, accepting blame, and even deflecting blame from Kaldalis to himself.

Perhaps Garyung had been right all along to send Kaldalis out here.

Being without him had been a literal trial by fire for his leadership.

The council seemed ready and willing to be deflected. Their anger shifted from Kaldalis to Garyung as smooth as an intentional tank swap mechanic. Kaldalis was going to have to use this time to figure out how to properly thank Garyung for his intervention.

“What do you intend to do about this?” Cerh demanded, stepping up towards Garyung. The Talsar was an imposing figure compared to Kaldalis, but Garyung still towered over him, not just taller, but broader. It didn’t stop him from his visible attempts to intimidate, but it was likely much less effective. “The Kingdom of Zara has been robbed twice now. We will not be paying for our outpost in this region a third time!”

“Cotanaku is not financially well-off,” Garyung said, raising a hand to try and calm the council, “but we will give over everything we have, if that’s what it takes to make this right. It may take more time, but it will be done. While we aren’t rich in crescents, we are rich in discipline and work ethic. I’m sure we can make this happen.”

Kaldalis was impressed at how quickly Garyung had gotten control of the situation and defused it. Jetmorpan seemed mostly unmoved, but Cerh seemed interested in what Garyung was offering. Behind the two leaders, Demriv looked almost entirely mollified, and Big Mike looked a lot less anxious. Captain Kensah still looked pretty surly, but no longer actively aggressive.

It seemed like they were going to get through this okay.

Where had this come from, though? Garyung was playing their game, without all the hesitance and panic that he’d had when Kaldalis had come to Panbu. Even after his last visit, Garyung had seemed consumed by neediness and panic.

Now he was calm and commanding.

Whatever had caused the change of heart had been recent and sudden. Kaldalis was very glad for it.

“We will need to confer,” Cerh said. Despite having visibly calmed down, there was still some seething anger in his voice. “Do not leave Panbu. We will send for you to talk once we are ready to hear about your contributions.”

“Not contributions,” Garyung said, even though he was nodding. “Concessions. Cotanaku has wronged you, and I won’t for a moment pretend that we haven’t. I will need to confer with my own team as well to determine the best course forward.”

The Zaran diplomats seemed momentarily satisfied by that. Even Jetmorpan’s fury began to abate as they turned towards the salvaged town hall.

Despite himself, Kaldalis blew out a deep sigh of relief. His relief was greatly diminished by Garyung letting out a similar heaving sigh.

“Holy shit,” Garyung muttered, patting Kaldalis on the back. “I didn’t think we were talking our way out of that.”

“Jesus Christ,” Kaldalis cursed, turning and smacking Garyung in the shoulder. “What the fuck even was that?”

“If I’m going to be a leader, I have to act like one,” Garyung said. He reached up and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “You’re not going to make my decisions for me, and that’s not changing, right?”

“I’m going to be perfectly honest,” Kaldalis said, smiling despite himself. “I kind of expected you to force my hand by letting everything go to shit.”

“I won’t lie,” Garyung said, sharing Kaldalis’s smile, “the idea crossed my mind. But recent events forced me to confront what that would actually mean.”

“What happened?” Kaldalis asked. “Does it have to do with what the fuck you’re doing here? And don’t tell me you rode in to save the day. There’s no fucking way you could have made the trip from Cotanaku to here on that schedule. You were well on the way here before shit went sideways.”

Garyung gestured to his left. Towards where Kaldalis knew the quest alerts lived. “There was a regional alert. It said that Panbu was under attack and rated your chance of success at around twelve percent. No offense, but it didn’t instill a lot of confidence.”

“I can’t criticize,” Kaldalis said, gesturing around himself at the still-ruined camp. “Twelve percent was probably optimistic.”

Garyung shook his head. “Even still, I was paralyzed.” He looked out over the ruins of the camp. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“You came to help, though.” Kaldalis patted Garyung on the arm. “That was the right call. Who knows how much trouble you saved us by riding to the rescue when you did.”

“I wish it was my call, though. Someone else had to slap it into me.” His shoulders heaved with a heavy sigh.

“What happened?” Kaldalis repeated. He pointed towards the town hall, where the Zaran diplomats were no doubt going over their strategy for taking Garyung for a ride. “Did they also slap whatever you said to them into you, too?”

“Kind of.” Garyung laughed, and he looked around at the celebrating adventurers, obviously looking for someone in particular, before eventually giving up. “I don’t remember her name, but after I got the warning - and stared at it in dumbfounded confusion for a full minute - she marched up to me, gave me one across the face and asked me what you would do if our positions were reversed.” He shrugged. “Then she told me to get my ass to the fucking boats.”

Kaldalis knew instantly who it had been. “Heluna. Her name is Heluna.”

Garyung nodded, but then continued as if ignoring Kaldalis. “The whole ride over, I realized what I needed to do. I needed to act like a leader. You told me I couldn’t have you make all my decisions for me, right? So all I have to do is what she said. Ask myself what you would do.”

“And I’d throw myself on the mercy of the Zaran council?” Kaldalis asked, pointing again at the town hall. “Take all the blame on myself and promise to-”

“Wouldn’t you?”

Garyung was grinning a wide grin. Kaldalis wanted to slap it off his face.

Instead, he found himself struck speechless for a moment. He sputtered, trying to say that he hadn’t been about to do exactly that, but unable to find the ability to lie convincingly on such short notice.

“Anyway, I need to make the bold Kaldalis-ian move of following up on my promises,” Garyung said, his smug grin only growing up his snout. “Hopefully Ikzoz knows something I don’t about making money appear out of thin air. Otherwise this is going to get real tricky real fast.” The Bhogad stretched and looked around. “Speaking of, I think I see Ikzoz over there. See you around, Kal.”

Kaldalis could only glare after the Bhogad. It was something of a compliment that Garyung thought so highly of him that all it took to get him acting like a real leader was invoking his name.

But it was somewhat infuriating to be called out like that.

Kaldalis sighed. He only hoped Garyung wasn’t going to need his help in the coming meeting. Leadership was so not his style.