Regret was the most immediate response. Despite it all, Kaldalis hadn’t wanted to kill Onirioago. He realized how he hadn’t ever wanted her dead. He’d feared her escape, to the point where he thought he wouldn’t have minded if Gavinkim had just killed her outright. But now that he was kneeling on top of her corpse, watching the red bubbles of blood on her lips quiver at his own heavy breathing, he realized this was the last thing he’d wanted. As much as he hated her - and he wasn’t even sure now if it was really hate - he didn’t want it to end this way.

The spear was jutting out of Onirioago’s side. It had lanced in between two ribs and into her lung. The red bubbles of blood on her lips filled Kaldalis with a sense of tragedy, but the ones around the head of the weapon made him nauseous. She was dead. He had killed her with his own two hands. And since she was an NPC, she wasn’t coming back.

He wanted to tell himself he hadn’t meant for this to happen. He wanted to give a dramatic monologue about how it was an accident and this wasn’t how he had wanted this to go. But emotion didn’t cloud his thoughts. He wasn’t driven to soliloquy. As much as he knew he hadn’t actively wanted this outcome, he’d made his decisions. Onirioago was too dangerous to live. If it hadn’t been his choice, then why had he aimed the spear right at her when he’d launched himself at her?

Kaldalis was filled with regret, but he didn’t feel an ounce of remorse.

He wished it hadn’t come to this, but he knew that if Onirioago was still alive - struggling and spitting and scratching and biting - there was a very real chance that he would have done the same thing. If he thought he couldn’t restrain her, he would rather her be dead than loose.

It was sobering to realize that he was capable of ice-cold murder. But the feeling of shame was tempered by acknowledging that it was just because it was Onirioago. She was something special. She was so much better than him at her manipulative game that this was the only way he could stop her.

There was a heavy sound of impact as Gavinkim hit the ground behind him. Kaldalis didn’t turn around even when he heard the Bhogad rush up behind him and then stop dead. Gavinkim understood. Gavinkim had wanted this ending from the start. Even so, he had the tact - or the internal conflict to match Kaldalis’ - not to crow in vindication and do a little victory dance.

There was one matter remaining, and Kaldalis knew what he had to do. If he was going to be the one who killed Onirioago, he had to take responsibility for making sure that he put an end to all the threats she had brought with her, not just the ones that died with her in her twisted little mind. He took a hold of the sinister spear and, with an effort of will, banished it to his inventory. It went with no complaint, vanishing into thin air. He spared it a brief moment of examination in his inventory.

Baleful Ahlspiess

[War Weapon]

Item level: 25

Acumen: 29

Clout: 29

Vigor: 30

Attack: 94

Cooldown Reduction: 1.25% (minimum 1 second)

1 socket (O)

It was the strongest piece of equipment he’d ever held, even though it didn’t have any elemental or debuff affinity. He supposed that would make it weaker in PvE combat, but the stats would still be valuable. It was high enough level to have a socket, even though he didn’t know what he was actually supposed to put there. On his UI, it was just a little bubble. No matter how much he stared, though, he couldn’t stop thinking about the [War Weapon] tag. This was not a weapon meant to be used in adventuring. This was a murder weapon. He forced himself to look away and close his inventory.

He told himself he never wanted to look at it again.

But he knew better. Even if it wasn’t Onirioago, there was going to come a day when he was going to get in a fight with someone normal weapons wouldn’t work on. This weapon would come out again someday. He only hoped that when it did, he would feel more confident about turning it against that foe than he did this one.

As he stood up, he saw the other adventurers - the ones Onirioago had sent out to comb the jungle for Kaldalis’s backup plan. One of the Talsar men set eyes on the corpse and turned to book it, as if fearing that he was next. A human woman turned and walked behind a tree to throw up. The other talsar just stood, staring in disbelief.

When Kaldalis looked back, Garyung was standing next to Gavinkim with a similar look of disbelief, holding a tightly-bound Dalgaard. He assumed Martok was up above, guarding the paralyzed DPS and Healer in the floating house, though he couldn’t see from here.

The look on Dalgaard’s face broke Kaldalis’s heart. He could have dealt with rage or sorrow. Even if they’d been fixing Kaldalis with a seething look that wordlessly promised revenge, he could have lived with it. But that wasn’t it.

Dalgaard’s face expressed only one emotion: sheer despair.

“Untie them,” Kaldalis said.

“What?” Garyung asked. He blinked for a few moments as he tore his stare away from Onirioago’s body and looked between Dalgaard and Kaldalis. “Them? Untie them?”

“That’s what I said,” Kaldalis snapped. “Let them go.” He gestured at the others - the woman wiping vomit from her chin and the man still staring blankly. “Let them all go.”

“Why?” Garyung said, even as he was moving to untie Dalgaard already.

“Do you want me to say it?” Kaldalis asked, looking back down at Onirioago’s corpse. “I’ll say it if I have to, but you’ll have to make me.”

“Say what?”

“It could have been me,” Kaldalis said, spitting the words. He pointed at Dalgaard. “That could have been me there, having been puppeteered by some manipulative game.” He pointed at the Talsar. “That could have been me there, drawn in by the promise of wealth and power. Respect. Admiration. Camaraderie. Acceptance. Love. Sex. Whatever she offered all of them.” He shook his head. “It could have been me, and if I were standing in their place, I’d be hoping whoever was kneeling here over their leader’s body could recognize the truth. They’re her victims, too. More so than we were.”

“The head is gone,” Gavinkim said quietly. “We have no reason to torment the rest of the serpent.”

Kaldalis nodded. Garyung finished untying Dalgaard, and they dropped to their knees, staring not at the corpse, but at the red dirt that had drunk down the red pool of blood that would have spread out beneath her.

“We have to bring her body back,” Gavinkim said. “It’s the only way for this to truly be over.”

Kaldalis didn’t know exactly what Gavinkim meant, but instead had a terrifying vision of Dalgaard and the other conspirators smeared in blood, dancing around Onirioago’s head on a stick like some disgusting reimagining of Lord of the Flies.

“We’re going to have to pay for this,” Kaldalis said, finally standing up. “The Zarans aren’t going to be happy.”

“Nobody’s happy about this,” Gavinkim said, shaking his head.

Despite the seriousness of the moment, Garyung’s flinch was almost comical. He must have forgotten that while a prisoner, Onirioago had remained a Zaran citizen. It was possible that killing her might kick off an international incident. Considering how high tensions were, this might be the spark that ignited open conflict, once Cerh and Jetmorpan had their military reinforcements arrive. Garyung had apparently been so focused on the immediate threat that Kaldalis pointing out the larger implications struck him almost like a physical blow.

“What do we do?” Garyung hissed, as if the Zaran council might hear from here. “I could offer money? I think that would be tacky, but it sounds a lot better than just a fucking note with flowers. And she was a criminal anyway? According to everyone on the council, the sentence for her crime was going to be death, so if we handed her over - when. When we handed her over - they were gonna kill her anyway, right?”

“We can’t have this discussion now,” Kaldalis said carefully, stepping over to put a hand on Garyung’s arm to calm him down. “The council needs to be a part of this. I imagine Ikzoz will have information in historical legal precedent that we’ll need to know before we start making decisions about this.”

“Okay,” Garyung said. He looked over at Gavinkim, who was nodding. “Okay. We get the body back to the council, wrap this up locally, and then start thinking globally. I just.” He took a few deep breaths. “Thank you. This is why I need you around. Sometimes my head just needs levelling.”

Kaldalis didn’t want to have that discussion yet. Garyung had seemed to be handling everything just fine for the time Kaldalis was dealing with Panbu for him, but now he knew that it had been a façade, with this Jormongumo mess going on underneath - alongside Onirioago operating a spy network out of her jail cell. He was going to need to have a reasonable discussion with Garyung about what role he was going to actually take within the administration of Cotanaku.

Then again, maybe that was just because he didn’t want to talk about anything right now.

“What happened?” a voice called down from the jungle canopy. It sounded like Myrin, her voice slurred and shaky. “Did we win?”

There was a brief mumble from above, and the voice came again.

“Martok says some bullshit about nobody winning when we fight each other,” Myrin yelled down again. “But I think he’s fulla shit. Did we win?”

“Martok’s not full of shit,” Kaldalis said, trying not to sound angry as he raised his voice to be heard up in the floating house. He shook his head as he watched Gavinkim carefully collect Onirioago’s body. “Nobody wins today.”