Kaldalis’s first thought was that it didn’t make sense for Demriv to commit suicide just to mildly inconvenience him. As an NPC, her death was permanent. Why would she risk permadeath just for spite? His second thought was wondering if she was even dead. She had landed badly, and was now laying still on the street, even as someone rushed out of a nearby building, echoing her screams of bloody murder. But it didn’t seem far enough to be a fatal fall.

His third thought was if Onirioago had some way to pass her new ability on to Demriv. It was possible that she was going to stand back up and be perfectly okay in an hour. If that was the case, it made all that much more sense that she’d been so willing to jump if it was at literally no cost.

He didn’t have time to figure any of it out, though. He had to get the hell out of here before he got arrested. If he got snagged by the guards, the odds were good he was just going to end up in the cell next to Onirioago indefinitely. Or worse, executed. It seemed a distinct possibility that he might not be considered innocent until proven guilty in this city.

He ducked back from the edge of the rooftop quickly. He didn’t know if anyone had seen him - his focus had been on Demriv, not on how many people were on the street. He almost tripped over the discarded bow and spear on the rooftop, and he quickly grabbed them both and threw them into his inventory. It was a really convenient way to get rid of the deadly weapons, which was doubly valuable since the shouts of alarm he heard from the street indicated that the place would be swarmed with investigating guards in a few moments.

On the right side of Kaldalis’s vision, one of his quests flickered and flashed. The meeting with the War Council was soon, and his quest objective was ticking down now from fifteen minutes.

The meeting hall was still far from here. Maybe too far.

Kaldalis wanted to curse Demriv for delaying him, but he knew she wasn’t to blame. It was possible that she had wanted to catch him unaware and make him late for the meeting, but he had been taking his sweet time before that, and she’d only stalled him out for five minutes at most.

There was a ringing sound of alarm bells about a block away. The guards were coming. He didn’t have time to curse his luck, if he sulked here any longer, his luck was going to get much, much worse.

His inventory held another valuable tool for him now, and he was grateful to have grabbed it. The first assassin’s cloak easily covered Kaldalis’s face. Equipping it made it appear on his body with his horns fed through the openings on the hood, but he wasn’t overly concerned about it. His indigo skin tone wasn’t that far off of average for a Vathon. What was important was that his face was hidden. And anyone who had seen him on the rooftop had seen him without the cloak. If a rough description from someone fifty feet away was all he had to worry about, having this cloak obscuring his face and body shape from a distance might mean he could slip away even if the guards got to the rooftops while he was still in line of sight.

Using the Jump ability, Kaldalis started away as fast as he could. He tried to keep low at first, but his primary objective was to get to the council meeting before time ran out. If he had to go to extreme measures to avoid the guards, he would. Nyxlas’s Augment was always in his back pocket, ready to carry him halfway across the city in an instant.

For the sake of transit alone, it seemed wiser to keep that trick under his hat. It was almost guaranteed that if he used it, the church would get involved. And then no cloak or disguise could hide his identity. He wasn’t sure what the Contender would do, but if he caught Kaldalis a second time - and if he could somehow attach him to the murder of a Zaran official - but he suspected it would be way worse than being mildly inconvenienced by a lengthy interrogation.

His spear skill mobility options would have to do for now. Jump let him get from rooftop to rooftop quickly and efficiently, no matter the gap between. There wasn’t a street in the city too wide for him to jump across. When Jump ran out, Slowfall surprisingly picked up the slack. He couldn’t get the same distance or speed, but with Slowfall active, his jumps turned into longer glides, giving him a measure of safety on more daring jumps, and even making some impossible leaps possible.

He was still only just barely fast enough to cover the distance. He probably could have gone faster if he’d had a more precise idea of where he was going, but his slightly off-kilter path - limited further by the way the rooftops were arranged - meant that he only had just over two minutes remaining on his time when the building came into view.

He pulled up short on the roof across the street, taking a moment to put the cloak away. It seemed like a terrible idea to show up to a government building looking like an assassin, even if it wasn’t likely to send Garyung into a panic attack. He had plenty of time to make his way through the building. He was cutting it close, but he was going to be just fine.

Or so he thought.

Jumping down to street level, Kaldalis made for the front door. What he found there was what he should have expected, but didn’t. It was the nastiest possible surprise.

A security checkpoint.

There were only two people ahead of him, but his timer was ticking over to one minute and fifty-nine seconds. He felt a flare of sudden rage at the bureaucracy before him. But he couldn’t afford to make a fuss. Garyung was probably already waiting inside, and wouldn’t be able to come bail him out like he had with the Contender. He just had to stand here and take it.

The security check seemed like it was tailor-made to be just barely annoying enough to tolerate. People only needed to provide identification and their reason for entry. But one of the guards had to find the meeting in question on file to verify that they were expected, or to document their attendance if they weren’t. The two guards manning the checkpoint were surprisingly quick and efficient, but with Kaldalis’s time ticking away before his eyes, the guard making small-talk about the unusual name of the Suyon in front of him in line had him about ready to explode. Fortunately, the time meant that Kaldalis knew exactly what to say and what to present to the guards.

“I’m Kaldalis,” he said, presenting his Adventurers League identification, “and I’m here for the War Council meeting regarding Cotanaku. I’m Garyung’s… Uh. Assistant. Bodyguard. Familiar. Whatever. I’m with him.”

The first guard gave the ID a glance as the second started picking through the files. Kaldalis felt his impatience grow exponentially as the guard flipping through the files seemed to go so much slower than he needed right now.

“So is this the same Cotanaku I’m thinking of?” the guard asked. “They stole the town right out from under us?”

“It was an accident,” Kaldalis said quickly. “It’s a complicated situation.” He tried not to snap angrily at the guard with the filing to hurry up. “I’d love to talk about it, but I’m terribly late.” He looked over at the timer nervously. “Quick question, is it okay to run in the halls here? I’m probably going to have to, but I want to know if I have to apologize.”

“Uh,” the guard blinked at him, “I’d prefer if you don’t, but-”

“Oh, he’s right,” the other guard said, holding up the agenda and attendant list for the meeting. “He’s very late.” She looked up at Kaldalis. “I don’t think you can make it even if you do run. Once those doors close, they’ll be barred for the sake of national security so…”

“I’m not gonna find out if I’m standing here talking to you,” Kaldalis said, gesturing wildly towards the hallway he needed to sprint down. The timer ticked down, passing the thirty-second mark.

“You’re clear,” the guard said, waving him on. “Good luck, I guess.”

Kaldalis activated his jump cooldown and launched himself forward. The long jump didn’t give him a ton of speed compared to a sprint, but he was able to start his momentum fast from a dead stop. And when he hit the ground running, he felt like he had a shot. The meeting room was farther away than he would have liked, tucked into the heart of the building, but he had thirty seconds at a dead sprint! Well, twenty-two seconds now.

Twenty-one.

Twenty.

The halls were wide here, and Kaldalis was able to navigate around the people and decorations that dotted his path. Sometimes he was forced to swing wide around corners for fear of running head-first into someone coming the other way, or knocking over a potted plant. The tile floors gave him more trouble than anything else, and he felt like he was in less of a sprint than a constant state of falling horizontally. Someone shouted at him to stop running. He ignored them. They’d have to catch him if they wanted to stop him. He only had fourteen seconds. He couldn’t afford to stop.

Thirteen.

Twelve.

He rounded the last corner with seconds to spare and only five yards to cover. His feet went out from under him briefly, but slamming on the Slowfall ability reduced his effective weight, and when the floor rushed up to meet him, he was able to catch himself into a handspring and find his feet quickly.

Eight.

Seven.

Kaldalis hit the door at full speed. It blasted open noisily and everyone turned to stare at him. A guard was standing right in front of him with a large wooden bar, presumably to seal the door as the guard at the checkpoint had described.

The timer faded. He’d made it.

“Uh,” Kaldalis said, looking at Garyung across the room. The Bhogad seemed to be in a state of mixed embarrassment and relief. “Here, let me help you with that.”

He stepped up next to the man with the bar for the door. The guard clearly didn’t need any help hefting it and lowering it into the brackets to seal the meeting room, but he seemed to be too shocked to refuse.

As soon as the bar was in place, there was a door at the back of the chamber, and the War Council started to file in.

Kaldalis hoped that getting here was the hard part. He knew it wouldn’t be, but he hoped just the same.