Balrim lunged to Kaldalis’s side, grabbing him by the shoulder. “Let’s go! Let’s move!” the Talsar whispered aggressively. “We don’t have much time.”

Myrin scrambled away from the downed monster, one hand dragging her greatsword behind, the other holding one of her ears. She had been right next to the monstrous trumpet blast of the dying monster, and was likely momentarily deafened. Despite the fact, when Balrim gestured, she fell beside him on instinct.

“This way,” Balrim hissed, leading Kaldalis directly away from the fallen monster.

“What?” Kaldalis whispered back, “towards the voices?”

“Trust me,” Balrim insisted, “I’ll explain later, but for now, move and move quietly!”

Kaldalis gritted his teeth and scrambled to follow, doing his best to keep quiet as they picked their way through the darkness. Ruins loomed into his vision globe, and as much as he wanted to explore - to seek the objective they were here for - there just wasn’t time.

He started to hear stomping boots, and more hailing cries in the dark.

It became clear very quickly that it wasn’t just one sentry. The voices were all around. They were surrounded.

“Where did that come from?” someone called off to the left.

“What did you hear? I was asleep-” came another to the right.

“Parasaur trumpet! At this time of night? What could have-” This voice sounded like it was just out of sight to the left. The rattle of armor accompanied it, along with the gentle tap of a spear or staff being used as a walking stick over stone.

“Shut up and search! All of you!” bellowed the first voice. Kaldalis was already thinking of this as the captain. “No foolishness. The next man who speaks better have found something worth reporting!”

The captain’s voice came from dead ahead. Balrim jerked the group to the left instantly, Myrin following on instinct and Kaldalis bringing up the rear. There was a partially ruined building nearby that looked like a windowed storefront, with most of the front wall intact. They darted into the door, revealing that the front wall was the only thing intact - like a spaghetti western set, it was the front wall only. The rest of the building was gone.

Balrim shoved Kaldalis to the right side of the door, and he went to the left, pressing his back to the wall as tight as he could. Myrin dropped to the dirt beneath the window, flattening herself to be well under the sill. Kaldalis followed suit, trying to melt into the wall.

The thump of boots came down the ruined street they’d just been on. This person wasn’t in a hurry, and Kaldalis felt his pulse speed up.

They were looking. They were looking for them.

Somehow they knew. Did they make too much noise?

Was Kaldalis’s armor too loud?

Kaldalis spared a glance out the doorway. He didn’t know if the shadows would hide him, but he needed to know how close they were. What he was up against.

He was shocked by what he saw. There was a rail-thin Human man, well under six feet tall, with a messy shock of greasy salt-and-pepper hair. He was wearing the green-and-gold robes of a priest, with his hands clasped tightly - white-knuckled with fear - around the haft of a staff that looked more ornamental than functional. He was all alone, isolated in the dark, abandoned by the guards that were supposed to flank him.

The sight actually managed to make Kaldalis more frightened. Where was the captain? If Kaldalis couldn’t see him, then he could be anywhere. Maybe he was staring at them from another angle, about to bellow-

“Why am I not hearing anything?” the priest bellowed. His voice was ten times larger than his size suggested. “Are you all so incompetent you’ve all been outmanuevered and cut down, or are you just so damned stupid you can’t find anything?”

Kaldalis’s jaw dropped open. He hadn’t seen that coming. Kaldalis immediately recategorized all of the signs of fear as signs of the man’s boiling rage at either the disruption of his night, the fumbling search of his guards, or the audacity of the unknown intruders.

Reports started to come in as the guards around them immediately started to sound off. Most were reporting that there was no sight of the enemy. A group had come upon the Parasaur corpse and were investigating the scene. One mentioned obvious signs of weapon wounds.

“Fan out!” the priest shouted, his voice seeming to shake the stone ruins with the force of his projection. “Find who did this! No one is getting into this dungeon, or our heads will be right next to theirs on the spiked wall in Panbu when the Contender hears of this!”

Kaldalis didn’t know what he was talking about. What spiked wall? Was the Contender operating out of Panbu instead of Cotanaku? Was he executing people? Could he do that? Was it allowed?

Could Kaldalis save lives by taking him down?

Kaldalis forced the thoughts down. This was more bait. The Contender was the smokescreen from the real goal. He was being bombarded with more reasons to prioritize him. He wasn’t going to have any of it. He had his goal. He just needed to find the slightest bit of information. He only needed to unwrap enough of the corner of this mystery to get a grip, and then he could rip the whole thing open.

Distractions needed to be put aside.

Even when they were coming right at him.

Instead of continuing on, the priest started to investigate the immediate area. He started by casting his eyes at the ground, scanning for any sign. Kaldalis grimaced. They hadn’t been able to cover their tracks, and as he poked the dirt with his staff, the priest saw the indent the staff left behind. It was plain to see even from here, twenty feet away. As soon as his eyes went over where Kaldalis and his friends had been, he was going to see their footprints. If not Myrin’s and Balrim’s, Kaldalis’s would be clear as day, owing to the weight of his armor.

As expected, the man’s eyes lit up, his anger giving way to victory. He took a deep breath, ready to call his people back.

Kaldalis sacrificed a few hundred hit points to Nyxlas’s Augment, and used an empowered Jump to launch out of the darkness.

He hit the man like a comet. They both collided with what looked like an element-worn freestanding tablet - a repeat of the cartoonish antics of the teleporting Lataxinan. The tablet held against their combined weight and force, and the man’s deep breath came out as a muted grunt. He was stunned and confused, but still very much awake, his anger roaring back into his eyes.

Kaldalis punched him in the jaw.

“Sorry,” Kaldalis hissed. The man’s head rocked back and forth at the impact, but the anger didn’t fade, it just redoubled.

Kaldalis punched him again. “I’m so fucking sorry, I wish I didn’t have to-”

“I recognize you from your description,” the priest snarled, catching Kaldalis’s third punch with his own hand, grip iron-tight despite the thin, bony knuckles. Nothing Kaldalis did seemed to keep him off-balance. Despite his thin and tiny appearance, this man was a brawler at heart. Or, at least, in his stats. “Kaldalis!” he bellowed, his voice echoing off the ruins just like the Windy Parasaur’s death trumpet.

As much as the impact of his fist had stunned the priest, the priest hitting him in the face with his own name almost bowled Kaldalis over physically. Balrim appeared at his side, grabbing Kal by the armpit and hauling him off of the priest and trying to drag him into a run.

“Faster,” Balrim snarled. “Must go faster!”

The priest sat up and inhaled to bellow again. Myrin shot out of the dark and planted her knee right into the side of his head, sending him to the ground with another pained grunt. She didn’t waste any time following after Balrim and Kaldalis, which meant when he bounced back only a second later, there was nothing to stop him from calling out.

“To me! To me!” the priest bellowed. “The indigo Vathon is here! Kaldalis! The one The Contender warned us to look for! Get him! Surround him!”

As soon as the words were out, the stealth segment of the adventure went from anxiety-inducing to just plain unfair.

Guards seemed to loom out of the darkness immediately, from every direction. Balrim was able to duck around them, keeping the trio on a clear route for the first few seconds, but their numbers seemed to redouble with every step they took without being caught. Myrin cursed as someone got a hand on her, though there was a low pop of someone’s shoulder coming out of the socket and she only lost half a step.

Balrim suddenly ran face-first into a wall formed by three bhogad guards running shoulder-to-shoulder like defensive linemen. He was firmly in their grasp before he could even curse. With their forward path cut off, there was nowhere for Kaldalis to go, and the ring of guards drew closer around them.

Kaldalis still had an augmented Jump running. He could be out of here and halfway back to Kayore in under a second. Could have even scooped up Myrin and taken her, too.

But they would have had to leave Balrim behind.

The idea of seeing him next atop a “spiked wall” in Panbu turned his stomach.

Sure, as a PC, he would come back to life, leaving behind nothing but a skeleton. But Balrim would spend the rest of their friendship knowing that if things went bad, Kaldalis would leave him behind.

That was the kind of thought Kaldalis couldn’t stomach.

And what good would it have done? The priest had gotten a clear look at his face. They knew his name. The Contender would know he was here and would use whatever supernatural cockblocking power Monsoon gave him in order to track Kaldalis down. It wasn’t like physically escaping would serve him in the long term.

“I yield!” Kaldalis said, raising his hands over his head. “I give up! You got me! Just don’t hurt my friends!”