Kaldalis didn’t immediately unlock a new ability at level twenty. He assumed that the next tank class ability wouldn’t come until level twenty-five, and he wouldn’t unlock new Spear or Sword and Shield abilities until he increased his weapon skills to match his new level. For now, though, the increase in stats was very nice, and the next chance he had, an equivalent gear upgrade would be an excellent investment.

Kaldalis, Level 20 Bodyguard

HP: 4270/4270

Aplomb: 100/100

EXP: 13/5250

Acumen: 340

Clout: 360

Vigor: 606

Armor: 479

Attack: 364

His elemental affinities were all at 204, with his Earth Affinity at 268. His debuff affinities were currently 208, with Poison increased to 264 by the stats on his spear, but they would all increase if he switched to his current sword and shield, upping them to 242, with Slow being the outlier at 298.

“Where the hell did all these people come from?” Kaldalis asked as soon as he mentally returned to the scene of the fight. Now that the battle was over, it was indeed quite the crowd.

“Apparently we were being followed,” Ess said. She was the first of his friends to break away from the celebrations to return to his side. “Someone over there was tracking you,” she continued, pointing into the crowd, “the guy with the black longbow. He told his friends that if they just followed you, they’d end up where the action is.”

Kaldalis grimaced. The guy was right, but it wasn’t exactly the way he’d wanted this adventure to go. When he’d separated from the army of adventurers who had followed him out, he had wanted them to spread out to comb the jungle. His primary concern was making sure that the monster got found and killed, rather than making sure he was there for it. It wasn’t good that everyone had slipped their eggs into his backet, but they’d gotten lucky this time, at least.

“We have to get back to Cotanaku,” Kaldalis announced, raising his voice to address the whole group. “If you’ve got other business out here in the jungle, then by all means, get it taken care of. There’s plenty of injured Infernal Horde out here for those of you looking to chase the grind. But if you were just here to party with the big one, that’s over. The day is saved. Now we have to lick our wounds - especially the ones left behind on the walls and gates of the town.”

He didn’t wait for a response from the group as a whole. Getting back to Cotanaku was a priority. Not only did he need to lead as many of these troublemakers back to where the quests were, but he also wanted to appraise how Cotanaku had weathered the siege. How much had been destroyed? Had there been similar attacks on Panbu and Kayore? How many lives had been lost?

The sudden siege had also interrupted his meeting with Garyung, and he wanted to make sure that his idea for an organized “international” meeting didn’t get lost in the shuffle of repairing, rebuilding, and reinforcing the town. If attacks like this were at risk of continuing, then there was a very real need for coordination. How many of the archipelago’s adventurers had rushed to Cotanaku for the recent quest binge? How few had remained in Panbu and Kayore to protect them? Had lives been lost in those towns because Cotanaku had monopolized the adventurer population?

Also, would it be somehow possible to schedule another one of those things to arrive in about nineteen more hours, so that he could pop his ring again and get another big jackpot of experience points?

The trip back to Cotanaku couldn’t be over fast enough. The jungle was eerily quiet - the wildlife having not yet returned after the wake of the fleeing Infernal Horde and the army of pursuing adventurers - but the trip was uneventful. Kaldalis felt a little embarrassed at how much easier the route back was when he followed clearings and game trails instead of bullying his way through whatever undergrowth was between him and his objective.

Cotanaku was in better shape than he expected. When they emerged from the jungle and the walls came into view, they still looked whole and strong. As they approached, though, the damage resolved itself from the otherwise-stalwart stone. There was a mixture of claw marks and blunt-force-induced cracks.

The gate was in much worse shape. The jungle-side gate had been made of stone, and heavily reinforced, but it looked like it was just a few seconds of dedicated attention away from becoming a pile of rubble.

Just the same, the town was alive and busy. There were more quests already available to provide the materials to get the repairs going - and to both repair and reinforce the town’s beachside defenses. As soon as Kaldalis and his friends were inside the town walls, Balrim and Myrin started coordinating a big quest run, so that they could collectively round up all they could and make quick progress on getting things set back up.

“You guys go ahead,” Kaldalis said, splitting up from the party. “I have official business to take care of first. I was in a meeting with Garyung when the attack started, and I bet he’s waiting for me to get back to it right now.”

Kaldalis was pretty sure that Garyung wasn’t waiting. There would be simply too much work to do for him to be concerned with Kaldalis. How could Garyung even be aware that Kaldalis was on the way back at all, and not on a rampage through the jungle looking for more stuff to kill?

Just the same, though, when he walked into the bustling town hall, a suyon aide took one look at him and stiffly gestured for him to proceed through the mess of activity in the building towards the stairs, and so Kaldalis headed straight for Garyung’s office.

“You’re early,” Garyung said, holding up a hand to gesture for him to wait. “Give me five minutes here and I’ll be with you.”

The Bhogad woman Kaldalis recognized as one of the leaders of the construction workers was there, and the two of them were going over a small pile of books. Kaldalis waited out in the hall until their work was done. He found himself constantly jostled and bumped by people rushing to and fro in the hall. But it wasn’t long before the Bhogad woman left the office and Garyung called Kaldalis in.

“Seems busy around here,” Kaldalis said. “I didn’t realize how much work was going on here when all of us little worker ants were out fetching stuff.”

“Like I was saying before,” Garyung said with a groan, slumping back in his seat. “Being town leader is a lot of work. It’s not hard work, but if my butt isn’t in this chair right when someone needs me here, the whole system comes unravelled.”

“Any news from the other towns?” Kaldalis asked, cutting right to the heart of the matter.

“Right. Of course,” Garyung grunted, struggling for a second to push himself back up into a more proper posture. “You’re here for a reason, not just to listen to my complaints. But yes, Kierth put a couple of reports on my desk before I even got back here from the fight, and there have been missives from both Cerh and Jetmorpan. I haven’t made any responses yet, because they’ve both sent addendums to their messages and I’ll just say I waited to ensure there weren’t more addenda to come.”

“Right,” Kaldalis said with a nod. He didn’t know who Kierth was, but from context, he could tell that it wasn’t the most important bit of information. “So what’s happened?”

“They were attacked, too,” Garyung said, pushing two sheets of paper across the desk. They were both in the same chicken scratch scrawl that looked almost as bad as Kaldalis’s own handwriting. “Infernal horde in numbers. New varieties. Coming from unexpected directions.” He gestured out towards the town. “I don’t need to tell you what happened.”

“Did they also get an Abstract?” Kaldalis asked. At Garyung’s momentary confusion, Kaldalis held up his hands in a vague basket shape, his fingers mimicking the hooked arms of the floating monster.

“Ah, the big thingy,” Garyung said. “No, that was exclusive to us. I’m not sure either of them could repel firepower of that magnitude.”

“How did they hold up, anyway?” Kaldalis asked. He leaned forward and looked at the chicken scratch reports.

“Badly battered,” Garyung said, as Kaldalis read the description, “but unbroken.”

Kayore had fumbled their defenses. When the attack came, Jetmorpan had diverted resources from the front to try and locate Kaldalis in the town. A half-dozen guards were dead before he admitted that Kal wasn’t there and refocused on keeping his town standing. Cerh hadn’t made that sort of blunder, and Panbu’s defenses were resilient against most of the Infernal Horde that had arrived, but a band of Syncoresi scaled the walls and had nearly destroyed the town hall before the defenders had rallied to repel the invaders without losing the gates at the same time.

Kaldalis winced at the mention of casualties on both reports. They listed PC deaths and NPC deaths separately, and while Kaldalis didn’t care that much for the PCs - who would respawn - but the NPCs were permanent deaths. For both other towns, that number was in the mid teens. Way more than Kaldalis would have found acceptable.

“Did we have any casualties?” Kaldalis asked, tapping the number on the report. “NPCs, I mean. The ones who won’t come back.”

“No,” Garyung said with a grin. “Not a one. Though we lost a lot of morale at the jungle-side gate when Gabriel went down - a lot of folks thought he was invincible. But your call sending the guards to patrol the inner areas of the town saved a lot of lives. And when word gets out about what happened in Panbu, all the civilians and crafters that those guards watched over are gonna be doubly grateful to you for sending the help.”

Kaldalis let out a sign of relief at that. He was sad for the deaths in Kayore and Panbu, but he couldn’t blame himself. He’d warned them.

“Like Jetmorpan, Cerh tried to blame you for this,” Garyung continued, “but Jetmorpan seemed to do some soul-searching when he lost six good fighters to his paranoia. Cerh sent an addendum retracting his accusation, but still being a snarky jerk about it the whole time.”

“This is the tool we needed,” Kaldalis said. “I hate to think about all this death and destruction that way, but… This is a crisis that should unify us. We take this opportunity to pitch an Islands of Ulun Town Leader’s Meeting to plan a response, and use that to get our foot in the door.”

“Kierth is drafting the messages as we speak,” Garyung said, shooting Kaldalis a fierce grin. “He’s making sure all the wording is clean and diplomatic - and that their respective intelligence operatives will have no objections to it - and then I’m going to make sure they’re in my own handwriting before sending them. Unless we’re at war, the first meeting will be in three hours.”

Kaldalis was surprised. He’d thought he was going to have to do a lot more work to keep the ball rolling on this, but Garyung had done everything that needed to be done without Kaldalis needing to interfere.

“Do you need me to do anything before then?” Kaldalis asked.

“Considering you were pretty instrumental in making sure I still have a town to lead?” Garyung asked with a grin. “I’ll just be happy to have you there.”