Kaldalis pulled up short in what he knew would be the last clearing before their destination. Martok gave him an uncertain look, but Kaldalis reached into the undergrowth at the edge of the area and pulled something from the foliage.

“We’re getting close,” Kaldalis said, holding his own skull - left behind after his first death to the Infernal Horde. “We need to discuss our plan of attack before we go much further.”

The rest of the group caught up quickly, and Kaldalis explained.

“There’s one defensible position ahead of us,” he began, “and it’s the old Syncoresi lair. If the Contender is anywhere, it’s there.”

“That sucks,” Balrim said with a grimace. “That was a pretty defensible cave, if I remember right.”

“Yeah, but we proved that it’s fallible,” Kaldalis pointed out. “We crashed our way in there and killed everything inside once before. I’m not afraid of doing it again.”

“Is that what we’re here for?” Dalgaard asked bitterly. “To kill?”

Kaldalis paused at that. Was that Dalgaard’s concern? Did they fear that Kaldalis was eager to kill his foes? He couldn’t blame them for that concern. They’d been drawn into such thinking by Onirioago, and it had taken Kaldalis to talk them out of it.

And despite himself, he had to admit that it felt like a foregone conclusion in his mind.

“I’m afraid we might not have any other option,” Kaldalis said carefully. “I was forced to play along with the Contender’s political bullshit, but he was only willing to play by those rules when he thought I couldn’t win. When I showed that I could put up a fight in that game, he flipped the table and started this one. ” He gestured up ahead, in the direction of the cave he knew was a few minutes’ walk through the jungle. He was still holding his own skull in that hand, giving his point a much more macabre cast. “Whatever rules we put on ourselves walking into this fight, he’s shown a willingness to flip the table and change them if he’s losing. If we go in there with non-lethal intent, we’re setting ourselves up for him to flip this table, too. We can’t lose this fight. There’s too much at stake.”

“I appreciate that you’re trying to think about this tactically,” Ess said, moving to stand beside Kaldalis. “But you have to consider the consequences of your actions.”

“I’m not going to start a war,” Kaldalis said firmly. “Brother Gnider said-”

“I’m not talking about that,” Ess interrupted. “I’m talking about the immediate consequences in the fight against the Contender. What do you think happens if you kill his vanguard? You make them martyrs for him. You talked those guards down, didn’t you? You talked Brother Gnider onto your side, right? You’ve got more weapons than you know, Kal, but as soon as you start killing, you’re disarming yourself.” She started talking with her hands, gesturing at an imaginary battlefield. “If the Contender draws that line, I know you’ll be ready to do what you have to do, but until that moment, you need to hold back. Make him rewrite the rules. Because if you do it for him, and he has the counter ready, he’s gonna smash you.”

Kaldalis blinked at her for a moment. For a brief moment, she wasn’t his friend, Ess, but she was once more SeventyEight, the RTS legend. The advice was reminiscent of one of her pro games. She’d started with a strong ground-based army, but had immediately built anti-air behind it. Her opponent committed to a ground-countering air force, but only because she’d kept her anti-air hidden until the critical moment.

Kaldalis was willing to kill. But the Contender didn’t need to know that. If Kaldalis was smart and stayed his hand, the Contender might gamble on that apparent pacifism. As soon as he made that bet, Kaldalis would be ready to take the shot.

“Alright,” Kaldalis said, “we gotta do what we gotta do. But if we can leave them alive, we should.”

“Right,” Martok said. “If you’re going to talk tactics, I’m going to do some scouting. My map has a big blind spot around the den, and I’d like to fill it in.”

“Good thinking,” Kaldalis said, “get us some intel for our approach.”

“Sure, that too,” Martok grumbled as he walked into the jungle towards the cave.

“So, hypothetically,” Myrin said carefully, “if things escalate to extremes, how would we accomplish that?” She drew out her greatsword and gestured at the simple length of fire-blackened steel. “I can’t hurt people with this, just monsters.”

“Yeah,” Balrim said, giving Kaldalis an appraising glare. “We don’t have that monstrous red spear Onirioago had, do we?”

“Okay,” Kaldalis said, lowering his voice - even though there was no one outside of his little group within a mile of them. “I’ve been trying to keep it quiet, but…”

Kaldalis produced from his inventory the War Weapon he’d taken from Onirioago during her final attack on the islands. The twisted weapon was blood red, and had a sinister aura that made absolutely clear that it was no ordinary spear. Most of the group assembled flinched at the sight of it.

“I know you’re my friend,” Balrim said carefully, “but I’m not happy to see that. I trust you to use it for good. But it makes me really nervous that one person has it, and I don’t know anybody who is equipped to deal with it if you lose it.”

Balrim didn’t specify, but Kaldalis understood the double meaning of “lose it” in this context.

“I’ve got something that could set your mind at ease,” Kaldalis said. “As long as everyone else is open to it.”

With his other hand, Kaldalis produced the War Weapon he’d taken from Demriv when she’d tried to assassinate him. The gnarled bow had the same sinister aura as the spear. With great trepidation, Kaldalis held it out towards Balrim.

The Talsar’s slit-pupiled eyes went wide at the sight of it. He seemed more afraid of the bow than he had been of the spear. He looked over at Myrin, who gave him a nod before he took the bow from Kaldalis.

“I still don’t feel good about this power,” Balrim said as he turned the bow over in his hands. “But I do feel good to know that it’s spread out a little.”

“It’s not a perfect solution,” Kaldalis agreed. “I would have cast them both into the sea if I thought I could go the rest of my time here without running into someone else wielding one. But I’m betting the Contender has at least one of them. And there’s no telling what challenges the future holds that might demand a more deadly solution.”

“It’s a little low-level,” Balrim said as he examined the bow.

“The weapon damage doesn’t matter,” Kaldalis said, “unless you’re using it to fight monsters. For PVP, it’s just like back on Earth. Hit them with the pointy end, and the physical body has a bad time.”

“The fuck are the rest of us doing, then?” Reno asked.

Kaldalis considered for a moment, and then tossed her the spear, leaving himself with no War Weapons to weigh on his conscience.

“You’re on point,” Kaldalis said with a smirk. “Just don’t stick that anywhere fatal. As a DPS class, you’ll absolutely devastate anything you poke with that. But you - and everyone here besides me, Courbois, and Martok - are glass cannons. We use our bare hands to keep Reno’s flank clear to let her carry the fight, and to keep the enemy off of Balrim so that he can pick off the largest threats.”

He leaned closer to Reno, lowering his voice. “You wanted to be the hero? Here’s your shot. No pressure, but we’re all gonna get imprisoned and executed if the Contender is still running Cotanaku at the end of the day.”

Reno gave him a look filled with conflicting emotions. She was excited for the chance to have the center stage, but there was an instant and overwhelming anxiety right on top of it. Kaldalis nodded, still smirking. He didn't know what he looked like from the outside this whole time.

“We approach along the east side,” Kaldalis said. He hunkered down and started to scratch a crude map in the grassy dirt of what he remembered the tunnel looking like. “Our biggest asset right now is the element of surprise. Assuming that the guards can’t feed information back to the Contender, he thinks we’re all contained back in town. We can catch him with his pants down here and kick his ass before he can cover it back up.”

“If surprise is that critical, then we need to go farther than that,” Dalgaard said, hunkering down across the crude map from Kaldalis. “We need to circle as wide as possible. If the Contender has half a brain, he’ll have sentries in a tight net on every direction of approach. We might do better to circle around the whole hill and drop down from above right on top of the entrance. Is the area above it passable?”

“I’m not sure,” Kaldalis said, “but I think you’re right. Garyung is being held prisoner there, and the less time we give them to leverage that, the better. When Martok gets back, we’ll take the long way around.” He looked around the group. “We’ll go as slow as we need to go to keep things quiet. If you need the whole group to slow down in order to keep from snapping branches or rustling brush, then we’ll all slow down. The element of surprise is that important. We’re utterly hosed if we get seen before we’re ready to strike. Does everyone understand?”

As Kaldalis looked around the group to see everyone nodding, he smiled. This was a good sign. A rudimentary plan, sure, and it was going to be extremely dangerous, but they could do this. And, if he was lucky, he might finish smoothing things over with Reno by giving her this chance to prove herself - or to decide that the hero’s life wasn’t for her.

Unfortunately, before he could start refining their plan, Martok burst out of the overgrowth.

“I’ve been made,” he said, whirling around and raising his bare fists. “We’ve got incoming."

For the sake of morale, Kaldalis wished desperately that he hadn’t just hung all their hopes on a surprise attack.