Kaldalis needed a new plan, and he needed it quickly.

The Contender seemed to be of the same mind.

They stared at each other for a long moment, the tension between them growing.

It was clear that the Contender believed that his victory was assured. Handpicked by his god for greatness, he’d either never faced a challenge in his life, or he’d clawed his way past a hundred ambitious assholes and now believed that nothing could rise against him that he couldn’t crush under the mountain of clout and reputation that he’d earned. The priest couldn’t accept the idea that Kaldalis refused to submit to his divine will, and instead of actually thinking about what he was up against, he was approaching Kaldalis like an adventure game puzzle. He assumed that there was some sequence of obscure items and interactions that could just make Kaldalis go away.

For his part, Kaldalis had to make a very hard choice. He couldn’t dream of convincing the Contender that he was delusional - it was just too tall an order when the man was trying to bash his skull in. Attempting to talk his way out of this fight was a self-defeating plan. The only way Kaldalis could reasonably convince the Contender that his will wasn’t a divine mandate from on high was by kicking his ass. There was no way the man would entertain the possibility and implications of his defeat until that defeat came to pass.

And so it was between only two options. He could keep the kid gloves on and try and wear the Contender out, or he could just get this over with. Killing the Contender was the fastest way to resolve this. As the priest tried to solve the problem of Kaldalis, it would be frighteningly easy to launch himself at the Contender’s face like a missile, leading with the tip of his spear.

Ultimately, now that he was facing him down, Kaldalis knew that Garyung was right. That was the fastest way to put an end to the Contender’s violent coup and resolve the problems caused by his political stranglehold, but it was also the fastest way to make a whole bucket of new problems. What would the church do? What would the Zarans in Baimer do? And, most pressingly, what would the Zarans here on the islands do?

If Kaldalis killed the Contender, he was jeopardizing the tenuous agreement the councils had made that would allow him access to the raid. Ultimately, doing this the easy way was risking his whole operation to return the Lataxinans.

Besides, how much longer could the man put up a fight with a badly-dented scepter? The makeshift club seemed about ready to fall apart in his hands.

“If you want to do this the hard way,” Kaldalis said firmly, “then we can certainly do this the hard way.”

“You seem so insistent on resistance,” the Contender began. “I’m not surprised you would-”

THUMP.

A groaning green-and-gold armored body hit the ground between them. The Contender’s guard writhed and clutched at his back, but seemed too injured to continue to fight.

“Reload! Reload!” Myrin called from above. “I missed him by that much!”

Kaldalis looked up to see Myrin in the window that he’d broken out of in the meeting room. Someone helped her manhandle another guard up to the ledge and Kaldalis wasn’t surprised to see a flash of Captain Filomena’s big feathered hat enabling Myrin’s bullshit.

“The fuck are you doing?” Kaldalis yelled up at her.

“I’m helping!” she called down cheerfully. With a grunt she hurled the next guard out of the window and loosely in the direction of the Contender.

The priest darted back and away as the guard landed in a noisy clatter of armor roughly where he’d been standing.

“Jesus Fucking Christ, Myrin!” Kaldalis barked, adjusting his stance to keep his spear pointed at the Contender. “Knock that shit off! You’re gonna give one of these fuckers a snapped neck after we busted our asses to avoid resorting to murder!”

“Sorry!” Myrin called down.

“Here’s the next fucker,” Filomena said, trying to wrestle the next guard into Myrin’s hands. “Try to lead the target this time.”

“But Kal said-” Myrin protested.

“Just throw him ass-first,” Filomena said. “Nobody ever died from falling on his ass, right?”

“Well-”

“No more throwing!” Kaldalis snapped, returning his attention to the Contender. “So help me, if another guard hits the ground here I will put you on the ass-kicking list next, Filomena!”

Kaldalis chose to take the captain’s gleeful cackle for agreement. Either that, or she was just happy to be acknowledged. Regardless, when Kaldalis’s attention went back to the Contender, something had changed.

He was smiling.

“I see,” the Contender said.

“You’re still at the top of my ass-kicking list,” Kaldalis said, taking a step towards the Contender. “As long as you hold the ill-gotten keys to this town, you can consider yourself the list in its entirety.”

“No, no,” the Contender said, shaking his head. With casual familiarity, he returned his scepter to his belt. “I see how to resolve the problem you represent. I know the answer. I just have to make you surrender.”

“Good luck with that one,” Kaldalis snapped. He lunged, aiming the tip of his twisted spear at the Contender’s shoulder.

The priest dodged the blow by throwing himself forward and to the left, practically diving on top of the nearest of the two downed guards that Myrin had thrown. When the Contender came back to his feet, he was newly-armed with a pair of daggers. Unmistakably War Weapons, they were long and slim, with a wavy curve and a jagged damascus pattern across the blades.

“I don’t need your luck,” the Contender said, his lips splitting in a smile that looked predatory for more reasons than his serrated teeth. “I can make my own.”

Before Kaldalis could say anything more, the Contender activated the daggers’ Sprint ability and darted south, shoving his way through the group of guards there and away from the town hall.

Kaldalis cursed. He only had a few seconds left on his Jump ability, and so he couldn’t waste any time, launching himself up to the nearest rooftop before kicking off in a flying leap towards the Contender.

The Sprint ability had a low duration. The Contender couldn’t get too far ahead. But the burst of speed it offered was downright supernatural. Kaldalis’s first leap landed him about twenty feet behind the fleeing Contender, and his second landed him almost fifty feet behind him. Jumping wasn’t nearly fast enough to keep up. Kaldalis just had to avoid losing too much ground for now.

The streets here were empty, and Kaldalis was grateful for that. The Contender didn’t have crowds to vanish in, and the wider thoroughfares here meant that there was no way for anything to be chucked into Kaldalis’s way that would bar the whole road. At the same time, Kaldalis struggled to gain ground. When the Contender turned east, Kaldalis was able to cut the next corner, only losing sight of the Contender for a couple of seconds, but gaining considerable ground by sprinting down the narrow space between two adventurer’s private quarters. It wasn’t near enough to close the gap, but when he emerged from the alley just a little closer, the gain was enough to give the Contender reason to fear.

As a Talsar, the Contender was slightly taller than Kaldalis, giving him longer legs. And the robes didn’t weigh him down as much as Kaldalis’s armor. Just the same, though, Kaldalis had his tremendous endurance working for him, and the Contender’s work must have caused him a sedentary lifestyle.

Kaldalis was gaining ground, and the Contender was slowing down.

“Run, coward!” Kaldalis called, hoping that the Contender’s flight would wear him down enough to let Kaldalis finish the subsequent fight quickly once he arrived at whatever bullshit plan he’d come up with. He started to thrash his spear back and forth, letting it whoosh through the air threateningly. “Run! Run! Run!”

The Contender tried to shake Kaldalis’s pursuit. He started to dart down corners and dive over obstacles. But Kaldalis stayed right on his heels. All the Contender was doing was wearing himself out, and Kaldalis had no problem letting him. As the gap closed, Kaldalis reckoned that he could stop the Contender by hurling his spear at his legs and then pouncing when the priest went down. Ultimately, he discarded the idea. If he missed, the Contender might slip through his fingers while he retrieved the weapon. Besides, if he was going to tire himself out, why would Kaldalis interrupt him?

The choice was, of course, a mistake.

The Sprint ability had a much shorter cooldown than Kaldalis anticipated. Without warning, the Contender jetted away from Kaldalis, rapidly re-establishing his lead.

For a moment, Kaldalis feared that he was going to lose him. If the Contender escaped while still the leader of the town, there was no telling what bullshit was going to be unleashed next. The curfew was already strangling any attempt to do anything productive around here, and that kind of management had led to death and destruction in the face of the Infernal Horde attacks. Even if Kaldalis could walk around free thanks to his reputation amongst the guards, he couldn’t dream of single-handedly compensating for every other adventurer being unable to contribute to the quests the town needed to keep its defenses strong.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, he didn’t have to find out.

The Contender didn’t go far. He vanished into a nearby building. It was tucked into the shadow of the city walls, shaped vaguely like an overturned longboat.

They were in the sailor’s part of town. This was the newly-built bar.

The bar Heluna frequented.

Kaldalis didn’t hesitate to barrel through the door as it swung inwards from the Contender’s rapid entrance seconds before.

The place was in disarray. It wasn’t as populated as usual - presumably because of the curfew - but those few who were here were panicked. Two of the tables had been overturned, with patrons huddled behind it for cover as if they expected an old west shootout. As Kaldalis surveyed the scene, a hand snaked up from behind the bar on the back wall to retrieve a bottle that lay on its side, stopping it from dumping the rest of its contents onto the wood.

And at the prow of the bar was a table with four chairs. Three of them were overturned, the sailors that had occupied them scattered. The Vathon was clutching a large bleeding gash on his forearm, and the Suyon was on all fours, weaving side-to-side as if she’d just taken a blow to the head while already drunk. The Finnian was holding up a chair defensively.

On the far side of the table were the two most familiar faces in the bar. Heluna was still seated in her chair with her head tipped back and both hands on the table. Standing uncomfortably close behind her was the Contender, holding both wavy War Weapon daggers crossed right under her chin.