Dinner was laid out on the room’s small table when Hirrus returned to the inn. Alric was there and was already tucking in to the food that sat before him with very little regard for manners. He barely even looked up enough to breathe, nevertheless acknowledge Hirrus’ entrance into the room.

“Welcome back,” Dahlia said with a patient smile.

“Hey man,” Alric said, mumbling around a mouthful of food. “Hope your plan worked better than mine.”

“I have a lead,” Hirrus said tersely. “But it will take until morning to come to fruition.” He inclined his head towards Dahlia as he took a seat at the table. “Thank you for your help. Barin was exactly as helpful as you predicted.”

Dahlia favored him with a smile as she picked up her spoon.

Hirrus realized that she hadn’t touched her meal yet - presumably waiting for his return - even though Alric had already devoured most of his.

Looking at the food before him, Hirrus realized how long he’d gone between meals. He hadn’t eaten a bite since dinner with Julissa. It filled him with a sense of loss now to be sitting in an inn room in Inoha with a random adventurer in the seat beside him, instead of back in Yenon with Julissa.

In the back of his mind, his decision tree told him to go back home.

He pushed it aside.

The meals on the table indicated to him that Dahlia had been in charge of selecting dinner. True to his expectations, Dahlia had indulged one of her more frequent cravings and gotten a bowl of curry that smelled spicier than anything Hirrus had ever eaten.

Sitting before Hirrus was something a bit more traditional. A dish of breaded pork cutlets with a side of potato salad. It made his heart ache for Julissa’s cooking, but it was nice of Dahlia to remember his favorite dish.

Meanwhile, Alric was digging into a plate of boiled crayfish - a dish considered iconic to Inoha due to the Cresston River running through the city. Hirrus had never tried crayfish, and, after watching the adventurer eat, he was sure he never would in the future.

“So what happened on your end, Alric?” Hirrus asked as he cut into his meal. “No leads?”

The adventurer shook his head. He paused from shoving food into his gullet. “Not yet. I don’t know what you did before I joined up, but you spooked them good. All the avenues I tried to follow for recruitment came up dry. It’s like the whole guild went to ground.”

“Hm,” Hirrus grunted.

He hadn’t anticipated Last of the Strong to take him so seriously so quickly. But after taking a moment to look at it from their perspective, he realized that he had ripped through their underlings, isolated and killed one of their officers, and escaped judgement from a GM - someone Alaric had described as a kind of god.

Perhaps he had underestimated himself.

“I can keep trying,” Alric said, “but it’s going to be slow going. They didn’t leave a lot of pathways to find them in-game, but I can look online when I log out.”

Hirrus didn’t understand half of what Alric said, as usual, but nodded along within it.

Alric motioned with his fork as he spoke. “I think that means they don’t know what you are yet. If they knew you were just an NPC, they wouldn’t be hiding from potential recruits. They might think you’re a player, or, like GM Dave said, a hacker.”

“That’s good news, then,” Dahlia said with a thin smile. “If you have them on the defensive, then they won’t be out destroying anyone else’s lives.”

“Including ours.” Hirrus nodded and looked down at his meal. “With them trying to hide from me, all I have to do is catch up with Barin in the morning.”

“Mixed blessing,” Alric said around a mouthful of food. “When you get there, they’re going to be turtled up and ready for you.”

“Let them.” Hirrus’ appetite shriveled as anger filled his belly. “Let them gather their forces in one place for me.” He grinned, and he knew it wasn’t a pleasant thing. “The only thing I’m afraid of is them running from me.”

Dahlia touched his arm gently. Her fingers were cold, nearly ice, even though the room was quite warm. “Don’t be overconfident,” she warned. “Carelessness will be your undoing.”

“Carelessness is their sin,” Hirrus said, “not mine.” He shook his head, and then paused to breathe. To quell his rage. “They think of us as less than them. That we aren’t people.” Alric winced at that, but Hirrus pressed on. “I will show them that we don’t have to be like them to matter. We’re real, and we will not be treated this way.”

“So what’s the plan then?” Dahlia asked, her tone shifting from careful and calming to a noble woman discussing her daily routine. She removed her hand from Hirrus’ arm, even though he could feel the lingering cold. “Do you plan on just charging in blindly and hoping for the best?”

“She’s right,” Alric said, even though he didn’t look over at either of them. “Running in face-first doesn’t sound smart. That shouldn’t be the plan. You should, um, have a better plan than that one.”

“That isn’t the plan,” Hirrus grumbled. He set his fork aside and started to gesture, speaking with his hands. “Let me start at the beginning, then. In the morning, Barin will give me the information I need. That will allow me to find where Last of the Strong are centered. Once I have that information, I can go there and investigate. I will take my time appraising the defenses, carefully measure their forces, and determine the ideal time, place, and method of attack.”

“See, that sounds good,” Alric said, nodding as he went back to shoveling food in his mouth. “Much better than your other plan.”

Hirrus narrowed his eyes at the adventurer. “Running in blind was never my plan.”

“Whatever,” Alric mumbled. “I just know what sounds good.”

“I won’t deny that I wish I knew more,” Hirrus said, addressing Dahlia instead of the adventurer. “If I knew the names and faces of the ones who were behind the attack against Yenon, I could wait to see if they leave their guild hall and isolate themselves. If I knew more of their temperament, I could determine if they might grow tired of taking a defensive stance and drop their guard, if I delay my attack.”

Alric made a low, uncertain sound in his throat. “That seems unlikely. If they weren’t enthusiastic about going into hiding, their recruiters would still be out there working instead of on lockdown.”

“Thank you,” Hirrus said. “At this point, any information is useful.”

“If you want my advice, the sooner you hit them, the better,” Alric continued, staring at the bottom of his bowl. “Once a guild gets big enough, the most dangerous tool they have is gathering information of their own. Dataminers or dev contacts or even getting directly in touch with GM Dave, they might figure out what you are. And once they do, it’s only a matter of time before they learn the best way of stopping you.”

Many of the words Alric said made little sense. But the context was clear.

The Last of the Strong would have allies. And allies would be dangerous for Hirrus. They would be more people to uncover what he was and what he was capable of doing.

“That’s a reasonable concern,” Hirrus said. “But considering how many times they’ve demanded of me what I am and how I’m doing the things I do, I’m not sure if information will help them too much.”

“Don’t underestimate an adventurer,” Alric warned. “I’m not saying, I’m just saying. Even gods who make that mistake die horribly at our hands.”

Hirrus steepled his fingers, leaning his elbows against the table. “I won’t delay overmuch, then. Just long enough to appraise their defense. Once I’m sure I won’t be biting off more than I can chew, I’ll take the opportunity to strike.”

“And what if you are?” Dahlia asked. Hirrus looked her way, but she was looking at the small window, towards the night sky. “What if they’re too much for you? I know you won’t cry off on your cause.”

“I won’t cry off,” Hirrus confirmed, “but I will bring them to justice. I can’t do that by breaking myself against their defenses.” He frowned and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “If fighting them in their base of power is impossible, I will find another way. I promise.”

“Thank you,” Dahlia said with a nod, looking down at the last few spoonfuls of curry in her bowl.

The trio finished their dinner in near silence. Alric had secured his own room - explaining something about needing proper ownership of a bed in order to leave his body in it while logged out - and Hirrus helped Dahlia into bed after he was gone. It took a few minutes to make sure she had the right number and arrangement of pillows to support her body where she needed it, but after all she’d been through, it was the least he could do to ensure an acceptable level of comfort for a good night’s sleep.

Once Dahlia was taken care of, Hirrus readied himself for sleep as well. He doused the lights, changed his gear out to sleepwear, and climbed into the room’s second bed.

As soon as he was laying there in the dark, he realized how unlikely it was that he would get any proper sleep.

The bed beside him felt cold and empty. While it had made his heart ache eating a poor substitute for her cooking, he had other things to occupy his mind then. He had been talking to Alric and Dahlia, and thinking of his plans for Last of the Strong.

But now?

It was dark and quiet. The only distraction he had from Julissa’s absence was the distant sound of reveling in the tavern downstairs.

He wondered what she would think about his quest. Would she be with him, encouraging him to bring justice to Last of the Strong? Would she be quietly supportive like Dahlia, encouraging him to stay safe rather than plunging headlong into the fray? Or would she be too pure of heart to accept him seeking to collect a debt of blood?

Hirrus feared it would be that last one.

He feared he was disappointing her by turning to violence.

Regardless of where her heart would lay, she wasn’t here. No amount of hoping or wondering would provide him with an answer.

He had failed to protect her.

And what good was a guard who couldn’t protect people?

Hirrus considered the fall of Yenon a failure on his part. The death of almost every person there was a damning indictment of his inability to execute upon that duty. But none of it hurt as much as his failure to protect Julissa. She was the love of his life and he’d let her die right in front of him.

Why hadn’t he been able to throw off his decision tree before her death? Why had her death been necessary?

He very much doubted that he would be getting any sleep tonight.

Hirrus stared up at the darkened ceiling. He resigned himself to memorizing the swirls and loops in the faded paint until daybreak.

Others, however, had different plans.

Barely an hour later, the wall behind his bed blew apart in a blast of flames.

There was no warning.

The sudden brightness and heat overwhelmed Hirrus' senses, and he hurled himself out of bed before any of the wooden shards of the broken wall could hurt him.

“Jesus Christ, Cary,” a voice shouted from outside. “What part of ‘clean and efficient’ was that?”

“That was the room, right?”

“Well, yeah, but-”

“Then maybe I just solved our problem? Sounds clean and efficient to me!”

Hirrus accessed his inventory and got his gear back on quickly. He wondered how badly he might have been hurt if this “Cary” had aimed his attack slightly lower on the wall. Whatever blast that was, the bottom edge of the hole in the wall was barely more than eight inches above where his head had been a moment before.

“Who’s out there?” Hirrus yelled out the hole, ducking low beside the opening to avoid presenting an easy target. “Who are you and what are you doing?”

“Is that the guy?” someone asked.

“Fuck if I know,” another voice answered. “Sounds like just a guy and not a monster.”

“Are you the bitch looking for the Last of the Strong?” the second voice - Cary - yelled up at Hirrus. “Because in Kingdom of Hari, the Last of the Strong find you!”

Hirrus grimaced. Assassins.

He took a quick peek out the hole, ducking back in just as a small orb of fire hurtled at his head. It wasn’t the same blast that destroyed the wall - it only splashed against the ceiling above Hirrus, leaving a fist-sized scorch mark there.

But it hadn’t come fast enough. He saw what he was up against.

There were only four of them. What adventurers called a party. Hirrus didn’t believe that to be sufficient numbers to threaten him, but he didn’t want to underestimate them. One of them was wearing a flowing robe decked out with a shimmering metallic lining that caught the moonlight. That was the one throwing fire. On that man’s flanks were two warriors in spiked platemail, one in black and the other in a foggy gray hue. One wielded a huge two-handed club of spiked black metal to match his armor, while the other held a sword and shield.

The man in front was obviously the leader. He was wearing lighter armor made from hundreds of studded leather lamellae, but each piece was decorated with a gold foil filigree that ran around the edge of each individual piece. His weapon was an impractically large two-handed axe that appeared to be made of glowing blue ice, the bulk of the head formed of jagged points that would throw off the weapon’s weight, but gave the weapon an impressively imposing look.

It seemed that expecting the adventurers to go on the defensive had been incorrect.