The other quests were uneventful, and seemed barely worth doing. They were just gathering quests, and so when they weren’t boring, they were frustrating. Kaldalis couldn’t stand leaving them unfinished, though; he wasn’t sure if leaving them would block story progression or anything like that, but more than that he was already feeling a twinge of irritation when he opened his quest journal and saw the starter quest for his Adventurer’s Chit hanging out unfinished.

He didn’t want a bunch more useless garbage in his journal if he could help it.

Unsurprisingly, he was one of the last ones back to the camp with the gathering quests. Due to his lengthy detour, he’d spent more time running around in the jungle than he’d spent actually doing the quests. He returned to find everyone else was already milling about chatting about what they’d seen, and discussing what could be coming next.

“I just got back,” he remarked to someone standing next to the first quest turn-in, “what’s going on?”

“There’s a timed delay for the next batch of quest while the Expedition Leader determines the next course of action with her inner circle,” the woman said. She was a bhogad in a flowing robe that looked almost like an evening gown, but more from the way she carried herself than the robe’s actual appearance. “We’ve got maybe another 30 minutes to wait.”

“Good. I would have hated to be too far behind everyone else.”

The bhogad said nothing, but Kaldalis could feel her glare on his back as he walked away.

Turning in the quests was uneventful. The NPCs took the requested items with gratitude, and rewarded him with handfuls of guild credits for some, and handfuls of crescents for the others. Each time, though, he got that pleasant little chime letting him know he was gaining EXP for his efforts. He was aware that he made it to level 3 off of these rewards, and a reasonable portion of the way through to the next. He was slightly grumpy that he didn’t get any gear rewards - he was still using level 1 gear after two weeks of playing - but at this point, any amount of progression felt like a gift.

His next stop was the gathering quest turn-ins, where he turned his otherwise-useless sand, juice-grade pearpayas, and bug-chewed leaves into a surprising amount of harvesting and mining skill increases. He didn’t get either one all the way up to ten with the rest of his skills, but he was secure in the knowledge that things were going to be much easier on his next run. He was slightly dismayed that these turn-ins didn’t give him exp, but they were still progression. What was he going to do? Just hold onto the garbage and hope a better use for them arose?

The last stop was the research note items. It took him a bit to figure out who to give them to, but he was eventually directed to a tent setup where there were a handful of people opening up oilskin-wrapped crates from the ship, separating out all of the ones that contained books and either piling them up, or poring over them. Obviously the researchers.

“I think I have something for you folks,” Kaldalis said. He put on what he felt was the most appropriate smile. It was the one he used at work when he was approaching someone he’d never spoken to before, but needed something from. “That is, if I’m in the right place.”

“What do you have?” one of the researchers asked. They were a vathon with skin that was just this side of purple from red.

“Research notes, mostly.” He was going to continue to explain himself but the researcher’s eyes grew so wide and excited, he snapped his mouth closed and produced the first sheaf of notes from his inventory to hand them over.

The researcher started flicking through them with almost palpable hunger. “Grizzled dragon,” they murmured, “large, scaled… Either carnivorous or a scavenger…” They nodded excitedly. “Yes. Yes. This is the right place for this.” They looked up with a smile “Thank you so much.”

“My pleasure. How long do you think it will take to complete the research on them?”

“With just this?” They skimmed the notes from back to front. “A few days. Maybe a week. But if you can bring us more, I could see it being reduced to two or three days. Most of the time is going to be spent cross-referencing with other recordings of wildlife in the area, so any information you can give us will make it easier to identify, or make such cross-reference unnecessary.”

“Alright, I’ll try and bring more back for you, then.” Kaldalis was anxious to see what sort of reward this would merit when it was done. “I do have one more for you, but for something else.”

They held up their hands and made an endearing little ‘gimme gimme’ gesture. Kaldalis handed over the notes on the Irritator with a smile. They went to dive into the notes immediately but their hands paused on the first page.

“What is this?” they asked.

“It was giant and deadly,” Kaldalis said. “I think it was likely one of the Infernal Horde that we’ve heard so much about.”

“And you fought it?” They looked mortified. “You could have been killed!”

“Since I’m here with the research notes, you know that didn’t happen.”

“I need to…” They looked around for a moment, fingers twiddling as i f they had a dozen things to do and were unable to figure out which one to start with. “The Expedition Leader has to be informed. Immediately.”

“What’s going on, Bangen?” another researcher asked. They were a taller bhogad man wearing a pair of strangely-constructed spectacles perched on his oversized muzzle.

“Sir, this guy…” the vathon fell silent, though their lips kept moving as they struggled to find the words. “Just look at this.” They held up the first page of the notes.

The bhogad looked over them carefully. Despite the disproportionately small size of their beady ratlike eyes, Kaldalis could see when they widened.

“You’re right,” the bhogad said, “the captain must be informed.” He returned the page to the pile. “Start the research, Bangen. I’ll get him there.”

“But the meeting, sir?”

“Balls to the meeting,” the bhogad said. “If we have a head-start on the Infernal Horde, she’ll want to know NOW.” The bhogad’s large hand landed on Kaldalis’s shoulder, and he found himself being pushed through the camp. Forcefully.

“Wait, why do you need me?” Kaldalis asked. He noticed that the fact that he was being pushed through the camp by what looked like a giant furry nerd was getting attention from those they were passing. “You have the information, right?”

“I know the Expedition Leader,” the bhogad said. “She’ll demand to see you and put the whole blasted expedition on hold until she’s had a chance to try and scrape some personal glory off of your achievement. Just saves time.”

“What’s going on?” a familiar voice asked. Balrim had sidled up next to Kaldalis at some point, and Kaldalis was really happy to see him. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Myrin said in a grumpy tone as she came up on the other side. “Are you in trouble or something? Going to camp jail? Need us to bust ya out?”

“Nothing of the sort! This young man gave us our first taste of the blood of the Infernal Horde,” the bhogad interrupted before Kaldalis could speak, “and hope that we might complete our research of them before they show up in force.”

“He did what?” someone asked from nearby.

“The Infernal-”

A cry went up, but was cut off as more voices joined in.

“Someone saw-?”

“I don’t believe-”

“What happened?”

“Careful!” someone yelled over the sudden chorus of questions from the surrounding adventurers. “He’s a hero!”

The chorus of voices and questions was overwhelming. Too much to process, Kaldalis could only focus on his immediate surroundings, even as he was being marched across the camp.

“What did you do?” Myrin asked.

“I saw a trail for a monster that led deeper into the jungle. So I followed it,” Kaldalis explained, “and then fought it, killed it, and got some drop item for research.” Kaldalis decided to simplify, leaving the grizzled dragon out of this story. “It was a twenty-foot feathered lizard thing. A hard fight, too. I think it might have been one of the Infernal Horde we’ve been warned about.”

“And you hunted and fought something like that?” Balrim asked. “Alone? You could have asked for help.”

Kaldalis winced at the hurt in the talsar’s tone, even if he couldn’t read it in his slit-pupiled eyes. But before he could form any kind of apology, there was a tent before them. It was obviously different from the others that had started to go up. It was large, sized like one of those portable classrooms that Dylan’s middle school had behind the building, where the language classes were. Where the other tents were beige and other shades of brown, the canvas of this tent was a rust color, just a few shades off from the color of the scales on Balrim’s scalp.

That was all Kaldalis could take in before he was pushed through the flap and into what looked like a meeting that should not have been interrupted.

“What’s this about?” the woman at the end of the table snapped. She gestured angrily directly at Kaldalis. “I demand an explanation for this interruption!” She was a vathon with sky blue skin. Unlike the other vathon he’d seen, Kaldalis could immediately tell she was a woman. She wore a breastplate with very obvious breasts molded into the metal. Her hair was close-cropped, like Kaldalis’, though her horns were larger and longer, and spread a bit farther horizontally than his. “Am I mistaken in thinking I was absolutely clear that this meeting was the most important thing happening on this entire island?”

“Ma’am, this adventurer provided us with evidence of the Infernal Horde’s activities in the area,” the bhogad cut in before she could say any more. “And vital research materials so that we can prepare for them.”

The woman’s eyes snapped back to Kaldalis, and he could feel her aggravation turning to opportunism. He suddenly felt like he was not going to like how this interaction was going to go from here on.

Kaldalis swallowed. Hard.