The voice seemed relieved. “They showed up about half an hour ago. Caught us off-guard while the gate was being constructed. We managed to get the door in place but one of them got through and is rampaging around. All the bow-wielders are here on the wall, but everyone else is either holding the gate or dealing with the big boy inside.”

“So how do we get in to help?” Balrim yelled. “I don’t know if you can tell from that side of the wall, but we’re about five seconds from fucked out here!”

“Can they throw down a rope or something?” Kaldalis grunted, struggling to keep up with both the conversation and the mob pack. He ended up taking a claw across his chest for ninety-eight damage.

“A rope?” Balrim called back up at them, tossing Kaldalis a potion to alleviate some of the damage he’d accumulated. “Do you have a rope we can climb?”

“Yeah, uh, I think…” the voice trailed off to muffled as the speaker presumably turned around to look for something. After a moment, a rope of woven vine descended out of the smoldering smoke and slapped against the wall.

“Thank you!” Balrim grabbed the rope quickly, pulling it clear of the parts of the wall that were hot enough to smoke. “So how are we doing this?”

“DPS first. Then you.”

“We’re not abandoning you out here!” Haldir said, even as Myrin was already taking the rope from Balrim. “I know you’ll respawn, but-”

“And you won’t,” Kaldalis snapped. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be right behind Balrim.”

“How?” Haldir asked, not moving from his post behind the pack of monsters, still swinging away with his blade even as Myrin swarmed up the rope behind Kaldalis. “You’ll never be able to climb the rope. They’ll grab you and drag you down.”

“Do you trust me?”

“No!” Haldir answered way too quickly. “You’re a fucking adventurer! Death and glory are synonymous to you psychopaths!”

“Fine! I’ll just fucking tell you! I’m going to jump up with my fucking spear skill. There. Are you happy? You ruined my big-brain moment that was going to impress everyone.”

Haldir was silent for a moment, but he stopped swinging his sword and stood there, staring at Kaldalis.

“Go, asshole! Get up the fucking rope!”

Haldir’s face turned to a scowl, but he moved to comply, taking the rope from Balrim and following Myrin up into the smoke.

“Do you wanna have a fight about it, too?” Kaldalis asked as Balrim tossed him another heal.

“Nope,” Balrim said, quickly. “Not at all. I’m just waiting for Haldir to get to the top.”

“Good,” Kaldalis said bitterly. “Fucking NPCs.”

“Sometimes it just be like that,” Balrim said, turning to the wall to start climbing the rope. “And really, don’t die. I don’t want that to be the last thing I say to you. Well, at least until you respawn, I guess.”

Kaldalis grunted at that, but said nothing.

He focused on avoiding the attackers. It wasn’t easy. But he was waiting for Balrim to vanish into the smokescreen above. Before the talsar was out of sight, however, he activated his jump cooldown early. It was easy to use it to increase his mobility, letting him keep much farther ahead of the aggressive pack of monsters.

As soon as he guessed Balrim was on top of the wall, Kaldalis leapt up into the smoke.

He held his breath as he entered the wall of smoke, and squinted his eyes until he came through the other side.

It turned out jumping blindly wasn’t terribly smart.

He hadn’t known where he was going to land, so he just jumped as high as he could. But as soon as he was out of the smoke, he realized that he’d cleared the wall entirely, and reaching to catch the top was pointless.

He then realized that there was only a partial platform cut into the top of the wall, and that he had overshot it by about a foot.

“Oops,” he remarked, meeting the eyes of a tall bhogad who was helping Balrim up onto the top of the wall. He felt like he physically paused in the air like a cartoon coyote for a moment before he flailed his way to the ground on the far side of the wall.

When he hit the hard packed earth at the foot of the wall, he was grateful that he didn’t take fall damage. Slightly less so as his legs crumpled under him and he landed on his ass.

Just because it didn’t deal damage to him by no means meant that it didn’t hurt.

What he wouldn’t give for a double jump ability.

“Wait for us,” Myrin said, scrambling down a ladder off of the platform. “I’m glad we were able to catch up after you left us behind like that.”

“Ha ha,” Kaldalis deadpanned. He grunted his way to his feet. “Very funny.”

“I bet you’re glad it wasn’t a surprise now,” Myrin said, “the impressiveness of you emerging from the smoke like that would have been undercut a lot by your aim.”

Kaldalis scowled. “We have work to do. We wasted enough time already.”

“I could see that from up there,” Myrin said, looking up as Haldir descended the ladder behind her. “Things are looking pretty rough for our side.”

“But we’re here now,” Kaldalis said.

“Time to find the tables and turn them,” Myrin said, smacking her open hand with a closed fist.

“Tides,” Kaldalis said. “We’re turning the tides. The tables can stay where they are.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Do we have time for this?” Haldir snapped when he reached the ground.

“I don’t know,” Kaldalis said with a shrug. “I only got a good view of the ground rushing up at me. What’s it look like?”

“Rough,” Haldir said. “And in a bad way.”

“Balrim!” Kaldalis called up to the talsar halfway down the ladder, “it’s not far enough to take fall damage. Go ahead and jump when you’re comfortable. We’ve got a town to save!”

“Well, I’m not at all comfortable!” Balrim called back, though he started climbing down faster. “You guys get moving, I’ll catch up!”

Kaldalis shrugged, tossed the talsar a grin, and then began leading the way through the camp.

He headed for the gate, but he didn’t need logic to guess that that’s where they would be needed. As soon as the party made it a few dozen feet away from the din of the battle around the wall, they could hear the sounds of combat ahead of them.

Kaldalis redoubled his speed when he heard a scream of pain. There was trouble, and he suspected he knew what was at the center of it.

Shortly before they reached the gate, when Kaldalis started to be able to pick out Onirioago’s voice barking orders, Balrim caught up to the rear of the group.

They were as ready for this as they were going to be.

After a moment longer, they burst out from between two of the semi-permanent crafting stalls and into the courtyard around the gate.

It was a mess.

There were two obvious groups of people: a knot of adventurers gathered around a giant syncoresi boss at one end of the courtyard farthest from the gate, and another group gathered around the gate itself.

The distance between the two groups looked oddly large, but he quickly figured out what was happening.

This was the range of the howl attack.

The group at the gate included a large number of healers running around tossing potions to the wounded adventurers around them. They were trying to rotate the groups, keeping them fresh and healed for the fight. The second group also included a number of people helping to hold the gates closed, and a couple of adventurer’s league workers doing hasty reinforcement of the shaking and battered wooden barrier.

This giant syncoresi was larger than Kaldalis remembered, the fur on its back and shoulders longer and bristling like the mane of a boar. It was at least twenty-five feet tall, and while it had been spindly-looking before, it had a much more muscular appearance now.

It did, however, still only have four fingers on one hand.

Kaldalis’s self-appointed nemesis had grown stronger yet.

And now it was in the heart of the encampment, rapidly whittling its way through the resources of its defenders.