Kaldalis was really surprised that their group stuck together through the whole quest run. And it wasn’t just to make the work go quicker. The system didn’t exactly reward teamwork. Between the reduced experience and the sometimes single-spawn objectives that weren’t shared or phased, teaming up actively hurt their progress.

Normally they would have split up to cover more ground. Rotated the quests so that everyone could get their items without waiting down the respawn.

But the threat of an Infernal Horde ambush was too great to ignore. Being caught out alone could be a death sentence.

So, even though it sucked the challenge out of the fights and slowed them all down, they stuck together to get the work done.

Kaldalis found the fights against the grizzled dragons for Balrim’s crafting materials to be particularly depressing. When they’d first arrived on the island, it had been an extraordinary challenge, keeping ahead of the creature’s bulk and chipping away at it little by little.

Now, however, it would have been a pushover even on his own. The creatures had obviously scaled up a bit from that first encounter, but not in proportion to Kaldalis’s accumulation of gear.

It meant their roles were reversed. The grizzled dragon’s attacks were doing seventeen physical damage and five damage of their respective element - unless it was Fire or Wind, where his affinity from gear reduced it to four. Meanwhile, Kaldalis hacked into them for sixty-nine physical damage (nice) and twelve elemental damage.

He didn’t even try to avoid the attacks of the teal-scaled wind element beasts. Their increased affinity only reduced his elemental damage to ten.

Kaldalis wasn’t obliterating them in two hits like other wildlife he’d encountered, but after six strikes of his spear, they were sent running. And that was if Haldir, Balrim, and Myrin weren’t helping. Myrin was mastering the timing of hitting it right before the threshold was crossed, and taking it from whatever point that was to dead in a single strike, saving them the trouble of chasing them down.

All things considered, things were fine. Kaldalis told himself that this was necessary work as they tromped through the jungle looking for trouble.

It just felt a little boring.

As much as he wanted to find a real challenge, his goals remained clear. He needed to help establish the town, and he needed to help his friends become stronger so that they could keep helping him with that. But it was just the usual aggravating grind.

The stream rewards having arrived in the morning just made it all slightly worse. This wasn’t exciting content. And he didn’t know how to make it better. Other than the four-fingered syncoresi burst out of the foliage, somehow.

“I’m not saying we should lean into only that,” Myrin said, deep in conversation with Balrim, “just that a bit more time on it seems to be what the people want.”

“I just don’t want to rush through it all,” Balrim warned. “We’re riding high now, but if we run out of island, we’re not going to have anything left to do and people will just stop tuning in.”

Kaldalis remembered the two of them talking about their adventurers, exploring the jungle as a duo while he had been working on other tasks. Probably mostly while he was fishing. It sounded like the majority of their support was from people who wanted to see that.

“Where do you want to start, then?” Myrin asked. “We’ve almost circumnavigated the beach. We should probably just grab a tent or something and take however long it takes.”

“Seems like a lot of trouble. I don’t know if that’s worth it.”

“The fans want to see exploration,” Myrin said in a firm tone. “Their messages were very clear about that. If we cover more ground, we should get more support.”

“Yeah, but if we’re camping out, then I have to listen to you snoring again. I don’t know if their support is enough for that.”

Myrin laughed and shoved him.

Kaldalis looked to Haldir, but he only had a shrug.

“Honestly,” the teal-skinned vathon said, “this is what you all sound like to me.”

With a roll of his eyes, Kaldalis went back to focusing on the task at hand. The sooner they got Balrim all of his grizzled dragon bones, the sooner they could move on.

Frustratingly, it took about a half-dozen of the scaled beasts for him to have what he needed. Since the fights weren’t interesting or challenging, he just felt like he was going through the motions.

He was very happy when they moved on to the next task.

“Is there a way we can work other things into it?” Myrin asked Balrim. “I know you’ve been doing all the crafting stuff, but can we cross the streams? Can we make crafting stuff into exploration?”

“I think you’re the best person to answer that question,” Balrim replied. “You’re doing all my gathering. Are there some rare materials we could chase in our adventures through the jungle?”

“Maybe?” Myrin said. “I don’t know. Having the skill maxed doesn’t tell me any secret knowledge.”

“We can try it, though,” Balrim said. “Who knows what we’ll find if we go looking for gathering areas instead of just wandering aimlessly?”

“Maybe you were wandering aimlessly,” Myrin said with a pout, “but I had a purpose!”

“What purpose?”

“I was trying to find something interesting!”

“Like what?” Balrim arched a scaled brow-ridge.

“I don’t know,” Myrin said after a moment, “but I’ll know what I’m looking for once I’ve found it.”

When they arrived at the gathering point for the timber they needed for their quest, Kaldalis put some distance between himself and the bickering pair.

He didn’t begrudge them their plans. They were all-in on the streaming side of things, and he couldn’t blame them for that. Honestly, he wanted to make a push for that as well.

It… Well, it just sort of hurt that their plans didn’t include him. After talking to Heluna the previous night and questioning how close of friends the three of them were, this was a depressing conversation to be a third wheel in.

Was it his fault? Did he not include them in his stuff? He gathered fish for Balrim and took Myrin fishing as well… What else could he do?

The group worked to gather the wood their quests needed. But Kaldalis found himself slowly working away from the others. They were still in a party together, and if something happened, he would be ready to literally leap into action to defend them.

He just didn’t want to listen to more of their chatter.

Instead, he focused on making his own plans. What did he want to do? What would build his stream? What were his own goals?

He thought back on the messages he’d gotten from his supporters. Balrim and Myrin had one thing right: he needed to figure out what they wanted to see and how to give them more of it.

A lot of the messages had been relatively conversational, rather than any obvious requests. But he’d spent all his time on three things: helping people, daring solo heroics, and fishing. The best he could do was lean into those three things.

Then again, leaning into that wasn’t going to change his routine.

But what did he want to do? What would benefit him the most?

Thanks to his supporters, he had practically a mountain of potions. That meant that he could seek out some daring solo heroics. He could certainly try to solo the dungeon, at least. Or perhaps go looking for real trouble once there was some sign of the Infernal Horde.

There was that den of syncoresi he’d found when his four-fingered rival had first killed him. Perhaps he could sneak around that area and try and lure away and finish off one of the smaller ones. That would be a hell of a feat by himself, and could be quite a dramatic event. It could also serve the larger needs of the encampment. If he killed one, he’d end up with a sheaf of notes on the creature that he could deliver to the research team. Once that was in their hands-

“Oh shit,” Kaldalis said, interrupting himself in the middle of his train of thought. “The research notes.”

As soon as he had the last of the wood he needed for his quest, he made his way over to his party in a rush.

“Pick up the pace,” he said when he found Balrim and Myrin pantomiming something he couldn’t immediately decipher rather than gathering materials. “I just remembered what day it is.”

“And what day is it?” Myrin asked, though she was already moving back to the nearest tree to get back to harvesting.

“It’s been three days since we all handed the research team notes on the malum captains,” Kaldalis said with a grin. “Their research should be done sometime today. We’ve been playing fast and loose with those folks as a resource, but this isn’t something we can overlook.”

“Oh shit,” Balrim said. “I forgot all about that.”

“That’s what I said,” Kaldalis said with a laugh. “So the sooner we can finish up these quests, the sooner we can get the answers we - and everyone else - need.”

The quartet worked double time to get it done, and the new urgency curtailed any further discussion. Kaldalis was grateful for that break, at least. The only thing they had remaining was the flagstone for the fountain, and working together, they benefited from Myrin’s high gathering skill. She finished fast and handed out extra to the rest of them so that they were all on their way back to the town in just a few minutes.

They quickly turned in their quests, and while it left Kaldalis within striking distance of level ten, the striking would have to wait.

Instead, they all made a beeline for the newly-constructed wooden building that was serving as headquarters for the Adventurers League research team.