True to Garyung’s promise - and Cerh’s threats - when the first round of quests were done, there was another waiting.

And then another after that.

And then another after that.

More than anything else, Kaldalis was glad for the work - and the visible progress that was made on the camp’s infrastructure with every trip. But the joy of progression wasn’t enough to squash his concerns.

What was this costing Garyung? Even ignoring the materials they were transporting over in lieu of cash, Kaldalis knew quests weren’t free now. Spamming them out had to be costing Cotanaku something. At this point, though, his only option was to say it wasn’t his problem and keep on trucking. If he tried to stop, it might anger the Panbu Council even worse than he already had, especially since he had acquired a bit of a following.

Kaldalis elected to skip lunch and kept pushing the quests, which caused his retinue of followers to thin out considerably. It wasn’t until they were gone that he realized that his friends had been following along the whole time.

“Wow,” Kaldalis said as he settled in next to Balrim to start hacking away at the trees around Panbu to harvest wood. “There goes the neighborhood.”

Balrim shook his head. “This used to be such a nice area. But I guess they just let anyone in here now.”

“Yeah,” Myrin said from Balrim’s other side. “Where did you go last night? We’re all here cleaning up your mess and you get to ghost us all? That’s not fair.”

Kaldalis winced at the reminder of his failure. But he couldn’t blame her for the comment. He was responsible for what had happened yesterday, but had been absent when the time came to deal with the immediate aftermath.

At least he had a good excuse.

“It was Garyung’s idea,” Kaldalis said with a grimace, “and I think it was the right move. The Zaran diplomats are pissed about what happened, obviously, but they don’t just blame me for the failure. They think I did it on purpose.”

“So, what?” Reno cut in from Kaldalis’s other side. “You didn’t want to return to the scene of the crime?”

“Basically. Garyung didn’t want them to be reminded of my part in it,” Kaldalis said, grunting as he hacked his hatchet into the tree. “He thought if I was out of sight, I’d be out of mind. At the meeting we had, he did a lot of work to try and take responsibility from me and onto himself.”

SeventyEight smiled cheerfully. “What a nice guy. I guess that’s why he's the expedition leader, huh?”

The comment was a little blow to Kaldalis’ ego as it reminded him of the election - and his atrocious behavior around it - but it was a nice reminder for him. He was happy with where he was. It had turned out that Garyung wasn’t the best man for the job - or hadn’t been until after Kaldalis had helped him get started. But Kaldalis had to admit that having his hands tied the same way Garyung’s were would have been a nightmare.

“Anyhow,” Kaldalis said, pressing onwards, “I’m back now, and we gotta push this upgrade A-S-A-P. I know our brutal and machinelike efficiency is costing Garyung something, but I’d rather he deal with whatever bills have to be run up to get this done than having to deal with the Zaran army on his doorstep.”

Balrim paused, tilting his lizard-like head. “What do you mean? What’s it costing him?”

“First of all, quest rewards have to come from somewhere,” Kaldalis explained as he hacked away at the tree, watching the quest on the right side of his vision ticking away. “That’s why the Zarans are so mad. The cash from the quests to set up Cotanaku came from Zara. The cash from the quests to set up Panbu came from Zara again - and have to be paid out again even though the upgrade failed. So now Garyung has to pony up the cash for the rebuild.”

“Where’s it coming from?” Myrin asked. She stopped gathering for a moment, adjusting her grip on her gathering tool. Despite being a Suyon, her hatchet was the same size as Kaldalis’, and it looked almost like a full-sized axe. “How is Garyung getting the money?”

Kaldalis shrugged. “I’m not on his council, so I don’t know how he’s doing it. He said he was going to get a loan from another nation, but I’m unsure of which one or what it’ll cost him. In the meeting he mentioned a place called Cornix, and said he would have to marry the president’s daughter?”

“Jesus,” Balrim said with a laugh. “I didn’t even know there were romance options in this game and Garyung’s going to commit to an arranged marriage with an NPC? He’s really hardcore about the leadership thing, huh?”

Kaldalis felt his cheeks starting to flush at the comment, so he threw himself even harder into the gathering quest. He could blame the blush on the hard work rather than having to explain that he’d just been on a date with an NPC.

SeventyEight cleared her throat. “Anyway. Garyung’s plans are his own business. What about us? What are we doing?”

“First and foremost: the quests,” Kaldalis said, jumping on the opportunity to change the subject. “Cerh gave us an ultimatum that we gotta get this done in three days again. No breaks, no waits.”

“Brutal,” Reno said, stopping to wipe the sweat from her brow. “What’s the ultimatum?”

“He was vague,” Kaldalis said with a grimace, “but it sounded like he wanted it to be very bad for me, specifically.” He shrugged. “I hope you’ll excuse me for being selfish, but whatever bullshit he has planned sounded worth avoiding.”

“Is that why we’re skipping lunch?” Myrin grumbled. “Here I thought we were all in danger until the walls were done. If it’s just your ass on the line, I could be having a sandwich right now.”

Reno cackled at that and the others joined her, but it was a bit too close to home for Kaldalis to join in on the joke. He wasn’t sure what Cerh had planned for his follow-up ‘demands’ but since Kaldalis was effectively immortal in this world, he feared it would be one of those fate-worse-than-death things.

“Regardless, Garyung is doing everything he can to keep the Kingdom of Zara happy,” Kaldalis said once the giggles had died down. “The least we can do is do our part to keep their army off our doorstep.”

Myrin nodded. “That’s a much better motivator. Should have led with that. Who cares about your dumb ass,” she added with a playful grin.

“Exactly! War is a threat we can all enjoy!” Reno said with an overly cheerful smile.

“Once we get done with that, though,” Kaldalis said, smiling in spite of himself, “we can start making our own moves, whatever they may be.”

Myrin clasped her hands together. “Ooh! Ooh! Dungeon! Dungeon!”

“As soon as the place is a town and we aren’t bringing the Xorn down on Panbu,” Balrim said, pausing for a moment to fiddle with his inventory. “The dungeon needs to be our next priority. More challenges, new gear, and maybe a new tablet power await us. That ought to be our first stop once we’re done.”

“All we need for that is another healer,” Kaldalis said.

“And another tank,” Reno said with a shake of her head. “I know we kind of want Courbois for the spot, but we should actually talk to her before we just assume she’d love to be on our team.”

SeventyEight shook her head. “And another DPS. Because math.”

“I might have someone I want to tap for that,” Kaldalis said, remembering running Heluna through the Sunken Ruins dungeon. “But we’ll have to approach that when we get there. She’s an NPC and I don’t know how we feel about that so soon after...”

Balrim and Myrin paused what they were doing - exchanging items to alleviate inventory woes - and let out a collective sigh, eyes downcast. Kaldalis had to remind himself that he wasn’t the only one who had lost Haldir.

“We’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it,” Reno said, sensing the shift in mood. “We’ve got three days to think about it right? So let’s not let it go to waste.”

With their goals reaffirmed and plans made, the group went back to work.

As the day of quests wore on, Kaldalis’ friends were replaced by a revolving cast of people following in his wake as he blitzed the quests one after another. Kaldalis fell into a repeating pattern of leaving town from the jungle side, heading into the white-blossom forest for something, and then circling eastwards through the various areas of the jungle demanded by his quests, until he reached the beachside grotto where he gathered whatever stones were on the list. After that, he walked up the beach to re-enter the town from the beach side and distribute his haul. Running in one big circle like that for the whole day was enough to make him dizzy.

And then he did it all again the next day.

The third day, he did the final quests going the other way for a change - starting with the grotto and working his way west through the jungle for everything else.

It felt like a nice change, though it didn’t last.

After two runs, it was mid-morning, and there were no quests left.

Kaldalis found himself standing in the middle of town staring blankly at his minimap, waiting for more quests to appear. He thought it was impossible that they were done - there was still so much work left to be finished as laborers scrambled to erect the final archery tower and finish building the barracks - but there was nothing.

Not a single fetch quest remained.

He headed out the beachside gate and noticed that the salvaged floating dock was still in unrepaired condition. Kaldalis first believed that it was a sign that he’d missed something - there had to be quests to get the materials for this, right? - but he stopped with a grimace when he remembered that the Panbu council hated him. He’d successfully eluded them for three days by keeping his nose to the grindstone, and it caused their anger to fade from his memory.

But it hadn’t faded from theirs.

The dock had been one of his suggestions when he was an envoy, and now they were letting it languish as an intentional slight against him.

But the dock wasn’t necessary for the upgrade. If everything else was done, then it would be time toon for the final battle.

As if to confirm that, a longboat scraped against the sand as its pilot ran it into the beach. Garyung and his council were off the boat and marching up the sand before the thing came to a full stop.

“Good,” Garyung said as the group approached Panbu, “you’re here. I imagine Cerh isn’t going to want to start this final meeting without you there. And considering that we’ve met his crazy bullshit timeline, I think you deserve to be there, too.”

“Somehow,” Kaldalis said, falling in beside Garyung as the group reached him, “I don’t think this meeting is going to be a celebration of our success.”

The Bhogad shrugged with a thin smile. “First time for everything, I guess.”