Garyung and Kaldalis found themselves standing outside the reconstructed town hall, both of them still shell-shocked by the meeting. Luckily for them, the rest of Garyung’s council still had their heads about them, and herded the pair of shocked PCs through the camp so as to avoid dawdling or making a scene.

“I can’t believe this,” Garyung said at last as they were ushered through the beachside gate of Panbu.

Kaldalis grumbled. “Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m more surprised by, that they’ve done this, or that I’m surprised that they’ve done this.”

“What do you mean? Are they always like this?”

“Kinda,” Kaldalis said with a grimace. “It just took me until now to realize. They’ve gone out of their way to treat me like shit at every turn, because they know I have to fuckin’ take it.”

Garyung winced. “Sorry for putting you through all this, then,” he said, bringing the group to a stop on the beach. “You were right from the start. I needed to find someone with some political savvy to deal with this. I think you were the right person for the job that had to be done here, but that would only have mattered if Cerh and his punks were operating in good faith instead of being dicks.”

“You’re not wrong.” Kaldalis shook his head. “But you did the best you could with the information you had.” He gestured around at the assembled council. “Not one person here has been needlessly dickish. I think we’re justified being surprised that the next set of expedition staff from Zara weren’t the same.”

Ikzoz flashed Kaldalis a smirk. “Thank you. Glad to hear that our dickishness has only come across when needed.” He turned to Garyung. “I fear we've been away from Cotanaku too long already. Shall we go?”

“Yes,” Garyung confirmed, starting as if he’d just woken up. “We need to get back soon.”

“Are you coming with us, Kaldalis?” Filomena asked. She headed to the nearest longboat beached on the sand, setting her shoulder against it to shove it towards the water.

Kaldalis considered the invitation. Heading over to Cotanaku would give him the opportunity to follow up with Heluna and get that second date. He could also check on how his quarters looked after the upgrades he’d made. And if there was nothing new going on in Panbu due to Cerh’s decree, there would be more adventures to be had in Cotanaku.

As if to underline that point, a quest flashed up on the left side of his vision. Garyung’s head flicked to his left, indicating that he’d received it as well.

The Hardest Part

0/1 Wait for reinforcements to arrive.

Focusing on the quest for a moment caused the description to expand.

0/1 Wait for reinforcements to arrive. Troops are on the way from Baimer, and will arrive in two weeks to help Panbu’s upgrade to a town. Until this time, actions that draw the attention of the Infernal Horde are prohibited, including deep exploration of the jungle, and accessing the nearby dungeon.

Kaldalis gritted his teeth. It was good that this message would get the word out instantly about the limitations Cerh was putting on the adventurers, but it frustrated him all over again to get slapped with the news all over again.

Then again, if he was frustrated by seeing it when he already knew, he couldn’t imagine what his friends were doing right now.

“I’ll stay here,” Kaldalis said at last. “If I’m right, I might need to stop certain people from instigating a riot, as much as Cerh might deserve to deal with it.”

Garyung laughed. “Thank you for your service.” He clapped Kaldalis on the shoulder. “Though I hope you don’t mind if I’m not personally invested in your success.”

Kaldalis shared in the laugh before he bid Garyung and his council goodbye and headed back into Panbu. He feared it would be the last laugh he had for a while.

The news had spread fast - naturally, when it was spread by mystical quest text - and as he headed towards the center of the camp, he heard a lot of cursing and complaining. Most of it seemed to be resigned, though. It seemed a full-blown revolution wasn’t on the table for the majority of the adventurers. Which was good. Kaldalis expected most of them would clear out back to Cotanaku until the time for action was closer.

Most, but not all.

He arrived at his destination just in time. Myrin was storming towards the town hall with murder in her eyes, despite Balrim, Reno, and SeventyEight trailing behind. Balrim and SeventyEight appeared to be trying to talk her down, the taller Talsar even grabbed at her shoulder to try and get her attention.

Behind them, Reno looked to be about ready to crack out a bag of popcorn. Her face was split ear-to-ear with a shit-eating grin.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Kaldalis called, hopping in front of Myrin to stop her. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m getting a goddamn explanation for this no-dungeon bullshit,” Myrin snapped. She reached up and planted a hand on Kaldalis’s stomach and pushed. “Outta my way!”

To Kaldalis’s surprise, the tiny woman physically shoved him back with little difficulty.

Now that he was in the thick of it, he saw that Balrim wasn’t trying to get her attention. He was physically struggling to hold her back. Apparently her DPS-focused stats conferred physical strength far in excess of what Kaldalis and Balrim could muster.

“Okay, let’s try reason,” Kaldalis said, staggering back for a moment. He grunted with effort trying to set his feet against Myrin’s advance. “Can we talk about this for a minute? Just a little bit?”

Myrin glared up at Kaldalis for a moment, but stopped moving towards the town hall’s door. “Alright,” she said at last. “Tell me one good reason why I shouldn’t go in there and rip someone a new orifice for this.”

“I mean, if I have to do it in one,” Kaldalis said, looking to Balrim for support, “how about averting an international incident? If you go pick a fight with the Panbu council, then the military force Cerh ordered could show up on Cotanaku’s doorstep and wipe us off the map. Is a little delay before we hit the dungeon worth that?”

Myrin held her glare for a moment longer. Kaldalis was sure she was looking for a way to counter the argument. Finally she sighed, throwing her hands up in frustration. “I guess not.”

“Holy shit man, good choice,” Balrim said, sagging back with a sigh as he let go of Myrin’s shoulder. “She’s tiny, but fierce.”

Kaldalis ignored him. “Cerh is looking for any excuse to come down on us,” he said, looking up to address everyone else as well. “He’s pissed, and it’s not for any one reason.”

“Isn’t it because we failed in the town upgrade?” Ess asked.

“It’s definitely a factor,” Kaldalis said with a grimace. “But there’s more than that. He demanded that Garyung produce the money for the quests we’ve been doing since then, and Garyung let himself get baited into a bonehead move. He name dropped a foreign nation, and I guess it was the wrong one.”

Reno looked startled. “There are other nations?”

Kaldalis raised an eyebrow in her direction. She was a developer, shouldn’t she know stuff like this? “Yes,” he finally said, wincing as he realized now he had done what he’d just criticized Garyung for. “With Cotanaku technically being a new nation, they reached out to him to make contact when it was formed. Apparently that contact means he can take loans out from them. I don’t know if he did, though, but he floated the idea while in the joint meeting three days ago.”

Ess nodded, rubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “That must be why the Panbu council has gone this route. They want to have military forces in the region. If other nations are in contact with Garyung, this could escalate into a real conflict - or even war. The Zarans want a foothold here for their military.”

“I still don’t see why that means we have to sit on our hands here,” Myrin grumbled, crossing her arms and kicking the corner of the town hall building.

“We’ve got plenty of stuff we could do now,” Balrim said, patting her on the shoulder with one hand while sweeping his other hand out to encompass the jungle beyond the camp’s walls. “Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love... Miracles!”

“Doesn’t sound too bad,” Myrin said, feigning a sigh, though she couldn’t hide her breaking smile. “I’ll try and stay awake.”

“Very generous of you,” Kaldalis said with a laugh. “But before we go, we’re loaded up on crafting mats from all these gathering quests, right? We should go on a bit of a binge.”

“Oh, hell yeah,” Balrim said, thumping a clawed fist into his open palm. “I’ve been slacking off on that with all this fuss.”

“You’re the only person on the goddamn planet who could get excited for crafting,” Myrin said with a smirk, but her face fell when she looked at the rest of the group, and saw both Reno and Ess sharing Balrim’s smile. “Oh, you’re fucking kidding me.”

“Listen,” Reno said, crossing her arms. Kaldalis noticed for the first time her tail flick in irritation, and wondered if he did the same when he was frustrated. “I am a card-carrying member of the cult of Make Numbers Go Up. Crafting skills are numbers, and I’m here to make them go up.”

“Ugh.” Myrin grumbled. After a moment, she made a shooing gesture. “Alright, then, get moving, losers. I want you to get all this out of your system before lunch. I’m gonna kill something by sundown today, and if we’re still in that fucking crafting shed then, I’m just gonna spin around, pick a direction, and start chopping.”