Onirioago seemed to have some matter to take care of in the back room. Kaldalis wasn’t sure what. She might have been drafting a letter outlining her demands for Cotanaku, or engaged in some leadership menu Kaldalis was unaware of to empower her people.

Or maybe she was just cutting more boob windows into some armor.

There was no way to tell.

Dalgaard remained in the front room, though, ostensibly to watch over the prisoners, but they actually just kept staring daggers at Kaldalis, ignoring everyone else. It made him very concerned about what games Onirioago had been playing with their head. What did she tell them? What had she made him into in their mind?

At least the paralysis inflicted by the Jormongumo venom gave him plenty of time to think. Having time to evaluate the situation meant that Kaldalis’ next move wouldn’t be half-cocked bullshit running on instinct.

Because when he’d had time to plan, things always went his way, right?

The first thing he had to do was evaluate what tools Onirioago did and didn’t have at her disposal. She obviously had access to Jormongumo venom in enough quantities to subdue them all. But their supply must not have been that much more than that, or else Dalgaard would be sitting with a pile of bottles to dispense, rather than having bound them. Perhaps Onirioago’s plan was operating on a narrower margin than her confidence indicated.

Kaldalis had to assume that the tablets in the Lataxinan hotel had done something for her. She had gained some ability, and it was one she wanted to keep to herself. Had that been the source of the venom? If it was, that didn’t explain at all why the tablets hadn’t worked for him. It meant that there was a very real and very terrifying tool in her arsenal that Kaldalis couldn’t hope to guess at. Considering Kaia’s Flicker had nearly given her the edge she needed to escape her initial arrest, he would have to be ready for anything.

With only Onirioago and Dalgaard here standing guard, Kaldalis and his friends would have the numbers advantage immediately. If his assumptions were accurate, then the tank class people would shake off the poison first, meaning that he, Martok, Garyung, and Gavinkim would be up and in fighting shape before anyone else. Kaldalis just had to figure out how to make that numbers advantage work when they were all tied up.

And Onirioago had a weapon that could kill them if she wanted.

He had time to think of how he would start for plenty of time before the numbness of paralysis started to fade. It was replaced with searing fire, and without the immediate panic of Ara closing in on him, it was hard to stay aware of his surroundings.

His vision whited out for a long moment as all his nerve endings turned back on, and reported that every inch of his body was sore.

And also on fire.

“Let me start,” he forced himself to say, even as he wrestled with the pain, “by apologizing. Clearly I didn’t express enough that I failed to protect you and there’s no excuse for that. I’m sorry.”

There wasn’t an immediate reply, which Kaldalis took for a good sign, until the pain faded enough that his vision cleared. He’d hoped that Dalgaard was thinking about what it meant that the first thing he’d said was an apology. Instead, he looked up to find a dagger hovering right in front of his throat, with the Human staring him down with obvious hate in their eyes.

“You don’t want to move,” Dalgaard said, “or speak. I wouldn’t want to be so blinded with rage that something horrible happens to you.”

Kaldalis swallowed, trying to think. Dalgaard obviously didn’t need - or want - an apology. So then why were they so mad at him? He didn’t want to hurt them, but he also very much didn’t want to be hurt by them, either. From his earlier experiences in the fight, the blade would slide away from him if they tried to stab him at any distance, but he suspected that a slow smooth motion would open his throat with minimal trouble.

Garyung coughed, signaling that he was also regaining control of his lungs. Dalgaard’s eyes flicked over to him, and Kaldalis took the opportunity to scooch slightly away from the tip of the dagger at his throat.

“Okay,” Kaldalis said, risking speaking again while Dalgaard was distracted. “So you don’t want an apology for that. Is this about the Deacon Tetra thing?”

Dalgaard’s eyes snapped back down to him, even as Gavinkim and Martok groaned. There was a shuffling sound as one of them started to move. Despite that, Kaldalis had Dalgaard’s full attention now.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Kaldalis said quickly. Dalgaard’s knife moved closer to his throat, but stopped before the tip made contact with skin. “You’re upset that you couldn’t catch any. Onirioago told you that I lied about the lure I used.”

“Do you deny it?” Dalgaard snapped. “Do you deny making me look like a fool?”

“Absolutely not,” Kaldalis said, “I did it, and I’d do it again.” Dalgaard’s knife started to move, so he quickly added: “because Onirioago is a lunatic! Did she tell you what she was going to do with those fish? What she wanted to do to us with them?”

“Did you know that that was my chance?” Dalgaard said, attention focused entirely on Kaldalis as their face started to turn red. “It was my shot at a reputation! Respect! Status! I was going to be someone, and your little boy scout fib stole it all away!” They adjusted their grip on their dagger, and Kaldalis felt the edge against his throat. “I could have had everything. Thanks to you, I’m the understudy second fiddle in a band of hated rebels.”

“You know that’s not true,” Kaldalis said quickly, trying to hold the rest of his body still to avoid provoking an attack. “You may not be a somebody in Cotanaku, but you have real authority here! You’re somebody and you did it all on your own!”

Dalgaard hesitated for a moment, visibly uncertain. Kaldalis wasn’t sure if he was getting through to the kid, but he had earned a moment’s pause. Dalgaard had to reflect for a moment that they did have something going for them here. Kaldalis had already seen that they were capable of bossing Onirioago’s other goons around, and it would take them a minute to evaluate that they had gotten what they wanted the whole time, and their resentment towards Kaldalis was unwarranted.

And that was when Garyung struck.

Huge hands closed around Dalgaard’s wrists, and the elected expedition leader sideswiped them with his entire body. Kaldalis felt a bit of a scrape of blade on the side of his neck, but it felt more like a rough shave than a wounding slice.

Garyung’s legs were tightly bound, but he had plenty of space between his hands, as they’d been spread wide when he was paralyzed from reaching to catch Kaldalis. With a whirl of motion, the rope between Garyung’s wrists was around Dalgaard’s throat.

The Human flailed their dagger at Garyung, but the PvP mechanics meant that the weapon wouldn’t land. Within seconds, Martok was there, grabbing the limb and pinning it down under his knees, peeling the dagger out of their fingers. In a flash, Martok’s bindings were cut.

“No, you can’t!” Dalgaard grunted, struggling with the chokehold Garyung had on them.

“Don’t hurt them,” Kaldalis said, even as he brought a hand to his throat to check if he was bleeding. The hand came away with only a couple of meager drops of red. “They don’t deserve to die for this.”

“I don’t agree with that assessment,” Garyung snapped.

“You put me in charge of this operation, right?” Kaldalis held up his bound hands as Martok approached with the knife. Martok cut through the bindings with a strangely casual expression. “I say don’t hurt them.”

Garyung grumbled, but loosened his choking grip.

Dalgaard gasped for air, though that didn’t stop their hands clawing at Garyung’s arms, trying to shove him off of them.

“We need leverage,” Martok observed, moving to cut Gavinkim’s bindings. Kaldalis rolled over and saw that the other Bhogad was still visibly struggling to recover from the paralytic poison. “Kaldalis is right; they’re important to Onirioago’s operation. We might not get her to surrender for their life, but we might be able to use them to buy ourselves something.”

“You really think that?” Onirioago said.

Kaldalis shot to his feet in a flash. Onirioago was standing in the doorway to her back room, one hand resting casually on her hip, and the other holding her sinister-looking spear. He muttered a curse to himself, since he had no idea how much longer it would be before the others recovered. Only the four tanks were mobile, and he had no idea how far close guards’ patrol routes would be for reinforcements.

“Go ahead and kill them,” she continued, gesturing dismissively with her spear. “I’m not sure why you think that would get anything out of me. They’re one of your kind. They’ll be back.” She slowly lowered the weapon, leveling it at Kaldalis. “Their life, and yours, are worth exactly thirty minutes of my time. Nothing more.”