Kaldalis tried to ignore his irritation at Garyung for ambushing him into the meeting. There was plenty of distraction to be had.

As the sun was finished setting, the streets were dimly-lit with only a few scattered lanterns on the street corners. Outside of those narrow pools of light, they were limited to their innate darkvision globes. It meant that while they could see the streets around themselves so they didn’t become lost or disoriented, everything else loomed out of the darkness without warning as they approached.

It gave the city the feel of a horror game.

The horror itself was somewhat toothless - Kaldalis wasn’t even walking alone - but there was an undeniable spookiness to the city. There weren’t many others out on the streets at this time of night, and he figured it was due to the ominous aura of the city at night. He had to resist the urge to grab his spear from his inventory just to have the comforting weight of a weapon in hand.

If anyone wished him harm - or wished for the crescents in his purse - he felt extremely vulnerable.

He found himself remembering Onirioago passing into custody without complaint, and that he was the star witness for her trial in just a couple of days.

Despite the creepiness of the city at night, they reached their destination without incident. Kaldalis’s fears couldn’t manifest an attacker no matter how much he expected it.

He couldn’t clearly see the building they finally entered from the outside. It was near the castle, though, and clearly a large and important building. This building was also built in a different style. The domes and arches of the rest of the city weren’t present here. This building was a squared-off block of stone, giving it a degree of gravity. Despite the darkness, Kaldalis could see three guards posted as they approached, and he suspected there were more he couldn’t see.

Going into the well-lit interior didn’t put an end to Kaldalis’s anxiety. It only changed the source. He was no longer worried about getting assassinated; he was worried about getting arrested. As soon as they were in the door they got whisked away by a pair of guards who wordlessly led them through the halls of the building.

Garyung seemed familiar with the procedure, so Kaldalis just kept quiet. He was here to help Garyung, not make the whole matter about himself.

The guards led them to a chamber that looked like a state supreme court courtroom. It was a large and somber room with plain white walls, with the bulk of the room dominated by three rows of wooden pews. The only decoration was a pair of flags at the far end from the entrance. Kaldalis didn’t recognize them, and because they were on poles in an interior room with no wind, he couldn’t describe them by anything other than the colors present. One of them was three horizontal bands, two of them shades of green, and the bottom one black, with a yellow shape in the middle hidden by the cloth’s folds. The other was two colors only, red on top, and purple on the bottom, though it looked like it wasn’t a straight line across the middle.

In front of the flags was a row of ominous chairs behind an ominous wooden barrier. Seated in the chairs were seven ominous people. This must have been the War Council Garyung was here to meet. Instead of being what he expected - something like the Cotanaku council - they were obviously department representatives from different areas of the Zaran government.

The one on the far left scared Kaldalis the most. They obviously represented a religious faction within the government. Having grown up in a country founded on separation of church and state, the idea of someone in ornate robes with a mitre on their head sitting in on the country’s war council was slightly terrifying. At least on Earth the religious elements of the government had the decency to dress like everyone else. The imagery was slightly more pointed as they were a Vathon with deep red skin, their mitre clearly having been designed to accommodate their curled horns.

The other six members were all wearing varying sorts of armor. The middle five appeared to be decorative, covered with pins and medals, and polished to a shine, even where it was leather, while the one on the far right wore something more plain and functional. Kaldalis suspected that person was an Adventurers League representative, and might be the most likely source of support here.

But the expression on the Human woman’s face had the same kind of dejected disinterest Kaldalis had seen from Filomena and Big Mike during council meetings back on the islands. Her presence might be as decorative as the flags.

The others were obviously representatives of whatever branches of the military Zara had. Kaldalis could loosely guess at their branch by their ornate military costumes. From left to right, a Suyon woman wore tan and blue leather armor, with a tricorn hat that obviously marked her as the naval officer. Next was a Talsar in heavy armor, but in a more ornate shape than even what Kaldalis wore. His pauldrons were the dead giveaway, the horse-head shapes marking him as the representative of Zara’s cavalry forces.

The sea-blue Vathon man in the middle was obviously a representative of the central governing body. He wore armor practically studded with medals and awards, but it was ill-fitting. Kaldalis could see around the joints that it wasn’t properly fitted for combat. It was merely decorative. There was a fancy feather-covered helmet near at hand on the wooden bar in front of him, but Kaldalis could tell that he would carry it around like a trophy instead of wearing it - the way it was designed, the feathers would constantly touch and tickle his upswept horns. If he wore it all the time, he might become accustomed to it, but if he wasn’t wearing the armor enough to get it fitted properly, he certainly wasn’t going to suffer the indignity of the plumed helmet.

By process of elimination - and the lack of planes in this world - Kaldalis suspected the next represented infantry fighters. Shining metal armor with a handful of medals betrayed no clues, but the Bhogad’s breastplate had a nasty-looking scratch across the left breast of their armor, and while it had been thoroughly buffed to a shine around it, the mark itself had been left behind as a medal of honor in its own way.

Across the whole council, it was the only indication that any of them had personally been in combat.

The last was a Finnian, and Kaldalis suspected that they represented the more covert aspects of the military, from their dark leather armor. It was possible that they were ostensibly supposed to represent a department of international affairs, but the calm cunning radiating off of them screamed “spymaster” the same way a costume department for a medieval movie would.

“Finally,” the man in the center said. Kaldalis almost laughed, because his voice sounded artificially deep, like he was playing a part instead of speaking naturally. “Is tardiness a trait typical of the people of your country?”

Garyung gritted his teeth and said nothing, so Kaldalis followed his lead. They walked past all the pews, and he saw that between the end of the pews and the council’s bench was a small podium with short desks on either side. Garyung stepped up to the podium, and without anything else to do, Kaldalis moved to the desk on his right side and sat down, wondering where this would go.

“Esteemed council,” Garyung began, “I am unfamiliar with Zaran norms. We all know what we’re here to discuss. Do I need to restate it now for formality’s sake, or can we push onwards to a proper discussion?”

There was a moment of quiet in the room that was just long enough to be awkward.

“I believe it would be remiss of us,” the Finnian said, breaking the silence, “to expect one of you to stand on ceremony. Pray proceed, and we shall adjust our expectations accordingly.”

Kaldalis wanted to snap something unkind to that, but he could already tell that they were looking for an excuse to be assholes about this. They were in Zara now, and all their fears about the way they treated player characters were coming to fruition. They were going to have to play the game. If Kaldalis ran his mouth here, Garyung might have to tell him to stop, and breaking their united front would be the end of Kaldalis’s ability to provide support here.

“Easy on the boy,” the Talsar cavalryman said with a dismissive gesture towards the Finnian. “That’s precisely why we’re here. He’s recognized that he is inherently unsuited to the job. It’s commendable that he wants to enter into discussion with us rather than bullheadedly blunder his way into catastrophe.”

“I wouldn’t talk if I were you,” the Suyon next to him said, leaning halfway out of her chair to elbow him. It was a gesture that immediately reminded Kaldalis of Myrin and Balrim. “You were the one who put Onirioago at the helm of the expedition in the first place. I warned you what would happen, and here we are.”

“You predicted that she would become a menace,” the Talsar said, crossing his arms over his chest with a grimace. “No one could have predicted that she’d come back to us in chains with her town conquered by… Their type.” He gestured at Garyung and Kaldalis.

“I believe my proposal is the best way to resolve this,” Garyung said, interrupting further digression. “Cotanaku can be returned to Zara quickly, cheaply, and, above all, kindly.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. That’s not what this meeting is for,” the leader said, though he had to gesture to stop the Finnian from snapping out another wiseass remark. Despite the gesture, the spymaster muttered it quietly to the priest at the far end of the bench, earning a quiet chuckle. “We’re not here to discuss your proposal. This emergency meeting of the Zaran War Council was called to schedule the meeting to discuss your proposal.”

Kaldalis felt suddenly lightheaded. He missed what Garyung said in response from being so suddenly disoriented.

This was a meeting to schedule a meeting.

For a brief moment, Kaldalis thought he was having a stroke. How did they live like this? How had Garyung expected him to warm up to this?

“Tomorrow night, then,” the leader said when Kaldalis’s ears stopped ringing. “Though not this late. Later afternoon. Final meeting of the day before sunset.”

Kaldalis got a quest pop-up on the right side of his vision for the scheduled meeting. The council was impatient to call an end to their day, and so as soon as the quest was issued, three of them stood up and filed out of an unseen door at the back of the room. Kaldalis wasn’t able to string two coherent thoughts together until the guards approached to escort them out.

“Okay,” Garyung said at last, “that’s my bad. I didn’t know it would be like this. Sorry for dragging you out here.”

“It’s fine,” Kaldalis said, shaking his head to clear his frustrations. “If I’m with you for this meeting, they won’t be surprised to see me at the next one. The last thing we want is to give them more bullshit to bitch about. They’ve got enough ammunition already just from us being PCs.”

“This gives me more time to prepare, anyway,” Garyung said, taking a deep breath of the night air when they were finally led out of the building and back to the streets. “It’ll be for the best.”

“Assuming they don’t fuck you over just because they can,” Kaldalis said bitterly.

“Now there’s a lesson here,” Garyung said, “advice from my father that I think will help you understand my point of view on this - and perhaps all of Baimer.”

“What’s that?” Kaldalis asked with a smirk. “You can’t fight city hall?”

“No, you can fight city hall,” Garyung said, matching Kaldalis’s smirk. “But if you’re going to fight, you have to fight fire with fire.”