Kaldalis felt the very real risk of being paralyzed by indecision. The last attack was only yesterday. There was no way that Garyung had dispersed the adventurers of Cotanaku into Panbu and Kayore yet. Could Kaldalis get on a boat and travel to the other towns to try and turn the tides there?

He shook the uncertainty off. If he spent an hour on a boat, that was an hour where he wasn’t helping anyone. He was here now. And every moment he spent agonizing over his choice was a moment where he wasn’t taking control of the situation and saving lives.

“Dalgaard,” Kaldalis said quickly, “in my authority as whatever the fuck I am, I’m deputizing you. Gather your people and get to the jungle-side gate. Get the situation organized there. First priority is the preservation of life. Second priority is to send those fuckers back where they came from.”

Dalgaard nodded with a grave expression. He’d expected some pushback, but the healer was prepared to accept the responsibility without question.

He almost sent Reno and Ess with them to make sure the jungle-side gate had some extra oomph, but he remembered the last time he’d split the party, Reno and Ess had been agitated by being relegated to the B-team. He owed it to them to bring them on his team this time.

“Courbois, Balrim, Myrin,” Kaldalis said after a moment, “go straight to the jungle-side gate now. Make sure the gate holds there, and give Dalgaard the support they’ll need when things get heavy - which they will.” He looked at the others. “Reno, Ess, you’re with me. We’ll be supporting the beachside gate from the start to shore up the weaker defenses there.”

Reno seemed a little chagrined at that. She probably thought he was patronizing her by bringing her with him this time, but she couldn’t really complain when she’d been antsy about being left out before. Meanwhile, Ess was visibly excited by the chance. Kaldalis wasn’t sure if she was planning on doing something extreme to prove herself, or if she was just appreciative of being included.

“I wish we had time to strategize,” Kaldalis said, shoving away from the table. “But we’re going to have to improvise instead.”

“No rest for the wicked,” Dalgaard said, not waiting for any response before rushing from the cafeteria with smooth purposeful strides. They were already barking orders at their followers, sending them scrambling into the camp.

Kaldalis decided to follow their lead, leaving with Reno and Ess in tow as Courbois, Balrim, and Myrin left in the opposite direction.

“Hold your mobility cooldowns,” Kaldalis said as they took to the streets at a full run. “We might need them when we get there, and it should be early enough for the wall itself to do some work.”

As they approached, there was not yet the commotion of combat at the beachside gate. They weren’t alone, though. It seemed Kaldalis wasn’t the only one who had recognized the weak spot of their defenses and moved to reinforce the beachside gate. There were only about a dozen adventurers there now, but among them were a few of the alpha players, including Garyung.

“What are you doing here?” Garyung asked when Kaldalis arrived at the gate. “I thought you would be on the other side.”

“I could say the same to you,” Kaldalis shot back as they joined the effort to barricade the wooden gate, working together to carry the heavy wooden bar to the brackets on the giant door. “But I sent the others to the jungle-side. I’m sure they’ll have it under control for us there.”

“Should I head that way?” Garyung asked. “We shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket on this side, right?”

“I trust them,” Kaldalis said firmly as they muscled the bar into place securing the door. Around them, other adventurers prepared planks and blocks of wood, arranging them to buttress the door further. “Besides, it’s only bad to put all your eggs in one basket when it falls. I’m pretty sure if this basket breaks, it won’t matter where we’re keeping our eggs. We’re all scrambled.”

Kaldalis had meant it as a joke, but Garyung seemed to take the statement deathly seriously with a grim nod.

As the barricade around the door came together, the two of them climbed the wall to oversee the area beyond the gate.

The beach-side defenses had come a long way in the short time between the first attack and this one. The stone wall had grown just shy of a foot taller, and was noticeably thicker, run through with reinforcing bands of metal around the weaker points, like the area around the gate and the corners. The gate hadn’t yet been upgraded from wood, though, and so would still be a weakness despite all the reinforcement around it.

Even though the quest had been issued, the Infernal Horde weren’t here just yet. Kaldalis expected that they’d spawned a ways out into the ocean again. As he peered out over the water, he could start to see signs of debris floating to the surface out beyond the pier. More of the underwater mines had been spread after the last siege, and now they were detonating and weakening the monsters before they could reach the shore.

“And after that, the sireneliana,” Kaldalis muttered, trying to go over in his mind Cotanaku’s defenses. “Hopefully the mines softened up the meal for it nicely.”

“The what?” Garyung asked.

“Giant hermit-crab-manatee thing,” Ess said as she came up the stairs behind them. “What about it?”

“I swam by it after the last siege,” Kaldalis explained. “It thrashed a bunch of the Infernal Horde before they got to us. A lot of them didn’t make it because they were made of metal, or couldn’t survive under water. But a bunch of the others made the mistake of being made of meat.” He pointed out to roughly where the giant monster would be beneath the waves. “So the sireneliana made them a meal.”

“What, so we have an underwater protector?” Garyung asked.

“You mean besides Kal?” Ess said, giving him a playful nudge on the shoulder.

“I wouldn’t say protector,” Kaldalis said quickly, before Garyung could get the wrong idea. “More like a resident kaiju. It’s on our side because the other monsters blundered into feeding range. But if we’re the ones who piss it off, it’s just as capable of coming up here and seriously fucking up our shit.”

“Remind me to appoint someone the head of environmental preservation,” Garyung said with a smirk. “And to start a litter clean-up crew for the beach. The longer we can keep Godzilla happy, the better.”

Kaldalis and Ess both snorted at that.

“What’s so funny?” Reno asked as she stomped up the stairs to join them on the wall.

“Garyung taking the lessons of old monster movies a little too seriously,” Ess said. “But we should probably be talking about the plan.”

“Second verse, same as the first?” Reno suggested, looking to Kaldalis.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” he said, turning towards Garyung. “Do you want to take point this time?”

“I wouldn’t want to steal your job,” Garyung said with a laugh. “I should also stay close to town. I worry what it would do for morale if I’m the one out in the ocean, out of sight and presumed dead.”

“You guys don’t actually think I’m dead when I’m out there, right?” Kaldalis asked.

The following silence was very telling.

Though none of his three friends could stop the quirk of a smile on the corners of their lips.

“No respect,” Kaldalis grumbled, pulling out his spear and using Slow Fall to glide smoothly from the wall to the beach. “No respect at all.”

“Is there anything we can do to help your end?” Ess asked, jumping down with him using her own spear to control her fall. “We kind of just stand here and watch your showboating a lot.”

“The best thing you can do to help is damage,” Kaldalis said firmly. “The faster you kill the stuff Garyung and the other tanks peel off of me, the faster another group of mobs comes off of me.”

“You got it, boss,” Ess said with a playful salute as the pair of them hit the sand.

He wanted to banter with her a little more - it was nice to have a pleasant interaction with Ess for a change - but there wasn’t time. Before he could say another word, the Infernal Horde emerged from the surf, charging up at them.