Once everyone else had filed out of the room, Kaldalis made his way quickly to Big Mike. He was halfway down the hall, and Kaldalis couldn’t tell if it was to get some distance and let his anger cool off, or if it was to keep it quietly simmering so that he would still be ready to blow when he got back into the room.

“I’m sorry about Captain Kensah,” Kaldalis said, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I thought we’d have more time to help by coloring outside the lines, but it’s all moving way too fast right now.”

“You shouldn’t have had to go outside the rules,” Big Mike grumbled, “we shoulda just listened to your ass from the start. You got a good head on your shoulders, kid. I kept tellin’ them that and they didn’t listen for a single fuckin’ second.” He shook his head. “Thank you all the same, though. I know you did your best.”

Kaldalis wanted to argue.

He could have done better. He could have gone to Panbu and been there to help lead the defenses there. He could have told all his friends to get out of Cotanaku and protect Panbu and Kayore when the next siege happened.

But he hadn’t.

He’d left it in other hands, and assumed that the attacks could not come this frequently. Instead of being proactive, he’d slacked off. People died because he didn’t hurl himself into the fray like he always did.

But deep down, he knew that wouldn’t have worked. Cerh and Jetmorpan probably would have had them arrested if they tried to take initiative and shore up the defenses. And that was if they were allowed to stay in the other towns at all. With the weaker defenses, the towns might have been impossible to defend even with their best efforts, and then the accusations of sabotage would begin.

And, as much as he hated to say it, this meeting wouldn’t have gone so well if not for this tragedy lighting a fire under Big Mike to get him to stand up for Kaldalis.

“I’m sorry just the same,” Kaldalis said at last. “Her and I might not have seen eye to eye, but we had the same goals at the end of the day. I had hoped she would realize that someday so that we could work together, but I guess now we’ll never know.”

“Oh, no,” Big Mike said, giving a sad smile. “She hated your ass. Kensah was never going to work with you on purpose for a fuckin’ second.”

Kaldalis didn’t know how to react to that, except to laugh. He wasn’t completely sure if Big Mike was serious or not. But when the man didn’t join in, that was a pretty good indication that it hadn’t been a joke.

“I think there was some respect, though,” Big Mike said carefully. “I know when you got us all out at the first siege of Panbu, she recognized you were a good man. She just didn’t fuckin’ like you, and I’m not about to dishonor her memory by lyin’ about it.”

“No, I get it,” Kaldalis said with a nod. “I just hoped that being a good man was going to be enough to get her on my side someday. Or, rather, get her to accept me being on her side.”

Big Mike nodded back at him. “Thanks all the same, boy. It speaks well of you and Garyung that you’re showin’ respect for the dead. Even if she woulda punched you in the face as soon as lookin’ at you, you’re doing right by her.”

They exchanged another nod and Kaldalis left the man to either cool off or keep his anger simmering - whichever he wanted - so that he could wait a little closer to the door in case of an emergency.

The other attendants and guards gathered around had been chatting, but fell silent at Kaldalis’s approach. He could basically sense that they wanted to shower him in questions again. Instinctively, he did his best to look grumpy to ward them away. Kaldalis didn’t think it was going to be that productive to discuss the matter now, in case the councilors still in the room wanted the exact same clarifications. He figured he would have to meet with Ikzoz and the research team to try and get the information they wanted from him out on paper so that they could dissect it on their own time without pestering him.

One person who even the foulest scowl couldn’t dissuade was Brother Gnider. The priest didn’t hesitate to approach Kaldalis, and when he did, two of the green-and-gold wearing guards moved to block the conversation from view.

Kaldalis filed that away for future note. The man had some people loyal enough to him that he trusted them against their loyalty to the Contender.

“You did a masterful job in there,” Brother Gnider said. “Unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately?” Kaldalis asked. “Unfortunate how?”

“You were too forward,” Brother Gnider said, glancing over his shoulder towards the door to the meeting chambers. “I can respect that you took my advice to heart, and I’m even a little proud of the difference that advice made. But you made the Contender your enemy. He doesn’t take kindly to that.”

“I did… I did what?” Kaldalis asked, incredulous. “The contender came to my town and put the whole area under house arrest. He bottled up my cartographer. He locked up all our dungeons and raids to try and starve us. He had me interrogated for over an hour in an underground cell in Baimer. He came to me - to my face - and made a threat about my girlfriend. He’s committed his every act on this island to getting in my way no matter what it costs.” Kaladalis had to fight to keep his voice from rising. “He is explicitly here to try and crush us because he hates what we are. And I’m the one who made him into my enemy?”

“When you put it that way, of course it sounds bad,” Brother Gnider said calmly, “but you have to understand his perspective. We are agents of the Glorious One. He was guided to this position by the hand of a god. In his eyes, his actions are justified no matter what choices he makes.” The priest grimaced, clearly dealing with some cognitive dissonance. “If the Glorious One didn’t want him to take this path, then he simply wouldn’t be on it.”

“I’m not going to have a religious debate with you,” Kaldalis said. It was surprisingly hard to say that. A part of his brain was breaking down how if the Contender believed his course was determined by an all-powerful god, then that same god had also put Kaldalis on his own path. It wasn’t a useful discussion, though. “On a scale of one to ten, how much trouble did I just make for myself?”

“It’s hard to say,” Brother Gnider replied with a smirk. “If you’re asking me in my capacity as a priest, I have to say ten. Prepare for the worst, and pray your preparations are enough.”

“And if I’m not asking you as a priest?” Kaldalis asked. “If I’m asking you man-to-man?”

“Thirteen,” Brother Gnider said gravely. “I’m not sure if even prayer can help you now.”

Despite the grave tone, Kaldalis snorted a laugh at that. The Contender had been looming large over him since he got back from Baimer. Everything he’d done had been while trying to think of a way around the oppressive authority he didn’t hesitate to bring down on the adventurers just trying to play the game out here. It seemed fitting that now, at last, they had reached a position where the Contender was going to plan for Kaldalis.

“I guess that’s step one of the plan, then,” Kaldalis said at last.

“What plan?” Brother Gnider asked.

“I’m going to be honest with you,” Kaldalis said. “The plan for dealing with the Contender up to this point has just been trying to find a way to get under his skin so that he fucks up. And then we capitalize on that as hard and fast as we can.”

The priest’s expression went from curiosity to abject terror. He covered it after a quick second, but it lasted long enough that Kaldalis could see it.

“I appreciate your honesty,” Brother Gnider said after a moment.

“Not a lot, though,” Kaldalis finished for him.

“Yes,” the priest agreed. “That’s a good way of putting it.”

“Well, it’s not my fault he wanted to do this the hard way from the start,” Kaldalis said, crossing his arms. “We didn’t have to be enemies.”

“You really did,” Brother Gnider countered. “I can’t for one second imagine a man like him and a man like you meeting and doing anything but exactly this.”

“Only because he forced me,” Kaldalis said firmly, nodding towards the council chamber door. “I’m going to do what needs to be done. He made himself an obstacle, and went out of his way to make sure I knew I couldn’t sneak around him. The Contender chose this path. Now we all get to find out where it ends.”

“I hope you’re right,” Brother Gnider said. With a gesture, his guards stepped away, and he moved to step away from Kaldalis as well. “I think it’s a bit optimistic, though, to think we’ll all still be here when this ends.”

“Keep in mind,” Kaldalis said as the priest walked away. “No matter what happens to me, I’ll be getting back up. Your boss can’t say the same."