The Syncoresi den was not as Kaldalis had left it last. Which, while expected, was unsettling. Thankfully the area outside of it was covered in bootprints not Syncoresi markings. Kaldalis wondered how many guards were within for there to be so much of a mess here.

“This isn’t good,” Martok said, pointing at the tracks as they gathered on the treeline, just out of sight of the cave mouth.

Kaldalis nodded, but behind them, Balrim made a confused sound.

“These tracks right here,” Martok explained, pointing to a set of barely-visible impressions in the dirt beneath the leaves of a fern. “They’re old, but not that old. The Contender’s people found this place right after arriving on the island. There’s no telling what they’ve done with it while we were barred from exploring.”

Kaldalis hadn’t put that together, but now that he had the information, he could see why this was a problem.

For some reason, he’d foolishly believed that the Contender had just picked the nearest cave to the town. The cave mouth was just a convenient bottleneck that the priests and their remaining guards would use as a defensive funnel to try and hold Kaldalis’s forces at bay.

But now it was so much worse. The old den suddenly held untold potential for danger. What if the caves were full of traps to thin Kaldalis’s forces before the fight was even joined? What if there were defensive structures that could halt his offensive entirely?

“I don’t know how much we can change the plan,” Kaldalis said, trying not to sound as chagrined as he felt. “But we’ve got to be aware and alert that there might be more defenses here than we expected.”

“It might not be that bad,” Myrin cut in. “You keep saying these were a bunch of worthless city-slickers. Maybe they just put in a nice couch and an open-concept kitchenette and are waiting for gentrification to pop up a bougie bar and grill in the cave next door?”

Someone in the back of the group snorted at that, but Kaldalis wasn’t amused.

“This is serious,” Kaldalis said firmly. “The Contender is probably the most dangerous foe we’ve faced since we arrived in this world. Onirioago was clumsy, and bet her success on our ignorance. The Contender respects us as enemies in a way she never did, and if we’re not careful, he’s gonna kill us all.” He pointed at the cave mouth ahead. “He knew this was going to be his last stronghold. And he knew this was where his campaign against us would end one way or the other. There’s no way he didn’t make that cave a fortress.”

“Sorry,” Myrin said sheepishly. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”

“There will be time for jokes when we have Cotanaku again,” Kaldalis said. “Until then, we have to take this seriously.”

“We move fast,” Martok added, “and we move as one. On Kaldalis’s signal, we charge. But none of the cowboy bullshit you people are used to. We have to be at the door before they know we’re coming.”

“That should be easy,” Ess pointed out. “No scouts are out here to warn of our approach.”

“None that we can see,” Martok corrected. “The group we fought were a bunch of chumps. If they had skilled sentries, they wouldn’t have run headfirst into us after we wiped out the first dozen of the ones who did.”

“And information doesn’t travel here like it does in an RTS,” Reno added. “If one scout sets eyes on us, the Contender doesn’t instantly get vision of us.”

“Enough,” Kaldalis said firmly. “The battle plan is simple. I’ll lead the charge. I want Reno, Ess, and Myrin right behind me. Balrim pulls up the rear, but with Courbois acting as rear guard. As much as the rest of you put out obscene damage, Balrim is our most powerful offensive tool. I can’t have one loser coming up behind us and knocking him out.”

“You don’t have to give me an explanation,” Courbois said, moving to stand beside Balrim. “Just the direction.”

“I want Martok behind my forward DPS,” Kaldalis continued, “but in front of everyone else. If I go down, I want there to be another firm wall shortly behind.”

“Seems like a rudimentary plan,” Martok pointed out.

“Yeah, but we haven’t practiced anything better and we don’t have time to set it up now,” Kaldalis said. “A simple plan performed perfectly is better than a complex plan that we fuck up at every step.”

In truth, he didn’t know what better plan Martok was thinking they should go for, but the last thing he needed was to shake the group’s confidence right before the charge.

Martok seemed to accept the excuse regardless.

“We go on three,” Kaldalis said, gesturing for everyone to get into position.

“On three, or after three?” Reno asked.

“Is this one of those dumb guy things where you say ‘we go on three,’” Ess cut in, “but then you just say ‘three’ and go?”

“Can you guys stop saying three?” Myrin asked with a big stupid grin. “It’s the go word, and I’m trying to listen for it and you’re about to make me run off on my own before we’re ready. We should use a code word for three whenever we’re not going so that when Kaldalis actually says it, we know-”

“One!” Kaldalis snapped, shooting a glare at the three of them.

Despite the dire situation, they were just trying to have fun. Kaldalis supposed that was far: one could build a system outside a game, but they couldn’t take the game out of the gamers. He could be aggravated about their attitude all day, but when it came down to it, as long as they had a UI in their faces, it was a little hard to take things too seriously.

“Two,” Kaldalis continued, gratified that starting the count seemed an effective way to silence their jokes. He paused just long enough to cast a last look around the clearing outside the cave, looking for threats. As Ess had said, there didn’t appear to be anybody. Nobody watching to raise an alarm, nobody waiting to strike, and not even anybody returning to the cave from some errand or other.

Without reason to hold any longer, Kaldalis pulled the trigger.

“Three,” he said, and bolted.

To cover the distance as fast as possible, Kaldalis could have used his Jump cooldown to leap across. But using a movement ability would have fouled the attack before it began. Those with daggers or staffs would sprint ahead of everyone else, those with spears would be just behind them, and the rest would be lagging behind, with the bow-wielders pulling just barely ahead. The whole column would be in chaos.

Instead, he held himself back, running normally like a regular person.

Considering the close quarters he was charging into, the use of his new War Weapon sword and shield seemed smarter than the spear, anyway.

They covered the distance unopposed. No alarm went up, and Kaldalis took that for a good sign. He tried to ignore how ominous it felt to be rushing into the Syncoresi den without facing resistance, but he assumed that Martok had gotten the attention of most of the forward guard. For a brief second, he dared to hope that they were shorthanded without that vanguard.

The narrow entry to the cave felt dangerous. Kaldalis couldn’t pull up short, though with his allies still exposed on the outside. At the same time, if there were traps, he didn’t want to avoid them if he had to run past them. If something tripped an explosion or a deadly wall of spikes, he wanted to take the hit to keep his friends safe.

So he raised his shield and shuffle-stopped his way into the cave. And he braced for impact.

And impact never came.

There were no traps, no doors, no walls, no defenses.

There weren’t even guards.

Before Kaldalis could process what that could mean, he burst out of the tunnel and into the first chamber of the den.

He was struck by sudden memories of the last time he was here. The Syncoresi had nearly overwhelmed his friends with raw numbers, even when they could force them to funnel into the narrow passages in and out of this room. They’d nearly died here. And when they’d worn the Sycoresi boss down, it had tried to pull the whole cave down on them in its last moments.

The Syncoresi boss’s skeleton was still here, as they’d left it. Obviously, the meat had rotted off or been picked away by scavengers, leaving its enormous skeleton. Kaldalis had expected the bones to be scattered across the floor, but they stood, feet planted firmly on the stone floor, with its claws buried in the ceiling above. It seemed unnatural for it to still be in shape, and as he took in the rest of the room, it didn’t take long to see why.

The skeleton had been erected and repurposed by the Contender’s forces.

There were a few visible wires holding the skeleton in place, and on the lower body there were metal supports holding it up. But they weren’t just holding up the skeleton.

There was a metal platform inside the skeleton, elevated into the torso just under the giant ribcage. The result was a macabre sort of prison cell.

It made a very dramatic centerpiece to the cave.

And trapped within was Garyung.