The Syncoresi skeleton cage was a little too small for Garyung’s large form. He had to slouch down and sit awkwardly, and still his legs and elbows stuck out from between the ribs.

Kaldalis felt a wave of vertigo rush over him; it told him very clearly that this cage hadn’t been prepared with a Bhogad in mind.

The Contender had likely built this cell in anticipation of capturing Kaldalis instead.

A thousand questions flashed through his head, threatening to distract him. But Kaldalis reined in his mind before it could even ask one. As soon as one burst through the gate, the rest would tumble out and they would lose.

Instead, he focused on the den.

The cell didn’t look terribly secure. It was strange that Garyung hadn’t burst out of it by force alone, but the way his chest heaved with every breath, and the glazed and unfocused look in his eyes made Kaldalis believe there was something sinister at work here. Some sort of poison or toxin was disabling him to keep him from just hulking out of the flimsy ribcage.

But there was more to be aware of here in the room. Obviously, they hadn’t left Garyung here alone and unguarded. But it seemed like Kaldalis and his friends had dealt with a lot of their forces out in the jungle. He’d thought they’d fought only the vanguard, but it seemed that they may have just neutralized the majority of the Contender’s forces.

There were only eight men here, putting the odds solidly in the favor of Kaldalis and his friends, but furthermore, four of them were priests instead of guards.

Kaldalis raised his shield and readied his sword, and he could see the intimidating effect it had on the priests as his friends filed in behind him with their own red-tinged weapons.

“You have two options,” Kaldalis said, “you can move, or I can make you move.” He pointed his sword at the nearest priest, whose green-and-gold robes were the most ornate of the four. “You have twenty seconds to comply.”

The priest Kaldalis pointed at didn’t hesitate. He bolted like a rabbit fleeing deeper into the den. Despite the apparent leader leaving, the other seven held their ground. Kaldalis shifted his focus slowly, pointing his new cutlass at the next priest.

“Your move, creep,” Kaldalis said, taking a deliberate step towards him.

When that priest broke and ran before Kaldalis’s advance, the other two priests immediately followed. With only the four guards remaining, the fight to come was hopelessly against them. To their credit, their retreat was a lot more deliberate and dignified, backing away slowly with their own weapons drawn.

“I’ll give you the same offer if you come between me and the Contender,” Kaldalis bellowed, letting his voice carry down the tunnel after the retreating forces. “You tell him when you see him! Dead or alive, he’s coming with me!”

“Fucking nerd,” Reno grumbled, elbowing past Kaldalis and moving towards the Syncoresi cell.

Kaldalis gestured to the others, and without needing any verbal direction, Martok broke away from the group and headed for the far end of the cave. Angrily, he made a gesture for the other DPS players to follow so that they could stand guard with him at the other entrance to the room. Courbois turned her attention to the entry, and Kaldalis assumed that with Balrim, Dalgaard, and their two DPS attendants, she could hold that entry while they took their next steps.

“Kal?” Garyung mumbled as Reno approached the cell. The floor of it was four feet off the ground. “Kal, is that you?”

“It’s Reno,” Kaldalis said, putting his sword away and coming up behind her. “But I’m here too.”

“They took the town,” Garyung said. He blinked his eyes, but the motion seemed to take a lot of effort. “They shanked me and made me transfer it to him.”

“We know,” Kaldalis said, “and as soon as you’re okay, I’m marching down this tunnel and take care of him.”

“Not here,” Garyung groaned. He tried to move, but he visibly lacked the strength to even lift his head. “He’s not here. He sent his forces at you and your friends to screen for him. He’s probably back in Cotanaku by now, surrounded by the town guards.”

Reno struggled with the ribcage for a second before she found the place where it latched. After opening it up, she waved Myrin over.

“What do we do?” Myrin asked.

“Well, we have to head back to Cotanaku to fight there, I guess,” Kaldalis grumbled. “I guess-”

“First we have to make sure our friend is okay,” Reno said, speaking over what Kaldalis was about to say. “I need some muscle to get him down.”

Together, Reno and Myrin had little trouble getting him out of the cell. Reno basically just grabbed his shoulder and yanked, while Myrin did the lion’s share of the work by catching his weight before he slammed into the stone floor of the cave. Kaldalis was slightly amused by the confused look that crossed Garyung’s half-paralyzed face as two women much smaller than him tossed him around like a rag doll.

“So what did they do to you?” Kaldalis asked, kneeling down beside Garyung as Myrin and Reno laid him out on the floor.

“Poison,” Garyung said. The words were still slurred and labored, even as it became apparent that his mind was still perfectly functional. “Something nasty. It reduced my Clout to zero and now I can’t move.”

“I have something for this,” Reno said suddenly. “I actually…I can fix this.” Excitedly, she began patting herself down, as if expecting to search physical pockets before she shifted her focus to her UI, eyes going distant as she navigated her inventory.

“We’ve got you,” Myrin said in a soothing tone, even as she shot a glare at Reno. “Just give us a second. I’m sure this is very scary, but with all the shit that’s been going on lately, this is all under control. Trust me, for us, this is just a typical Tuesday.”

“It’s Wednesday,” Garyung mumbled back, the corner of his mouth quirking in what was probably the closest to a smile he could manage.

“It’s actually Thursday,” Kaldalis said, “but nevermind that. What do you have, Reno?”

“There’s a potion I leveled up my alchemy skill on,” Reno said. After a moment, she produced a small green bottle. And then another. And another. “I had a berjillion of the components, so I ground out a lot of them. I didn’t think they’d ever be useful. The Quartermaster didn’t want to buy them, so I figured they were worthless, but this is exactly the thing!”

Kaldalis accepted one of them from Reno as she kept pulling out individual potions over and over. Curiously, he examined it. The thin green fluid within was fizzy, and as he turned the bottle over in his hands, the layer of white foam on the surface grew thicker at the disturbance.

Lesser Strength Restorative

Effect: Heals 10 points of Clout damage.

“Oh, that’s ominous,” Kaldalis said.

“That’s what I said!” Reno said with a laugh. Once she had a hefty pile in her lap, she started to uncork the bottles and force-feed them to Garyung. “The idea of stat damage is really spooky in a world like this, isn’t it? I thought it was weird that nobody wanted them. But maybe when meddling with the system, Monsoon patched it to make it really uncommon.”

“Not uncommon enough,” Garyung grumbled between potions. His voice was noticeably clearer even after only two of the fizzy draughts.

“So how did it feel being the damsel in distress?” Kaldalis teased, once Garyung could sit up properly and drink the potions himself.

“I was not-” Garyung objected.

“You were in a big dramatic cage and needed your champion to come and save you,” Myrin cut in, pointing up at the Syncoresi skeleton. “I’m pretty sure someone should get the Mouse on the line for the movie rights.”

Garyung sputtered for a moment, but sighed and shook his head. “We’ll see who’s in distress when they write the script,” he grumbled. “But as long as I’m played by Dwayne Johnson, I’m happy.”

“Are you kidding?” Kaldalis asked as he helped Garyung to his feet. “I’m pretty sure whenever they take cameras to a tropical locale, he just spontaneously apparates on set.” He reached up and tapped his forehead, right below his horns. “And I can’t imagine him sitting through this much makeup work.”

“We can’t leave these guys here,” Martok called as Kaldalis started to lead Garyung back towards the door, offering him a little support as he got his strength back. “Any forces the Contender abandoned, we need to deny him. I understood leaving the last group behind, but these men are armed and uninjured, and we don’t know how many are down here. There could be a force large enough to crush us between them and the town walls when we get back.”

“Shit, you’re right,” Kaldalis said with a grimace.

Kaldalis didn’t know what was going on back in Cotanaku with the Contender now unaccounted for, but it couldn’t be good. They couldn’t let him solidify his hold over the town. But they had to be sure that when the time for battle came, that they hadn’t handed the Contender all the tools he needed to win.

“Leave a force here,” Garyung said. “I trust your leadership over these guys. Kal, you pick the teams. But we have enough here to be in two places at once.”

“Are you insane?” Martok snapped. “You want to be divided and conquered? Because that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“Martok is the lead on the rear group,” Kaldalis said firmly. “Balrim, Myrin, you’re with Garyung and me. Everybody else, clean up this mess and meet us back in town.” He looked Martok in the eye. “If you don’t want us to stay divided, then work fast. Because I won’t lose everything for the sake of chasing 100% completion in a fight that might not even matter.” He looked over to make eye contact with Reno before adding: “try to stay healthy. Nyxlas’s Augment will help you get back to town fast.”

Martok seemed appropriately mollified by the concession. It wasn’t the best way to repair their relationship, but it was the best Kaldalis could do in the time he had. Hopefully the situation in Cotanaku hadn’t deteriorated too quickly.

He had a stolen town to steal back, and he couldn’t afford any more time than he’d already lost.