Rhen used tremor blast below the terrocken junior’s feet, tripping it up. The monster’s feet sunk into the earth. It wobbled to the side as it tried to free itself, then collapsed. Jakira was on it in a second, bashing the side of its skull in. Her club flared green, leeching some of the life-sustaining anima out of the monster’s body and into hers.

“Look out!” Olliat yelled.

Terrocken senior hadn’t liked what Rhen had done to its companion—the usual behavior they had learned. The sharp-beaked vulture lunged at Rhen’s face, snapping. Rhen used swift twitch and ducked low, slashing the area just below its beak where the feathers didn’t grow.

Blood gushed from the strike, but the terrocken didn’t stop coming. It picked up one massive, clawed foot and raked at Rhen. He rolled out of the way, narrowly avoiding a rending strike.

Jakira dashed forward with a heavy, underhanded swing that shattered the monster’s beak with a crack. The terrocken flailed its little arms, staggering. It must’ve been seeing stars, because it didn’t see Rhen’s next attack.

He pressed his hand against the monster’s chest and triggered tremor blast. Its ribcage shattered, and Jakira came in for the killing blow. The monster squelched from its busted beak and dropped to the side, dead.

The second junior terrocken lunged at Aki. Olliat used her curved sickle to hook the monster’s neck. She yanked hard and the creature’s legs flew out from under it, kicking dirt into Aki’s watery body. Aki called up the shadows of the broad leaves above them, snaring the monster and slowing its sped. With the creature incapacitated, it only took a quick stab through the eye from Olliat’s offhand dagger to put it down permanently.

They’d gotten good at de-feathering the terrocken by now and were able to harvest all the feathers, the claws, and a bit of the tasty thigh meat before the creatures dissolved into the dungeon. Bort, a lanky man with a shifty gaze, slinked out of the shadows and dropped his small pack. He opened the cinch and began organizing the harvested materials.

One by one, he’d stick his arm into the small bag all the way up to his elbow and deposit the organized items. Enon syntial bags were a wonder of magic. Something so small, just the size of Rhen’s head, could carry all the materials from this encounter and the three before.

They’d been exploring the rainforest chamber for two days, and Rhen was worried they’d never find the node hidden here. He pulled out his dungeon owner’s map and flipped it open. His anima flowed into the parchment, activating the syntial that connected it to the control node back in the upper chambers.

Colorful ink spread across the page, showing everywhere they’d been, every encounter he’d had, and the many dark blotches on the map that showed unexplored territory. Rhen was simultaneously excited and annoyed that the rainforest chamber was so large. If they weren’t in a race against time, he’d be elated, but the nexus window was closing in just twenty-three days, and they still didn’t have an operational resurrection node.

The good news was that another delver team had joined their cause; the Faust family. Rhen was learning that most delver crews were families out here in Yu. He supposed it made sense, but it certainly gave the campfire cookouts a more familial feel. It only took a few days for the Nilson family to warm up to Rhen and realize he wasn’t trying to trick them or manipulate them.

Rhen had offered all the delvers thirty percent of what the dungeon pulled, split evenly among them. It was necessary for him to emphasize that the inn crafting team was just as important as the mining teams, who were just as important as the delving team.

Everyone split everything evenly, including Rhen, and the rest went back into building the dungeon village, crafting interior elements, and even putting power into the nodes for new ability discoveries. He was reserving a large amount for the resurrection node too. He wanted to make absolute sure that there was enough anima to resurrect everyone in the raid team, just in case no one made it.

Bort finished cleaning up and tied off the bag. He stuffed it in a larger backpack, then strapped himself in. “About an hour of anima on the bags.”

Rhen nodded. If the enon bags ran out of anima, the spell that allowed for near-infinite storage capacity would end. The bags would explode, feathers would fly, and then the dungeon would reclaim their energy. It would take about twenty minutes to get out from here, so they still had a little time.

“We’ll head back soon. There’s one more little nook I wanted to check.”

Rhen’s finger traced the map until he found the opening in the retaining wall he’d marked the day before. It may have just been a tunnel into a new chamber—which would be great, of course, but not helpful right now. He needed that resurrection node.

“It’s about ten minutes away—”

The gold light around them dimmed, shifting to orange. Every tree in the forest simultaneously shuddered, their broad leaves vibrating. The birds songs ended, and suddenly, all was very quiet.

“What… was that?” Jakira held her bloodied club up to one shoulder, ready to swing.

Rhen looked up. The glowing crystals that provided warmth and light had shifted from white to gold over the hour before, but the shift was gradual, and the trees hadn’t moved.

“The dungeon would not perform this activity if it was not useful for sustaining this ecosystem. The light shifts must play an integral role for the plants.”

“It may be dangerous to stay, Dungeon Owner,” Olliat said, her wide eyes apprehensive.

“Okay, you guys head back to camp. I’ll go on and check in that nook.”

Jakira scoffed. “Like hell. I’ve been hunting this damned node same as you, and I want to find the bugger.”

“I, too, will accompany you, to round out the party.”

Bort was already pointed toward the exit, marked by two tall palms that could be seen between the thick branches of the canopy. Olliat waffled.

Rhen patted her back. “It’s okay, you’re not abandoning us. Go back.”

She nodded. “Yes, Dungeon Owner.”

Rhen would have to break them of these blind habits soon, but for now, the obedience served him, and her. Rhen had a months-old anima save back in Shin’Bara, and Aki had one back in his home realm, but Jakira…

“You should go back too, Jak. You don’t have a res profile anywhere, and if you die, that’s the end.”

“But I—”

“Please. Olliat and Bort may need protection on the way out.”

Jakira puckered her face in frustration. After a moment of looking like she might protest, she sighed. “Okay, let’s get out of here guys, double time.”

She led Olliat and Bort toward the exit, bone mace ready to smash anything in her way. But the forest was still. There were no predatory clicks and clacks, no bird calls, no insects, just the quiet rustling of leaves from the cycling air. There was no time to worry and watch them go.

Rhen motioned for Aki to follow, then took off at a jog through the forest. Aki propelled himself forward in a ring of water, perpetually surfing. He kept pace, and they made it to the tunnel offshoot in a few minutes.

“Aki, light my back.” Rhen stepped into the shadowy tunnel and dropped into stealth. A soft blue glowed behind him as he sped down the tunnel.

Please, be something more than just a dead-end cave.

The tunnel sloped upward and opened to a cavern about as big as Rhen’s inn. Huddled at the back in a cluster of nests made from dead leaves and mulch were five adult terrocken and at least twelve of the younglings.

Rhen slowed and Aki’s light diminished.

It was near total darkness in the cavern, but the terrocken’s feathers pulsed softly from anima flow, creating just enough glow to see them. There was no node, no nothing but the damn oversized chickens.

Dread pooled in the pit of Rhen’s stomach.

If the apex predator of the forest was hiding, whatever was happening outside was not going to be good.

Rhen slinked back from the cavern. “We have to go, now.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

Foregoing stealth, they rushed to the cave exit. Out in the rainforest chamber, the orange light had faded to deep red, giving everything an eerie aura. What that meant, Rhen wasn’t sure, but he was starting to doubt whether staying behind was a good idea. The tree outside the opening shivered, the leaves trembling and the bough leaning toward them. Or was that just a trick of the red light?

As they ran, the ground trembled under Rhen’s feet. Roots pulled up out of the dirt and Rhen tripped. He fell into a roll and gained his feet once more. When he looked back, the roots were snaking toward Aki. They went straight through the watery ring, but reached up for his cuttlefish body.

“Grab on!” Rhen reached for him.

Aki abandoned his water body, keeping only a small, sustaining bobble around himself. He wrapped his tentacles around Rhen’s shoulders and flattened himself. As soon as Aki was secure, Rhen activated swift twitch and tremor blast, leaping into the air and out of the way of reaching roots.

He hit the ground hard and made himself speed incarnate.

Vines snapped out of the sky and reached for him. Rhen was panting too hard to infuse his breath, so he let the vines have it with tremor blast. Red anima exploded from the vines and sparkled up into the heavens.

“Get behind me!” Rhen heard a voice through the crashing of trees.

“Left twenty degrees. They are in danger.”

Rhen dodged a dropping branch trying to obstruct his path, then leapt over a felled tree. Another branch cracked over a thick trunk ahead, and Rhen realized that not all the attacks were aimed at him. A tree with tan bark and green vines whipped at a tall palm, wrapping its vines tightly around it. The palm strained under the tan tree’s tugging, until finally, it snapped. The top of the palm smashed into Rhen’s path, and he vaulted it.

“Rhen! Aki!” Jakira screamed, her call desperate.

Rhen pushed himself faster, blasting branches out of his way as he exploded through the warring forest. In a small clearing beside the main stream of the chamber, Bort crouched at the center of a maelstrom of blades and green anima. Olliat used her daggers to slash at stray vines and Jakira batted away branches with her club.

“What the hell is happening?” Jakira roared, triggering defender’s cry as she did.

“The trees are mad!” Rhen leapt into the fray, cutting down a vine reaching for Olliat.

“Why can they even move in the first place?” Olliat’s cry was loaded with incredulity.

“I believe it is associated with the dimming of the crystals.” Aki slipped of Rhen’s back and sucked up some of the stream water, crafting a new body.

“Do tell,” Rhen said.

There was a deep, whining snap and the tree atop a hill near the stream tipped toward them. The fat trunk careened toward the party, but they were too spread out to run the same direction.

“Head’s up!”

Rhen grabbed Bort and dragged him out of the way. The tree crashed into the water, branches snapping and sending wood shrapnel out in all directions. The party was split—Jakira and Olliat on one side, Aki, Rhen and Bort on the other.

Wild arboreal combat continued all around them. The smaller, immature trees bent their boughs and bashed against the larger mammoth trees, but their bases were thick and unyielding. Vines whipped out at Aki, exploding his watery body with a snap. Aki soared through the air and landed in the downed tree.

“Aki!” Rhen ran toward his friend.

The Prelusk was stuck in the branches, eyes closed, no water bobble surrounding his head. His fins didn’t flutter, and Rhen couldn’t get him to rouse.

More sapling vines snapped out at the massive, felled tree. Jakira yipped in pain, and Bort hit the sand with an oof! But the vines couldn’t reach Rhen, nestled among thick leaves and branches.

“Everyone under the tree!” Rhen called.

He gently pulled Aki from the branches and crawled toward the stream. The tree trunk crossed the stream, leaving an open space just below on the shallower banks. Rhen rushed Aki to the water and held him under.

“Come on, buddy, breath—or whatever it is you do!”

Jakira splashed into the water beside him. “Aki! Is he okay?”

“He’s not moving!”

She put her hands under Rhen’s, cradling Aki’s tentacles. “Wake up, Aki! We need you!”

The last vestiges of blood-red light from the crystals above winked out of existence, leaving the party in loud, terrifying darkness. Rhen wrapped his other arm around Jakira, the three of them hip deep in the stream.

For thirty seconds of eternity, it was chaos. Trunks whined and roots snapped as massive trees fell. Deep rumbles vibrated out through the forest as trees collided, their branches splitting and spitting shards into the black. Then it stopped.

Leaves fell all around them, making soft splats as they hit the cluttered forest floor until…

Silence.

“Aki, get up.” Rhen urged, shaking him.

His skin glowed a very faint blue and his fins fluttered. “I seem to have involuntarily fallen unconscious.”

Rhen smiled. “That tree spanked you right out of your body.”

They crawled out from under the tree, Aki conjuring up another water body for himself. After a moment he seemed to shake off the blackout, and return to normal.

“Just what the hell was that, Dungeon Owner?” Bort asked, accusation in his tone.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen a dungeon do that.”

Sparkling anima drifted up from the hundreds of down trees, their bodies dissolving into the dungeon once more. It looked the same as when Rhen fell backwards through the sky on goddess fruit. The whole forest was alight with the massacre, and Rhen could see what the damage was.

All of the tallest trees—including the ones they had used to mark the dungeon exit—had been ripped from their roots and pummeled to death. But a glint of white caught his eyes and Rhen focused on it.

There, in the distance, was the glow of a node.

Finally.

Rhen whooped. “There it is! Come on!”

He took off across the annihilated forest, bouncing over fallen trees, feeling like he was on cloud nine.

“Rhen, wait!”

“It’s just right here!”

He ran faster, the glow in his vision getting brighter. He was making such a racket, he didn’t hear what Jakira yelled next, but he certainly felt whatever she was screaming about when it hooked a claw into his shoulder.