After meeting the Arannet’s contacts; Haru the media broadcaster genius, Felicity the advertisement specialist, and Xander the tech-man, Rhen was ready to head home. They agreed on a small up-front payment to get started, and a one percent royalty all around for the two and a half months they’d be putting on the show. Arannet supplied all the contracts of course, and when everything was signed that evening, Rhen was exhausted.

There were no trains out to Yu for the rest of the night, so instead they stayed, chatting about content ideas. They settled on three orbeye, since that’s all they could purchase on such short notice, and three different styles of content.

It was a simple strategy. One orbeye would wander from crafter to crafter, so sometimes it would broadcast Jakira cooking, or Wyland welding machines, or Leslie giving tutorials on sewing bed sheets. The second orbeye would remain at the inn, capturing the feasts, chatter, Tsu’me’s performances, and a board in the back that would show their progress towards finishing the dungeon build. That was Arannet’s idea, a brilliant one. The last orbeye would follow raid groups to show off all the gory monster killing fun they’d be having in the coming months.

Rhen didn’t know much about how it would work, but Haru promised that the broadcast would be locked without an upfront weekly payment through the communication node either in their home, or at the inn. Some infrastructure work on the communication network had already been done long ago to differentiate a private residence from a public establishment, and so there was no worry in prices getting mixed up. The owner of the communication node would simply request the anima broadcast frequency—Zeph1, Zeph2, or Zeph3 would work nicely Xander said—and be charged from their id syntial. The funds flowed back into the account Arannet would set up at the imperial banking guild in the morning, and from there she’d set up an automatic transfer to the civil affairs debt account, and voilà!

Rhen thought about accompanying Arannet for that part, but then realized that he trusted her, and it wasn’t necessary. She wouldn’t have stood by him after everything that had already happened just for greed to take over at the last second and her run off with all the money. He hoped…

Felicity promised to paint some badass advertisements to entice people into buying the anima feeds, with Arannet to help coordinate the distribution plan over the next three days while she stayed in town getting everything else squared away. Now all Rhen had to do was keep the broadcast feeds interesting, which he intended to do with fervor. Oh, and build a broadcast tower.

The next morning, Rhen and Xander, who would provide the specifications for the broadcast tower, were up early and on the first train back home. There was much to be done.

When they got back to the dungeon, Barrek and Patti were already started with the foundation for the broadcast tower. Wyland met them at dungeon entrance and Xander took a moment to bask in the old genius’s glory. Xander had heard of Wyland and was a fan of his work in the Desedra dungeons.

It seemed to be some niche thing, not that Rhen should’ve known or heard of him before. All the same, it seemed to make Wyland light up knowing that he had a small but dedicated fanbase out there who appreciated all his work.

Rhen left the two tech-heads to the designs and headed down into the dungeon. He was overjoyed to see that not a single delver had cut and run. He was assuming some of the newer Welsh transfers would have, but apparently not. This was good, because he was going to need all the delving power he could get.

He took a few minutes to fill everyone in on the parts of the plan Aki hadn’t known, like the three orbeyes and their purposes, at which several volunteers raised their hands to provide content. Jakira was the first to raise her hand, eager to share her culinary experimentations with the world.

Gwhan was there, and while she didn’t offer to help with the feeds, he did have something for her. “We’re going to need ten more of those bows, do you think you can handle that in the next few days?”

The eclectic Sephine licked at the air. “Not if I am to maintain my presence in town as well.”

“Could I put you up here for a few days and have someone check in on your shop?” Rhen asked with a tentative wince, expecting a no.

She hummed, then bobbed her head in agreement. “Yes. If you provide the materials, I can do this.”

“Great. We do have some more wood already shaped down to the right size, and four or five more of those razor whisker cores. We’ll get you a few more interesting things to play with.”

“I do love to play,” Gwhan said with a devious smile as she ran her hand down Rhen’s arm.

“Thanks,” Rhen said with a nervous chuckle, then looked for a quick distraction. He found Leslie sitting on the periphery and moved toward her. “I was hoping I could task you with something important for the broadcast.”

“Oh, what’s that?” she asked, her timid voice amused.

“A content schedule. We’ll want to make sure there’s hardly any downtime in between. We want people watching as much as possible, and having lots on that they enjoy. And if you can convince Gwhan to show off some of her skills that would be great.”

Leslie smiled. “I’ll do my best, Deo.”

“I know you will, thank you.” He patted her shoulder and moved on to Jakira. “Do you have time for some raiding? We need Magnite by the bucketloads and plenty of monster cores for weapons.”

“We mounting up for another raid?” she asked with interest.

Rhen nodded. “The chimeti. We’re going to make that the featured broadcast in exactly one month. I provided a visual description of it to the artist making up our advertisements, so she’s peppering the realms with it now, and we need to be ready.”

Jakira blew away a stray strand of red hair. “No pressure or anything.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “We can do this. Together.”

“Together.” She wrapped her arms around his back and pulled him in.

He melted into her, nestling his face into her hair between her horns. She smelled like herbs and spices and felt like warm comfort. He loved her.

“’Ey, where’s my ore!” Wyland grumbled from the door of the inn.

Rhen chuckled. “Coming right up, sir. But first, some upgrades.”

He gathered Olliat, Alex, Ulecks, Eli, Jakira, Bort, and Aki for the raid party since they’d done pretty well together before, even if it was short lived. They headed up to the Mastery node with a little bucket of anima crystals Rhen had set aside for sweeping upgrades.

First, Rhen leveled Caress of Night from Prima II to Prima III.

{Caress of Night}

Prima III | Active & Passive | Enon | Dark | Cost: 7% Anima per minute

Become enveloped by shadows and disappear in darkness. In very low light situations such as night, or dark rooms, you become invisible. In shaded daylight situations, you will be invisible while stationary, and difficult to detect while moving slowly, [2] miles per hour or less.

Passive: Increase your eye’s sensitivity in low light conditions, making it possible to see well in near darkness. This does not affect your ability to see in daylight and bright conditions.

Passive: Increase damage done from stealth by up to {20}%.

---

This upgrade was good, but essential for the next upgrade he wanted, which was Ancilla II for Curse of Anima Rot.

{Curse of Anima Rot}

2x Ancilla II | Active | Anima | Dark/Chaos | 13% Anima

Choose one:

Infuse your Tremor Blast with the black curse of anima rot. Anything in the path of your blast will have their spells disrupted, then be afflicted by reduced anima regeneration and increased anima costs for twenty seconds.

Infuse your physical strikes with the black curse of anima rot when you are stealthed by Caress of Night. Landing a hit directly to an opponent’s syntial will prevent anima flow to that syntial for 15 seconds.

Infuse a projectile shot with black curse of anima rot when you are stealthed by Caress of Night. The shot will detonate on impact, sending a wave of anima rot in all directions by up to fifteen feet. A direct hit to an enemy syntial will prevent anima flow to that syntial for 15 seconds. Being struck by the wave of anima rot will disrupt all spell casting, reduce anima regeneration, and increase anima costs for ten seconds.

-----

This was the crux of their new attack method, if Rhen could get several of the fighters equipped and trained with bows. They didn’t have to be perfect, or hit every target, because just hitting close enough would do the job they needed. Their marksmanship would improve over time, but it would be good enough for now.

Rhen coordinated with the four young fighters and got Olliat and Alex to agree to take up archery, and follow in Rhen’s footsteps, metaphorically. They would make a scout-and-strike team of three to ambush unsuspecting prey, making it easier for the others to pick off the enemies left in their wake.

Once they had some extra bows, of course.

With all the upgrades complete, Jakira reveling in her new Defender’s Cry III that upped the friendly’s anima regeneration by twenty percent for ten minutes—among several other improvements—they headed down toward the beach with Bort and anima drills in tow.

They crossed the lake and made it into the alpine chamber where mildly worn paths led them to the Magnite hills to the west. When they reached the ore rich caves, Rhen pulled Jakira aside.

“I have a combat strategy I want to test, but I need some bait. You down?”

She raised a brow. “What will I be playing bait to?”

“Whismics.”

“Whizwha?”

“Whismic. Whisper mimic. The nasty things with the diseased claws and the scary voices.”

She shook her head with a small smile. “You and your names. Sure, I’ll play bait.”

Rhen motioned for Jakira to follow, and they took off down the hill to the base of the mountain. At the edge of the forest, Rhen dropped into stealth. “I’ll be just twenty feet away, following beside you. Take it slow.”

“Roger.”

After five minutes of sneaking into the dark forest, Rhen caught the first hint of a whismic. It was giving off a low, inviting yeti growl. Jakira looked nothing like the yeti, but the whismics didn’t know that yet. She hadn’t spoken yet, and so the monster had likely assumed based on her shape and size that she was one of the inhabitants of the frozen mountaintops.

“Rhen, I think I might see one,” she said.

The whismic picked up on her vocals, repeating her in a similar, but disturbingly whispery voice. “Might see. Might. See.”

“One. One.”

“Rhen, are you there?” Jakira sounded nervous. “I think there might be two… I don’t know if this is a good idea anymore.”

He couldn’t give away his location, and plus, he had eyes on them, all three of them. They were clustered together, their greedy glowing eyes locked on his bruiser beauty.

Rhen crept forward, getting around the side of her to get line of sight on them. They were all within ten feet of one another, perfectly clumped for this test. With a deep breath, Rhen pulled back the string of his bow and infused the lightly glowing arrow with Curse of Anima Rot.

He loosed. The arrow whizzed toward the unsuspecting group and detonated with a blast of blue-black energy against the tree next to the center whismic. The constant visual pulsing, provided by Hydromirage he assumed, ended in an instant. All at once, their shifty, dissonant appearance solidified. They were far more slender than Rhen had thought they would be, but their yellowing, putrid claws were just as big as he remembered.

Jakira shouted with Defender’s Cry and charged forward. Rhen was just close enough to feel the power of her spell wash over and embolden him. He lined up another shot and hit the one closest to him. The arrow shattered against its chest and the creature tried to retreat into the shadows. Rhen gave chase, firing another arrow at the back of its misshapen deer-like skull.

The arrow penetrated straight through and the whismic dropped to the ground. Rhen kept his distance and lined up for the next monster that was trying to flank Jak. He fired for the oversized, yellow glowing eye, but missed. He lined up one more, exhaling slowly before releasing. His shot struck home and the monster turned to flee.

Jakira bashed her club into the third monster’s head, dropping it in a single powerful strike. She ran after the other and cast Shadow Snare, holding it in place before giving it a good whack. The creature’s slender legs went out from under it and Jakira smashed its skull with a cry.

“Yeah, that’s right! No more creepy mimicking for you!”

Rhen shouldered his bow and pulled his crescent moon blade from his hip. He rolled the whismic over and recoiled at the sight of it. Why was everything so horrific here? Except the razor whiskers of course, which were far too cute. Rhen felt a little bad for killing them sometimes, but he knew it was completely irrational.

The whismic was terrible up close. The shape of the face and sharp antlers seemed to be where the deer resemblance ended. Its bony face was covered in torn, rotting flesh. It stared up at him, grotesquely large eyes unable to close because there were no lids. Two large fangs protruded from either side of its maw, which was covered in splotchy black fur wherever there happened to be some flesh hanging on.

The rest of the creatures was vaguely man-shaped, like the yetis. Ah, but it did have cloven hooves, and powerful looking thighs. It was possible the creature walked on all fours until it spotted some prey, then tried to walk upright to mimic them even further. Its long claws were gangly and disgusting, but Rhen bit through the revulsion and got to work.

He cut open its chest and pulled out the yellowed core. Next, he removed both hands. He didn’t want to bother cutting off the individual claws and thought perhaps the poison they wanted could be farther up the digits. He didn’t want to dally anymore than they had to, so he removed both antlers, and called it done. Who knew when another whismic would come along and try to make a meal of them?

Jakira helped harvest the other two, and they quietly hightailed it out of the forest. They met up with the others who were hard at work farming out the Magnite. Rhen relayed their success, and they packed away the goods in Bort’s pack. He’d be interested to see what kind of bow Gwhan could make from the whismic cores, and of course one would be for figuring out the rest of the monster’s abilities.

He shivered as he put the sticky, black-blooded hand away. He hoped that wasn’t all poison coming out of it. He’d need to find an alchemist soon for that and the jelly-bird stinger poison. Too many missed opportunities.

With everything handled and the tester mission a success, Rhen got to work mining out the ore. They’d need an epic amount to get everything done on time. It wasn’t just his dungeon ownership riding on their success anymore, but his freedom too—and Tansi’s money. He didn’t want to incur her wrath… but more than that, he sort of wanted to make her proud.

Those thoughts disappeared as the bone grinding work began, and Rhen let himself get swept up in the hunt for shiny metals.