Rhen watched Aki from the corner of his eye as Arannet confirmed the details. “Rush post, all three candidates, paid interview, right?”

Rhen nodded.

“Okay, I’ll get these invites out this afternoon.” Arannet didn’t dawdle, leaving Rhen to his next task. He walked to Jakira, who was also trying to look like she wasn’t watching Aki moping in the corner in a flat blob of water, barely colored.

“You sure you’re okay I take the first shift in there?” she asked warily.

Rhen smiled. “It’s fine. I’m excited to delve the new realm’s dungeons, but I need to spend some time with Aki. Don’t go too far in, just scout and stay safe.”

She sucked in a deep breath, then sighed. “Roger.”

They locked eyes for a moment, and she smiled sympathetically. She squeezed his hand, then pecked him on the cheek. “You’re a good friend.”

Rhen chuckled. “I try my best.”

“All right, scout delvers, circle up!” Jakira called and the team designated “alpha”—Valine, Olliat, Alex, and Ulecks—surrounded her.

Rhen drifted toward Aki. He crouched down and scooped his friend up into his arms again. He carried him down to the aquatic chamber and dove into the water. Aki didn’t zip and twirl like he usually did, just floated in his hands as if he were dead. Rhen activated Amphibian Lung and started to swim for the depths.

The darkness and the fear of what was below him had worn off, for the most part, and so Rhen swam deeper and deeper until the lights from the crystals above were like stars. The corraphine dome of the Nexus node was just a glowing speck of blue off in the distance, and they were alone. Rhen sat cross-legged on the sandy floor, watching silhouettes of the bigger fish swim lazily by.

“My broodfather was last hatched, like me, and I was the only of his spawn to survive. He taught me everything I knew about the hunt, music, dance, and history… the history Broodmother would not teach.

“I have gotten ahead of myself. Not every civilization on Prelia live like us. Many are nomads, their lifespans cut short by predation, illness, and other causes. Broodmother began her civilization in Cla’ketre Whri over a thousand years ago and has bore almost every Prelusk egg since then.”

Aki paused and Rhen could feel him battling with his thoughts. Rhen waited and Aki began to swim in gentle, pace-like circles.

“It is a complicated story to explain, one that has not been explained to an outsider. She eats the female eggs to prevent competition, and for that, she is regarded with contempt. But she exudes a force of presence so strong it will disable any thoughts of maliciousness. She takes away fear, pain, and anger. She provides. And for that, she is revered. She is strongest of us all, and no one challenges her law.

“Laws like imprinting in another realm.”

He paused with gravity.

“You imprinted here.”

“And she felt it. The complications deepen. Broodmother is… more than a Prelusk. She has merged with dungeon nodes. She is a powerful being that makes up our home.”

“She is a dungeon.”

“In essence.”

Aki drifted and Rhen followed, paddling gently along beside him.

“The oldest broodfathers whisper of a time when she was kind, when females were allowed to be born and nomads could leave, when we had a connection to the outside world. War with a species we could not understand destroyed her kindness. She broke the Nexus node and consumed it to gain its power, enough power to fight off the invaders.

“Her transformation began after her victory, but for another hundred years, she was herself. My broodfather, Ohime, was born in this time of peace and kindness. He performed his rite of passage, returning as a strong, capable warrior. He battled nomads for Broodmother, his own kind, and sired many clutches of eggs, many who have not survived.

“I digress from the point. Broodmother has called me home for punishment. Ohime came to warn me that her envoys are in route. He escaped, hoping I would come with him…”

“Why doesn’t he stay with us?”

“She will destroy you and this dungeon to retrieve us.”

“I’d like to see her try.” Rhen thought with an air of a challenge. He wouldn’t just let her steal his best friend away on some stupid whim.

“You do not understand. I have sixty-seven siblings in my clutch, sired by nine different broodfathers. At least thirty of them will survive the next six years to adulthood, and once they do, the likelihood of permanent death is very low. This process repeats every three months. It has been hundreds of years.”

“So, she has a lot of lackies. We have a fortified dungeon.”

“The Cla’ketre Whri civilization is a hundred thousand strong.”

“She’s not going to bring all of them here to get you, is she?”

“Unlikely.”

“Then there’s nothing to worry about.”

They swam past the corraphine dome, watching as Jakira and the scout team lined up around the Nexus node.

“I do not want to see you harmed.”

“And I don’t want to see you dragged back home against your will to… to what? I can’t even describe what it is that I felt coming from you.”

“She will consume me, body and anima. Forever death.”

They watched as the team members disappeared, one by one, with a white wink of magic.

“This is very sad to think about. Let us hunt monsters in the alpine chamber to evade these thoughts.”

“Isn’t there something I can do?”

“You are doing it already. Come. I do not want to discuss this anymore.”

Aki surged off toward the alpine chamber. Even with Swift Twitch, Rhen couldn’t keep up, so he transformed into a massive squid and propelled himself across the lake. The alpine chamber was bustling with activity. Carts full of ore rumbled along the tracks towards the exit from the old Chimeti cave, and the hot-air balloon was out somewhere on a corraphine hunt.

Rhen activated Blubberific and grabbed a random loaner bow from the preparation station attached to the hot-air balloon dock. “Alright, what are we hunting?”

“Something new. Let us find an unexplored corner!”

Rhen pulled out his map and poured over it. They’d explored quite a ways into the alpine chamber with the help of the aerial support, but there was a bit in the northwest that was blobby and black. Aki summoned up a tsunami of cold water, and Rhen broke off a bit of ice, then practiced his surfing skills. It was difficult to keep his balance standing with the water battering the block of ice from below, so he settled for a kneeling position.

When the river settled into a lake near the edge of the unexplored territory, they gave up the surfing in favor of walking. Not wanting to pique any whismic’s interest, they kept out of the darker parts of the forest and found a trail along the foot of the mountain. The flurry of snow was thick here, and though it didn’t bother Rhen for the cold factor, it was difficult to see—probably why they hadn’t explored back here.

They pushed on, keeping their eyes on the map to make sure they weren’t getting turned around, until they spotted a wide-mouthed cave. Aki’s aura kept his water liquid, but with the battering wind he was struggling to stay warm, so they rested for a moment.

“I can hear something,” Aki whispered, gesturing deeper into the cave.

“New monsters?”

“Perhaps, but it is difficult to discern with the noise of the wind outside.”

Rhen took the lead, deep in stealth and just outside of Aki’s aura range. The deeper they went, the narrower the cave became. It wasn’t claustrophobic yet, but Rhen was only just able to stand up at his full height.

A harmonic ringing brought Rhen to a stop. He looked back at Aki for confirmation.

“It was not a creature I recognize. It may not be a creature at all. It looks… crystalline.”

Rhen knew that Aki assessed the incoming sound waves to build a three-dimensional image in his head, and it wasn’t always the most detailed. They would just have to keep going and find out.

“Will Jakira be upset if this is a new eco-chamber?”

Rhen grimaced, whispering, “She got to explore the first dungeon in the new realm, I think she’ll be okay.”

Rhen crept forward even faster with the hope of a new eco-chamber just around the bend. It was getting too warm for Blubberific, so Rhen deactivated it and pulled his crescent blades from their holsters. The air was humid and smelled of petrichor, a scent he was very fond of. Would it be another rainforest chamber?

The cave winded in a downward spiral, and the scents shifted until there was more of a sulfuric bite. Rhen worried briefly about breathable air, but the fumes were subtle for now. There was a red glow glistening on the moist walls, perhaps some kind of luminescent moss? The tonal hum came again, this time loud enough to vibrate in Rhen’s stomach, and he moved away from the wall and back on target.

They rounded the final turn and were deposited into a bubbling field of red-glowing ponds and silver swaying reeds. The ceiling was about thirty feet up, and five-to-ten-foot stalactites hung there, all covered in the red glowing moss. It almost looked like thousands of bloodied teeth. The chamber went on for a good half mile, though it seemed there were walls and divides separating other sections of the chamber.

Punctuated between the ponds of glowing moss Rhen could see thick, black crystals. The hum resonated again and all the crystals sparkled brightly. Within, Rhen could see the silhouette of a six-legged monster with sharp claws and a bulbous body.

“Are these Hexawraiths?” Rhen stepped up to the closest crystal, careful not to touch it.

“They appear to be.”

“If that’s true… are the dungeon’s eco-chambers supporting each other?”

“We would need to analyze further, but at first blush, yes, it appears there are cooperative eco-chambers.”

If there was foliage and moss, it was possible there were creatures living down here, too. The Hexawraiths appeared to be suspended in the crystals, but something else might be on the prowl. Rhen leaned down and brushed some of the silvery reeds clustered at the base of the Hexawraith crystal. They were soft one direction, but bristly sharp the other way.

There was a buzz and a red bug the size of Rhen’s thumb hopped out from under the cover of the reed. It flapped its wings with a metallic clack-clack-clack and rotated its four, big black eyes to look at the invaders. Rhen reached down to grab it, but the thing was too quick, hopping away and dropping into a pond.

“Should we explore deeper?” Aki asked.

“I want to see if it connects to the rainforest chamber, but that would be miles away from here. It would take hours to walk there and back, and we don’t know what we might encounter.”

“Is that a no coming from Rhen Zephitz on exploring deeper?” Aki teased.

Rhen turned his wrist and checked the watch Wyland had made for him. “It’s just past two in the afternoon. Say it’s four miles to the exit point, if we move at a quick, uninterrupted walk, that’s just an hour. And if there is an exit to the rainforest chamber, that would save us the walk back…” He sucked his teeth. There was a meeting at seven to discuss orbeye schedules and delver rotations, but what he really wanted was to spend more time exploring with Aki.

“We have time,” Aki said, nudging him forward.

Rhen smirked. “Alright.”

He stepped past the first glowing pond and glanced inside, looking for the bug. He couldn’t see it, but the walls were covered in perfect camouflage for the little guy. There could’ve been hundreds of them in there. Rhen’s skin crawled as he imagined getting swarmed by bugs.

They walked between ponds and black crystals that hummed in unison ever so often, checking the map every few hundred feet.

“Do you think the hum is keeping track of the anima cycle?” Aki asked.

“Another interesting theory. We should get an orbeye down here monitoring things, I think.” Rhen hopped over a cluster of reeds bustling with the little bugs and narrowly avoided falling in a pond.

“I would like to see what happens when the Long Night begins.”

“Same. But not in person.”

“It would not be much to see before death took us.”

Rhen chuckled and winced at the same time, remembering the horrific deaths both Aki and Jakira suffered at the saw-like jaws of the Hexawraiths. It was then he noticed that he was breathing a bit heavier than normal. Rhen was used to sustained physical labor, and walking, even with some agile jumps, shouldn’t have caused him to get winded.

He turned and looked back and noticed that the chamber was at an incline. It was harder to tell moving up it, but looking back, it was most certainly going ascending. All signs were pointing to cooperative chambers, and this was exciting to him.

Between the hums of the crystals and the intermittent clacking of bug wings, Rhen could hear other sounds: trickling water, louder splashes that couldn’t be made by the insects, and disconcerting warbles. But he saw nothing. No other creatures. Whatever they were, they weren’t interested in tangling with him, and that was probably for the best for now.

The chamber rooms were getting smaller and smaller, and the black crystals were fewer and farther between. The air was smelling less sulfuric and more like the rainforest chamber by the minute, and Rhen swore he could see a bit of white light ahead. He opened his map and found that they had indeed made it all the way back to the farthest edge of the rainforest chamber.

The wall in front of them reflected rays of warm, white light from the rainforest chamber, but there was no obvious opening. Rhen stepped closer and looked up. There was a gap about seven inches wide that led up to the bright lights of the chamber above.

“Shit,” Rhen sighed and looked back to the exit which he couldn’t see. He’d have to go all the way back to the alpine chamber and around.

“Could you not use Tremor Blast to widen the gap?”

Rhen hummed. “Yes, but what if something from up there got down here that wasn’t supposed to? Or vice versa? The risk of causing eco-collapse is too great just to make a shortcut—until we know more about how this all works. Plus, there’s a lot of rooms in here we didn’t fully explore, and there might be other exits to the rainforest chamber that are sizeable enough to fit through.

“For now, though, ugh…” He turned and looked behind him again. “It’s the long way.”

“I can fit through this gap.”

“You’re seriously going to leave me alone in this potentially hostile eco-chamber?”

“No, you are going to transform with Cephaloshifter and squeeze with me.”

Rhen balked. “How is a giant squid going to fit better than my body?”

Aki chuckled. “You will see.”