A week later, everyone had gone through the aquatic chamber with their new aqua-syntials, practicing their abilities on the smaller fish. There were only twelve days left, but Rhen was feeling confident the small raid of thirteen could make it happen. Everyone had agreed to get cephaloshifter—because who wouldn’t want that—and sea-shell. This was the core foundation of the plan.

Rhen wandered into the kitchen, following the scents of roasted terrocken with some spicy spice that was not father’s fennel for once. Okay, maybe it was in there, but there was something else even stronger in it.

Jakira was at the stovetop, stirring a huge pot of bright gold gravy with chunks of meat and tubers.

“What is that masterpiece?” Rhen asking, grabbing a spoon from the counter.

Jakira blocked his ladling attempt with a parry of her own spoon. She grinned, and Rhen tried again with no success.

He grinned back. “You’re getting really good.”

“All thanks to you and Joseph for training me.” She dipped a smaller tasting spoon into the broth and held it out to Rhen.

He licked the modest taster. Smoky, spicy, earthy, and rich. He loved it. “What is this?”

“Terrocken leg of course, but the broth is a surprise… It’s actually part of our plan, if you want.”

“I’m listening,” Rhen said, dipping the spoon back into the broth for a chunk of meat.

The small spoon got past Jakira’s guard and she groaned. “Double-dipper, gross…”

“The heat’ll kill my germs. Anyway, tell me.”

“So, the herbs I used to make the broth are actually from the burned inn. It’s just super heated hakir salt and father’s fennel. Something about being trapped in those air-tight metal jars keep everything inside, but like, changed it. I can’t explain it because I don’t know enough about roasting spices, but I want to find out more.

“Anyway, how it was changed is important. I made a small portion yesterday for myself with the spices, just to test if they were still okay to eat—don’t want to waste, ya know? So about ten minutes after eating I started feeling… different. Not sick to my stomach, but like, I felt a fire in me. All my anima spells were stronger, and my cephaloshifter transformation lasted almost nine minutes instead of five. That’s a huge deal!

Rhen play-punched her shoulder. “Genius! We’ll all go into battle on full stomachs.”

Jakira’s grin faded. “Yeah well, uh, I have more testing to do, you know? More people need to try full portions to test the effects, and also… I’m going to need more roasted herbs to replicate this before the fight. I have no idea how long they roasted for, or at what temperature, so it’s going to require some experimentation.”

“That’s okay, we have some time. How can I help you make this a priority?”

Jakira giggled. “Rhen the dungeon owner, you’re so cute. I guess what I really need other than time and materials is a gear upgrade. Chainmail is not going to work underwater.”

“Lighter, underwater gear. I’m on it.” Rhen snapped his fingers and pointed to the stew. “Let me know when a full serving of that is ready. I’m starving.”

Rhen walked across the way to the crafter’s shops. Leslie was working away with a foot-press sewing machine, making some light under shirts.

Leslie smiled and set the sewing aside when she saw him. “Ah, Dungeon Owner, how are you?”

“Hungry, but good. I was hoping I could ask a favor. I know you’re working on some spare clothes since we all lost everything, but I was hoping I could convince you to prioritize a prototype armor.”

“Cloth armor? I’m not a syntial worker, Dungeon Owner.”

“Leslie, call me Rhen, please. And it’s okay, I think I’ve got someone who can manage it. I just need the raw materials put together.”

“All right, I can give it my best effort. What are you thinking?”

Rhen whipped one of the colorful terrocken feathers out of a materials bin. “Feather armor. I’ve seen these feathers deflect blades when activated, and I think we can figure out how to do the same. We’ll need to dress the bruisers first since their armor is too heavy for underwater, and if that’s all we can manage, I think that’ll be a job well done. Let’s start with something small and simple, a bracer maybe.”

Leslie nodded. “I’ll see what I can whip up. Thank you, Rhen.”

“Why you thankin’ me?” Rhen smiled incredulously.

“For this opportunity to challenge my skills.”

He beamed. “You’re good people. I think you should have all the opportunity in the world.”

Well, that felt awkward.

Rhen cleared his throat and took a step backwards, then dropped the feather back in the bin. “Anyway, let me know when it’s ready so I can take it to Yu. I think Ghwan is familiar with syntial work on many materials.”

“Surely.”

Rhen sped out to Wyland’s workshop. “How’s the next machine coming?”

Wyland cranked down on his ratchet, tightening a bolt on the weird spiderlike machine. It had a flat back, eight legs, two claws coming out of the shoulders and a wide mouth with mandibles to guide material inside.

“Almost there.” The bolt stopped and he let off. He set the ratchet aside and pointed to the underbelly of the spider-mech. “This baby’s got a far superior anima capacity to the last one, it can be out for at least two hours on its own.”

He pointed to the crab-like claw and sawblade up front. “I made some mathematical adjustments to the blade height—now it’ll only cut off the tips of the longer crystals, sorta mowin’ the lawn if you would. Then the crystals can regenerate over time, and we can come mow again.”

“Next I increased the storage capacity.” He pointed to the back and the wing-like storage compartment opened up, revealing two upside-down buckets inside. “When this thing is hangin from the ceiling, the buckets’ll be right side up, don’t worry.”

He pushed a button on the beetle looking face and the legs moved of their own accord, flipping the spider-mech upside down. It opened the compartment again, and Wyland removed the whole machine, leaving just the buckets.

“Bort helped me with that enon syntial,” he said, pointing to the glowing symbol around the edge of the thing’s wide mouth. He put the machine back together and righted it.

“Let’s see, what else… Spring loaded foot wedgers,” he said, compressing and releasing the spring that opened and closed the foot. “It’ll find cracks in the ceiling and wedge itself in. Only three legs needed to keep it up on the wall, so if two or three go down, it’s okay.”

Rhen scratched his chin. “How does it know what to do?”

Wyland laughed, but he sounded offended. “You wanna see that? Most people just say thanks and take their tools.”

“I think it’s great. I want to understand it better, that’s all.”

Wyland grunted. “Well, all right.”

He moved to the beetle-like head and opened its mouth, then clicked a latch that kept the top of the head down. Inside was a myriad of little cogs, gears, and metal cards inset with yellow anima crystals. “One of my syntials allows me to transfer simple instructions to anima crystals.

“It’ll go up, look for longer crystals and cut’em free, shove them in its mouth, and repeat for one and a half hours. After that, it’s gotta come back to this base plate,” he got up and moved over to another wide based machine on the ground.

He tapped his foot on the glassy surface of the machine and it came to life with yellow light. “I infuse this platform with my anima every morning, enough for two machines to make five trips. Of course, as they start havin’ to go farther and farther out to find crystals, they’re gonna bring back less day over day.”

“That’s okay, we need a lot now, so we’ll deal with later when later comes. Priority one for those crystals is a Respawn Reserve. I want to make sure we have enough to revive everyone in the dungeon. Next, will be distributing them to the lowest syntial level raiders first until we’re all on the same playing field, or aiding anyone who has useless underwater abilities. And of course, keep fifty percent of them for yourself as they come in.”

“Fifty!” Wyland screamed, his bushy brows climbing all the way to his hairline.

“That’s what I said. You made the machines that are making this possible.”

“Rhen! Lunch,” Jakira yelled from the kitchen.

Wyland mumbled under his breath. “I wouldn’t even know what to do with that much raw anima…”

Rhen shrugged and backed away. “Sell it? Use it? Either way, it’s yours to do what you want. Have a good one, Wyland, I’ve gotta chow down.”

He found Olliat, Eli, and Joseph too, asking them to come do the food test. They all ate the same portion of savory, earthy, tangy, nomnomnom. Rhen salivated even as he was shoving spoon-loads into his mouth. It was so, so good. Maybe weeks of eating fish and bread had helped readjust his tastebuds to bitter, because he was liking that earthy richness.

They sat back and Jakira started a timer on her kitchen clock. It was nice knowing what time of day it was with their perpetual afternoon light coming from the rainforest chamber. It only took Eli five minutes before he felt the fire, and Joseph took the longest at fifteen, but they were all feeling it.

Time to test the effects.

The well-fed crew headed into the aquatic chamber feeling like champions. Their power and excitement was palpable, like hot static electricity.

Rhen rushed the water, activating swift twitch. He leaped high in the air and sailed out over the deepest part of the water. Fear gnawed at his bones but he told it to fluff right off, and triggered cephaloshifter.

Just as he hit the water, his body contorted into an enormous black and red, chambered nautilus. His perspective shifted and everything looked small around him. The silvish that were at least three times his size looked like little toys in his fifty tentacles.

He used swift twitch to hyper accelerate and bash his strong shell into a megafish that had been giving them trouble the past few days. Two of the others appeared beside him as glowing octopi, one a bright red with long tentacles, and the other more rainbow with shorter, stronger looking tentacles. Rhen wasn’t sure who it was—they hadn’t managed to find any species that shared Aki’s unique mind-talking abilities.

The glowy-pi wrapped their legs around the megafish’s back fin and constricted. A spear-headed squid with a razor-edge shell surged at the side of the megafish, ripping open its side and spilling blood all around them. Together, the four of them gutted the fish right there and removed the massive core.

Rhen pulled out a few crafting bones, finding it easy to work with fifty functional fingers. Wow, it wasn’t even weird being a giant chambered nautilus. It was as if he’d always been one. They delivered the goods to the beach where Bort and Jakira waited, then returned to the fray.

For eight, glorious minutes, Rhen, wreaked havoc on the monsters of the near-deep. He hadn’t yet found the courage to venture closer to gigafish, but now, in an experiment, certainly wasn’t the time to try.

When the spell elapsed, Rhen triggered amphibian lung, caress of night, and swift twitch, propelling himself quietly toward the shore. The others trailed behind, their transformations fading within minutes after Rhen’s.

Aki appeared not far behind them and followed them to shore. “I caught the last moments of battle. Incredible strength.”

~So much fun! I’ll never get sick of this. Olliat said.

~It’s a lot easier to take the big’ns down in a group. Joseph said.

They climbed out into the shallows and switched back to atmospheric breathing. Rhen felt electric. He whooped, high fiving the others. Eli pushed Olliat playfully and they splashed around. Rhen charged across the beach and pulled Jakira into a big, sopping wet hug.

That stupid gigafish wouldn’t know what hit it.