The two teams had cordially crossed the lake together, and the race was on as soon as they hit the entrance to the Alpine chamber.

“Good luck out there, youngins,” Joseph said with a salute.

“And the same luck to you, old people,” Olliat said with a sneer.

“Great,” Bort murmured. “Babysitting.”

“Don’t you let anything happen to them,” Valine warned.

“I won’t,” Rhen and Jakira said at the same time, then smiled to one another.

They had this.

The older team whipped out their compass and took off down the side of the mountain with surprising speed, heading left. Rhen took a moment to give a test pull of his sparkly new bow. He tugged it off his shoulders and took a deep breath of the fresh, cool air. He pulled back and the arrow of anima light formed at his fingertips just as before.

He exhaled, aiming his arrow at the top of the distant corraphine crystal. The muscles in his back and shoulder flexed, holding the pose. He hadn’t used them like this since he was young. On a long, steamy exhale, he loosed.

The anima arrow zipped through the air, seemingly uninhibited by gravity or wind resistance. The arrow faded to a barely noticeable glow, and it pinged against the crystal, dispersing into shattered light that rained down between the trees. There was a distant, questioning, “Ork?” but when the crystal didn’t pop off, nothing else followed.

“I think I’ll take up archery,” Olliat said with a grin.

Jakira pulled out her compass. “I’m seeing the needle pinging left, but since we don’t want to be right up on the other team’s tail, I think we head for that other mountain peak to the right. Pair up in twos, I’ve got the front.”

Everyone fell into line behind her: Alex and Eli, Olliat and Bort, Ulecks and Rhen picking up the back. They encountered one yeti on the way down into the thick pine forest. Eli cast snowpack first and the powdery white tightened against the monster’s legs. Jakira gave it a solid smack to the head that likely set it seeing stars. Rhen saw his opening as the party moved around the sides for a long fight. He pulled back his bowstring and fired two quick anima arrows into the monster’s chest right down the center.

The arrows pierced all the way into the monster’s chest and shattered like glass. Blood comically burst from the holes in its chest and colored the snow red. Alex cut it open and retrieved the core, and they were moving on in less than a minute. Efficiency.

The team kept to the foot of the exit mountain, skirting the forest entirely. They hadn’t explored deeply into it, choosing instead to stick to the riverbanks, but Rhen was certain that in the depths of those thick branches lurked something grim. Creepy shit, like horromoths, liked dark places.

Jakira stopped to check the compass. She smiled. “I was right, of course. The needle is pinging hard into the mountain side.” She turned to Rhen. “Should we find a way in, or make our own?”

Bort cleared his throat. “A cave would give us quicker access to larger ore deposits. I think it’s worth looking for one.”

Ah, she had been looking at Bort, not Rhen… that made sense. Bort was a miner, not a delver, which Rhen had inadvertently learned the difference over the last few months, despite not paying Wyland the six-mark fee for his knowledge.

“Oh! I’ve got Sense Movement,” Ulecks offered. “I bet those yeti things love caves, and if I can find a trail, it’ll lead right to one.”

“Up here with me,” Jakira said to him, then fired off additional orders. “Three in the middle, Bort center, two at the back, Rhen.”

The team reformed to her command. Alex and Eli guarded Bort, leaving Olliat and Rhen at the back. They roved around the mountainside for about fifteen minutes when Ulecks stopped, then pointed to his eyes, and into the trees. Rhen couldn’t see the beast, they were terribly well camouflaged in this environment, but Jakira seemed to find it.

They followed it through the trees for another ten minutes as it climbed the mountainside. Finally, Jakira pounced into action. She and Ulecks took it down in a few swift strikes before Rhen and Olliat could get a slice in edgewise.

“Here’s the trail,” Ulecks said, pointing to the clear indent in the snow leading up the side. It looked like several yeti monsters had used it.

“Rhen, can you scout it?” Jakira asked, calling him to the front.

He shouldered his bow and crept into the shade of the pines, then dropped into stealth. With his caress of night syntial upgraded to prima II, he could hide in much higher light situations than before. As long as he had some shade, he would be well hidden—visually. Who know how much the yeti monsters relied on sight?

He followed the tracks up the side of the mountain to a cave opening about a hundred feet up. Trees framed the opening, giving Rhen just the cover he needed to get inside undetected. Rhen stopped at the mouth of the cave and almost retched at the horrendous smell wafting from inside. It was definitely a yeti lair.

Monsters clustered around areas of power; the razor whiskers with the corraphine, the gigafish to the nexus node, and so on. If this was a yeti lair, there was very likely something of high anima value nearby.

Rhen held his breath and stepped inside. His eyes adjusted to the dark after a few seconds and he glimpsed the nastiness of the den. Half-eaten razor whisker carcasses, smaller animals like rabbits and foxes, and other unidentifiable bones lay about. Rhen wondered why they hadn’t been absorbed back into the dungeon yet… perhaps it had something to do with the yeti.

It gave him serious reservations about wandering any farther in. If they died in the cave and didn’t return to the dungeon, would they be able to respawn? They’d have to lure the monsters out and fight them on the mountainside.

From the back of the cave came a deep, guttural growl that raised the hairs on Rhen’s neck. He scanned the cave with more care. Rocky walls inside with some shimmering material. Could’ve been the Magnite they were looking for. The cave wasn’t very tall at the opening, but seemed to widen the farther he went in.

He stepped carefully around the carcasses and made sure to keep his breathing shallow. The deeper he went, the less light there was. Great for stealth, not great for seeing what he was looking for. The growl came again, but Rhen discerned that it was most definitely more than one entity making it.

The staticy feeling of a realm tear rippled across Rhen’s skin and he froze. What in the bloody hells was that?

Purple light reflected from the back wall, revealing a tunnel leading deeper in. He cursed himself, but he needed to find out. He wasn’t going to let the others blunder in if he could help it. He removed one crescent blade, just preparing for anything that might be on the other side of the bend, and followed the curve of the cavern.

The purple light dimmed and the electric feel of a realm tear disappeared. There was a grunt, and three reply grunts, followed by a deep, loud, rumbling growl. The air was growing fouler, and Rhen struggled to keep his watering eyes clear.

The tunnel let out into a wide-open chamber by the sound of it. It was so dark, Rhen couldn’t see a thing. He didn’t dare breathe light into it, because he could her the shifting bodies of large creatures, probably yeti.

Purple light flared again thirty feet below and Rhen saw the outline of a yeti standing by the node. The light grew as another realm rip appeared. The light cast far enough that Rhen could see a massive den, full of at least forty yeti, most of them sleeping. They were smaller than the ones he saw roaming the hillsides, and Rhen assumed that the yetis had a slower growing process than other monsters. Horrormoths, for example, were ready to rumble in minutes, but he’d noticed the terrocken needed a good few weeks to grow to maturity. It was possible the yeti needed even longer.

The light peaked and Rhen shielded his eyes from the node. With the bright point obscured, Rhen could see even more of the cavern, and the absolutely enormous yeti monster that sat just a few dozen feet off from the node.

It wasn’t quite a yeti anymore, though, but something more terrifying. It had grown off-white feathery wings that spanned most of the back cavern wall. At its eagle-like feet was a pile of bones. The monster reached out and pulled one of the corpses into its wolfish face. It had to have been four times Rhen’s height, with claws and teeth as long as he was tall.

Rhen had seen enough.

He turned and escaped the cavern undetected. When he reached the snow he dropped into it and rolled around, trying to purge himself of the rancid smell inside. He breathed deeply, and returned to the group.

“That is a boss monster if I’ve ever seen one. Dozens of yetis, many of them look premature to roam the wilds. The big one has wings and a canine face, seems like it’s the most evolved. I think the other yeti are feeding it. Not sure if it can leave the cave, the opening is too small. Might be another exit I didn’t see.”

Jakira hummed, then spoke nasally. “We really need to win those baths… think we can take it if we pull some of the adds?”

“I’m not certain if we can lure them out, and if the big one comes too… There’s another thing. The corpses inside the cave don’t seem to be dissolving into the dungeon. There might be respawn limitations in there.”

“Magnite’ll do that,” Bort said. “High concentrations blocks anima flow. Without a powerful node or channeling core, anima won’t escape.”

“Great, so we found the cache, we just can’t get to it.” Jakira huffed and crossed her arms.

Rhen’s mind went to work on the wrong things, thinking about how he could craft a tent with Magnite plates on the walls to haul kills into for more meticulous harvesting. That was the use everything mentality coming in to solve the wrong problems. How would they get to all that Magnite with the massive yeti chimera in there, and the brood-spawning? Rhen hoped this was just an active period, because if it was popping out a new yeti every few minutes, that could overwhelm them quickly.

No, the ecosystem stayed in balance somehow… there must be a yeti predator out there they hadn’t seen yet. They’d only ventured a few hundred feet into the alpine chamber, so it was entirely possible there were more monsters, more like the wolf and eagle parts of the chimera yeti, that roamed the wilds.

Or maybe the chimeti was eating the spawns? It was exactly what had created gigafish.

“I think I’ve got something,” Bort said, coming forward. A breeze blew Rhen’s scent past him and Bort turned a little green. He dropped to one knee and pulled off his large backpack. He rummaged around for a moment, then pulled out a jar filled with black powder.

“This is an explosive material. Roll a couple of these into the cave and set them off… it could collapse the whole thing and kill everything inside. No fuss, no muss.”

Rhen groaned. “There was a node, too. Collapsing the cavern could damage it.”

“That complicates things,” Bort agreed. “What about them jellybirds? Their venom has paralysis effects, right? Maybe we can make some… gas or something from it, blow up a few of those, put’em all into a catatonic state and make quick work of em.”

Rhen nodded. “It’s good thinking, but a solution like that—especially without an alchemist—would take a lot of time, and we’re going to lose this competition in about two hours. What do you think, delve leader?” He looked to Jakira.

The twins were itchy to fight, even Olliat looked a little bored.

“Let’s see how many yetis Rhen can pull out of that cave onto the hillside. Clear the adds, then figure out what we can farm in the areas the bigger one can’t get to. Everyone take up positions outside the mouth of the cave, ready for an ambush.”

They all agreed and got into position, save for Bort who climbed a tree to avoid the whole mess. He was an okay fighter, but his skills were in mining, enon syntial craft, and packing everything they could possibly need.

Jakira passed out another round of terrocken jerky to keep the anima buff active, then gave Rhen a tender pat on the shoulder. “Don’t die in there.”

“Why not come with me just to make sure?”

She recoiled in disgust. “I might throw up the expensive jerky.”

“I’m going to buy you a nose-plug,” Rhen said with a smirk.

He dropped into stealth once more and stole into the cave, this time with less caution. He made it to the edge of the cavern and glanced around through the dark. He couldn’t see shit. He didn’t want to, but he took a deep breath of the fetid air. With a forceful exhale, he lit up the cavern.

The massive chimeti’s eyes glimmered, slathering mouth hanging open as it watched the spell drift to the center of the warm, damp room. With this much light, Rhen could see his previous estimate of forty yeti spawn was way, way too low.

The tiered layers of rock all the way down to the node were covered in sleepy yetis. The closer up to the mouth of the cave were the larger ones, while the smaller were curled up near the node at the bottom.

The closest yeti on a two-foot step down roused, looking up at Rhen. The chimeti seemed to take note of him just at the same moment, and roared a loud, angry, gut-turning command. The other yeti jumped to their feet in a hurry, black eyes locked on him.

Here comes the train.