Sweat dripped down Rhen’s forehead toward his eyes. He rubbed his face against his sleeve, holding the anima drill steady.

“Come on, you bastard,” he said through gritted teeth as he stared at the fat Magnite deposit refusing to release from the wall.

His arms itched from the buzzbuzzbuzz of the drill, but he didn’t let up. Just like the annoying disturbances of Welsh trying to sabotage him, Rhen would get through this. The ore popped, shifting in its seat on the wall.

Rhen backed the drill off and pulled back, looking for where it was still holding tight. There was a tiny strand of Magnite leading back into the wall near the top. Hard to imagine that little vein the size of a noodle was holding in a glob just bigger than Rhen’s head, but that was why Wyland wanted Magnite for the alloy.

He severed the vein with a quick pulse of the drill and the Magnite clunked to the floor.

“Nice one, Deo!” Joseph shouted over the buzz of his anima drill.

“Yap,” Rhen said, panting a little as he put his hands on his hips and leaned back.

He hadn’t drilled in a while…

With all the different pots he had a finger in, Rhen was finding it hard over the last three weeks to get anything done. He had daily dungeon paperwork, which was nearly complete, just the last few pages waiting for the buildings to be finished. Then, he had a bi-weekly orbeye broadcast review to make sure they were staying on top of their numbers and what they needed to change for the coming week.

Weekly dish duty among other chores, which was a little easier with others helping, but still it was an hour out of several days for all the different upkeeps. Then he had requests from all kinds of people who wanted to change their room, build a new crafting station, or “How does this table look for the topside inn?” and on, and on. And everyone—save Wyland—was always looking to Rhen for approval, or an idea. Rhen didn’t have all the answers all the time, especially when it wasn’t something he knew how to do.

Moreover, Rhen didn’t care what the tables looked like at the inn. Did they hold the food and drink off the ground? Were they comfortable? Perfect! But some people, Barrek in particular, had taken that to mean Rhen didn’t care at all, which was absolutely not true. He did care that a table was made. A table needed to exist, but he trusted Barrek to make a great table.

It was all too much. Rhen had finally escaped, leaving a note of apology to Arannet on the dining room table. He’d slipped out to the alpine chamber under cover of Caress of Night so he could get there unperturbed. He just wanted a few minutes to himself with a task that wasn’t complicated or made him think too hard. Dungeon ownership was a lot.

Then, a thought struck him like lightning.

He needed a manager!

Rhen didn’t relish the idea of losing sight of all the processes in the dungeon, not because he wanted absolute control, but because he was proud of what he’d made and wanted to take part in all of it. That idea was quickly becoming impossible. He’d transferred so much to other people already, like Jakira and her cooking schedule, or Wyland and the building designs. Those were things they liked, though, and if Rhen was ever going to get back to the things he liked, he would need to outsource some of the other responsibilities to people who enjoyed them.

Sweat trickled into his eyes again, and he wiped it away. His breathing had returned to normal, and sighed. “All right, I think I’m going to go hunt some Corraphine with Jakira now.”

Joseph slowed his drill and stopped. “Isn’t she scheduled to go out with York and Sora?”

“Maybe, I didn’t check to see who else was on it. I’ll give them the shift off.”

Joseph nodded with understanding. “I hope you two can get a little peace up there.”

“Thanks.” Rhen smiled.

He hefted the blob of Magnite up with a heavy exhale. Holy balls of Magnite was it heavy. He walked like a duck over to the cart sitting on the tracks leading over to the exit tunnel and plopped it in with a clank. It was definitely the biggest chunk in there, but it was getting pretty full.

Rhen looked down the winding ramp that ran along the inside of the former Chimeti cavern. He turned back to Joseph. “I’m gonna take this out.”

The bruiser waved his hand in recognition, not taking his eyes off his work.

Rhen grinned and with a running leap, jumped on top of the cart. He flipped the “down” switch on the control panel and unlocked the brake, then hit the switch. The cart took off at a reasonably slow pace at first. Gravity took over and the cart picked up speed. The wind whipped through Rhen’s hair as the cart surged around the wide spiral leading down to the bottom.

Rhen whooped joyously. They were coming up on the auto-brake switch in the track, and Rhen deactivated the panel. Wyland had installed the auto-brake point after two carts had careened down the path at over fifty miles an hour, but Rhen would be doing the one braking today.

The curve of the tracks intensified and Rhen leaned off the opposite edge, keeping the cart in full contact with the track. He rounded the last loop and put his hand on the brake leaver, then slowly pulled it back. The wheels spit sparks and whined loudly as he descended into the loading zone.

He came to a stop to the surprised gazes of some newer delvers at the bottom. He grinned at them, then emptied the cart into the enon barrels waiting below. The chunks of metal shrank down as they passed the wide-mouthed opening and clanked softly at the bottom. When it was empty, Rhen reactivated the panel, flipped the “Up” switch, and powered up the cart. He felt it extract a bit of anima from him, then took off back up the ramp.

Rhen bounced out the exit of the mine and into the freezing cold of the alpine chamber. He activated Blubberific and cast his gaze to the sky. The red and black painted balloon was descending toward the charging station already. Rhen took off at a jog along the tracks that ferried the big barrels of metal to the inn.

They’d finally carved out some space in the wall along the aquatic zone and installed two-way tracks that lead back to the inn, which was honestly a godsend in getting to the alpine chamber. Sure, it’d cost a fair amount of anima to build, but it saved them in both time and cephalo-shifts. Not only that, but there was really no way to get dry again once someone reached the Alpine chamber if Aki wasn’t there.

In a few minutes, he made it to the balloon station where he saw Jakira, York, and Sora waiting with their corraphine collection gear. Jakira beamed, her cheeks glowing brightly when she saw him. She waved a hand high over her head and jumped, trying to get his attention.

Rhen slid down the side of the hill supporting the tracks, then gave a powerful Tremor Blast jump to propel him up the other side to the station. He landed with a puff in the fresh snow and rose to his feet. Jakira crashed into him with a big hug, throwing them both into the snow.

“Oh, I haven’t seen you in day!” she declared, kissing his face all over.

Rhen laughed. “You saw me this morning.”

“Yeah, for like thirty seconds before breakfast duty.” She stopped kissing him, then her eyes narrowed on his face. “What are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be in orbeye review right now?”

Rhen shrugged sheepishly.

“You sneaking?” She poked him in the ribs.

“Hey,” Rhen said with a laugh, deflecting the next blow.

She poked more and more. “You little sneak! Sneaking out! Huh?”

“No! I’m just, ah stop! No!”

She stopped with a giggle and nuzzled him. “Just too much, huh?”

He nodded.

“You gonna farm some Corraphine with me?”

“That was the hope.” He grinned.

She hopped off him and helped pull him to his feet. She turned to the other two waiting to board the balloon and waved them off. “You guys can go, Rhen and I will take care of it!”

They exchanged a quick smile, then yelled back in unison. “Thanks!”

Rhen spotted the orbeye drifting around near the balloon station. He wondered if they’d captured that little moment with Jakira. He wasn’t keen on his entire life being broadcasted, and while the numbers did show that viewers liked content related to Rhen and Jakira’s relationship… some things were private.

He pushed the orbeye away with a grin. “Not today.”

It drifted off in search of something interesting to watch.

Rhen stepped up the steps onto the loading platform for the balloon. It was a good sized compartment with two seats directly behind a driver’s spot, and a big, trapdoor on the walkway to the exit. Jakira tugged on the ring to pull open the door and dropped the gear inside. The enon sysntial wasn’t active yet, and so the bags, power chisel, and anima shield stayed normal sized as they fell in. She absently nudged the door shut with her foot and headed toward the cockpit as if she’d done it a hundred times. Rhen strapped into the seat behind hers.

The control panel in the cockpit was narrowly tucked around the seat, with a few simple on/off switches and some buttons, all labeled with little words or symbols. There were a cluster of buttons and toggles related to horizontal thrust, another cluster for altitude adjustments, one for the enon compartment—along with a display that showed the time left—and a big cluster of gages all along the top that read ambient temperature, altitude, wind, direction, humidity, on and on.

Jakira apparently knew it well enough to get them going, and Rhen let her lead without asking too many questions. There was a loud blast directly above Rhen and looked up to see fire pouring into the balloon. The anchor unhooked with a clack-clunk and gravity pushed down on Rhen as they lifted into the air.

It was a smooth ride up, and soon the trees fell away, lifting them into the mist below the crystal ceiling. It was much taller than the rainforest chamber, but, as Rhen suspected, there was indeed a ceiling. The anima crystals were enormous up above. In the aquatic chamber they grew to three or four feet before dropping off, with a diameter of Rhen’s calf at most. Here, the smaller crystals were the size of Rhen. He’d have to get the balloon team harvesting those soon, once everything with the Nexus was squared away.

Jakira flipped a few switches then unhooked her harness and came back to sit beside Rhen. There wasn’t quite enough space for both of them on the seat, so Rhen pulled Jakira onto his lap.

She hugged him tightly, and sighed deeply. “I’m glad you skipped paperwork. Don’t tell Arannet I said that.”

Rhen chuckled. “My lips are sealed. I did leave her an apology note, so she’s not looking for me… I hope.”

“What do you think Arannet does when she’s not doing paperwork?”

“She practices doing paperwork?”

Jakira shook with laughter, and he hugged her tighter.

“I’m so happy,” Jakira whispered.

“Me too.”

“What do you think it’s going to be like?”

“What?”

“Owning a Realm Nexus dungeon.”

“Hmm, much like owning a regular dungeon, plus additional regulations, inspections, people coming and going, challenges to my claims, people trying to sneak goods, fugitives trying to escape… so nothing like a normal dungeon at all.” Rhen chuckled.

“I bet you’ll still have need of Arannet after, right?” Jakira asked, sounding hopeful.

“Probably.”

“Are you going to ask her to stay?”

“Do you want me to?”

She was quiet for a moment. “I haven’t had a friend like her in a long time. Olliat is great, I love her, but Arannet gets me.”

“You don’t have to explain the complexity of your relationships to me. If you want her to stay, I’ll ask her rates.”

She leaned down and kissed him. “You spoil me.”

“You deserve to be spoiled. She might not want to stay, though. Will you be okay if she wants to go home?”

“Of course,” Jakira said with an exaggerated sigh. “But I bet she’ll want to stay.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Rhen watching the snow whirl past the front window. He thought about everything they’d done and what all they still had to do. Arannet was great with all things regulations, and filling out inspection documentation to the letter, or communicating with the guild, but there were a lot of things she didn’t do, like manage the delving schedule, or the orbeye content schedule.

He needed a dungeon manager…

“I’m thinking about asking Tansi to come help manage the dungeon operations,” Rhen threw out, then tensed.

“Do you think you could work together?”

“I don’t know, but I need help. I have to sneak the time to do the things I like right now and I only see that getting worse as the operation grows. I don’t want that to be my life.”

“Me neither. But, what about your history?”

Rhen hummed. “She wasn’t kind to me, but Rhen put her in a terrible position she didn’t want. I would prefer to mend that wound than let it fester, and giving her work, letting her see who I am and what I’ve done with his life, I think it’ll change her, give her closure.”

“How philosophical of you,” Jakira said with a playful tweak of his nose.

Rhen chuckled. “I’m serious. She’s still hurting, and I think a big part of it is that she’s alone. I took time to look up her operations, her life… she runs her father’s dungeon while he and her mother live retired in the mountains, resetting every year. Her brother owns several taverns a realm away, and she has no children. She may have friends, but she doesn’t seem to have any family.”

“Do you want her to be family?”

“I think she needs it.”

Jakira looked at him curiously. “Do you need it?”

“I’m beyond needing a guardian, but I want to help her. I know Rhen would’ve wanted her to be happy… I can feel some part of him in me sometimes, just a whisper or a thought. Maybe I’m crazy.”

“Well, that wasn’t in question,” Jakira said, giggling.

He laughed with her, then they both got quiet for a while. The wind whistled against the side of the cockpit and flurries of snow washed over the windows.

“I think you’re too nice sometimes.”

Rhen scowled. “Oh?”

“You let Tsu’me and Derk back after what they’d tried to do, and the Faust family too, and you didn’t even increase Welsh’s sentence.”

Rhen sighed, thinking on it for a moment. “I’m not in the business of creating suffering.”

“Yes, but you seem to be going out of your way recently to prevent it.”

“Is it really a bad thing? Look where we are because of it.”

“But look at what you had to go through to get here. What if you could’ve avoided the heartache?”

“My trials have shaped me. Living with a secret that big the rest of my life would’ve been horrible. Welsh pushed our limits and made things harder, but we became smarter and stronger from it. I love our dungeon inn, I think it’s perfect, and much better than anything would’ve been on the surface. Everything bad that has happened has forced us to find a way forward that has repaid us ten-fold what going the standard route would’ve been.”

Jakira hummed. “I suppose you’re right. I just…” she paused, uncertain. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Rhen hugged her tightly. “Nor do I want to see you get hurt, but pain is part of life. We’ll be here for each other to get through it.”

A flashing red light blinked in the cockpit accompanied by a gods-awful buzzing sound. Jakira planted one more kiss on Rhen’s forehead and hopped off his lap. She made her way to the front and took the controls.

“You ready?” she asked.

Rhen smiled. “Let’s finish this.”

The descended with a quick jerk that made Rhen’s stomach queasy. He grabbed onto the walls to stabilize himself then sent a bewildered glare up to the cockpit.

Jakira looked over her shoulder with a sheepish wince. “Sorry. Buckle up!”