The Hexmothers galloped for about ten minutes, all the while humming and click-chittering a wonderful tune that never seemed to repeat itself. They wove through intricate web hives where Hexmothers loitered about, looking on curiously at the stampede through their thoroughfare. While still connected to Aki and the Hexmother, Rhen could feel some of their thoughts, though only vaguely. They were intelligent, and this was their metropolis.

The webs were becoming fewer and farther between as the stone took on a blackened, ashy consistency that Rhen had seen before, in Zeichen’s dungeon. Their ride slowed to a stop and set them both down.

“She shows me a vessel, a… I do not know how to describe it for your words.”

Rhen reached out and touched Aki’s tentacles and saw the image again. It looked like a stringy umbrella, with angular shapes making up the dome, and a thick handle. But it was enormous, he saw a Hexmother next to it, dwarfed in comparison. The hard angles shifted, and the image moved around. Perhaps it was what looking through their eyes was like.

Then the vessel went black, and fear surged through him. Rhen pulled away from Aki, the sensation too powerful. With his full senses returned, Rhen looked at where they’d stopped. There was an opening, cloaked in darkness beyond the last web—a thick thing meant to block out whatever lie on the other side.

Rhen needed more information. He reached out for the Hexmother again and she dipped her head to him. Aki closed the connection, and fear prickled the back of Rhen’s neck. Single frames of red fangs sucking life, filled his mind’s eye. A behemoth with powerful fists and spidery legs like the Hexmother waited on the other side. It was a Hexmother, a long time ago, corrupted by the power of the stringy umbrella that she horded for herself.

“The balance,” Rhen whispered. “I understand.”

The Gigafish, the Chimeti, and now the Behexmother… they were overcome by power, the greed of wanting more. Stronger, faster, bigger, scarier. But why?

The Hexmother sent feelings of sadness laced with determination… no pride? She dropped all the way to the ground, and a second mother pointed to the top of her bulbous butt.

“What is this?” Rhen asked, unable to decipher their behavior.

“She is sacrificing herself. They know we will need their power to defeat the Behexmother. She is pointing to the anima core.”

Rhen scowled. “No, we won’t do that. We can’t.”

The Hexmother lunged and bared her fangs. Rhen jumped back, raising his blades instinctively. But she didn’t bite. She let the poison drip from the tips of her dagger-like teeth. Rhen calmed his pounding heart and pulled out a vial from his pouch, then collected a sample.

“Now we need an alchemist, and fast.”

“I will go to Desedra in search of the best.”

The Hexmother dropped down again, lowering her head.

“She is insistent that having her core will be essential to Behexmother’s defeat. Her poison is not enough, and our technology will only get us so far.”

“She said all that, huh?” Rhen asked, sighing.

“I am becoming more adept at decoding their intents. It is an accurate representation of the images she is sending—which are horrific. You should be glad you are spared.”

“Oh, I am. Can you make her understand that we don’t want to kill her? She and the others are protecting the dungeon, and that’s what we want to do, too.”

“She knows, which is adding to her insistence. She and her sisters are not powerful enough to take on the Behexmother, even together. But with their powers, we will be. She is ready to die for that.”

Rhen looked at the spidery creature. “Well, I’m not ready to kill you for it. We’ll try another way.”

The Hexmother chittered with annoyance and raised her head. She grabbed Rhen under the arms and plopped him on her butt, then took off at a trot back toward the dark chamber.

“She is frustrated with you.”

“I can tell.”

“But, she is surprised by your… your mercy? No, that is not right. Some concepts are still difficult.”

Rhen reached out and touched Aki’s side. Empathy, kindness, love, and respect all swirled together in one emotion Rhen had no name for. He let the feeling swell inside him and marveled at the incredible range of thoughts and feelings these monsters understood. Not monsters, he reminded himself, but dungeon guardians.

They passed back through the twisting, webby metropolis and the Hexmothers came out of their hovels to see them. They raised forelimbs and waved back and forth, chittering their tune together. There were hundreds of them, yet they couldn’t take down the Behexmother together… Perhaps it was fear that stopped them. Maybe they’d tried and failed with smaller numbers, and were too scared to try again with their full force?

If their full force failed… the dungeon could dry up.

No, die. The dungeon would die. And the Tree of Being would lose a root.

“Oh, finally!” Jakira said as she caught sight of them. She was bound to the wall by sticky, black goop, the same stuff that encased the Hexawraiths.

“What happened?” Rhen asked, dismounting and running to her side.

“I tried to follow you but they slimed me.”

“You couldn’t break out of a bit of goop?” Rhen asked with a smirk.

Jakira’s face went stern, and she wiggled as hard as she could, even bashed her horns onto the crystal around her shoulder. “Yeah, I tried. Needless to say, this stuff is pretty solid once it dries, and surprise, they can breathe this special smoke that like, super dries it in an instant.”

Rhen looked down the pit to see Ulecks slimed to the side halfway up.

“Sup. Little help?”

Rhen turned to the Hexmother who’d offered to sacrifice herself. “Please release them.”

She chittered something and the flanking Hexmothers crawled off to undo their work. They bit into the crystal and smeared their poison across it. Then, she took a wheezy inhale and blasted the surface with an orange smoke. The black goop shattered, and Jakira dropped to the ground. She shivered, brushing herself off.

Rhen held up the vial of her poison. “We need to analyze this, but we’ll be back. We will defeat Behexmother and save your sisters.”

Aki detached from the leader after conveying the message. He reformed his watery body, coming to stand next to the others.

Rhen stepped forward one more time, placing his hand out to touch the leader. She dipped down and leaned forward. He brushed against her bristly carapace, feeling the vibrations of the chitters in her skull.

“We will return.” Rhen knew she couldn’t understand him without Aki, but he wanted to tell her. He appreciated what the Hexmothers did, and he knew their work was vital. He also knew that the stringy umbrella thing was essential for some part of their existence, what part, he didn’t know. But they had to free it from the Behexmother, or the whole dungeon could collapse.

The lead Hexmother stepped back, and the others returned to their business forming Hexawraith incubator crystals. The completed crystals were loaded onto a Hexmother’s back, and secured with dark webbing, before they marched down toward the tunnel. Ulecks yelped and got out of the way for the first mother.

Jakira elbowed Rhen with a smirk. “Making friends will all kinds of spiders recently.”

Rhen snorted. “Yeah, not my preferred friends. But the Hexmothers, they’re alright.”

“You gonna tell us what’s been going on?” Ulecks asked, his voice a little panicked.

“Yeah, let’s get back to the inn. I want to get this broadcasted, too.”

They navigated the Dark chamber easily, now that the rivers had slowed to trickling streams. The water was making its way down the gradual slope toward the exit to the alpine chamber, but Rhen noticed when they reached that exit tunnel, that the water kept going further back. There was more to explore that direction, perhaps another entrance to the Behexmother’s chamber. It seemed to be about the right direction.

They hitched a ride on the hot-air balloon—which had stopped nearby for Corraphine collection—and then took the train cart across the lake to the inn. They were just a few feet out when Rhen heard the sounds of combat, far too close to be something in another chamber…

It was coming from the tavern.

“Oh no,” Aki said, barely a whisper.

“What is it?” Rhen demanded.

“Broodguard.”

Rhen jumped from the cart as it reached the station and activated Infernal Armor. Burning anima burst from the syntial below his clavicle. The armor swirled in intricate designs over his leather jerkin, trailing down to his mid-thigh and elbow, then wrapped in tighter. It settled on him like a warm blanket and filled him with determined vigor.

“That’s new,” Ulecks mentioned with wide eyes.

“Yes, and I can give it to you as well.” Rhen’s hands weren’t armored, so he placed them on Ulecks and Jakira’s shoulders, donning them in the protective armor.

They charged up the tunnel, Aki leading the way. Rhen could feel him projecting his thoughts, begging the others to stop what they were doing. Rhen could also feel the broodguard’s anger. They wanted Aki, now.

The inn was doused in water, and torrents of it poured through windows, shattering glass. The typhoons eroded tables out of their very foundation and blasted wooden benches apart. The fireplace sizzled and oozed blackened water. Rhen finally locked eyes with the Prelusk responsible. It was nearly the size of Rhen himself, and the water it controlled was twenty times that of Aki.

Patti screamed from the kitchen, “I’m going to do it. I’m going to Cephalo-kick your ass!”

When the Broodguard caught sight of his quarry, the water it controlled changed direction and swooped in to collect him. Rhen stepped in the way, firing a massive Tremor Blast that exploded the water against the walls. The Broodguard lost control of it and Aki pulled it along down the tunnel to the aquatic chamber.

“Do no mettle, eeh’ha,” the voice of the Broodguard ripped at Rhen’s skull with dispassionate disdain.

Rhen winced, keeping himself between Aki and the Broodguard. “I see you speak common, but lack common sense. Why are you destroying our home?”

The Prelusk ignored him, directing his thoughts toward Aki. Rhen felt the concepts of going home, outrage, death…

“You can’t have him,” Rhen declared. “This is his home. We are his family.”

The Broodguard surged forward and Rhen had no other choice but to go toe—or rather tentacle—to tentacle with him. He exploded into his blackened squid form, pushing Aki, Jakira, and Ulecks backwards into the aquatic chamber. Rhen slapped the Broodguard down and pinned him to the stone floor. The Infernal Armor singed the Prelusk’s skin, creating a horrid stench.

“Go back, or I will send you back the quick way.” Rhen’s gaze pierced into the struggling guard.

“He cannot stay. You are violating the accord. This will be war,” the Broodguard seethed, his voice strained from the agony of the fire spell.

“Rhen, please stop. He is right,” Aki said timidly. “It will be war… I cannot be the cause of such suffering.”

Rhen deactivated Cephaloshifter and Infernal Armor, then stepped away from the burned Prelusk. He looked to his friend. “I’ll go with you. We’ll explain it to Broodmother and just make her let you go.”

Aki’s fins fluttered gently, and his color shifted to blue. “That will not be possible. Uninvited eeh’ha are dismembered. And besides, you have a dungeon to save.”

“But… you can’t go.” Rhen’s eyes burned with tears and his throat constricted. “We need you.”

Aki slithered up around his neck and squeezed him. “I will return.”

“If you don’t, I’m raining hellfire down on Cla’ketre Whri to get you back,” Rhen stared down the Broodguard. His fins fluttered and his pale color showed hints of red.

Aki slipped away, giving a hug to everyone who’d gathered, prolonging his stay and upsetting the Broodguard further. Then, the pair of Prelusks slipped out of sight down the dungeon tunnel toward the exit. Aki didn’t turn back, but Rhen could feel his fear.

“There’s no reason to be afraid, buddy. I’ll come get you.”

“Thank you. Be safe, my brother.”

Tears threatened him again, but Rhen held them down. He stifled his sadness with anger. If Aki didn’t come back, Rhen would be the one bringing the war, and Broodmother wouldn’t even know what hit her.