Mandi pulled Rhen and Jakira up to her belly as she careened headfirst down the tunnel into the abyss. Rhen thought for certain this was just her expedited way of saying “I told you so,” but just as they cleared the tunnel, she slowed their descent with a parachute like web between her back legs. They glided through softly shimmering darkness, of which Rhen could make out little of their surroundings until they landed on a black, glossy platform.

Towering structures of the glossy black substance that encased the Hexawraith babies spanned for what looked like miles. They weren’t buildings in the traditional sense, but were the Hexmother equivalent. The structures connected to one another by narrow, angled bridges, and the buildings were peppered with holes for fast traversing in and out. Rhen strained his eyes to see better, but those were the most details he could make out in the near darkness, even with Caress of Night’s added darksight bonus.

The next Hexmother landed nearby carrying Zeichen and Joseph. One by one, the stealthy spider-like creatures ghosted in and landed softly on the platform. When everyone arrived, Mandi lead the way down the winding narrow path to the bottom of the ravine. The orbeyes—two for such an epic battle—followed alongside them over the air, projecting small spotlights to capture the group and their surroundings. Rhen worried about attracting attention and signaled for Xander to cut the lights.

It took twenty minutes to reach the bottom, even at a good pace. Rhen and the others looked up at the Hex city from the bottom, a sense of wonder and fear swelling inside him. Paul risked a little more light, sending a silvery beam high into the air to light up their surroundings.

The structures revealed more of their functions with the closer proximity and added light. The one they were passing through was definitely some kind of storage facility. Shelves lined the ground up to the ceiling of the thirty-foot space, all of them empty.

Rhen turned to Zeichen. “Can you ask her what this was for?”

Zeichen whisper sang the question and Mandi replied just as quiet.

“She said life storage, so their food, I think.”

There was a distant click-clack hmmmm, and Mandi puffed herself up, spreading out all her legs to be as large as she could. She chittered something and Zeichen signed, “Battle.”

“Get ready to fight,” Rhen whispered to the others.

He unhooked his bow and dropped into stealth, crouching around the edges of one of the shelves. Zeichen similarly disappeared into the shadows, going the opposite way as he had. The mages fell to the center and readied themselves as the bruisers took up formation around the entire group. Mandi clicked and hummed her battalion into position. The other Hexmothers climbed the shelves and slipped into the shadows, not her, though. Mandi stood front and center, as large as she could make herself.

Rhen kept his gaze roving over the other side of the building, where it exited to another series of tunnels that branched off in three directions. Shadows shifted on the walls of the far right tunnel and Rhen saw the outline of something much larger than a Hexmother. Could this be the big beast herself already?

Rhen notched a dual poison and anima rot arrow, the glow of it dimmed from his stealth. He trained his gaze on where the tunnel opened and pulled.

The first creature emerged, only a terrifying silhouette. It was a Hexmother, but twice as large. Her legs were bulky and powerful, propelling her forward faster than the friendly mothers could run. Her front two limbs were encased in shimmering black armor with wicked sharp, two-foot spikes at the tips. The scorpion tail pulsed red, shooting a wave of anima out in all directions as the lead Hexguard came to a stop.

The wave fizzled out before it reached the party, and the Hexguard turned around slowly, as if she were listening intently for a reply. Four more of the monsters trundled into the storage building and took up flanking positions, sending out red waves of their own.

Mandi kept the bruisers back with her back legs, her intent clear. “Wait for them to get close.”

Rhen kept his eyes on the nearest Hexguard. A red syntial flared below its first tail prong and another magical wave pulsed out from the pointed tip. The magic passed over Rhen, and he thought to fire, but when the Hexguard didn’t move or turn in his direction, he waited. His stealth was effective against whatever tracking magic that was.

He stepped in crouch, moving around the backside of the enemy as the closed in around the group. Mandi gave a chittering war cry and the Hexmothers dropped from the ceiling all at once. Rhen loosed his arrow before the reinforcements arrived, ensuring there’d be no friendly fire on the Blast of Anima Rot.

His target staggered forward from the shot and turned to look at him. The Hexguard changed course, avoiding the bruisers and coming straight for Rhen. He notched another shot, double poison, and loosed, again and again, until the Hexguard was right on top of him.

Gods she was huge.

She stabbed at him with her armored front claw and Rhen rolled under her. He slipped the bow into its clip and unsheathed a blade. Still covered by Caress of Night, he infused his blade with the Curse of Anima Rot and slashed across the monster’s underside. His blade shiiinnked right off her exoskeleton.

A Hexguard leg smashed into his side, and he was propelled across the floor toward the wall. Rhen gasped, his ribs aching from the blow. He unsheathed the second blade and charged forward, meeting the Hexguard head on. She stabbed at him and he dodged, slipping between her attacks and slashing for her face. The Hexguard blocked with an armored leg, then shoved him back with a flick.

Jakira slid in from the side, smashing her bone mace against the monster’s armored claw dug into the ground. The glossy black casing shattered, exposing her plated exoskeleton. The Hexguard changed focus to Jakira, the one dealing actual damage, and Rhen swapped back to his bow.

He aimed for her face and let a Piercing Shot fly. The arrow skimmed her eyeballs and popped two of them. The Hexguard reared back with a chittering cry, then lashed out with her other armored legs, smashing Jakira in the gut. Jakira flipped ass over teakettle and landed fifteen feet away with a whuff!

A Hexmother dashed in from the side, shoving her two-pronged scorpion tail down between the Hexguards back plates. The mother grappled the slave with two of her much scrawnier legs, holding three of the armored weapons down. Rhen fired another arrow, this one infused with Anima Rot, right in the wedge that the Hexmother’s tail had made in the slave’s armor. The shot lodged inside the monster and detonated, blasting the Hexguard apart.

The Hexmother retreated, her tail hanging down loosely, disabled from the blow, but still intact. Rhen ran to Jakira’s side and helped her up. She gasped for air, but steadied herself quickly.

She grinned at Rhen. “Now this is a challenge worth broadcasting.”

Zeichen soared through the air, graceful as a dancer, and landed lithly on a Hexguard’s back. The monster stabbed it’s tail down at her, and she dodged, letting the tail lodge in the monster’s own back. She cut upwards with her halberd, severing the tail’s second prong. The monster whipped about, trying to toss her free, but she was as steady as a captain on the sea in a high storm.

Zeichen blocked an incoming armored claw, then fired some dark green magic from her palm. The Hexguard’s leg caught with green flames, and it writhed in pain, flipping over and tossing Zeichen to the ground. The beast ripped its own leg out before the flames could carry up to its body.

Then, the last Hexguard was surrounded. Mandi pounced on it and the other Hexmother’s followed. They ripped the slave limb from limb until she was no more.

“Ouuuch!” Derk bellowed.

Rhen came to the Taalites aid to see the fur and skin burned from his left arm and across his chest. The bruiser had tears in his eyes as Valine made a complex series of hand gestures over the wounds. She slapped her hands together and pulled them apart, pulling space and time with it. She moved the two-by-two rippling wave up Derk’s arm and turned back the clock on his damaged body.

“Didn’t you take your potion?” Rhen asked.

“I did,” the Taalite sniffed back another tear.

Rhen shook his head. “Well, at least the whole thing didn’t melt off.”

The team took a moment to survey for additional threats, then quickly harvested the cores of the Hexguards. Rhen was excited to see what cool new things he could get from them. They harvested a few more things, fangs, claws, bits of intact armor, and the stinger tails, then moved on when everyone was healed.

Mandi spotted a patrol and ordered her team to ascend. The Hexmothers pulled the raid onto their backs, then fired strings of black silk at the towering buildings around them. They ascended silently through the city and crawled over the bridges around the enemy troops.

Rhen wondered after what Aki said about one mind if the Hexslaves would be alerted to their presence when they reached the Behexmother. He placed his hand on Mandi’s head and sent the best images he could of the red wave, attacking Behexmother, and hordes of the Hexguards descending on them. Mandi silently replied with the same images, confirming Rhen’s fear. But maybe they could kill Behexmother before the guards killed them.

The darkness of the open cavern receded the farther in they went, and soon, the entire space was alight with red. The crimson illumination sent chills down Rhen’s spine as he thought of blood, their blood. They cleared another building and saw the same red moss from the Hexawraith incubation chamber growing over the buildings.

The ground, structures, and bridges were alive with activity. The Hexslaves, skinny and unarmored like the Hexmothers, scraped away the red moss on the building structures and molded it into piles that the others could carry down to the center. Transport slaves carried globs of the red food on their backs down from the structures and toward a central plaza where the giant beast waited.

Behexmother, with her monstrous body twice the size of gigafish and her mutated forelimbs that looked almost like human arms, was a horror to behold. She used her three-fingered hands to shove the red offerings into her mouth. She twisted her fat body side to side to eat from all four of the piles that grew around her.

Behexmother stopped, seeming to choke on her food. Her body convulsed and the Hexslaves ran for cover. Light pulsed out from within her and Behexmother vibrated violently, shaking the very structure of the dungeon. Her skin pulsed red and then she grew. It was just like when the gigafish ate Olliat.

Rhen’s mind came alive with images from Mandi. It showed the raid team dropping onto Behexmother. Many of the skinny Hexslaves ran away, seeking shelter, but the bigger ones, the Hexguards who were armored to the fangs and bigger than the rest, descended viciously. So, it wouldn’t be complete madness, but not an easy fight to be sure.

“We can do this,” Rhen whispered to Mandi, giving her his best determined smile.

She chittered lowly, then pressed her tail down on Rhen and Jakira. She used the black silk to wrap them securely to her back, but left their arms free for spell casting. The other Hexmothers did the same around them, and they crawled up the buildings to the ceiling.

Rhen’s heart hammered as he looked at the upside-down city and the thousands of inhabitants. He really hoped Mandi was right, and the Hexslaves would hide from the fight.

They got into position over Behexmother without any the wiser. Mandi let out a small thread and dropped five feet from the ceiling. She chittered lowly and the other Hexmothers replied.

Zeichen signed to Rhen. “Give the order.”

“Battle ballad on Jakira’s mark,” Rhen whispered to the team next to him and they passed the message down to the bard. He pulled his bow from his back and readied a piercing anima rot arrow.

Tsu’me nodded to him, message received, her hands at the ready with flute and lyre.

The orbeyes circled the group, capturing the tense moments before an epic battle.

Jakira’s grip tightened on her war club, and she took a deep breath. “For the dungeon!”