They've really gone all out this time. The tunnel is awash with monsters and a tide of mucus that is several inches thick just outside the blue zone. The slime is sizzling and fizzing where it comes into contact with the safe-zone as it's immediately cleansed, but it burns away at the blue mana in the process.
The ants are doing their best, of course, using various tactics to latch onto monsters and drag them to their doom, or strike them before they can get too close. Ten thousand ants, battling away along the kilometre-wide width of the tunnel. The local monsters attack with their usual, mindless fervour, throwing themselves into the mana, disgorging thick streams of sludge or releasing nasty parasites that try to latch onto the defenders before they are consumed by the purified mana.
A horrific sight, but one that has become pretty commonplace during the invasion. The fifth doesn't like to give ground, but we're here anyway. The difference this time is the sheer scale of the attack, and the slugs actively providing support from the backlines.
The moment I join the fight, I begin laying about me with my mandibles, taking the pressure off the ants behind me and crunching through a new opponent with every chomp. Of course, that isn't all I intend to do, as my brains go to work churning through the massive amount of gravity mana required to create a well. Once it's in place, I can flatten half the creatures here and put an end to this offensive in a single blow.
I'm looking to do more than just that, though. Since the Krath have been kind enough to make an appearance, I'm hoping they might want to stick around a little while. Have a chat maybe.
Gweheheheh.
Naturally, as soon as I appear, the Krath turn on me as if they knew I was going to show up. To be fair, it was a safe bet. Streams of acid, globs of sludge and those weird living nets are fired at me from a variety of angles.
I throw up shields to block the nets, only to have the acid melt straight through them, clearing the way for the nets to reach me. With impossible reaction speed, I roll to the side and throw out another set of shields, creating enough time and space for me to get clear of the danger.
Sneaky slugs! They're getting more creative in their attempts to capture me. Still haven't given up, which is commendable, I guess.
Good spirit, you lousy slugs, now accept your gift!
Just before I can unleash the gravity well and empower it to bring the weight of their sins crushing down on the Krath, something catches my eye, and I'm not happy about it. Charging forward in a mad rage is a monster I know quite well, certainly one that I've encountered before. And it isn't so much charging as it is slithering.
Why are you even bothering to keep up this pretence? Stupid slug, you're not fooling anyone!
Unheeding of my relentless criticism, the slug-snake blasts forward, no intelligence at all in its eyes, which bothers me deeply. This was a smart monster, with human levels of smarts bouncing around in its sluggy noodle. What in the name of heck have the Krath done to turn it into this mindlessly rampaging thing?
I'm wary of the danger, but regardless, there's still only one course of action I need to undertake. The gravity well flickers into place as a colossal amount of energy floods out of me, mana and Will both. A moment later, the incredible gravitational power takes hold, slamming everything into the ground and crushing it without remorse.
Gweheheh.
It's not as strong as I would have liked, since it has to cover such a massive area, but I've got a good chunk of the tunnel completely squashed, putting an end to the furious assault taking place at the edge of the blue mana field in an instant.
Except… the slug-snake is still coming.
At that moment, I realise just what the slugs are trying to do. They attacked across a wide field, covered the ground in slime and even put themselves on the line, encouraging me to release as large a gravitational field as I could.
I only partially fell for the bait, thankfully. If the slug-snake hadn't appeared, I might have been tempted to expand the field deeper into the tunnel to try and catch a few Krath, but I didn't. Even with this demonstration of restraint, the field isn't strong enough to prevent the huge snake from forcing its way forward.
It's not like it's moving quickly, but it is still moving, snapping its fangs as it slowly reverts back to its true, sluggy form.
Well, I have a few options here. The question is—aaaaand some of them are gone.
Just when I start to wonder if I can shrink the field and concentrate it more, the Krath launch a second wave down the walls of the tunnel. Because of course they do. To cover both flanks, I'd need to extend the field even further, weakening it even more. If I do that, some of the monsters close to the ants might be able to pick themselves up and fight again, which would only add to the chaos.
If there's one thing I've found about the fifth stratum monsters that's especially annoying, it's their resistance to being compressed. The amount of force required to properly squash them using a gravity well is frankly wasteful. Thankfully, gravity bombs hit hard enough to deal with most of them, but the well is best implemented as crowd control rather than a fatal blow.
Well, well, well, Krath, you've certainly put some work in this time. At least the well has forced them far enough away that they can't annoy me with spells and acid anymore.
I guess the only thing I can do is head off the snake-slug myself and prevent it from reaching the frontline.
-x-X-x-
The snake-slug is a big beasty, having returned to its full size as a result of the Krath fattening it back up in preparation for this assault.
No problem, I can shave a few tons off of it without any trouble at all! Just need to get my mandibles on it.
Doing so isn't very hard, since the monster doesn't seem all too bothered by me as I charge forward, mandibles wide and ready to chomp. I'm still worried about just what the Krath have done to this monster to affect its mental state so severely, but right now I just need to stop it from reaching the safe-zone.
Goodness knows what the Krath would have packed into the monster for it to disgorge into the safe-zone.
As I approach, the monster turns to unleash a powerful, condensed ball of its own unique venom mana, but I'm wise to its tricks. You think I'm going to take a venom bomb to the face?! Unlikely!
The moment I sense the spell coming, I use earth magic to pull up the tunnel floor and form a protective wall, hardening it in an instant. The bomb crashes into my improvised barrier with tremendous force, but the wall doesn't break. Splashback flies everywhere, including onto the snake-slug itself, but its slimy coating nullifies the mana in moments. The rest of the attacking monsters who get splashed aren't so lucky, as the potent energy begins to eat into them.
Oof.
Now the floor is covered in the stuff, but I create my own path through it by making platforms of stone to walk on. It slows me down quite a lot, but once that mana gets into my toes, it'll race straight up my legs and attack my body, so I can't risk it.
The snake-slug hisses furiously, still wriggling toward the safe-zone with all its might.
Not today, fool!
VOID CHOMP!
My mandibles crash shut along with the black jaws of pure energy extending beyond them. I feel the chomp bite home, tearing away huge chunks of slug flesh.
Gweheheh. How do you like that, slug?!
Pulling back, the slug is dragged by my mandibles, and for a second I wonder when the heck I got so strong. Of course, it could also be the case that the slug is just lighter than expected, but that isn't what happened either.
I forgot that it managed to escape my well before by throwing off a huge chunk of its body! Dammit!
Indeed, the moment I bit into it, the slug-snake pulled the same trick again, sloughing off a chunk of flesh and launching its real body forward like a slimy missile. Whatever the Krath did to the creature has caused it to completely abandon any sense of self preservation; all it cares about is getting to the safe-zone, and now it almost has!
With so much of its mass cast away, the slug-snake has become a slithering, sliding speedster, gliding over the thick sludge layer that the Krath built up on the floor of the tunnel.
Time to dash! Whatever the Krath have planned, I am not letting them get away with it!
Concentrating on my legs, I use an empowered dash, carefully measuring the distance this time, so I end directly behind the snake. Lunging forward, I clamp my jaws down on its tail and hold on, digging my feet in to slow its momentum.
Aaaand the tail detaches.
I mean, come on! It's part gecko now?! Give me a break!
Already hauling back against the expected resistance, the sudden lack of force sends me tumbling backwards as the snake-slug lunges across the final gap, thrusting itself into the safe-zone. �
Instantly, it begins to bubble and hiss as the cleansed mana goes to work on its corrupted form. It won't live long now, but that was always part of the plan.
"Watch out!" I roar to the ants, who've already pulled back to a defensive position.
Of course, it's too late for them to retreat any further, and the snake-slug immediately begins to disgorge a flood of… something from its gullet.
At first I think it's unleashing its venom mana, which would be devastating with so many ants packed into the tunnel, but somehow it's even worse. I throw myself into the blue mana and start tearing the snake apart, but the stream of goop from its mouth doesn't cease. Soon enough, the goop materialises into a horde of little slime creatures, each one burning away in the blue mana, but not as quickly as I would have expected.
Have they already learned to create monsters with some level of resistance to it? That's impossible!
Yet before my eyes, the little slime monsters, hundreds and hundreds of them, undulate over the ground and then launch themselves at the nearby ants. Disciplined and fearless, the ranks of the Colony don't fold or buckle, forming a wall of insect might even in the face of this surprise attack. The slime creatures are chomped, blasted with acid and spells, but they don't fight back. Instead, the moment they come into contact with an ant, they flatten out and stretch, trying to wrap their opponent in a cocoon.
Dozens of my siblings are already locked into battle with the creatures, and the more time passes, the slower and weaker they become, struggling against the enemy trying to wrap them up.
Clearly some sort of poison is at work, slowing my sisters down.
"Burn them! Quickly!"
Even if the ants get damaged by the flame, we can heal them right up, which is a lot better than whatever the heck the Krath are trying to do.
Speaking of the Krath, this is the moment they choose to make themselves known, because of course they do.
They've snuck their way around the edges of the gravity well, and now spears of sticky thread are being launched from concealed positions near the safe-zone. At first I'm not sure what they're trying to do, but then I see one of the threads hit a still-burning goop monster who is almost done wrapping up a general. The thread sticks to the outside of the monster, and immediately the Krath start hauling on it, trying to drag the captured, no-longer-struggling ant out of the blue mana.
"They want captives! Sever the threads, dammit!" I roar.
Absolute chaos erupts as my sisters throw themselves forward, determined to suffer any injury rather than let one of their family be taken away. It's bedlam everywhere I look as ants burn, bite, grab, pull and climb all over each other, doing everything they can to stop the Krath's kidnapping attempts.
Meanwhile, there is still battling along the flanks of the tunnel.
Well… if you're determined to get this close to us, I might as well make you pay for it, you miserable slugs!
-x-X-x-
I trust my sisters will be able to handle the attempts to capture their siblings and turn my attention to the Krath. If they think they can wreak this much havoc and get away without suffering the pain, then they have another thing coming.
And that thing is me, beating them up.
In an instant, I'm back out into the toxic mana hunting down the Krath who've been launching their slime ropes from positions of cover. I bunch my legs up beneath me and launch myself forward, jaws wide before I crunch down on a slimy outcrop of rock, obliterating it entirely.
The rope which had been launched from this position is severed by my mandibles, but there's no notification regarding the Krath, and I soon figure out why.
Beneath the outcrop is a small crack, and I can already see something vanishing into the depths
I blast it with a quick jet of Dragon's Fire, but I still don't get a notification, so it's onto the next.
Many of them are attacking from the roof, so I manipulate the gravity well to make me fall towards the ceiling where I land with a mighty crunch before rushing toward the nearest rope. In short succession, I rip through three different sites, and every time, the Krath have vanished into a crack in the stone, slithering away like the cowards they are.
So this is how it's going to be, then? Fine!
Rather than charge at the next hiding place, I just roast the heck out of it with Dragon's Breath. After a few seconds, I cut off the flow and charge over, using my mandibles to shear deep into the rock, but again, the Krath who'd been hidden here has already escaped.
It's clear they don't want to be anywhere near me and will go to great lengths to stay as far away as they can. I'm sure that whoever is in charge of the slug offensive in this tunnel has seen me work before. They're so cautious about staying away from my gravity spells, making sure I don't trap any of their people.
This is just more evidence. They really are doing everything to avoid falling into my clutches.
The ant lines are still in chaos as dozens of ropes are still trying to drag helpless ants out into the toxic area. It's almost a race against time now. The blue mana will eventually dissolve the creepy cocoons that have formed around the captured ants, but if the victim is dragged out first…
Filled with frustration and wrath, I unleash my anger in the form of a gravity bomb.
Small, unempowered, it's still enough to tear the section of tunnel roof I aimed at to shreds. Stone, miasma, slime and everything else within range is ripped to pieces by the ravenous void, and finally I get a notification from Gandalf, his gruff voice announcing the receipt of XP for slaying a Krath.
Take that, slug! You can't escape into the stone if that gets annihilated as well!
With a winning strategy at last, I start to weave together more gravity bombs, pulling out more and more mana to pack into the hyper-condensed balls of power. Even now, I can only work on two at once, and my reserves of mana are quickly drained by the process. In the meantime, I keep snapping ropes with my jaws, and once the two spells are ready, I fire them off at the same time.
They howl into existence and do their deadly work, though I don't get any words from Gandalf this time. Seems like the slugs are being even more cautious now, fleeing the moment they hear me fire one.
It doesn't matter; most of the ropes have been cut through, and order is being restored amongst the Colony lines. The monsters who were only moments ago fighting viciously, hurling themselves into the safe-zone to spread slime, toxin and poison have been subdued. Only a few ants are still struggling to protect their sisters from being dragged away, and it looks like they're going to succeed.
I let the well fade away as I search for my next target. Carefully sensing with my antennae, I try to locate any Krath hiding nearby, hunting for those tiny eddies in the gravitational field that will give them away.
Instead, I find something else, something I really didn't want to see.
Falling from the roof, I smash into the tunnel floor and set off running immediately. Where was it? There!
I dive forward, mandibles wide before I slam them shut, just short of catching the cocoon before it slips into the crack and vanishes from view.
Oh.
No.
You.
DIDN'T!
You miserable slugs think I'm going to let you drag away one of my siblings? Do you really believe I would ever let something like that happen again?!
[We've lost a captive!] I bellow to Solant through the Nave. [Send the retrieval team immediately.]
[Got it,] she replies tersely, and I cut the contact as I rear back, ripping mana out of my core and sending it down into the crack.
Stone warps and shifts as if it had turned to putty as my power fills it, making it amenable to my will.
I don't care how fast you go, Krath, there's no way you're going to get away. I'll chase you into the next stratum if I have to. Without waiting for the reinforcements to arrive, I throw myself into the widening tunnel, my jaws pumping as fast as I can move them. Slime, dirt, rock, it doesn't matter, my mandibles, forged of the same gravity compressed diamond as my carapace, shear through it all without effort. More and more earth mana is formed within me, and I continue to spend it like water, shaping the tunnel, moulding the loose rock and widening the entrance as I go.
Behind me, I hear the first wave of the recovery team announce their presence with a stunning wave of pheromones that fill even the tunnel I'm digging.
"WE SEEK!"
-x-X-x-
It was understood from the beginning that it was simply unacceptable for a single member of the Colony to be captured during the invasion. Considering the Krath were infamous across Pangera for their disgusting methods of converting captured enemies into corrupted versions of their former selves, the reality of battling against a twisted version of the Colony itself was intolerable.
Also, there was a subtle arrogance in the way we thought of this scenario. To us, the most potent and deadly weapons in the Dungeon were ourselves. Were the Krath to get ahold of such a weapon, our mission would surely become harder.
However, the resolve to prevent any captives became personal somewhere along the line. The Colony would not allow one of their own to be lost to the Krath. We simply wouldn't. No matter the cost.
- From the personal notes of Historiant.
"FORWARD, SISTERS!" Leeroy roared from the head of the column. "WE ADVANCE INTO THE DEADLY UNKNOWN TO RESCUE ONE OF OUR OWN! THERE IS NO TIME TO LOSE!"
"WE SEEK!"
"THE KRATH DARE TO TAKE ONE OF OUR OWN! WE WILL TEACH THEM THE ERROR OF THEIR WAYS! OUR SISTER WILL NOT PERISH THIS DAY!
"IF ANYONE IS GOING TO PERISH… IT'S GOING TO BE US!"
"FOR THE COLONY!
With the reliquary of the Fallen Immortal carried in the centre of their formation, the heavily armoured shock troops of the Colony stopped for no one and nothing, rushing headlong out of the safe-zone and into the toxic world of the fifth.
Each was immediately surrounded by a protective bubble generated from within their armour. They tried not to be too disappointed about it. There was a mission to complete, after all. There would be no glory if their sister was lost to the Krath.
"After the Eldest! Charge as if survival were biting at your legs!"
"FOR THE COLONY!"
Other ants fell back, giving space to the single-minded fanatics that were the Immortals. Their charge was like an avalanche, the ground shaking beneath their armoured feet as thousands of tons of monster and metal sprinted forward into danger.
The moment Leeroy found the tunnel the Eldest had been widening, she dove in headfirst without hesitation.
"Prepare the digging crews! Carvers to the front!" She ordered those behind her.
They passed the orders along, but also didn't hesitate to dive into the tunnel without pause, crashing into the back of Leeroy, and eventually the Eldest.
"Eldest! We're here to assist! Where is the enemy?" Leeroy demanded.
"Be quiet and dig," the Eldest ordered. "There's no time to waste."
The original tunnel used by the Krath was only a few metres wide, barely enough to squeeze their captive ant through, but the Eldest needed much more space to move. Leeroy and her vanguard were mighty soldiers, but they were still significantly smaller than their Senior, and so it wasn't long until they pushed to the front.
Stone Mana specialists arrived, using their Skills to shape the stone even faster than the Eldest could. Combined with a digging force hundreds strong, the ants punched through the rock at record pace and soon burst out into another tunnel.
Naturally, they came out of the roof, which caused Leeroy and the others to fall twenty metres and crash into the tunnel floor. She was barely able to get to her feet and start running before the Immortals behind her leapt down, crashing heavily themselves.
A few moments later, the reliquary came down like a brick of reinforced steel, which it was, sending rock and stone flying everywhere. The ants responsible for carrying it shook themselves off and hefted their burden once more, undamaged.
"I SEE THEM!" Leeroy roared. "Onwards, to DEATH!"
"WE SEEK!"
Again, the ground shook, the stone rattled and even the slime seemed to slow in its seeping tracks as the irresistible charge of the Immortals began to gather momentum.
Leeroy's legs screamed under the pressure, but she welcomed the strain. To get her body moving with ten tons of steel on her back was difficult, but it was worth it. The faster she went, the more force the impact would generate, and the greater the odds it would be her last.
In the distance, she could see the Krath, with their captive being dragged behind. As slippery and quick as they were, with a large ant to pull along, they could only move so fast.
And Leeroy judged that the Immortals were moving faster.
For so long, she had waited for this moment, a chance to be unleashed on the deadliest environment in the Dungeon. Now there was going to be a fight, a glorious rescue to prevent the heinous enemy of the Colony from securing a captive for their nefarious purpose.
Surely. Surely here…
Her heart was afire, and she knew every single Immortal in the column felt the same way.
Here. Now. This was the moment!
"GET BACK HERE AND KILL ME!" She bellowed at the fleeing Krath, picking up even more speed with the force of her fury.
-x-X-x-
"What is happening?!" Zluth raged.
"How would I know?" Gozsi spat back. "I've never seen anything like this!"
The ants behind them continued their charge, seemingly inexhaustible and unafraid.
"This was your strategy Goszi!"
"Oh, sorry, I didn't know the ants were hiding an entire army of mana-shielded maniacs. Did you?!"
"Of course not!"
Zluth continued to slide as fast as he could, dragging the comatose, captured ant behind with Gozsi's help. If the others hadn't gotten into position in time…
Aha! He saw the signal! Gugugugugug! A patch of moss ahead had been disturbed, the natural pattern altered slightly, the agreed upon sign.
"Come on, Goszi, a burst up here and we should be in the clear. Get ready to dive for the slime river."
"Fine," the old Krath wheezed.
The moment they cleared the moss patch, Zluth's waiting allies released the monsters they'd gathered, urging them into the path of the oncoming ants. It wasn't that many, but it would delay their pursuers just enough for them to dive into the slime river and get some distance.
Goszi and Zluth hauled their captive into the mucus-filled river and set off, gliding across the surface at a much faster pace than before. Filled with glee, Zluth looked over his shoulder to see how the ants were faring.
He was just in time to see the ants blast through the monsters of the fifth as if they weren't even there. When the leaders of the charge hit, the front rank of native beasts was blasted back as if they'd been slapped by a giant, then the rest were simply trampled as the ants marched right over the top of them. Monsters popped like goop balloons, sending toxic sludge and deadly parasites scrambling all over the attackers, but the ants carried on as if they simply didn't care. Shielded by their protective bubbles of cursed blue energy, the invaders barely slowed down and now were right on his heels!
Zluth was infuriated. Gozsi's layered strategy had been just the right sort of cunning, and though it had required enormous amounts of preparation, it had worked. For the first time, the ants had been truly rattled. Even though the big one had appeared, Zluth had still managed to escape with a captive. If he got this ant back to Chozth, he'd be a hero. Perhaps he'd even receive another promotion.
What he hadn't expected was just how ferociously the ants would try to retrieve their lost member.
"Dive! They won't follow us!" he sizzled to Goszi.
The old slug was too tired to reply and just nodded. The two slugs compressed their bodies down to slimy arrows and flung themselves into the mucus.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Right behind him, the first of the metal-encased forms flung themselves into the river, their huge bodies displacing the sludge and sending it flowing over the banks.
What in the…
Zluth barely had time to think before more came, diving headfirst into the deadly sludge. They were using the previous ants as a launch pad, getting further into the river with each mindless jump.
These ants weren't right in the head!
Acid boiled throughout his slug body as he battled against the rage. Would he really be forced to abandon the captive they'd worked so hard to get? Was it worth dying to secure this ant? No matter how fast he went, the armoured ants were gaining, each bizarre plunge bringing them closer and closer.
With a cry of rage, he released his grip on the captive.
"We're running for it, Goszi!" he grated, acid leaking through his clenched fangs.
The old slug just nodded and dove lower into the slime, soon followed by Zluth. If they could hug the bottom of the river, the ants shouldn't be able to find them. No longer weighed down, Zluth could outpace them easily. With their goal achieved, he assumed the ants would abandon pursuit and return to safety.
At first, it seemed like that was what was happening. The armoured ants stopped throwing themselves into the river and there were no further vibrations rippling through the mucus. Goszi was the first to notice the change.
Zluth felt a relentless poking in his side, which had to be the elderly slug, and in frustration he surfaced to speak to him.
"What?" he snarled.
"The river," Goszi croaked.
"What about it?!"
He noticed a moment later. The river was rising. Not that the mucus flow was increasing, swelling the river over its banks, no, the river was literally rising up to the ceiling.
Zluth twisted an eye around desperately and it only took a second to find the giant ant. It had appeared like a ghost, out of nowhere, and now it was working its bizarre magic, turning up into down and down into up.
"Move faster!" Zluth roared.
He could use the thick mucus to push himself forward, but if he didn't get far enough before he slammed into the ceiling then he'd be caught! He refused to let it happen, he'd already come this far, but Zluth wasn't satisfied, his ambition burned just as fiercely as his acid. He would survive, he would come back, and he would destroy these ants and their masters.
Push, push, push, push! Using his slug foot, Zluth forced every drop of momentum he possibly could; he squished his body down to almost nothing, reducing the surface area of his form as much as possible. Anything for a little more speed!
The river of mucus rose up through the air, faster and faster as it accelerated toward the ceiling. Zluth felt a bizarre sense of weightlessness as the mucus rose all around him, lifting him up as the world inverted itself around him.
It was difficult, it was so difficult to move, but he did. Moment by moment, inch by inch, Zluth kept moving forward until he popped out the end of the floating river and fell, flailing, down into the unlifted section of river beyond the range of the ant's magic.
He'd done it! Like an arrow, Zluth plunged deep into the mucus still on the ground and began racing away. He would put as much distance as he could between himself and that monster. The attack may have failed to secure a captive, but they'd been more successful at disrupting the ants than any other warparty so far. Gozsi had been right about his recommended shift in strategy.
Zluth would have to ask him for more advice going forward….
Then it came to him in a rush. Where was Goszi?!
-x-X-x-
"No, you can't just hang around," I roar at Leeroy as she helps pull the trapped and struggling members of the Immortals out of the mucus that still clings to them. "You have to get back to the Colony as soon as possible! All of you are going to be infected with toxic energy."
"Well… we might be able to… find something that will help the family…" Leeroy says, in an openly shifty way.
"Do you really think dying of curable mana poisoning is a glorious death in service of the Colony?" I snap, running out of patience. "Get yourself, and our poor sibling, back to the safe-zone and get cleansed, Leeroy. If not, I'll trap you in a gravity well and drag you back myself!"
The entire column of Immortals begins to emit a sullen energy, but I'm totally uninterested in indulging them. Instead, I follow my senses forward deeper into the area under the effect of the gravity well. It's not much, in fact, it's tiny, but I recognise this pattern, and I'm rather surprised to find it.
Casting a well that could lift up an entire mucus river took a lot of my remaining energy, and I won't be able to maintain it much longer, but I have enough time that I don't need to rush. I wander down to the edge of the spell and take a look. The mucus draining back into the now empty river is getting caught and rising up into the air. It's an odd sight, to say the least.
I turn back to look at the slime spreading out across the ceiling, waiting. A few long seconds pass, and nothing happens. Which is curious.
I reach out with an antenna and prod a certain piece of muck, which looks no different from any of the other slime around it. I prod something fleshy, and it retracts away from the antenna before growing still again.
Once more, I wait. Once more, nothing happens.
Curiouser and curiouser.
I whip together a mind bridge and latch it onto my target.
[I know you're there,] I say.
For a long moment, there isn't a reply, and I have to remake the bridge since the mana here decays everything.
[This is unexpected,] I hear back.
The voice sounds old, sort of thin? Have I found a geriatric Krath?
[I'll say. Don't you guys melt yourselves when you get caught?]
I have to say, touching minds with a Krath is… less than pleasant. Even their thoughts reek of corruption.
[I… enjoy living more than a good Krath should.]
Well now… that is something I don't mind hearing. Hang on. Why the heck is this Krath more keen on living than Leeroy and the other idiots in armour behind me?! I turn back to yell at them.
"Hurry up! I'm leaving soon, and you'd better be gone by the time I do, or I'm dragging you all back and putting you in mandatory rest!"
A chorus of boos rises from the armoured ants, and I snap my mandibles at them in warning before turning back to my weirdly cooperative Krath.
[So… you would like to continue living.]
[... If possible.]
[Even though it would mean betraying other Krath?]
A dry chuckle.
[It wouldn't be the first time.]
[That may be so, but I get the feeling you Krath betray each other regularly to other Krath. Not to outsiders.]
I can feel the boiling rage just beneath the surface of his thoughts. He hates me. Hates all of us. A lot.
[Gugugugugugug. That's true; this will be a first, even for me.]
[I imagine your friends won't be all that pleased with your decision.]
[Hopefully they think I'm dead.]
[Nope, they're watching you right now.]
[Well, that means I can never go back, I suppose. Which means I'll be fully dependent on you for my survival. That should make me trustworthy.]
[You're a Krath. I trust you about as much as I like you.]
[I'm a very likeable Krath.]
[No you aren't.]
[That's true.]
I have an odd feeling. Finally, a Krath has been captured who is willing to talk, willing to betray his own kind. I should be up on my back legs dancing the Charleston, but confronted with the reality, I'm starting to realise the problems. First of all, even under duress, how much can we trust what this slippery slug has to say?! Any of it at all? Would he even feed us malicious, false information, leading us into disaster? Come to think of it, could he be a plant, placed here for exactly that purpose?! Ṙ
My head starts to spin, and I seriously consider just chomping the slug and moving on with life, but I know I shouldn't. It's too complex for me to think about, which is exactly why there are ants who're much smarter than me to make these decisions.
[Alright, I'm going to wrap you up and take you back with me. I have no idea how we'll smuggle you inside the safe-zone, but we'll figure something out.]
[I'm sure your masters will have a way.]
My what?
[Uh… sure.]
Moving the Krath turns out to be easier than I thought. Once he agrees to cooperate and emerge from his hiding place, I blast him with gravity bolts until I get the balance right and drop the well. The end result has the Krath floating in midair, absolutely unable to go anywhere at all under his own power. From there, it's pretty simple to wrap him up in a ball of air and float him along in front of me… right between my mandibles.
I have to kick and poke a bunch of the immortals on the way back, but eventually they get moving and we make a fighting retreat back to the Colony.
-x-X-x-
To say this wasn't how Goszi had assumed his day was going to end would be something of an understatement. He'd been pushed to the edge by Zluth, and his tactics had worked out remarkably well, but to fall into the soft, fleshy hands of the enemy in the process of escaping had not been part of the plan.
He tried to look as harmless as possible as the massive ant deposited him uncomfortably close to the wall of blue mana that would melt him in a matter of moments. Just an old, grey slug, no threat to anyone. While he maintained the facade, he studied his enemies. None of the scouts had ever been this close before, but there wasn't much that he could make out that they hadn't seen already.
The ants formed the bulk of the frontlines, various members of the other races mixed amongst them, including robed figures who moved between them all, shouting randomly. Goszi still wasn't sure how things were going to play out. Would the invaders actually keep him alive? Would they destroy him once they had the information they wanted? How could he play this to avoid getting himself splatted?
One thing was for sure, his life amongst the tribes was well and truly over. A Krath who had voluntarily surrendered was as big of a traitor as it was possible to conceive. If he ever met a Krath who knew what he'd done, then he'd be killed on the spot. Which meant, for now, he needed whoever was in charge of this invasion to keep him alive, and for that, he would have to offer something they wanted. The first step: finding out what that was.
So he tried his best to be patient as he observed everything that went on around him. A Krath didn't get to his advanced age without being patient, after all. He would wait for the right moment.
[Are you really trying to make yourself look harmless?] the giant ant asked, walking over and prodding him with one of its long, stalk-like appendages.
This monster was… not like Goszi had anticipated. For one, it was super annoying.
[Go away,] Goszi grumbled, [I'm trying to think.]
[So? You Krath have been a pain in my thorax for ages, I think you can tolerate a little prodding.]
Which he was forced to do, as the ant kept poking him. Why in the Decaying World had the creators of these ants made them this intelligent? He could understand it to a degree, slaves that were capable of solving problems themselves were useful, but generally created more issues than they solved.
[Are you sure your masters want you to treat me like this?] Goszi snarled, batting away the appendage with his arms. [Leave me be!]
The ant cocked its head for a moment, then kept prodding him.
[I'm pretty sure my masters will be fine with it.]
[How can you be sure?] Goszi hissed. [Perhaps you will be punished for this.]
[I get a steady feed of instructions from my masters. They seem to be encouraging me, if anything.]
That was possibly useful information. Critical information, even. The ants received a constant stream of directions? How was it being communicated? Perhaps whoever was behind this invasion had created a hive mind with which to direct their insect slaves. That would make sense, perhaps it was even the best way to do it.
Yes, it was starting to become clear. All he needed to do was discern which information was most critical to the ants. If he strung it out long enough, little pieces here and there, he could extend his stay with these invaders, perhaps even negotiate for better, poke-free treatment.
[How long until I see someone in charge?] Goszi demanded. [Or do you intend to leave me here for days and risk getting your only hostage killed?]
[Geez, you've got a big attitude for a little slug. I'm pretty sure someone is coming now. I mean, I'm happy to sit here and prod you for a few days, but I'm fairly sure I'm going to be outvoted on that one.]
[You'll do whatever you're told,] Goszi sneered. [I don't know why I'm bothering to talk to you.]
[Because I keep poking you.]
Bubbling with fury, Goszi ignored the infuriating creature and did his best to focus. He would need to make a good impression, which wouldn't be easy considering the reputation of his people. Nobody trusted the Krath, and certainly no one held any love for them. He'd be lucky if they didn't stick him in a box for the rest of his life. If he could show he was willing to work with them, then perhaps things could turn in his favour.
[Ah, here comes someone for you. You wanted the person in charge, so here she is.]
Goszi immediately shrank himself down and attempted to appear as agreeable and harmless as possible. When a new mind connected to his own, he spoke sounding completely unctuous and pitiful.
[This humble slug is named Goszi,] he burbled, [who am I addressing?]
He extended one eye stalk upward to see who he was speaking to and almost spat acid when he realised it was just another ant.
[Bah! Why do you insects insist on annoying me? Bring your masters to me so I can address them directly! I'm sure they want to know what I have to say! Only an incompetent slave would keep me from them!]
[Slave?] the new mind said in a cold and unemotional tone.
[Yeah, this guy seems to have a few wires twisted,] the big ant contributed as Goszi literally sizzled with anger.
[I see,] the new arrival stated.
Much smaller than the large ant, this new insect remained safely within the safe-zone, watching Goszi impassively.
[I'm not sure how to convince you of this, but we, the Colony, initiated this invasion of the fifth stratum. There is no one pulling our strings; we are in control.]
Goszi's eyes narrowed atop their stalks as his mind whirled. What possible benefit could there be to feeding him such nonsense? Perhaps this was some sort of scheme to confuse him in the event he was a spy planted by his people?
[I… see…] he replied. [So… I will be negotiating with you directly, then?]
How far were they going to take this? Would this ant pretend to have that authority? Or perhaps the real masterminds could negotiate through this ant using the hive mind?
[Yes. You will negotiate with me. Let us begin.]
This was going to be more difficult than Goszi had assumed.
-x-X-x-
How does one negotiate in good faith with someone you fundamentally cannot trust? Going deeper, how does one negotiate in good faith with someone fundamentally incapable of trust?
With difficulty.
- Excerpt from the 'Guide to Diplomacy' by Diplomant
Solant found herself fascinated by the Krath, almost despite herself. This Goszi had a mind almost as slippery as his flesh. The longer they conversed, the more labyrinthine the twists and turns became, until she doubted anyone else could possibly have tracked them. Goszi was hesitant to commit to anything, and when Solant attempted to be forthright and make guarantees, he recoiled, as if instinctively distrusting such things.
Progress towards an agreement was glacial, to say the least. Once something appeared settled, it would be revisited, changed, queried, as the Krath insisted on testing, poking, probing, doing everything he could to find the limits.
On several occasions, Solant was forced to deploy her most powerful negotiating tactic, which was simply to say nothing. Being unresponsive to Goszi's wheedling made him furious, though he tried to conceal it. What's more, it was the only way to fully shut down a subject, as the slug would wriggle and squirm back to anything if he could get away with it.
Many might have found it exhausting, dealing with such a creature, but to Solant it was almost entertaining. The more she spoke to Goszi, the more astounded she became that the Krath were a functional society at all.
[I will have to end these talks,] she told the slug, [as I'm required elsewhere. I do not have infinite time to reach an agreement with you.]
[You could always send someone else,] Goszi suggested slyly, [I'm sure there are others who have the authority to negotiate with me.]
[As of right now, that is not the case,] she replied bluntly, but she was certain he read some other meaning into her words. [At this moment, our agreement stands thus: we won't kill you, but we will imprison you. At this time, you are not required to provide any information, but neither will we make any special allowances for you. You will remain in your cell at all times. Do you have any questions?]
Two hours to reach this agreement. And it was basically the same as no agreement at all.
[Well, there may be some things I can share,] Goszi said, grinning, [if the price is right.]
This wasn't the first time he'd made similar suggestions, but any discussion trying to nail down specifics was pointless since he would wriggle and squirm, promising nothing but demanding concrete offers in return.
[That may be so, but there is no time,] Solant replied coolly. [Perhaps you can take some time ahead of our next conversation to consider what you may be willing to share.]
In other words, come prepared to make a deal.
[Of course I will,] Goszi replied, eyes curving into moons as he smiled, a dreadful expression to see on a Krath's face. [Where am I to be housed? Not within your blue mana field, I hope?]
[Your cell is ready,] Solant replied. [You will be taken there now.]
During the discussion, a tunnel had been prepared not far away, though she didn't think the Krath had noticed. Goszi barely had the chance to blink before he was seized by the Eldest and taken toward the tunnel. Right now, the Eldest was the only one in the Colony able to traverse the fifth 'safely', so it was up to them to deliver the Krath to his new home.
The cell itself had been difficult to construct, to say the least. The carvers responsible had been forced to work at a distance, shaping the stone at range, which wasn't ideal. Ultimately, all Solant needed to hear was the assurance of Tungstant that the cell was secure, which she did.
If the carvers were happy, then so was she.
"Do you think we'll ever get anything useful out of it?" Leonidant asked when Solant finished relating the contents of their conversation.
"It's too early to say," she replied. "One conversation isn't enough to build a rapport or create trust."
"It sounds more like this… Goszi is just trying to use us to stay alive for as long as possible."
"That may well be the case," Solant admitted. "We have no reason to keep Goszi around if he provides nothing of value, and I think he may be willing to push until we reach a breaking point to establish that."
Solant considered for a moment, then shrugged her antennae. She had no need to commit to anything; the Krath wasn't going anywhere after all.
"Let's go see how well he's adjusting to his new abode," she suggested.
The carvers had been skilled enough to build a viewing window into the cell so their captive could be in view at all times. An invasion of privacy to be sure, but a necessary precaution, given what they were dealing with.
She and her closest advisors made their way around and down to the holding cell, well away from any of the main tunnels. A single room of native mana, surrounded by a bubble of purified energy. It was impossible for the slug to escape.
When they reached the adjacent viewing room, they found Goszi sliding around inside his cell, looking uncomfortable.
A mind bridge was formed so Solant could communicate with the prisoner once more, a final check before she resumed her normal duties.
[Is there anything wrong with your cell?] she enquired.
The slug turned toward the window, hesitant.
[What is this thing?] he asked, using his spindly arms to point at the floor.
Solant looked down.
[That's a rug.]
[What is its purpose?]
[To make the floor more comfortable.]
[It is unpleasant to slide over.]
[Then I suggest you roll it up and move it to the side of the cell.]
[And what is this thing?]
Again, Solant looked.
[A bed.]
[A bed?! Why is it so… bouncy and fluffy?]
[For comfort.]
[I don't like it,] the Krath declared.
[I apologise if it isn't up to your standards. You'll have to make do as best you can for the time being.]
[And when will I be fed? Or am I going to be starved?]
[Why would we starve you?] Solant enquired. [Tea and biscuits will be served in a half-hour.]
The Krath compressed himself, his eyes circling around the cell atop their stalks.
[I feel like you are treating me too well,] he said suspiciously. [What is the trick?]
Solant clacked her mandibles in satisfaction.
[No trick.]
-x-X-x-
"What do you mean?" Chozth demanded, her voice low and dangerous.
All the Krath could sense the tension in the air, growing still and turning their stalks towards Zluth covertly. He knew what they were thinking, that he was about to become the powerful tribe-leader's next meal.
Not if he had anything to do with it.
"We managed to capture and escape with an ant captive," he explained smoothly, "but the ants pursued us using monsters equipped to fight outside of their safe-zone for a time. In the scramble, we lost the captive and one of the members of my warparty was captured."
"HOW WAS A KRATH CAPTURED?" the sleek Krath bellowed, flashing over and looming over Zluth in what seemed like an instant.
Her eyes blazed red with wrath, and her flesh sizzled with the force of her rage. A potent acrid scent rose from the leader, and Zluth could feel his eyes begin to burn from her breath alone.
"By being a coward who wants to preserve their own life over the primacy of the tribes," he replied.
She wanted to eat him, he could see it in her eyes, but she resisted the urge, through sheer iron will.
"We will need to deal with this Goszi in the harshest possible way," she announced, turning away from Zluth to address the rest of the gathered slugs. "He has betrayed his tribe, his war leader and the entirety of the Krath tribes!"
Her declaration turned the burning anticipation of watching their leader devour a hapless victim into a bellowing rage toward the perpetrator of such an unthinkable action. Zluth breathed a quiet sigh of relief as the gathered Krath hissed, sizzled and spat while Chozth continued to give voice to her fury.
"Only the deepest slime pits in the stratum are worthy to receive a scum-sucking slug like this! I promise an eternity of horror and suffering will fall on this traitor's head, and great rewards will go to the Krath who brings him to me!"
Many of the gathered Krath'lath and Krath'sizz promised swift and vicious retribution would fall on Goszi, the gathering filled with the pop and sizzle of roiling acid within slug flesh. With a wave of her limbs, Chozth dismissed the gathering and turned back toward Zluth.
"You have some explaining to do," she hissed.
When the others had departed, she dragged him close to the wall, away from those trying to listen in surreptitiously, and bared her fangs in his face.
"I'm sure you're aware just how close you came to being my meal. You may still, if you aren't careful. Now, explain to me exactly what happened."
Somehow, Zluth felt that if he were to rely on his natural instinct and lie, he was sure to be consumed, so he did something that he seldom had cause to do: he told the truth.
Chozth listened as he explained the various actions he'd taken in his tunnel, how the large ant had shown up to foil his attacks time and again, and the full extent of his conversation with Goszi. He went into detail, laying out the old slug's observations and proposed strategy before finally detailing exactly how the attack had gone.
He didn't leave anything out. The capture of the ant, their escape into the pre-prepared tunnels, and the mad pursuit of the armoured ants who had thrown themselves into the fifth without fear or hesitation.
Through it all, the powerful Krath'lath listened intently, never interrupting. When he was done, having told of his own desperate flight from the clutches of the massive ant, and Goszi's own capture, and how he had followed the ants as they retreated, confirming that Goszi still lived with his own eyes, Chozth remained quiet for a time.
"I can see why you kept the decrepit old slug by your side," she allowed, "he's a cunning and slippery thing. The attack you led has been the only one to actually manage to take an ant out of their cursed blue field. In doing so, you revealed just how aggressively they will pursue, and the means they will use to do so. This is valuable information.
"However, the loss of Goszi could cost us dearly if he starts spilling secrets. There are none who know more about the fifth than us, and there is a great deal he could say that would harm the tribes. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about?"
"I do," Zluth confirmed.
Who didn't? The secrets of the fifth were among the first things a Krath would learn as they grew. The tribes couldn't survive without such knowledge.
"Do you believe he would be willing to betray his people to such an extent?" she asked intently.
Zluth considered the question. He'd known what Goszi was like for a long time, but he'd never thought the old slug would be willing to be captured alive. �
"It's possible," he conceded. "Goszi has long been concerned with preserving his life in his old age, and this could be a way for him to do so. The whole reason he backed me as the next Krath'lath of the Slee was for a promise not to exile him from the tribe and securing his 'retirement'."
Chozth looked as if she couldn't decide between being confused or affronted at the idea.
"What a strange creature," she burbled. After a moment of consideration, she nodded to herself, confirming her thoughts.
"We will need to ramp up the pressure across all fronts. Preparations are mostly complete, and we have more Krath arriving from distant tribes to help reinforce. Our only chance of getting to Goszi will be if the invaders are too distracted to focus properly on their prisoner."
She glared at Zluth.
"You've escaped death today, but only barely. Show me results—if you want to continue to dodge it."
Zluth bared his needle-pointed fangs in a fierce grin.
"Of course. That's how it should be."
-x-X-x-
Well, well, well. It's been a couple of days since I managed to capture that grey-looking slug and we locked him up. Other than invading his cell and poking him with my antennae for a few hours every day, I don't have much to do with him. Solant is handling the questioning and I'm totally happy to leave her to it. Just being in contact with Goszi via a mind bridge feels like I'm being invaded by mental slime. His thoughts, heck his very existence is toxic. Just when I thought the Krath couldn't be any more unpleasant, I meet one, and it gets so much worse.
No, I spend the bulk of my time out in the tunnels, batting away invasions, scaring away slugs and making a general nuisance of myself. However, it's clear that something has changed over the last few days: the Krath are decidedly unhappy. Perhaps it's just that they've had more time to ramp up the pressure, but I think everyone knows that they really want to get our prisoner back. From what I understand of the Krath, they aren't likely to be mounting a rescue mission, more like they want to take him off the table in a permanent manner.
Even with the slugs trying to apply more pressure, it isn't like the Colony is taking it easy either. As the fortress continues to be pieced together, our defensive positions continue to get better and better, along with more ants flooding into the fifth.
"Hi-hi, Senior!"
"Hey, Vibrant. Unusual to see you standing still. Have the medics forced you to start resting?"
"Yep-yep! I've been getting a bit hurt-hurt, so they want me to heal for a while."
Forced inactivity? For Vibrant?
"I'm kind of shocked you agreed to that," I admit. "Wasn't it almost impossible to get you to take torpor not that long ago? Now you agree to sit down to rest and recover without protest?"
Vibrant clacks her mandibles and laughs.
"Who said-said I didn't complain? Sol-Sol told me I was starting to slow down so I needed to rest, and that made sense."
Right. Trust Solant to find a way to convince Vibrant to rest. I doubt she was actually getting any slower, but hey, if it works, it works. Vibrant is one of the strongest and most effective soldiers in the entire Colony, but making the best use out of her is difficult, not only because of how specific her build is, but how hard it can be to get her to take any sort of direction.
She walks, actually walks over to where I'm resting and settles down beside me, giving me a chance to directly compare our sizes. She is certainly larger than she was before, but still decidedly smaller than I am. Vibrant isn't as interested in mass; in fact, she wants to avoid it as much as possible. I've no doubt she has much denser muscle mass than I do, and higher Might, even if I am larger. Instead of gaining size with each evolution, she seems to be getting more and more sleek. Two more evolutions and she's going to look like an ant-inspired bullet train.
"How did the Krath manage to injure you?" I ask, genuinely curious.
I mean, she's so fast, how the heck did they catch her?
"Too much slime-slime on the ground," she laughs. "I thought if I could run-run fast enough, then the poison wouldn't get me."
So she ran through a bunch of sludge on the ground on purpose, thinking she could make herself immune by being too fast for the toxin? It's the kind of insane thing she would think of, and I'm willing to bet she thinks it only failed because she wasn't going fast enough.
"The healers have given you a once over? You managed to sit still long enough for them to finish, right?"
"Yep-yep! It wasn't easy, even the micro-sleeps weren't enough to pass the time, so I had to start flutter-stepping."
Do I even want to know?
"What is flutter-stepping?"
"If I move my legs fast-fast, then nobody notices that I'm doing it."
"Wait… so you keep your body still, and you just move your legs?"
"Yep-yep!"
"And it's so fast that nobody can even see it happen?"
In fact… am I detecting movement right now? It's subtle, but I swear I can feel some vibrations in the air.
"You're doing it right now, aren't you?"
"Yep! It makes me feel like I'm move-moving even when I'm sitting still!"
That's… actually a super useful skill for Vibrant to have. If it can help her to finally sit still long enough for others to give her assistance, then sure, what the hey. ṛ
"How are you feeling about the fifth stratum so far?" I ask her. "You've been here long enough to get an impression of the place."
"It's yuck," she declares, wiping her antennae with her forelegs furiously. "I can't run as much as I want and everything smells. The thump-thump is super bad too."
"Thump?" I ask, confused. "What thump?"
"Not thump. Thump-thump," she clarifies.
Ah, so she wasn't just repeating the word. What the heck is the thump-thump?
"Wait, you mean the heartbeat? I thought I was the only one who'd picked up on that!"
"Nope-nope! I can hear it! It's really annoying!"
Well, there you go. I wonder if anyone else is picking up on it now. Come to think of it, there's no way Vibrant would have been able to hear the heartbeat all the way up here; she can't leave the safe-zone, after all!
"Could you hear that noise when you first got here?" I ask.
"Nope-nope! But the mana is getting thicker!"
Ah. The wave isn't far away, then.
-x-X-x-
Tungstant wasn't happy. Well, that wasn't totally accurate, she was building, up to her antennae in a complex building project that was truly grand in scale, which she liked. What she didn't like was being rushed, and she was certainly on the clock with this one.
"Has Solant said anything?" she asked Cobalt as the two pored over the build maps in front of them.
"Nothing," her sister replied grumpily. "She's just saying we should 'continue to work to our timetable'."
"There's a wave coming and the Krath are knocking on the gates every day! I'd almost feel better if she told us to rush."
"If she told us to rush, we'd just say no," Cobalt noted wryly. "So why would she bother saying it?"
"So I have a chance to tell her to mind her own business and feel better," Tungstant replied.
"We don't need to feel better, we just need to get the job done. How much longer until the channels are complete?"
"Phase one is done. Phase two is still a few days away."
"When did you hear that?" Cobalt asked.
"Yesterday."
"And what about the core?"
"The core has a long way to go," Tungstant grumbled. "We're still finding design and build issues everywhere. It's impossible to say how long it's going to take to finish the whole thing. This is the problem with having to build something we've never done before to a deadline!"
"We knew about it going in," Cobalt reassured her sister. "Let's head down to the build site and check on progress. This place won't fall apart in the next hour."
"Of course not. We built it better than that."
Even in the shelter of their workrooms, the central hub around which every build team in the entire fortress revolved, they weren't completely insulated from the sounds of warfare. The fortress-to-be was under constant assault as the Krath tried to break through, and nobody could say which tunnel was going to be hit next, or if all of them were. As the two carvers entered one of the completed arterial tunnels, they found it filled with soldiers, generals, scouts, healers, core shapers, humans, golgari and every other type of individual who called the fortress home, moving at speed to attend to any of the hundred-thousand urgent tasks that had to be seen to.
An endless flood of materials moved through the tunnels like blood through the veins of a living creature, pouring into the hundreds, thousands of build sites as teams worked around the clock. Alongside them was a constant ebb and flow of soldiers moving from one tunnel to the next, rotating in and out, throwing themselves into the never-ending fight.
The tunnels had been built to handle this sort of traffic. The new design that Tunstant had created involved stacking multiple hollow chutes within each tunnel, essentially creating mini-tunnels that filled the space, creating more surface area and allowing different chutes to be devoted to different types of traffic.
It worked well enough, but the interchanges had been a nightmare to construct, given how compact everything needed to be inside the fortress. Space was at a premium in the fifth, after all.
Through the hordes of ants and other individuals, the two carvers moved inward, toward the very centre of the fortress. As they travelled, they both felt deep pain at the haphazard construction that they saw on the way. It wasn't that the individual builds were poor quality, quite the opposite, everything had been made to the limit of what the Colony was currently capable of. No, what bothered them was how patchwork it was. Some sections were completely finished, others half-built, and some not even started yet, often right next to each other.
However, one thing was consistently finished, and that was the mana channels and wuffer platforms. These were literally sparkling, finished, polished and washed down with formic acid to ensure cleanliness. Many of them weren't connected yet, and wouldn't be until the core was finished, but it was pleasing to see that at least here, the most demanding and complex factor of the project had been finished.
The most complex, except for what they saw next.
The core of the fortress was awash with ants, no less than a hundred individual build teams working on different sections of the vast cavern. Despite the numbers, it wasn't difficult to find the ant they were looking for.
"Antgineer, do you have a moment?"
"Of course, I have all the time in the world. It's not like I'm responsible for the most important project in the history of the Colony or anything," the carver replied sarcastically.
Tungstant and Cobalt let the attitude roll over them. They'd gotten used to it at this point. Despite the hostile response, the ant in question peeled herself away from the tables over which her teams had been conversing to join the two Council members.
"We wanted to come in person to see how the project was progressing," Cobalt explained. "Has there been much progress?"
"Some," Antgineer grunted, pointing in several directions with her antennae without bothering to turn around. "We've managed to solve the release problem, so I'm less worried about killing everyone in the fortress by mistake, which is a plus. The main problem continues to be our concerns about overlapping the tanks. Resonance could lead to a manifold rupture that would also kill everyone in the fortress."
"Don't the designs we received from Brilliant have resonance mitigation built in?" Cobalt asked.
"They do," Antgineer replied sourly, "but they were designed for a system that is a million times smaller than this one. Forgive me if I'm not satisfied that they'll be sufficient."
"What does Brilliant say?"
The carver looked at the two of them as if they were insane.
"Nothing useful. What did you expect?"
Tungstant sighed. Brilliant, on some level, probably hoped the thing would explode. That'd be great data for her.
"What we are building here, and what Brilliant has used in the past, are so different in scale they may as well not be the same thing. It's like blocking a trickle of water with some dirt compared to a dam built across a mighty river. The idea is the same, stop the water from moving, but the methods required are totally different."
This wasn't what Tungstant and Cobalt wanted to hear, but they trusted Antgineer enough to know she wasn't saying anything uselessly.
"Let us help," Cobalt said. "We can assist in coming up with a working design."
The carver before them rubbed her antenna against her head and nodded.
"That'd be helpful. We think we're about ninety percent of the way there, but the last part is always the hardest."
-x-X-x-
A deluge of sludge blasts my way as the worm disgorges its vast, rotund belly of goop through its mouth. Dodging to the side isn't really an option, since I don't want the sludge to enter the safe-zone at all, so I return fire with… fire.
Dragon's fire!
When mucus and fire meet, it's never a good time for anyone–the sound alone is horrendous, and I won't even mention the smell–but thankfully I'm able to produce enough heat to burn away a good portion of the slime.
The worm itself isn't that hard to fight, it's more of a sludge delivery system than anything else. A few quick chomps and it gives up the ghost, but I don't have time to relax, there's more monsters right around the corner to deal with.
This time it's a horde of weird crab-looking things. Each one is disgusting in its own magical way, but for the most part, I would have to say that the dozens of eye stalks they each sport are the worst part. The little pinchers rush forward mindlessly, carpeting the tunnel in front of me. There must be thousands of the lousy things! Where did the Krath even find them?
Only two metres tall, they aren't very large, and probably aren't very evolved, but that doesn't mean they can't do damage, a theory that is proven correct almost immediately.
As soon as they're within range, the crabs raise up their claws and start shooting acid at me. From thousands of crabs, that equates to an awful lot of acid.
I spring to the side to avoid the bulk of the spray and then charge directly forward, letting the rest fall behind me as I shorten the distance. In an instant, I reach the first of the crabs and unleash a mighty Void Chomp right in their midst, annihilating a chunk of the acidic crustaceans.
Which of course was what the slugs wanted me to do all along. The moment they bite the dust, each of the crabs swells up and explodes, sending a shower of toxic goop flying into the air.
Because of course they did. I'm wise to the shenanigans of this place by now, and before any of it can reach me, an empowered gravity domain takes shape around me, yoinking all of the airborne sludge to the ground. I swear to goodness, the amount of putrescent slime being flung about by these monsters is expanding exponentially! The Krath clearly have a plan in mind that involves spreading foul mucus far and wide.
Well, it's not like it's a secret. There have been several attacks that managed to breach the wall of blue mana that protects the Colony, and I'm sure they learned what they were hoping to from those instances. Namely, what worked to consume as much blue mana as possible.
It's not a difficult concept: if they manage to deplete the mana that shields us, then we have to leave, or diminish our held territory. Needless to say, giving up territory is not an option. We've captured what we need to construct the fortress and not much more. There is no retreat!
Yet the Krath are working a surprisingly effective campaign of trying to consume as much of the purified mana as they can, pushing our wuffer platforms to the brink in order to force us back.
They're especially interested in this area, since it's where Goszi is being held prisoner. I don't know how the heck they managed to figure that out, but they have, it's the only thing that makes sense. We have whole teams of mages on constant alert to detect tunnelling around his prison, and the Krath are constantly trying to get in there.
Having their little cracks in the stone collapse on them has dissuaded the slugs from getting too close, but they keep trying.
I munch my way through the crabs, bemoaning the waste of Biomass and doing my best to make sure I don't get any goop on me. The healers are being more and more insistent that I take regular rests to ensure there's no buildup of contaminants anywhere in my system, but I'll have to wait twice as long if I get exposed to a significant source of infection.
Alright, the crustaceans have been dealt with. I let the domain drop and turn my attention back down the tunnel wondering what's coming next, only to be met with a wall of mucus oozing toward me.
Oh great, they're trying to flood the tunnel again.
I don't know where in the heck they're managing to find sao much of this goop, but they've sent waves of the stuff flowing down the tunnel around twice a day. Twice a day! What infinite lake of pus are they draining to send all of this our way?!
I turn and signal to the ants behind me, and they immediately start deploying the countermeasures the Colony cooked up over the last few days.
Chains spin, stone groans and the massive grates gradually pull open, revealing the redirection pipelines we constructed. It won't be able to take all of it away, but it will get a significant amount, letting it fall down the tubes and pile up below the fortress where we don't particularly care about it.
As for the rest… I sigh.
Time for more Dragon's Breath, I suppose.
-x-X-x-
I know I can't exactly get tired, due to my rather unique set of circumstances, but I am getting tired. The Krath have been working their slimy backsides off, being pests in all the ways they can. The Colony is still holding the line, but the number of monsters reaching the safe-zone is getting higher with every passing day.
With the building teams still working on the interior of the fortress, taking in thousands of tons of prepared materials from above and building everything just so, the outer layers of defence are still fairly minimal, leaving everything to Solant's rigorously trained battalions.
So far, it's been enough, but Tiny, Crinis, Invidia, myself and even Vibrant have been run off our feet plugging in the gaps and taking as much of the load off the ants as possible. Well, Invidia and Crinis don't have feet, but… you get the idea.
The healers have been forcing me to take mandatory rest and detoxification breaks, but even if I'm sitting around not doing anything, the flood of Will pouring in through the Vestibule fills my head with the noise of a hundred different battlefields. It's not easy to de-stress, is what I'm getting at. I need a real, actual nap, but there just isn't the time. If I'm not out there taking the heat off my siblings, then the number of ants being taken to the hospitals to be cleansed of toxic mana starts to skyrocket.
Right now, I'm sitting on my backside and trying to achieve a state of universal calm while a pack of irritated healers crawl over my carapace, poking and prodding at me. It's not working, but I'm giving it a go. According to the latest estimates, we're still almost two weeks away from being able to seal in the fortress and lock the slugs out for good, but with pressure from the Krath ramping up and the mana levels rising in the tunnels, it's going to be touch and go right down to the wire.
Which is why I'm so happy to see a semi-familiar face waddling over to me.
[Sarah!] I cry out happily. [I'm so glad you've come down to suffer alongside me!]
[Don't say it like that,] she replies with a bear laugh, [I might just turn around and go back to the fourth!]
The big bear has changed since the last time I saw her, now evolved to a mighty tier seven mythic monster, just like me. Whereas before she was a truck-sized rage-bear with a fearsome visage, she is now… more of that.
She's significantly bigger, to start with, larger even than I am. She upgraded from a large vehicle to a small building. This bear is hefty. Her shoulders and legs (arms?) are massive, absolutely packed with dense muscle, and I feel like she might even be stronger than Tiny. More than just her size, her entire appearance has become… even more sinister and dangerous-looking than before.
Her fur has become entirely black, except for numerous streaks of bright red that slash across her body and seem to softly pulse with an angry, magma-esque light. It's like she's pumping liquid rage through her body and it shines through those patches of fur in particular. I get the strong impression that she reset her eyes and teeth as well, because they look… unpleasant. I have no idea what those claws made of, but I sure as heck don't want to experience them. I guess the closest thing I can think of would be volcanic glass, but with that glowing rage-juice flowing through them. Her eyes blaze with unrestrained fury, like rubies made from crystalised anger.
All in all, she looks dangerous as heck.
[Nice to see you've taken on a much softer look,] I congratulate her.
She swipes at me with a claw in jest. I still dodge.
[Hey! You didn't need to move, I wasn't going to actually hit you,] she protests.
[Sarah, my carapace is formed from diamond compressed in the heart of a black hole and your claws still give me the heeby jeebies. Please tell me you didn't turn yourself into another Tiny and you spent some of your evolutionary energy in keeping yourself alive.]
[Of course I did,] she says, a little defensive. [My evolution was certainly more… offensively focused, but I made sure to cover up the holes in my defence using some of the suggestions Mr. Granin gave me.]
[Mister Granin? Don't let him hear you say that.]
She laughs.
[I won't.]
All in all, despite her savage appearance, I'm getting a positive sense from Sarah. It seems like she's in a good space, which makes it even more of a shame she's come down here to suffer and fight against the Krath.
[I assume the Colony is rigging you up some sort of armour or something?] I ask.
If they give her the same sort of thing that the Immortals have, then she'll become an absolute terror beyond the safe-zone–for small bursts of time, of course.
[Yep. I'm supposed to head over there to get it all fitted, but I'd thought I'd drop in and say hello first.]
[Very kind of you,] I say, dipping my antennae in acknowledgement. Then I look around. [That weirdo didn't join you down here? I'm surprised. He's been keen to hang around you for whatever reason.]
[You mean Odin? He just needs some company. It's hard to adjust to living here in Pangera, being a monster and all that.]
[Uh… not really? I guess you weren't reborn as an ant, so I see how it might have been harder.]
At that moment, I see a lethal-looking form creep around from behind Sarah. Not really a demon, this thing looks more like a knife attached to some other knives then blended with a shadow. Creepy!
[Hey, Odin… I assume that's you.]
[Sarah relayed some of your conversation to me,] he says, stalking forward until he's right in front of me, staring me right in the eyes.
Well, one eye, I'm too big for him to get to both of them.
[She's perfect!] he insists, eyes bulging as he holds my gaze. [A flawless engine of death and destruction!]
This guy…
-x-X-x-
Sarah wanders off to get armoured up, as does Odin, the weirdo. Fully suited up, the truly enormous bear is even more deadly-looking than before, which is hard to believe. The specially crafted gear will enable her to operate out in the toxic zone for half an hour at a time, which isn't half bad.
[Any advice for me?] she asks, sounding a little nervous.
I can't blame her; the fifth has a reputation for being unrelentingly awful, and it's hard to grasp just how terrible it is without seeing it for yourself.
[Be careful. Very careful. The Krath are clever, they strike from the shadows, from camouflaged positions in the moss and beneath puddles of mucus. They can squish themselves into tiny gaps to attack and then flee into the rock before you can get to them. They'll be looking to try and capture you if they can, but they'll also try and harm you in a bunch of different ways to see what works. Expect acid, clouds of toxic gas, parasites that will try to dig into your body, venom, mental assaults… uh what else….
[They used a nearly invisible sentient cloud of spores on me once, tried to get in my mouth and burn me from the inside out, watch out for that one. There was another time when they tried to paralyse me with these little rock eels. Little critters burrowed through the ground, then launched themselves up at me. They had these needle-pointed noses that were crazy sharp. Didn't make it through my carapace, but you'll be more vulnerable to that than me.]
By this stage, Sarah has lost a significant portion of her previous cheer. She's starting to look a little wild around the eyes as my list goes on.
[Is that all?] she asks.
[Not even remotely. That was yesterday.]
[I'm not sure I can do this….]
[You'll be fine. Talk to the generals in the tunnels you go to, they'll give you good advice. Have a word with the medical team on things you need to look out for, they've been treating all the ants, so they'll know what's causing the most problems. Other than that, just be careful. Remember that nearly every monster will pop or release deadly parasites after you destroy them, so get out of the way after you bite something.]
[It sounds disgusting.]
[It is,] I assure her. [But you're doing something amazing for the family. We really appreciate it. Everyone in the Colony is happy to have you for a sister.]
[Sh-be quiet!] She snaps, embarrassed. [I'm just here to help out a little. It's not that impressive. Alright, off I go. Wish me luck!]
[Good luck!]
She turns around and waddles off, a giant amongst the smaller ants. As she moves, Odin is revealed, standing behind her and staring at me.
[Perfection,] he whispers in my mind.
He's been armoured up a little. I guess he's also going to go out and fight? He's like an assassin demon or whatever, so I suppose that makes sense. I just wish he wasn't such a weirdo. I wave him away with a flippy motion of my antenna and then contemplate for a moment.
What to do now? Sarah is going to head to my old area to cover the severe attacks we've been getting there, so I'm actually free to do something else for a change. I suppose I'll go and visit my friends! Been a while since I checked in on them. They're all taking a break at the moment, so I may as well head on over and say hello.
I mean, I can talk to them whenever I want, but it always feels nicer to speak face to face, even if we are using mental communication.
I find the trio of tier seven monsters relaxing and chatting together in a narrow little corner, out of the way of the main traffic and activity of the fortress.
[Master!] Crinis yells, bounding over the ground like an inky black tidal wave before glomping onto my carapace.
[Hey there, Crinis! I missed you too. Tiny, Invidia! How are things?]
Predictably, Tiny gives me a seated thumbs up with one arm, and a powerful flex with the other. Invidia is also sitting on the ground, which is unusual. Normally he'd be sitting up on Tiny's shoulder or fluttering in the air, but for once he's actually on the ground, his little arms resting on the rock floor and preventing him from just rolling away. �
[Hey, Invidia, I almost missed you down there.]
The eyeball nods and his little wings flutter a bit as he gives himself a little lift until he's up on his palms.
[It issss nice to sssseeeee you,] he says. [I hopessss you havesss been well.]
How nice of him to ask after me! Man, Invidia is such a good demon.
[I'm good! Thanks for asking.]
I settle in to talk to them, and they're full of stories. Just like my areas of the fortress have been crazy and active, so have theirs, and it sounds like there has been plenty of hijinks for them to worry about. Luckily nobody has been hurt and no ants have been abducted after the first, so it's all come out well.
[You must have been massing up some good levels at least,] I tell them. [Has the time finally come for you to catch up to me in level?]
[I doubt that, Master,] Crinis says. [You've been fighting more than any of us, and you've taken on many strong monsters. You'll be ready for the next tier soon.]
[That can't be right,] I say, thinking to myself. [I didn't evolve that long ago.]
Idly, I flip up my status and start poking at it. I mean, I've been fighting a lot, especially recently, and the monsters in the fifth have been pretty strong. I suppose I must have racked up a few levels, but there's such a long way to go until my next evolution….
Wait. I have over a hundred and fifty levels?!