It's a little sad, but obviously Tiny and the gang can't come with me once I go back out into the tunnels. Tiny and Invidia are both happy to be deployed to one of the deeper fortresses and help fend off the Krath who have been launching raids there, but Crinis is a little harder to convince.
[Master, noooooooo!] she sobs.
[Really, Crinis. This is a bit much, even for you.]
[You're going to get lost, or captured, or vanish into a mysterious void! Let me go too!]
[That's… probably not going to happen! I'll be careful. Get off my carapace, dammit!]
[Never!]
I'm trying to scoop her off with my antennae, but she either clings on tighter or just flows around them, not letting me get a grip. As a result, the surrounding ants are treated to the sight of me rolling around trying to get my uncooperative death shadow of doom off my back.
Eventually, I have to give up and issue an order.
[I blame you entirely,] I tell a still-writhing Crinis as she blobs on the ground, trying to fling her tentacles onto me but unable to due to the order. [If you just cooperated, we wouldn't be in this position.]
[I can keep you safe!] she protests.
[No you can't and you dang well know so,] I snap back. [You're being ridiculous. Solant has already told you what you can do to help, so go and get to it.]
It takes another ten minutes to get Crinis moving, and only then can I finally head back out to the edges of the Colony's new territory, which means moving through the tunnels that have returned to their original form!
I'm quite excited to see what the fifth was originally like and it doesn't disappoint! The natural mana must be some variety of bio-mana or something, because it's clearly a fleshy, organic environment, and the monsters seem to fit that theme perfectly.
Many of them remind me of cells, while others resemble tissues, formed of multiple cells in a sort of cooperative group. Nearly all of them are some variety of fleshy, gloopy, organic-looking entities, though. At least none of them are all that strong, having largely been spawned rather recently.
With several guides, I run through the tunnels, smashing through the occasional monster who sees fit to challenge me, but for the most part they shy away when I draw near, making for a safe and swift run.
Even so, it takes a long time to reach our destination. The Colony has expanded its reach through thousands of kilometres of the fifth. Were it flattened out onto a map, it would be the size of a small country at this point. Running to the edge of it is quite the journey. Thankfully, Colony engineers have been hard at work creating express tunnels so I'm not running up and around all sorts of twisty paths, which helps a lot.
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In the end, I reach the border in a day, completely free of fatigue thanks to the still-enormous number of ants within range of the Vestibule.
Also, I seem to be getting some sort of energy out of the Beyn statue in there.
Which I won't be thinking about.
"Ugh, I didn't miss this."
Looking out through the edge of the cleansed zone and into the disgusting mess that is the infected fifth, my feelings of revulsion are hard to put down. Considering the battle I had to endure against the toxins of Theorrazn, I'm not especially keen to go through it again, even in a mild way. After travelling through the cleansed area for so long, I was starting to hope this mess didn't actually exist anymore and Solant was just playing a prank on me, but no, it's still here, in all its mucusy glory.
In fact, this section of the Dungeon is particularly dangerous, because not too far away there's a Krath outpost with several thousand of the slugs stationed in the area. All sorts of nasty traps and shenanigans have no doubt been prepared in order to stop the Colony from expanding further, and it's my job to get rid of all of them.
To mess with those danged slugs, there is very little I won't put up with.
Bravely, I extend my leg out into the corruption, put it down into the sludge, then step through.
The first and most relieving thing I notice is that my eyes don't melt anymore. Hah! Flesh is inferior, diamonds are forever! My precious gem-eyes are holding up much better against the corroding effect of the mana here, which means I'm not in a constant state of near blindness.
Victory!
Not that it's pleasant to be out here, it still sucks. The hairs on my antennae and legs are almost immediately burned off and I'm assailed on all sides by the poison and toxin. It hurts like heck, but I can put up with it. My mind constructs spin up, getting ready to put in some overtime, making sure that the infecting energy doesn't get into my body and start spreading.
That's the real danger. Getting eaten from the inside out by corruption is way less fun than it sounds. And it doesn't sound fun.
After acclimating myself for a few minutes, I steady myself, then take a few steps forward. Time to get moving.
Then I stop.
Something strange is happening. Using my considerable powers of the mind, I narrow my focus and turn it inward, examining every little wisp of mana within my rather large frame.
Increasing the surface area hasn't made it easier to keep the infection out, one way my larger body is at a distinct disadvantage out here. Even with all my effort, a few stray bits of corrupted mana are sneaking into my body, and that's pretty much inevitable.
Before, I would have several mind constructs on the lookout for things like this. Once these little bits of mana managed to grow themselves, they'd eventually get spotted and then crushed. An endless cycle.
However, something different is happening now.
The little wisps aren't getting the chance to grow themselves, they're being sucked away, into the Pure Core, and then… annihilated. Straight up cooked.
Curious, I let my control slip a little bit, allowing some more mana to get inside me, and I watch as it too is drained away, pulled into the core and completely destroyed.
I figured it would do something like this, but holy moly! How effective is this thing?!
-x-X-x-
It became increasingly obvious to Colony scholars and researchers that the fifth, that is to say, the natural state of the fifth before its corruption, was quite unlike anything that we had seen before.
Hardly a novel observation, each layer of the Dungeon differs remarkably from the others, yet what was discovered defied any guesses or predictions as to what was to be expected from a layer of the Dungeon.
It is no secret that mana can become organic tissue. That is how monsters are created, or 'spawned' after all. Yet it seemed as if the fifth stratum was originally filled with this form of 'organic' or 'bio' mana. A form of energy that, unlike Life-aligned mana, didn't nourish or enhance living tissue, but became it.
No stratum was more susceptible to the corruption of Theorazzn. The Ancient was able to infect and distort the very structure of it the same way they would any other living tissue.
As it slowly began to return to its original form, the true wonders of what had been lost to Pangera were gradually uncovered, one by one.
- Excerpt from 'Into the Unknown' by Historiant
Pure Core, takes in corruption and gives it the smoke, that's the basic premise of the thing, but I had no idea how effective the thing was going to be. For that reason, I haven't mutated it at all, hoping to get a read on the baseline performance. If it was rubbish, it may not have been worth mutating at all, trying to push it in another direction may have been the best call.
However, that doesn't seem to be the case here.
Gradually and with extremely rigid mental control, I loosen my grip on the mana invading my carapace, allowing it to flow just a smidge more freely. As the amount of tainted mana flowing into me increases in tiny increments, I monitor the Pure Core. If it heats up and stops working like the Everflowing Well does, then I really want to know well in advance. Things would go… rather poorly for me if I was left with a huge chunk of corruption inside me mid-fight or something.
However, the core seems to just… keep on keeping on. It sucks in tainted energy and just seems to murderise the stuff. As far as the amount it can handle is concerned… not bad. After gradually increasing the rate of exposure, it doesn't take too long to find the limit of the Pure Core. To be honest, it's more than I expected, a rather healthy amount for a completely un-mutated organ.
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It's enough to make a significant material difference to the allotment of my mental resources. With less of my mind constructs devoted to scouring my internals for trace elements of corruption, I can use them for regular spellcasting and mana manipulation. All in all, the Pure Core has freed up roughly ten percent of my mind constructs, which is absolutely massive.
Hunting down those stray traces of tainted mana is way more tiring and resource-intensive than I care to admit. Not having to worry about it as much is a weight off of my minds.
Revelling in the relative ease I can deal with the corrupting mana of the fifth, I begin to leisurely wander about, clacking my mandibles with glee as I go where I will without fear. Oh, a puddle of evil-looking slime! Hah! I laugh in the face of the evil-looking slime! Look at me poke with one leg! Oh no, the corruption has seeped into my leg! Aaaaand it's gone.
Gweheheheheheh!
I wonder how well the core will do when I upgrade it to +15? Since I already have the Biomass, I decide to go ahead and do it before I get too far from the safe-zone.
As always, there's a plethora of options to upgrade the thing, but I'm only really interested in improving its core function right now. Make it better at purifying mana!
Which means I end up with the Concentrated Pure Core +15.
Confirm that!
Fortunately there aren't any ants here on the very border to see my embarrassing flailing. The core itself is rather small and hardly as itchy as something like my carapace, muscles or eyes mutating, but it's right in the middle of my guts! It's awful!
Once the mutation process is complete, I wander over to the pool of evil slime and stick my leg in again, carefully monitoring the trail of corruption as it enters my system.
As before, the Pure Core soaks it in before taking it out back and making it disappear. Judging by the speed of destruction, it's probably improved by another thirty percent or so? Very nice.
The slugs have absolutely no idea what's coming their way. Not having to worry nearly as much about the tainted mana of the fifth means I can fight them so much easier than I could before. This is going to be fantastic!
My heart is so light I start springing about the place like an ant less than a tenth of my size. Hopping here and there without a care in the world.
Toxic fungal bloom? Who cares? Lurid mucus leaking from the ceiling and dripping onto me? Not a problem!
River of sludge moving oh so slowly through the middle of the tunnel? Well I might dip in a leg, test the temperature! Why not?
Oh, it's highly acidic, that's why not. Ouch!
Giving my leg a little shake, I decide to rein it in a little bit. Just because I'm safer than before doesn't mean I'm safe. I'd better make sure I show the proper respect to the fifth as I continue.
Even so, it's hard to keep that little bit of a spring out of my step as I make my way deeper into the tunnel.
-x-X-x-
According to the information I have, the Krath outpost is out here, somewhere. Well, Solant was able to give me a little more than that, but pinning the slugs down has never been an easy job. Doubly so when our scouts aren't able to safely leave the purified mana zone.
The Colony is still working under a state of complete and total operational security. A single ant being captured is a disaster that demands a total and unrestrained response. I know that it's happened a few times, the Krath are cunning, slippery sods after all, and the Colony was forced into extraordinary measures to recover the captive before they were turned.
Good planning, risk minimisation, and a laundry list of backup plans have prevented the slugs from getting to us so far, but it means that our knowledge of goings-on beyond our territory is thin at best.
Of course, my siblings, cunning little sods, have found other ways to gather information. Cultivating pets from fifth stratum monsters is… difficult to say the least, but they are incredibly valuable to have. Apparently, a mini-war has broken out between the Colony and Krath in the form of pest control, with the slugs desperate to find and annihilate any and all pets that the Colony manages to create. On the other hand, the core shapers, with the help of Formo, are racing to innovate, improve, mutate and evolve their pets and keep ahead of the Krath trying to hunt them down. I would have loved to talk to the old sophos but Solant was really pushy once I came back down. Hopefully soon.
Thanks to the Pure Core, I'm able to dedicate way more of my minds to searching and scouting, reading the mana and taking in the lay of the land around me. It's hard to do in the fifth, given that nothing, not even mana sense, is immune from the degrading effect of the stratum. Beyond a certain point, my senses just grow fuzzy, as if the information is being chopped up by interference.
Thankfully, that isn't the sense that I'm using to hunt for Krath.
I pick my way through the tunnels carefully. One downside to being this large is that it's a little bit more difficult to avoid the most disgusting obstructions. Every now and again I'm forced to push through something that looks like it just came out of a diseased nose, and I'm less than happy about it. I burn myself clean a few times, but I'm trying not to get too fire-happy and alert the Krath to my presence.
A futile effort, most likely. They probably spotted me the second I came out of the blue mana.
Well, it's fine.
Antennae swaying, I read carefully, trying to discern the finest and most tremulous of senses that I have. Krath, after all, don't have much in the way of a gravitational field.
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I would say the average Krath has less mass than an average human, even if the very largest slugs have significantly more. Squished down and unmoving, it's extremely difficult to pick out the buggers even if I know for a fact they're present. Thankfully, they have no idea how I'm able to find them and can't defend against it.
Which is exactly how I find my first slug. It's a sneaky little thing. The slightest little quivering of the gravitational waves is the only clue I get, but I home in on it, not wanting to overlook even the smallest clue. On closer examination, there's definitely something there, so I look a little closer, without being obvious about it.
When I see nothing with my eyes or any other sense, I get a little more interested. If it were a monster, I would probably see it at the very least. Perhaps I would sense its core. But no, nothing.
That alone doesn't mean there's a Krath here. This is the fifth! Monsters here are sneaky, cunning, conniving things. I certainly wouldn't want to be caught by anything that lives here. Again, I inspect, I sense, I waggle my antennae, use my minds and eyes to confirm as best I can.
That's when it twitches.
Aha! Getting a little nervous, little Krath? Now that I'm here, so close, you're finding it difficult to hold your nerve and remain still? Well, too bad! That tiny hint of movement might have been nothing in the grand scheme of things, a brief flexing of a pinky toe, comparatively, but it was enough.
I see you.
Flattened out to an incredibly thin layer, the slug has mottled its skin to blend in with the mould around it masterfully. Being honest, it's basically totally invisible. If I didn't know exactly where to look thanks to the gravity waves, then I would never, not in a million years, see the dang thing.
You have been betrayed by your own mass, slug.
However, finding just the one slug is not the name of the game. Gradually, I extend my senses, spreading outward, reading the waves, the mana, everything. Mostly, what I'm looking for are other Krath, but also cracks and sneaky little passages in the rock. It is tough to find them, but they too create disturbances in the gravitational field from the otherwise unbroken stone.
After a while, I give up. I'm not getting anything. Looks like there's just a lone scout, hanging out on the wall.
Well, I better deal with it, can't have it running back and reporting what it saw, after all.
Deciding to be supremely unsubtle about it, I just reach out with an antenna and poke it. It's decidedly more squishy than a wall should be, so it's obvious that I've found the poor slug.
Yet, it doesn't move.
So I poke it again.
That's when the slug whips around, inflating rapidly before vomiting a stream of radioactive-looking slime, straight at my antennae.
Hah! Saw that coming!
My antenna is well out of the way before the stream has a chance to hit it, leaving the slug looking up at me. Predictably, it explodes itself rather than get caught.
Well, on to the next.
-x-X-x-
"We're under attack!"
"Impossible!"
"The walls are cracking, you fool!"
Zullz wanted nothing more than to consume the idiot he'd been put on watch with, but clearly this wasn't the time to indulge in a fortifying snack.
He had no idea what was occupying the scouts so much that they hadn't bothered to report an assault approaching the Slimeground, but he hoped they were dead for it.
"Wait here and see if you can see what's happening," he snapped to his moronic associate, "I'll go and report to Sluthziss."
But, as Zullz went to turn, he realised his counterpart was already a dozen metres up the tunnel.
"I'll do it!" he called back as he vanished into the darkness.
Zullz cursed and spat hot, boiling acid onto the nearby rock.
"Smart enough when he wants to be," he gurgled furiously. Now he was certain, when he got back to the Slimeground, he was going to eat that fool and he didn't care if he got reprimanded for it.
Once more the walls shook, threatening to dislodge Zullz from his position. He tightened the grip of his foot on the wall and tried to assess. Something rather large was ripping through the stone, and probably bashing into it to help loosen it. Could it be a random monster from the tunnels? If they caught a whiff of the Krath, some monsters would try to break into a Slimeground to try and feast on the slugs within.
However, such creatures were usually diverted long before they came close to a Krath settlement. It was unthinkable that the scouts would be so lax in their duties they would endanger their safe haven from the tunnels. Had the ants invaded and destroyed the scouts? All of them?
That didn't make sense either!
Fangs clenched, anger boiling away inside him, Zullz decided he had no choice but to investigate. Staying put could put him in danger, while reporting back to the Krath'sizz without anything to say was a certain death sentence.
An experienced slug, he took the proper precautions, flattening out his body and camouflaging his skin, shrinking in and disguising the mana he contained. Only when he was certain he was completely hidden did the slug begin to descend the entrance to the Slimeground.
A winding passage designed to trap even the slightest trace of scent escaping, the entrance was designed to prevent exactly this sort of thing from happening. Zullz had to be careful, since the rock around him began to crack and break faster and faster the farther he travelled.
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Finally, a section just below him fell away, revealing the extent of the damage. Whatever was doing this, it had reached halfway to the Slimeground already!
Something monstrously large reached up, horrific jaws scything through the rock with contemptuous ease mere metres in front of Zullz's face. Resisting the urge to exclaim in shock, he backed up the passage rapidly, trying to get a better look at whatever this was.
A monster of some sort, obviously, but what? It didn't look like anything he'd ever seen before, but that didn't make sense, he knew every monster that inhabited these tunnels. Was this an invader from a lower stratum? Surely not, there wasn't a wave!
Again, the jaws cut through the stone, snapping through it as though it were soft fungus, forcing Zullz back. Then there was a pause. Concerned, he retreated a little further.
Just in time.
A colossal figure flashed into view and slammed against the wall with incredible force. The vibrations were so strong he was almost knocked straight off the wall, only holding his grip by a hair.
The culprit was only in view for a brief moment, but that was enough for Zullz to identify the invader.
An ant!
Not just any ant, the biggest ant he had ever seen!
Having what he needed, the Krath wasted no time turning around and retreating as fast as he possibly could. An ant assault? Here? It didn't make any sense, how were they surviving inside the fifth, so far from their cursed blue mana?
Pushing his foot to its limits, he raced as fast as he could through the winding, narrow passage, little more than a crack, until he reached the Slimeground.
A force had already been gathered, and the Krath'sizz, Suzzil, was waiting at their head. A massive female with a short temper, even for a Krath, she wasn't the type Zullz wanted to deliver bad news to, but he didn't have much of a choice.
"It's the ants!" he gurbled after he squeezed through the entrance and unflattened himself. "A giant… a giant ant is ripping through the entrance. It knows we're here!"
"That shouldn't be possible," Suzzil spat, her eyes narrowing atop their stalks as she considered Zullz, trying to recover on the ground. "Did you see it for yourself?"
He knew he was right to trust his instincts.
"I did!" he confirmed. "A giant ant, enormous, possibly tier seven or eight, cutting through the rock and smashing its way towards us."
"Just one?"
"Just one might be enough," he said, then immediately regretted it when the Krath'sizz glared at him, her rage igniting.
"Do you believe we can't defeat a single ant?" she ground out, her skin beginning to bubble and hiss as her acid began to boil.
"O-of course we can," Zullz assured her, "how could we not? But there may be more, I only saw the one."
This may have been a newly established outpost, but it was filled with warriors. So far they'd been successful in preventing the ants' attempts to spread their territory and had launched frequent raids towards the occupied tunnels. It wasn't unreasonable for the Krath'sizz to have confidence.
She watched him for a long moment, but the growing vibrations told of just how close the ant was getting.
"Prepare to defend the Slimeground," she snapped.
-x-X-x-
It was only ten minutes later when the ant finally broke through. Tons of rock fell away at once, a deafening collapse that sent dust and fungal spores billowing upward.
Zullz tensed, expecting a horde of menacing insects to burst through the gap, but instead, there was nothing.
Nothing, until a gigantic ant head poked through the gap. With gleaming jewels for eyes, the insect was covered in what appeared to be brilliantly faceted, purple diamond. Long, savage mandibles extended from its head while its antennae, tipped with some sort of crystal fibre, swung through the air.
For a moment, the Krath'sizz was stunned into stillness, as were the rest of the Krath. Zullz edged backwards, just a hair.
"Now!" Suzzil roared.
They were supposed to wait for the ant horde to materialise before springing the trap, but it appeared their leader was intimidated enough to call it already.
Zulls took no pleasure in being vindicated.
Before the ant could so much as twitch, cunningly concealed mechanisms over its head fell open, unleashing a deluge of lurid green mucus. Enriched with the most potent of goo-spores, this was amongst the most deadly forms of mucus the Krath could create in any sort of volume.
Seeing it coming, the ant did something Zulls did not expect. Rather than retreat and attempt to escape the toxic mess, it merely climbed up, as if ignoring the mucus entirely.
In an instant it was covered in the stuff. A horrific sizzling, so loud as to overwhelm any other sound, filled the air. Acrid clouds of intense steam billowed upwards as the acid ate through the creature's carapace and attacked its joints.
"Hah!" Suzzil gurgled with satisfaction, yet Zullz didn't feel quite so confident.
Why wouldn't it try to dodge?
He got his answer a moment later. A massive insect leg extended out of the goop, followed by another. Soon, the body of the monster came into view, dripping lurid slime and smoking as if it were on fire.
As if mocking them, the creature slammed its mandibles together in a staccato rhythm.
Then it unleashed fire.
"Attack!" roared the Krath'sizz. "Bury it in acid, it's already wounded!"
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Each of the Krath warriors obeyed, launching their most powerful acid, drawing on the potent slime they cultivated within themselves. The temperature of the chamber skyrocketed as searing hot fire blasted out from the ant, burning away the thick mucus that covered the walls, even turning the flame on itself to cleanse it of the acidic gunk.
Zullz could see sections of its carapace had become dull and pitted, eaten away by the trap, and did his best to aim for those openings, assuming the others saw what he saw. It didn't seem to matter. The ant paid them no attention as it stomped forward, a searing jet of roaring flame bursting forth from between its mandibles.
This was no ordinary flame. Every time Zullz expected the heat to stop rising, it simply kept going, to the point his own skin began to dry out.
"Spread out!" Suzzil roared, trying to control the battlefield. "Don't let it get close to you!"
At this rate, it wouldn't need to, the Krath would simply be cooked within their own Slimeground, but Zullz didn't need to be told twice. As the monster advanced, the slugs fell back, surrounding the monster and continuing to assault it with a constant stream of their deadly magic and acid.
Not that the ant seemed to care at all.
Finally, finally, the fire was cut off and Zluth felt a brief moment of relief. Sadly, it didn't last for long.
Swinging its head, the ant seemed to watch all of them at once while the Krath scrambled away from it, desperate to avoid those savage jaws.
Yet the ant didn't try to bite them. It didn't have to.
Mana pulsed, light flashed, then a sphere of deep purple energy expanded outwards with the ant monster in its centre. It was so fast Zulls didn't have a chance to escape before it enveloped him, and so dark it seemed to suck the light from his eyes.
Weight. Terrible, oppressive, crushing weight bore down on him. Immediately, he was unable to maintain his upright form. The bile he had brought up choked and sizzled in his throat as he was no longer able to force it out. Against that inexorable force, he wasn't even able to keep his normal shape, flattening out against his will as the weight pressed and pressed and pressed.
He was able to move, but only barely, sliding at a glacial pace as he tried to escape from the domain the ant had created. It was no use. Even if he couldn't see it, because he couldn't extend his eyestalks, he could feel the monster stomping towards them.
What was this thing? A secret weapon that the ants had developed to wield against them? Was it immune, or resistant to the corruption of the fifth? That was absurd, nothing was!
And yet….
Fury and despair battled within Zullz, neither winning out. There was no escape, he knew that. Gritting his teeth, he tried to extend a hand so he could drive it into himself and rupture his acid gland.
A mind forced itself on him.
[Oh, no. None of that. I've been asked to bring in a few prisoners and you seem like a decent sort of slug.]
The ant spoke to him conversationally, no malice or anger in its tone. It truly had been playing with them. It looked around.
[A few more to hunt down, I see. I'll be back, don't go anywhere.]
It snickered at him. Snickered!
Zullz wondered what they could possibly do against a creature such as this.
-x-X-x-
Pangera is a large planet. Considering the vast bulk of its interior is a mishmash of tunnels, open caverns and even enormous, underground plains that stretch for thousands of kilometres, its size truly boggles the mind. There is nobody who can claim to have seen it all, not even the lived races have enough time to travel through each and every part of every stratum.
Not even counting the places they simply can't go, due to the danger, or the inhospitable nature of the environment.
Putting all else aside and imagining that there were no monsters, no dangerous environments, even then, large swathes of the world would still be inaccessible.
Theorists have long calculated that the mana density would eventually become so potent that no mortal race, not even the most magical, could possibly hope to survive there.
- Excerpt from 'Depths of Dispair' by Magio Scholar Exun
Allowing myself to be completely drenched in hyper-potent acidic mucus may not have been the wisest decision I ever made, but it worked out in the end. Thankfully, my carapace is extraordinarily thick and the healing network kicked in once the Krath started attacking me. With a few hundred of them throwing acid at me, the healing fluid ramped up rather quickly.
I guess I allowed myself to grow a little too overconfident in my capacity to defeat the mana corruption, to the point that I didn't properly account for the very real and painful danger of being engulfed in acid. Of course, the Pure Core did a wonderful job of soaking up the stray mana that permeated my body, top marks for that, but sheesh, I could have done without the slime-bath.
With most of the Krath dealt with, I make sure my captives are properly flattened and unable to move so much as a finger before I wander through the sections of the cavern large enough to accommodate me. There isn't much, to be honest. Solant believed that these forward outposts were recently built by the Krath rather than long-standing tribe hideouts. Most of the tunnels are narrow and cramped, with the living spaces resembling something the Colony would opt to sleep in. I can't imagine being packed in that tightly did much for the famous slug tempers.
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Oh, actually, looking closer, it seems as though each slug had its own little hole to sleep in. Maybe that helped?
I'm a bit disappointed to see that there isn't an egg clutch to be found. Since this area is going to be flooded soon, we would have wound up with some more chal. I like those little snails, they seem fun, and the more the merrier, as they say. Well, nothing for it.
It's a little tricky to transport the slugs back towards the safe-zone. I have to move them in a way that doesn't give them an opportunity to pop themselves like resentful balloons. Obviously I can't just mush them into the ground, it's not all that cohesive with the whole 'moving' them thing. Ultimately, I need to flex my brains a bit and use a gravity well to float them while also stretching them outwards at the same time.
It's not easy, but it works a treat once I get the hang of it.
With a handful of Krath floating along behind me, I turn my back on the ruins of the former slug outpost and start to head back to the safe-zone.
I have one more job to do while I'm out here and that's to reshape the tunnels to undo the work the slugs have done. It takes quite a while for me to poke around and find all the shenanigans they got up to. Hidden reservoirs of mucus, stealthy little drainage holes, porous walls and all sorts of nonsense. On top of the less obvious stuff, they had also just straight up blocked off tunnels, cut massive holes in the floor of others and opened up vast chambers to hold the liquid mana and burn it off using what appeared to be specially engineered pets.
The monsters didn't seem to be able to take in and convert the purified energy, but just spit out vast amounts of highly concentrated goop. Unable to move on their own, without any sort of limbs, or even senses to speak of, I can't imagine these creatures would be able to survive without the Krath babysitting them.
Looking like a pile of soggy gym-clothes, the monsters only possessed two orifices, one for eating, and another for… excreting ooze.
Well, that was one way to fight back, I suppose.
With all of the paths restored and the sneaky openings covered over, I'm able to make my merry way back to the safe-zone with my captives in tow. A quick and successful outing, if I do say so myself. I'd kind of assumed things would be tougher, but my evolution is once again paying dividends beyond my wildest dreams.
The fifth? It's a cakewalk! Gweheheheheh!
I have three other outposts to deal with before I can head down into the depths and deal the final blow to the Krath tribes. Oh, I can hardly wait.
-x-X-x-
Solant sipped her tea, then turned her head and nibbled on her biscuit. The taste was just how she liked it, with a hint of citrus and a pleasant, not overpowering sweetness that sent a quiver running through her antennae. Of course, it went without saying that the tea was delicious. Strong, earthy notes that gave way to a subtle blend of flavour on the palate. Solant had lately preferred to take her tea without milk, preferring the more potent taste, though sugar, of course, was a necessity.
Thanks to the ever-growing supply lines connecting the fifth to the world above and the Colony's ever-growing farming capacity, tea and sugar were no longer the rare commodities at this depth that they had been before. Clacking her mandibles with satisfaction, the little general leaned back and allowed herself to enjoy the moment.
"You look relaxed," Leonidant observed from nearby.
"I am always relaxed," Solant replied coolly.
Her sister waggled her antennae in derision.
"Oh sure. Others might not be able to tell, but we can. You've been stressed out of your mind waiting for the Eldest to return and we all know it. Why else do you think we've been working this hard?"
It was true. Although she may be excellent at concealing her emotions from most ants, her nineteen closest siblings, those who hatched alongside her, seemed to see through her mask no matter how well she fashioned it.
"Because I asked you to?"
"We've been going above and beyond what you asked of us and you are well aware of it."
This was also true.
"Well, the Eldest is back now," Solant noted. "So our situation is a little less dire than it was before."
"That's one way of putting it," Leonidant said.
They both had seen the updated map in the morning. It wasn't a huge visual change, but what it signified was tremendous. It had only been a week since she had tasked the Eldest with destroying the four outposts that locked the Colony in.
Truth be told, the bulk of the Eldest's time had been taken up with travel. Moving around the four different sides of the captured territory was a significant distance, after all. Once arriving at the front, the Eldest had generally annihilated the Krath, captured some of them, then undone their modifications to the tunnels in less than a day.
She didn't know just what had happened during the last evolution, but clearly it had helped their strongest ant adapt to the environment of the fifth. Having smashed the obstructions that had thwarted her for months, they were now heading down to the depths to attack the blockade there.
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"Do you think the Eldest understands how dire our situation really was?"
"Probably," Solant said, taking another sip of her tea. "It is always difficult to figure out just how much our senior really knows. They are… unpredictable."
"That's one way of putting it. I still don't understand what happened in our Tunnel Ball game."
Solant grew still, the air around her growing tense. She did not like to be reminded of her defeat.
"Regardless of… that. I'm sure the Eldest, to some extent, realised how dangerous things had become. Unable to expand our territory, the Krath were massing on our borders, ratcheting up the pressure. It was only a matter of time before they found a crack in our armour."
"You planned for everything," Leonidant pushed back. "Is there even a crack to find?"
"Nobody can plan for everything," Solant refuted. "Not even me. If I truly believed that our defenses were impregnable, would we have worked so hard to ensure they wouldn't need to be tested?"
Core to Solant's strategy was the constant outward expansion of the Colony's territory. If the Krath had enough time, they would find ways to counter the cleansed mana; corruption was their strongest power, after all, the thing they understood the best. To prevent that from happening, she had to continue to push, to drive them back, not give them time to solidify their lines.
While her Senior slept, evolving, she had done her best to manage without them, to maintain her strategy and drive progress forward. Massive gains had been made in that time, but always slowing down, proportionally speaking. It had been a delicate dance that she had engaged in against the Krath. They couldn't reach into the safe-zone and hurt the ants, but neither could the ants reach into the corruption and harm the slugs.
So they raced, raced to see who would solve the deadlock first. Solant had the lead on that point now, but the slugs wouldn't give up, not until the very end. That was one of the reasons she had asked for captives. It was unlikely any would cooperate, but if she could discover just what the slugs were working on, she could sprint ahead of them once more.
"The next wave of expansion is scheduled to take place in two days," Leonidant said, as if Solant didn't already know. "How far do you intend to push?"
"Just enough to keep them retreating," she said. "Our main focus has to be elsewhere."
"Oh?" said Leonidant, surprised. "Why is that?"
"Because the focus of our enemies is elsewhere."
Down in the depths, that was where the vast bulk of the slug tribe resistance had gathered. The Krath didn't want them to get any deeper, and she wanted to know why.
"We need to break through to the sixth," she said, "as soon as possible. Once a bridge to the new world has been established, the Colony will have all the power in the world. Every kingdom, empire and city will be desperate for access. That's our reinforcements. If we can influence enough of them to launch their own campaigns into the fifth, the Krath will have too many fronts to fight on, unable to focus on us. Once that happens, we win.'
"And what about Merchant? I heard she was going to be here tomorrow?"
Solant nibbled on her biscuit once more.
"I don't see how she can help, given what I know, but the Eldest insisted. I'll indulge her for a while."
-x-X-x-
Merchant hadn't been to the fifth before, but so far she didn't see what all the fuss was about. Not that she was likely to ever go anywhere near the frontlines, her battlefield and that of her siblings were not remotely similar. Of course, she had the utmost respect for the sacrifices and suffering of the soldiers, generals, and the rest who fought so hard for the family, but that type of conflict simply wasn't interesting to her.
Besides, she could bring the firepower of ten thousand soldiers to the battlefield in the form of cores and other materials. The value of her work was simply that high, and she was well aware of it.
"I'm glad you were able to pay us a visit," the ant before her said coolly.
Someone Merchant had heard a lot about, but had never had the opportunity to meet, her fellow Champion: Solant.
Merchant swept out a neat bow, pulling back her cloak and flashing the light off her glasses.
"A pleasure to meet the Colony's most reputable general. I've been eager to meet the sister responsible for consuming the entire resource generation of our family. Why, if someone were to calculate the expense of this invasion, they would find the numbers to be mind-numbingly high."
The general paused for a brief moment, but her antennae waved in an uncaring manner.
"I'm not sure any ant would bother to consider such a thing. I have been instructed by the Eldest to achieve victory here, and victory I shall achieve."
"Oh, I can think of one ant who might run the numbers."
Merchant had, of course, run the numbers. They were appalling. Beyond appalling. The cost in resources alone was astronomical, but if the labour of the ants involved was also taken into account….
Any nation the Colony had yet encountered would be buried in debt for generations.
What the family could have achieved with those resources and effort! Just thinking of the monumental projects and dizzying heights she could have spun together with even a fraction of what Solant had consumed down here…
She would have to get her own projects approved by the Eldest in future. It was clearly the only way to get the full force of the family behind her. She gracefully waved a leg and pulled out a fresh cigar, placing it in her mouth but not lighting it just yet.
"Well, I have been asked to investigate the harvest from this new, resurgent fifth stratum environment. I'm sure you've dug up all sorts of interesting things."
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"Our focus has been on the war against the Krath and achieving the mission that has been placed in front of us. There hasn't been much time for digging up… trinkets."
"A trinket to us could be worth an unimaginable sum to others. These are materials that none on Pangera have access to except for us. Who can say what value they might possess?"
"Indeed, who can say?" Solant echoed.
"Me, I can," Merchant replied, clacking her mandibles with laughter. "That's why I'm here. Please, lead me to the treasures."
Turning on the spot, the general began to lead the way, moving through the wide passages of the fortress and skirting through the furious traffic with relaxed ease. For her part, Merchant took in the sights, sound and smells of this new place. Considering that she had carefully calculated just how much material and energy the Colony was pouring into this place, seeing it for herself was gratifying in a way. She knew exactly how extraordinary this undertaking was, down to the last coin.
"We have gathered what we've found here and had some of our foremost material specialists examine it," Solant said as she led the way to a narrow opening.
Within lay a fairly roomy chamber, tables with sealed tops spread evenly throughout in a grid pattern. There were a few ants inside already, but only one that Merchant recognised.
"Smithant," she called out warmly, "lovely to see you again. I hope you haven't been so distracted that your workshop will be neglecting my order? I need that steelwork done on time."
The foremost smith of the Colony looked up from what she was working on and clacked her mandibles in irritation.
"You…" she said flatly.
"Me," Merchant confirmed merrily, bustling over to sticky-beak. "What are you working on?"
To her eyes, it appeared like an ingot of rather plain-looking iron that was sitting atop some sort of… fungus or mold? Whatever it was, it seemed as though the organic material was growing into the metal.
"It's a type of bacteria-bearing fungus," the smith replied. "At least, that's what I'm told. All I know is that it seems to have a symbiotic relationship with metal. Eats into it, but also makes it stronger at the same time."
"That's… interesting," Merchant said, considering the possibilities.
"Only problem is, if we fire the metal after the bacteria has taken root, we kill it and the metal turns brittle and useless afterwards."
Merchant peered down at the greenish-red substance on the plate before them. It did indeed seem to have grown into the ingot. Fascinating.
"Metal we can't shape isn't that useful to anyone," she observed.
"We can shape it," Smithant rebutted grumpily. "We just don't know how yet."
"I'll leave you to it," Merchant said, clapping the smith on the back with one leg. "Do you mind if I look about myself?" she said, turning to Solant.
"By all means," the general replied, looking as calm and collected as always. Yet, Merchant couldn't help but detect her sibling was feeling somewhat bored. No doubt she had plenty to do and was clearly unconvinced this venture had any chance of proving useful.
With permission, Merchant happily transformed into what the humans liked to call a hatchling in a sugar storehouse. Every table held a different type of treat and she was eager to see them all.
From the pouch that always rested on her side, she withdrew a host of implements and got to work.
-x-X-x-
Happily waggling her antennae through the air, Merchant moved from table to table, carefully examining the contents of each. She had several tools with her to aid in her efforts. A multi-faceted looking glass that she used to examine jewelry, an interesting enchanted device that measured lustre and shine along with a host of others that Enid had insisted were an integral part of a merchant's toolkit. With Skills and mana, the capacity of frauds to create elaborate, almost impossible fakes was nothing short of incredible. When making trades, the prudent merchant was required to become a peerless investigator, and Merchant, with the benefit of her teacher, her tools and her mutations, had grown very skilled indeed.
With ease, she checked weight, density, iridescence, consistency, malleability, structural integrity and a dozen mana-related measurements, puttering from one object to the next while taking meticulous notes on each. However, she was quickly running into issues that she had not anticipated.
Although young, she had handled a huge variety of precious materials from the Dungeon, from the mundane to the deeply magical. Yet she had never come across anything quite like these materials.
In terms of rigidity, the metals were… quite poor. Spongy, even. Rather than metals, they appeared to be more like… muscles, fleshy fibres bound together tightly. In fact, they were even rather damp, almost like a sponge. When she poked and prodded them with her tools, the liquid was pushed out, pooling on the plate, only to be reabsorbed when the pressure was released.
Visually, they weren't all that pleasing either. Many of the highest profit point items to come out of the Dungeon were lustrous metals and gems, after all, and she had hoped to find something along those lines. Never-before-seen, extremely limited shiny metal would have been a sure-fire hit and pulled in absurd levels of profit. Instead, these fleshy metals were… well… ugly.
Interestingly, they were quite promising in terms of properties. Strong, extremely strong, the individual fibres were capable of bearing extraordinary amounts of weight before they snapped. Chatting with the carvers who had been testing the metals, she discovered they had multiple times the tensile strength of the Colony's finest steel. Which sounded great! But they were extremely difficult to work with and required a steady flow of the strange fluid to maintain their performance.
Clearly, more investigation was required.
Moving to the next table, she finally saw something glittering and her eyes lit up. Sparkles! Finally, sparkles! Pressing her face up to the glass dome that covered the porcelain plate sitting on the table, Merchant took a good look at the item underneath.
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It was a gem, thank the Eldest. Red as blood, dark as wine, the light played off it beautifully, shining so bright on the edges it was as if she was staring into a light globe. Mandibles quivering with excitement, she produced her tools and began measuring the luminosity of the gem, capturing the refracted light, studying the facets contained inside with a keen, eager eye.
It was stunning.
"Can I touch it?" she asked eagerly.
"You can," a nearby carver said.
"Excellent!"
"If you want to die."
"So… that would be a 'no', then."
"Ah. Yes. Come to think of it, we should keep this away from the Immortals until it's purified."
"Purified?"
"Yes. We believe this object held a concentration of mana that was cleansed when it was submerged in purified energy. However, there is still a core of contamination that permeates the gem. It's an interesting object to study, since it seems resistant to allowing mana to penetrate all the way to its centre."
"And… how long until it is safe to handle?"
And sell!
"Right now I couldn't say," the carver said, shrugging her antennae. "We don't know how to remove the contamination since we can't cleanse it all the way through."
Another dead end. Dejected, Merchant passed over the incredible gem and moved to the next table. At first, it didn't seem promising, a dish sitting atop the plate, again contained under a dome. Within the dish was a small quantity, perhaps a tenth of a litre, of a swirling, vibrant red fluid.
"What is this?" she said to the nearby researcher, not bothering to examine it herself first.
"This? As far as we can tell, it's a liquid that has no effect on monsters."
"That's… not very descriptive."
"Well, we haven't been able to test it on non-monsters yet," the carver replied defensively. "We can't just go throwing strange liquids on people without asking first."
"Do you have any guesses as to what it might do?" Merchant asked, beginning to despair.
"We've conducted some initial testing on organic material. As far as we can tell, it seems to remove the defects in tissue that arise as a result of the ageing process. Quite interesting."
Merchant stood. Merchant stared. Merchant clacked her mandibles slowly.
"It corrects… ageing?" she sought clarification.
"In a sense. Monsters don't experience these errors, so the fluid does nothing to us. So far, our limited experiments show the fluid removing defects and then creating new material to replace them. It seems quite versatile. We've seen it turn into bone, muscle, even teeth."
Merchant nodded as she reached into her pouch and withdrew a match. Striking it against her carapace, she lit her cigar and took a long, contemplative puff.
"Holy moly," she said.
-x-X-x-
"Fascinating," Enid murmured, holding the small vial of fluid up to the light.
It was beautiful to look at, a vibrant, iridescent red. Full of rich, concentrated mana, even a sniff of the stuff was enough to set her head to spinning. What a remarkable thing the ants had found this time, another of the wonders of Pangera and the Dungeon.
It warmed her old heart and reminded her of the feeling she'd had when she was young, exploring the unknown, her husband by her side, adventuring, seeking, discovering. When he went into the deeper levels, she would be waiting for him to return, eagerly investigating the materials he brought back and hunting for buyers.
"And there's no side effects?" she asked, turning to Merchant, who was practically hopping with excitement next to her.
"Of course there are side effects," the ant told her aloud, using her pheromone to audible sound converter. "We're still doing the research, running the numbers and all that, but so far we've discovered that applying too much in too short a span of time has some… mutative effects. Uncontrolled growth, eyes where you don't want eyes, the occasional ear, that sort of thing."
"That's not good."
"But in small doses, it seems totally safe!" Merchant hurriedly said. "This fluid can completely erase the damage done by ageing. With careful application, we could fix your heart, your knees, take away your pain. The healers think you could live another ten years!"
Merchant was clearly pleased, her antennae waving through the air with energy. Even on an ant's expressionless face, her excitement was plain to see. Seeing the joy and enthusiasm put a smile on her face. Her student had been a great source of comfort and purpose in recent times, and Enid was very grateful for the affection they shared. She knew what the ant wanted, what almost everyone wanted: time. She wanted more time with her mentor, with her friend.
Unfortunately, Enid was a stubborn old woman.
"I won't use it," she said gently, shaking her head.
Merchant froze, as if she weren't able to process what she had heard.
"B-... wh-... ah-... I'm sorry?" she said, stop-starting every time she tried to speak.
Enid sighed and lowered her hand, placing the vial of priceless fluid on the table beside her bed.
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It would be nice, not to be in pain, to breathe easily again, not to need help washing herself. To have her dignity back, who wouldn't pay everything they owned for such an opportunity?
Enid, as it turned out.
She waited patiently for Merchant to find her way out of the shock, but had to give up and help the ant unfreeze herself.
"I'm old, Merchant. But more than being old, I'm tired. I've lived a full and long life. Like anyone else, I have my regrets, there are things I wish I could have done differently if I had my time again, but ultimately, I am pleased with the life I have lived. I don't want to keep going. I'm ready for it to end."
"N-no. You would feel differently if you weren't suffering. We could fix you, and then you'd feel better! We can repair your memory and your joints. You'd be able to go out trading again, help the Colony, help Renewal."
"I've done all of those things," Enid said, smiling softly. "I did them to the best of my ability. Someone else will have to do it in future. Someone like you."
"I wasn't trained to be your replacement," Merchant scoffed, "and if I was, then the job is only half done! I'm not nearly the trader that you are."
"You just need experience," Enid said, waving off the ant's concerns with one withered hand.
It was remarkable how quickly she was fading. Despite the best efforts of the healers, she continued to decline steadily. Liver-spotted, the skin on her hands was so thin now that any firm contact was enough to cause a bruise, possibly even a cut, which would take far too long to heal.
Yet it wasn't even her physical condition that had drained her, she was simply… done.
The world had changed a great deal in recent years, and she would never have imagined that she would be where she was now, deep under the ground, a treasured guest of a giant colony of monstrous ants. After doing what she could to help those around her, Enid was content to let go. The world would get along just fine without her.
Merchant fell silent, staring at the vial on the table. Her mind whirled, lurching from one insane idea to the next. Could they force Enid to take the liquid? Probably. But such a betrayal of trust… it would irreparably harm the relationship between them. Not just between her and her teacher, but Enid and the Colony as a whole. Perhaps there was a way to convince her? Could the Eldest do it? Surely… surely if the Eldest asked her, then Enid wouldn't refuse.
Deep down, she just couldn't believe that her teacher would reject this miracle. She couldn't be in her right mind, she simply couldn't be! Yet, looking at her clear eyes and determined gaze, even now, Merchant couldn't bring herself to believe that.
Yet… Enid was needed. There was so much work to be done, so much she could help accomplish. Merchant had plans, enormous plans, things that could change the face of Pangera forever!
"Aren't you being selfish?" she said, caught between bitterness and despair. "How could you leave us when there is so much to do?"
Enid reached out and placed her hand atop her student's head, resting it on the hard carapace.
"I'm allowed to be selfish," she said, a cheeky light in her eyes, "I'm only human."
-x-X-x-
Well now, four Krath outposts down in record time, if I do say so myself. My mood is light as a feather as I reunite with my pets and head down into the depths. After how much I suffered in the fifth before, being able to crush and dominate in those diseased tunnels brings a song to my heart and a metaphorical tear to my eye.
My non-melted eye. I really can't emphasise enough just how unpleasant it is to have your eyes constantly melting from acid air while you attempt to heal them so you can, you know, see. Not something I'll need to experience again! Diamond eyes for the win! Far superior to diamond hands!
Crinis is once again clinging onto my carapace while I try to prevent her slipping inside it, as Tiny and Invidia enthusiastically tell me about the jolly adventures they went on punching and blowing things up. Invidia, for the most part, is happy to give Tiny the limelight, but he does emphasise how excellent and valuable a friend he is. Something I've noticed he is keen to stress since his last evolution.
To be fair, he has proven to be a great friend, to pretty much everyone he meets. More power to him!
As we descend, I can't help but be impressed by the sheer scale of what the Colony has achieved in the last six months. The territory we've claimed is enormous. Considering we haven't had it for long, the infrastructure that's been built in here is absolutely insane. There are long vertical tunnels that have been converted to massive elevators running for dozens of kilometres. Channels have been built connecting each of the major ant fortresses, creating a vast network that thrums with power every time I go near it. It's hard to imagine the sheer quantity of mana that's running through these pipes, or even think about the absurd volume being held within the fortresses themselves.
Thinking back to when the family was just me, the Queen and a few hundred hatchlings, it seems insane that we've come this far in such a short period of time. It's not even the construction itself that is so mind-bending, but the tunnels that it's built in.
These tunnels were a toxic wasteland not that long ago! Perhaps the most inhospitable terrain in the entire Dungeon! Getting here is almost impossible, living here is a dream within a dream, building large-scale projects here is fantastical fiction!
And yet, here we are. I guess, I'm proud. My siblings are so incredible! Just looking at what they can achieve, without my help, is truly humbling. It's nice to think that, even if I'm not around, the family will be fine.
It's comforting. Also a little sad, but mostly comforting.
It takes days of solid, unbroken travel to reach the depths of the territory. Even using the elevator tunnels, we are moving hundreds of kilometres down and it just takes time. By the time we finally arrive, I'm starting to think some teleport gates might be in the cards. I understand why they haven't been used, the mages are concerned about background interference from the corruption, and the fact that if territory is lost between the entrance and exit, they become extremely dangerous.
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When the last elevator finally comes to a stop, I feel a sense of relief. I'm not used to having to walk so far to get to a fight. I can remember when there were battles right outside the anthill! All in all, I've spent the better part of the last two weeks running and waiting. I don't like it!
There are thousands of ants travelling with me on this elevator ride, most of them from the various combat castes. New troops being shipped in to reinforce the frontline. Along with them comes a slew of materials on enormous pallets, ready to be pushed onto the rails and distributed to where they need to go.
Stepping off the lift, it doesn't take long for the ant in charge to find me.
"Eldest, welcome," says Brendant.
At tier six, the soldier has grown to a respectable size, her carapace and mandibles reinforced through mutation and additional support organs to become formidable weapons and defence. Although, if I were to guess, it seems as though Brendant has put more attention and energy into her offence rather than her defence.
Her head is slightly larger and wider than I might have expected for an ant her size, testament to the extra muscle she's packed into her head to strengthen her jaws. In addition, it looks as though she has not only reforged her mandibles into a rather fearsome and incredibly sharp-looking material, but also attached some sort of external organ that runs their length and connects to her carapace under the head.
"What the heck have you got on your mandibles?" I ask, curious.
"These? It's a Burst Jet Cutting organ. When I chomp, it unleashes a highly pressurised burst of water through holes in my mandibles."
"Water?"
"You'd be surprised how well it can cut. I've got another organ in my thorax that generates, pressurises and stores the water. Mandibles cut, water cuts again, works well."
That sounds… cool as heck. Wow.
"Hey, if it works for you. What do you need me to do?"
"What do we not need you to do?" Brendant replied.
"That bad?"
"Worse."
Well, that isn't what I want to hear. Leading the way, Brendant directs me through the lower reaches of the Colony's foremost outpost, right on the frontier of our territory. As expected, it's a hive of activity. There are entire floors of hospitals dedicated to detoxing ants from the frontline, along with station after station of wuffers, each of them puffing contentedly as they consume an endless torrent of corrupt mana and convert it to safe, purified energy.
In this fortress alone, there are three hundred thousand combat troops on duty at any time, with twice that number off-duty and preparing to rotate in.
It is the focal point of the entire campaign now and it is failing.
-x-X-x-
With Crinis, Invidia and Tiny here, shoring up the defences is an easy enough task. Send them out and let them go to work. Tier seven monsters are nothing to sneeze at; they can help tip the balance all on their own. At the very least, they'll take the pressure off and give the Colony a chance to regroup.
It seems as though everything is concentrated in the tunnels beneath this fortress. Only the strongest, highest tier, highest level battalions are allowed to fight here, and the Krath are holding nothing back. They're determined to prevent us from getting any deeper and have done everything they could to stop the purified mana from flowing deeper.
Heck, from what Brendant tells me, they've been successful in pushing us back! Obviously we can't allow that to stand.
Also, it turns out that my templar are here too. They've been fighting in the fifth while I was asleep, doing what they could to keep my family safe and assist the non-ant members of the battalions. I'll have to thank them for that!
First, though, I need to get down to the front and see just what the heck is going on.
After my rampage higher up, I'm filled with confidence. Blasting through four Krath outposts like they weren't even there has me thinking I can resolve this situation easily. However, when I actually step out onto the front, I'm forced to recalculate a little.
It's clear that the Colony has tried to recreate the platform system that we used during the first wave down here, separating the platform from the rest of the terrain and using it as an intake point for mana. The Krath, however, are not having it.
Once I step out onto the platform, the problems become immediately apparent. We appear to be surrounded on all sides by a tidal wave of mucus. Not just a small tidal wave either. This thing is kilometres high, a slowly moving disaster that rolls closer at a glacial pace while the battalions fight desperately to push it back.
I stare at it, my mandibles hanging wide in shock. How in the name of heck did the Krath manage to produce this? It's insane! If it actually manages to close the distance, it's going to engulf the entire bottom half of the fortress! If that happens, it'll eat through the walls and destroy the interior in a matter of hours. Yikes!
Of course, the mucus is not the only thing the stalwart defenders of the Colony are having to deal with. Bursting through the slime is a constant stream of maddened, berserking monsters, desperate to eliminate the cleansed mana and spread their filth and corruption. Even defeating them isn't enough, since parasites and other nasty things jump out of them the moment they go down.
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The stench, the awful, awful sights, the sounds of endless battle and desperation. Ah, it's like I never left.
Amongst all of this chaos is the hidden hand of the Krath. There are thousands and thousands of them out there, or so I'm told. Using their strange magic to strike at the defenders when they see an opening, engineering the terrain and manipulating the native monsters to stream towards us. Apparently there have been dozens of capture attempts every single day recently as the slugs have ramped up their efforts to obtain an ant and convert it to their cause.
Time to do something about it, I suppose. This is going to be a lot harder than I thought.
Grinding my jaws together, I start to consider the best approach. Absent-mindedly, I start to push some mana into the Everflowing Spring and kick off the conversion process. I'm going to need a lot of mana.
Mucus is… tough to deal with. It's way more dense than you would think, in the physical and mana sense. Touching the stuff might not be a death sentence for me anymore, but it is to everyone else. Judging from the particularly virulent colour and actively hissing surface, this seems to be a rather nasty variant as well.
Failing to think of a neat solution, I resign myself to doing things the hard way.
My minds spin up, pulling together a Gravity Mana construct, while others start pulling out energy from my gland and shoving it into a tight, dense ball.
Once I have a decent sized Gravity Bomb prepared, I empower it with the Altar and let it rip, aiming high above the platform so as not to put any of my allies at risk.
Out it goes, screaming into the void. Against the backdrop of hissing mucus, the dread howling of the spell seems barely noticeable and it quickly vanishes into the distance against the nightmarish backdrop I'm faced with. When it expands, it does so with a bang, the slowly rotating void visible for only a few seconds before it becomes engulfed in filth and slime.
Predictably, it doesn't last long before petering out. Even if it ate through a significant amount of sludge, there has to be millions upon millions of cubic metres of the stuff around us. Well, that's alright.
I keep feeding mana back into the spring, letting it fuel itself as I pull out more mana and start working on the next one.
If I have to throw a thousand of these things, I will. Well, I presume the Krath will try and stop me long before we reach that number.
Soon enough, I have another Gravity Bomb ready to go and I let it rip, sending it screaming out towards the wall of encroaching filth. By the time it dies, I have another ready to go. Then another. Then another.
It's going to be a long day.
-x-X-x-
At this point, I want to speak to the Krath's slime supplier. I don't know who they are, but holy moly, they get the job done. What fields are they cultivating? How far does this sludge-harvesting operation extend? I've spent all day throwing out gravity bombs, trying to soak up the mess, and the stuff just keeps on coming. How can this much slime possibly exist in the world?! Surely we've hit critical mucus at some point around here.
I mean, I know it's not an efficient way to get rid of the stuff, using small black holes to devour and effectively smush it, but I've been working hard out here. It's a little depressing to see the slowly advancing tidal wave still there, mocking me with its hugeness, but at least I've driven it well back from the platform.
How many millions of litres of acidic sludge have I destroyed in the last twenty-four hours? Only Gandalf could possibly know. Thanks to my efforts, the defenders on the platform don't need to spend as much effort on pushing back the slowly advancing wall of slime, and things are at least looking a bit more stable. Stable enough that I can leave and go poking about in the tunnels.
I managed to pulp more than a few monsters during my spree as well, which hasn't hurt.
"Alright then, Brendant. I'm heading off, don't let the slugs get you."
"I'll try to make sure that doesn't happen, Eldest," she assures me. "Thanks for your help."
"Any time."
I've been wanting to check on the Templars, but I can do that when I get back. After bending my brains to cast magic for the last day, I'm eager to go out and get some chomping done. Chatting can come later.
It has nothing to do with any concern over the development of my very own Prophet and what that might mean for my Templars. Not a thing.
To get away from the platform, I have to lift myself up with a Gravity Well, which isn't an issue. I don't have infinite mana, but I sure as heck have a lot. Down here the energy is incredibly dense, and I've been able to use the wellspring multiple times, shoring up my reserves.
Rising majestically into the air, I start sensing for the closest tunnel entrance.
Which is when the acid spikes start flying.
Dozens of them blast out from the wall of sludge simultaneously, heading right towards me. Spooky! I'd be worried if they hadn't fired them into an active Gravity Well. With a flex of thought, I yoink them upwards, bleeding away their momentum. A few do still manage to strike me, bouncing off my carapace but leaving behind a slash of boiling, hissing goo that adheres to my side. Thankfully, the healing network starts to ramp up, the slight trickle of healing fluid just the herald of what's soon to come.
Undeterred by their initial failure, the Krath seem determined to try again. Volley after volley of these spears is launched at me, and I dispose of each of them the same way, but I have to say, it's getting annoying as heck.
How am I supposed to hover gracefully with all of this going on? Also, my carapace is becoming increasingly scuffed from their acidic goop.
Icy cold healing fluid flows and disperses throughout my form as I start the Gravity construct once again. I think I'm going to need a fair bit of mana for this one.
I make no attempt to hide what I'm doing, so the Krath are certainly aware of the dense ball of energy I'm preparing to throw their way. More spears come at me, slicing through the air at a shocking pace.
By the time the bomb is ready to launch, the regeneration network is singing, absolutely flooding my system, which is perfect, because I'll be out in the tunnels soon enough.
Opening my mandibles wide, I let the bomb fly, and it screams into existence, tearing through the air and heading straight to the point where I can feel the largest concentration of Krath. Of course, they're fleeing now, but they may well not be fast enough, since not only is this bomb much larger than the previous ones, I empowered it too.
HOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!
Ah, the sound of existence being ripped to shreds, I've sort of missed it.
By the by, now that I think about it, floating in mid-air is probably not a good place to be when a Gravity Bomb goes off. Nards.
Immediately I expend all of the energy in the Gravity Well, pulling myself away from the bomb, and I start sailing through the air like a stone. Grace be damned, I need to survive!
The bomb expands into a black, slowly rotating void more than double the size of my earlier efforts. The force it exudes is absurd, sucking in mucus and everything else within its terrifying range, which includes me!
"We've got you, Eldest!"
Wha… who the heck was that?
"Protectant?!"
"Who else?"
I turn my head slightly and see a chain of ants, each one gripping onto the legs of the next, holding onto me, linked all the way back down to the platform below.
"Are there a lot more of you than there used to be? That looks like more than twenty."
"No."
"Your answer flies in the face of counting, Protectant."
"I'm telling you, no. Now be quiet, we don't want to lose our grip."
Well, I'm not one to distract an ant when they're working hard. Surprisingly, they manage to maintain their hold on my legs throughout the entire duration of the bomb, and as it flickers and fades, I warn my erstwhile bodyguards.
"Are you coming with me into the tunnels?"
"Of course! Why do you think we came here?"
"Well, get ready then, it's time to go!"
Another Gravity Well flickers into existence and I immediately use it to fall forwards, directly toward where the bomb is now fading. For the time being, it's cut a decent sized hole in the solid wall of mucus that surrounds the platform, but that won't last too long.
Gaining insane acceleration, I zip forwards, Protectant and her sisters flying along behind in a long chain of bodyguards desperately holding on.
-x-X-x-
We fly through the closing window in the wall of ooze and crash down on the other side in a heavily infected tunnel of nastiness. Immediately my healing network, already fired up from the spear attacks, is put to use as the incredibly dense mana begins to eat away at my carapace, chew at my joints and nibble on the fine hairs that coat my antennae. Thankfully, my eyes continue to be resistant to the damage, so I don't have to worry about that too much.
Checking on the Pure Core, and yep, it too is vacuuming up the corruption and annihilating it. Which is interesting, now that I think about it. As far as I know, mana can't be destroyed, merely changed, so the Core can't be getting rid of the energy completely, it has to be going somewhere. I'm a little suspicious of what the little snails might have done now. Are they feeding on the corruption somehow? Or what it becomes when the Pure Core is done with it?
I'll have to ask them next time I'm up there. Or… I can try, I suppose. I'm not sure how one talks to a singing snail.
Putting my legs beneath me, it's time to start worrying about my guards again. I might be perfectly fine here for the time being, but they surely aren't. Once again, it falls on my carapace to defend the ants who are supposed to defend me.
"Alright then, how are you all holding up? Need some healing?"
Except, when I turn around, I see nothing. Because of course I don't, they've gone and hidden themselves again!
Annoyed more than anything, I reach into the Vestibule to track them down, except, the Will I get from them is kind of… fuzzy. Well, not fuzzy, but… wrong. If what my Vestibule is telling me is true, then not only is Protectant sitting on my back, she's also running up the wall on my left and scouting ahead.
"Protectant."
A sullen pause.
"Yes, Eldest?"
"Are you in three places at once?"
"No."
Hmmm. I check the Vestibule again.
"Are you in four places at once?"
"... Yes."
"You took one of those super weird evolutions, didn't you?!"
"It's not weird," she says defensively, finally revealing herself to be sitting on my head. I hate when they do that!
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"Get off of there," I demand, swiping at her with my antennae, but as always, she clings tight and manages to avoid my clumsy strikes. If I really wanted to get her off of there, I'd have to exert more effort than I'm willing to expend right now, so I give up, as always.
"This evolution provided several key advantages that overcame the drawbacks in our eyes," she informs me snippily, settling back into place on top of my head.
"The super weird evolution, you mean?"
"Just because we now have multiple bodies doesn't make it weird!"
Seems pretty weird to me.
"So, let me get this straight, there are four of each of you? Meaning I don't have twenty bodyguards anymore, but eighty?"
"There are only twenty of us, but eighty bodies, yes."
Great.
"And how exactly is this better?"
"Well, for one, this evolution saved our lives by consuming the corruption we absorbed from you."
Well, I can't argue against that.
"Thanks, by the way," I say, a little awkwardly. "I didn't get the chance to properly show my appreciation for that. You saved my life, literally."
"That's what we're here for," Protectant says, waving off my sincere gratitude. Sheesh!
"It also helps address one of the major problems we've faced while defending you, which is that you have needed to protect us almost as often as we protect you. Now, with these disposable bodies, we can put ourselves in harm's way much easier than before and you don't need to worry about protecting us."
"Wait… so I'm just supposed to let you get squished over and over again?"
"As long as one of our bodies remains, we are able to regrow the rest," she affirms with a nod.
"You grow them?"
"Indeed. They don't come from nowhere."
"It's like… some sort of cell division thing?"
"I don't know what that is."
I suppose they wouldn't…. This all feels, icky. I suppose their evolution took the replication properties of Theorazzn's mana and manifested it in this new ability. I got the regeneration network, they got this self-duplication thing.
"But… how do you know which body is the main one? The original?"
"There isn't an original, or a main body. All of them are equally us."
This is starting to give me a headache. Between this and what's happened to Leeroy, I'm genuinely not sure who has the most bizarre evolution anymore.
"Well… are you fine out here in the tunnels? Are you able to tolerate the mana?"
"We can. You don't need to worry about us."
No elaboration, eh? She's always been so secretive.
"Alright then. I suppose I don't have any more questions for the moment. Let's get going."
Just like that, she poofs out of my awareness and I'm no longer cognisant of her sitting on my noggin. They seem to have strengthened their stealth ability again along with whatever else they gained in their evolution, or perhaps it's just the tier seven mutations helping. It's harder than ever to keep track of them, but thanks to the Vestibule, I can still work out where they are.
Well, if I don't have to take care of Protectant and her sisters anymore, I suppose that's a weight off my mind. So long as it all works out and they're confident they can look after themselves, I can focus on doing what I came to do, which is to smash some slugs right in the face!
-x-X-x-
If I were to state the difference between what I saw higher up in the fifth and the tunnel in which I find myself, I would say that this tunnel has a more advanced stage of the same disease.
It's indescribably disgusting, positively choking with corrupted mana, the very air feels wet against my carapace. When I wave my antennae they become clumped with sticky mucus, catching floating droplets of sickness straight from the air. Every part of my body is sizzling with an acidic burn that thankfully can't overcome the healing I have stocked up.
Even the walls of the tunnel, fleshy, with thick rings of cartilage at semi-regular intervals, tremble and shudder under the weight of the infection. Chunks of flesh just slough off the ceiling, slithering worms and parasites diving away to hide before their former home even hits the floor.
Visibility is poor, mould spores fill the air along with the seemingly endless strands of swaying phlegm, making it difficult to see, difficult to move without feeling as though you are falling ill with every step.
It's awful, is what I'm getting at. Absolutely awful. I can't imagine any environment in all of the Dungeon could possibly be worse than this, but I don't think that too loudly, just in case Gandalf is listening. This is one instance where tempting fate simply will not fly. If a place worse than this exists, I don't want to see it. Heck, I don't want to hear about it.
This is like pneumonia caught the flu. This is like an infection married an infestation and had children.
Filled with disgust, I start to pick my way forward and can't help but shudder with every second step. The ground beneath my legs is spongy and wet. With every step, I feel little nibbles and soft, probing touches from the thousands of creepy things trying to find a way to burrow into my flesh.
Once again, the supremacy of the external carapace has been demonstrated. Just imagining my soft and vulnerable bits being on the outside in this place fills me with horror. Absolutely not!
I barely manage to take ten steps before I come under fire again. Not from the Krath this time, but the native monsters fancy their chances, apparently. Spikes, acid, clumps of questionable, disgusting goop are fired at me from almost every direction. Jumping back, I avoid much of it, and it doesn't take long for me to find the culprits. Hidden amongst the thick mold clinging to the roof and walls are car-sized hunks of sodden meat. Eyeless, but with truly awful ring-shaped mouths filled with dripping fangs the size of a person's arm, they shoot their projectiles from a variety of tube-ish appendages.
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If I were to guess, I'd say the Krath cultivated them there to guard the tunnel against intruders, using the horrors of the fifth to their own advantage, as was their way.
Keen to move forward, I light up the Dragon's Breath, only to find even superheated dragon fire isn't immune to the sodden atmosphere down here. I'm eventually able to get the job done by putting some extra oomph into the spell, compressing the mana and forcing more energy into it. It takes a few minutes, but I manage to burn down all of the nearby sentinels, only to then have to turn around and blast myself when some of the stuff they hit me with starts to grow on my carapace.
I hate this place.
There's nothing to do but move forward, however. Keeping the fire ready in case I need it, which I do. Frequently.
Despite their best efforts to be all sneaky, I can still sense the Krath. They're not far away, slithering through their own network of crevices and cracks running adjacent to the main tunnel. This place is so horrible that even they don't want to be out here.
Right now, they're just shadowing me, trying to keep in touch and observe me as best they can, which is why I'm keeping my cards close to my chest. Thankfully they've installed a lot of guards and protections in here, monsters who aren't intimidated by my tier eight aura and are more than happy to throw down. This keeps my regeneration network ticking along nicely. Since the Everflowing Well is ready to use again, I go ahead and start feeding in mana to kick off the process. No harm in being overprepared.
The further into the tunnel I get, the more Krath I can sense. There's a lot of activity nearby, tiny vibrations in the gravity field that are so infinitesimally small as to be almost imperceptible, but I can find them, if only just. There are dozens of them around me now, but so far they refuse to make a move. Perhaps they have something else in store for me? Or are they just hoping I'll get worn down by the toxins and turn back?
Hah! Thanks to the Pure Core, there isn't even a stray mote of corrupted mana inside me, and I'm easily healing all the damage the environment is doing to me. Despite this, my progress is glacially slow. I'm placing my legs carefully as I advance, trying to avoid the worst of the goop which is just… everywhere.
After another ten minutes of carefully advancing, I stop in place, my senses sharpening as I detect a change in the environment. I can't see more than a hundred metres ahead in this place, forcing me to rely on my mana sense and antennae to pick up on threats, and it's the mana sending me warning signals right now.
Something big is moving up ahead. Not especially quickly, but it's a chunky thing, to be sure.
I back up a little and lower my stance. I've learned not to underestimate the monsters down here, they're nasty pieces of work, and I don't doubt that this is yet another defense mechanism that the Krath have cooked up.
They've probably lured this monster here in order to observe the battle and learn my weaknesses. Always sneaky and cunning little sods, the Krath.
If they want a show, I'll give them a show.
-x-X-x-