Feeling the pounding of multiple hearts through the floor of the Dungeon is such an odd feeling. It's hard to say if they're pumping in sync or not, since the distance to each isn't exactly the same. Brilliant could probably tell me, it's the sort of detail that she would love to study.
Now that I've thought of it, it's kind of a disturbing thought. All of the hearts in the stratum? Pounding in unison? Spooky.
"How long until the mana gets here?" I ask.
"Hard to say. They probably haven't released the reservoir yet," the head of the building team tells me. They've been busy laying the channels needed to bring the energy to the frontline and only recently finished their work.
"Do you even need the cleansed mana, Great One?" Jern asks, his massive axe resting on his shoulder.
He looks far too casual for someone as dangerous as I know he is. I've heard things about Jern, scary things. He's built quite a reputation for himself in the fifth stratum. As has Alis, to be fair. Even Propellant was drawn to witness her Fire Magic in person.
"Me? No. It's not there for me, but to combat the foul corruption Theorazzn left in every heart and to keep you alive. I'll be just fine without it."
We are currently in a staging area, similar to the others which have been established around the other hearts. Not so close that the Krath might sense us, not so far away we can't strike swiftly. Right now, the heart is probably five hundred metres directly beneath us, pumping its foul poison throughout the area.
It wasn't easy to pump out all the slime and mucus up here in these tunnels. Downstream from the damaged artery that someone caused to rupture, it wasn't possible to get this close until very recently. I'm told we managed to repair the broken vessel, which got the mucus flowing back into the network again, which isn't great, but at least it wasn't clogging up the tunnels and filling the lungs any more, giving them a chance to drain.
Hopefully it's enough that the cleansed mana can seep through and purge the corruption in there. Mandibles crossed.
"Look, if you want I can head down there, break into the heart and take care of things right now. I'm happy to get this done myself."
"No, Great One," Bertran says with a wry smile, "we would like to at least pretend that we are useful. Give us a chance to do something."
"I mean, you did keep me alive by defending the Nave while I was sleeping. That's pretty darn useful."
To be honest, I still have no idea how I can even be attacked via the Nave, so I'd feel a lot more comfortable if the Templars were kept safe so they could defend me that way. I don't need nearly as much protection from more mundane threats.
Heck, I have Protectant and the others for that already.
Which reminds me.
"Protectant, are you there? I have a question."
Jern, Alis and Bertran look about, a little confused. Other than the build team, there isn't anyone else with us right now. As far as they know. Of course, I don't get a reply at first. She never shows herself the first time I ask.
"Protectant… come on."
"Fine."
As usual, she's on my head.
"Do you really have to sit on my head all the time?"
"... Maybe."
"Was she there the whole time?" Bertran asks, the first of the Templars to notice the suddenly emerging ant.
"She was," I reply, a little annoyed. "I just wanted to ask if it was your squad that was getting my regeneration network going in the depths? Something was hitting me for no damage down there, and for some reason I didn't think of you at the time."
Rather suspiciously, the possibility didn't occur to me. Just how determined are they to remain out of sight?!
"It was us," Protectant confirms. "Is that all? I don't like being in the open and I'd prefer fewer people knew of our existence."
"Well, they already know about you now, right?"
Protectant clacks her mandibles smugly.
"Oh, they'll forget soon enough."
With a puff of misdirection, she's gone again, leaving that horrifying statement behind to hang in the air. Alis looks confused, Bertran intrigued and Jern like he doesn't care one way or another.
That changes when we hear marching coming down the tunnel towards us. Not a small amount of marching either, a lot of marching. Who the heck is coming down here?
When the massed ranks of the Legion come into view, a fully armoured Commander Chyron in their lead, I briefly wonder if they've decided to have a go at taking me down after all. However, they don't pull out their weapons or launch an attack, and Morrelia, right behind her commander, doesn't seem all that stressed either.
[Commander. I presume you're here to assist the assault on the heart?]
[Solant didn't mention we would be coming?] she says, eyes narrowing. She probably suspects some sort of trick by the little general.
[She didn't, but that's fine. Have you only sent soldiers here, or are you spread out?]
[We've deployed a small number of Legionaries to each of the battlefields, but our main force is placed here, as you can see,] she says. She looks up. [When is the cleansed mana getting here?]
[That's certainly the question.]
-x-X-x-
The arrival of the liquid mana isn't that hard to see coming. When it rains, it pours, as they say, and when the liquid mana arrives, it practically floods. I sense it before it arrives, naturally. Condensed to the point of forming a liquid, the mana is absurdly potent and dense, lighting up my brains like an approaching Christmas tree on wheels. The moment I sense it, the build team leaps into action. Mandibles gnashing, Skills and magic in full effect as they unleash their full power, they abandon any attempt at stealth and dig for all they're worth.
It doesn't matter if the slugs smell us now, it's too late to stop what's coming.
The heart thunders ever more powerfully beneath us the closer we get. After less than a minute, the build team pulls back to safety, before there's any chance they could get pulled into the fight, while the Legion and Templars form ranks above me.
Mandibles flex and I start digging, ripping away the diseased, flesh-like material that forms the walls, until finally the thundering wall of the heart itself is revealed before me. Standing on it is less than comfortable, the gigantic thing moves so dang much, but I don't intend for that to be a problem for long.
Starcrusher!
Empowered by the Altar, my bite explodes outwards in a wall of fire, the shockwave ripping through the meat of the heart and burning away the dregs that remain. Engulfed in the searing heat, I feel the pulsing flesh beneath me lurch, then give way and suddenly I am falling.
Gweheheheh. Hello, Krath! Remember me?!
My brains spin into overdrive as the sizzlingly powerful mana inside the heart begins to burn away at my carapace. Inside my body, the Pure Core begins sucking in corruption at an accelerated pace, the glorious strains of snail song bursting out around me and filling the air.
Mana thunders through me as I prepare a multitude of spells, but I have to let one rip almost immediately because it appears as though the slugs might have noticed I was coming a little earlier than I suspected.
Holy moly!
A Doom Sphere of liquid… well… death comes screaming at me, bubbling and hissing with unspeakable potency, and I'm forced to use an empowered force spell to shove myself to the side. Despite my incredibly quick reflexes, the spell still clips a leg as I go rocketing sideways and slam into the wall of the heart.
My leg starts melting rapidly as I kick and flail it, trying to dislodge the mucus with limited success, but the slugs aren't done. Antennae ringing a warning, I scrabble to get my legs under me and grip on the shuddering wall of the heart. With milliseconds to spare, I unleash an empowered Dash, straining my joints to their limits to escape.
Right behind me, thick hunks of acidic, sticky goop slam into the wall, forming a net that would have pinned me down until I managed to burn it or break loose. Who knows what the slugs would have been able to do in those precious seconds?
Sheesh! I've only been in here for a few seconds and already the Altar is starting to run dangerously low. It'll fill up rapidly, but I didn't expect them to be this prepared!
How prepared?
With a precious handful of seconds to survey the situation, I can see that they are way better organised in here than I've ever seen before. Each heart has four chambers and this one has been prepped for war. Clearly they expected us to invade from above, even if they didn't know exactly when or how.
Bunkers of thickened mucus have been attached to the walls, little slug faces poking out of narrow openings to launch their deadly spells. There must be over a dozen of them, packed with twenty or more Krath in each.
Reinforcements are slithering in at a rapid pace too. A flurry of activity at the entrance to the chamber shows more and more of the slugs arriving, eyes bulging red and skin bubbling and hissing in fury.
Somewhere down below, in the lower chambers, the toxin of Theorazzn is there, corrupting everything it touches even after thousands of years. Even up here, I can feel it, something in my Pure Core calling out to the filth.
Well, unfortunately for you, slugs, I didn't come here on my own.
Time to make it rain!
There's no trickle, or splash or even flow of cleansed mana into the heart. It's a powerful deluge right from the word 'go'. As if pressurised and launched from the mouth of a hose, it blasts into the chamber from the opening above, splashing and frothing everywhere.
The Krath respond with cries of fury and terror, but there's nothing they can do once the tap has been turned.
In a sight that shocks me to my core, Legionaries begin to drop in, swept up by the torrent of mana and just… falling into the heart, dropping hundreds of metres before they slam into the ground, only to absorb the fall like action heroes and stand up, brandishing their weapons as they stride forward with purpose, the love of battle lighting up their eyes.
Uh… that's cool as heck?! Since when could they do that?!
-x-X-x-
With a full Legion hot dropping into the fight like heroes, the pressure lightens on me immediately, which I find interesting. I mean, I'm a gigantic, powerful ant monster who's been tormenting the Krath in this area, you'd think they'd hate my guts.
It turns out they hate the Abyssal Legion way more.
No sooner do the soldiers make their presence known, running out of the liquid mana waterfall and forming the disciplined, impenetrable ranks that they're known for, than the slugs go completely bonkers. So incensed that they are literally foaming at the mouth, the slugs hurl themselves at the Legionaries like escapees from an insane asylum. Biting, gnashing, spitting and scratching, there is precious little of the cunning and sneakiness the slug tribes are famous for on display, but plenty of the fury and savagery.
In an instant, the lower reaches of the chamber have become a close-quarters, bare-knuckled boxing match, with more and more numbers pouring in on both sides. To be honest, the Legionaries look just as furious as the slugs, but at least they manage to hold onto their discipline and tactics.
I get the feeling that these two groups have a longstanding mutual dislike beyond even what I expected. I've seen friendlier receptions from fans of rival football teams.
Not that I'm complaining, having a couple of seconds to myself gives me a chance to gather my bearings. Thankfully my regeneration network has been pumping at full speed, courtesy of some prep-work by Protectant and the others, so my system is positively flooded with healing fluid. With their alpha-strike opportunity gone begging, I am basically invincible here unless the slugs manage to conjure another concentrated ball of doom or equivalent.
I throw out a Gravity Well and shortly after use it to snag my Templars out of the air when they drop in. Unlike the Legion, I don't think they could tolerate being exposed to the liquid mana for even a short period, so I'd arranged to catch them ahead of time.
Yoinking them out of the air, I lower them down to the fight below as effectively as I can, considering how chaotic it's become there. While the Legion is doing what they do, locking shields and forming organised ranks, the Krath seem manically determined to rip them apart, throwing bodies, sludge, mucus and everything else they can into driving the Legionaries away from each other.
Thinking about it for a moment, it's probably a tactic they've learned over many years of fighting against the Abyssal Legion. Breaking apart the formation and separating the shield wall is likely the best way to defeat them in battle, but it's far from easy to achieve, which explains the furious, frothing desperation on display.
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Of course, the slugs haven't been leaving me alone during this time. Although a lot of the fire from the prepared bunkers on the wall has been diverted down below, almost half are still firing up at me, splattering my carapace with corrosive and evil goop.
Thankfully, I can pretty much ignore it thanks to the rampaging power of the regeneration network. Packed full of mana after running the Well and ready to rumble, I feel smugly capable of running through the Krath as if they aren't even there.
Full of glee, I run down the wall towards the nearest bunker, mandibles flexing in anticipation as I ignore the incoming barrage of spells and acid. With the flow of cleansed mana already begun, the Krath here are on a time limit. Soon enough, this chamber will become too purified for them to remain inside as the liquid diffuses into the air.
Obviously, the bulk of the liquid is sloshing down into the chamber below, where the taint of Theorazzn resides, but it'll filter through the entire heart eventually.
Using my mandibles, I rip into the mucus covering the bunker, only to find it's insanely corrosive, eating into my precious face-hands at an unprecedented rate. Well, it's not as if I need to physically touch them to destroy them.
Despite the deluge of attacks being flung my way, I simply back up a little and unleash another Starcrusher.
Problem solved.
With one bunker reduced to a smouldering ruin, I begin to make my way around the wall of the heart towards the next one, but my progress is slow. The thudding of the walls sends a shuddering pulse through every surface in here, and even though I'm clinging to the inner wall, rather than the outer one, maintaining my grip is far from easy.
Yet I manage it, crawling my way over and face-tanking the wave of sludge the now-fearful slugs throw my way. Not enough!
Starcrusher!
Man, unleashing those chomps so close together is still surprisingly tough on the muscles in my head. Not that it's a problem. Muscle fatigue and damage isn't a thing for me! Gweheheheh.
I start to make my way over to the next bunker, but something catches my eye first. The very bottom of the chamber, where the valve empties out of this one and into the one below… it's… full?
Liquid mana is pooling there, but not just pooling, it's bubbling and churning as if at war with something beneath.
What's going on? There's no way it should be backing up, it should be flowing through the valve and dropping into the chamber below! Looking closer, I start to have a horrible suspicion. These slugs… did they fill the lower chamber with mucus?!
That's insane!
-x-X-x-
Hearts beat twice. It's not complicated, everyone knows what a heartbeat sounds like. Ba-thump. Ba-thump. Two distinct sounds. This is because hearts are pumps. They do two things. They suck blood in, then push it out. How? By using the separate chambers to do separate jobs!
The top chamber is full of blood, it contracts, squeezing the blood down into the lower chamber. Then the valve between the two shuts. Now the lower chamber contracts, squeezing the blood out and into the circulatory system. Next, the upper chamber expands, opening up again and sucking in new blood, ready for the process to start again.
As far as I can tell, the hearts in the fifth operate in much the same manner. The upper chambers pull in mana from the wider Dungeon, push it down to the lower chamber, which then disperses it back out, creating the energy cycle for this span of Dungeon.
If the lower chamber is clogged full of mucus… then the Krath jammed the energy flow themselves, preventing the heart from functioning properly. They must have diverted some of the overflowing mucus into the heart itself, replenishing the stocks as quickly as the heart could push them out, or perhaps they blocked the valves out of the lower chamber. Maybe they did both!
But why?! That would destroy the lower tunnels completely!
The answer hits me rather quickly. I already destroyed the lower tunnels, so the Krath didn't care if they got worse. If anything, by using the hearts to pressurise the system, they ensured the mucus would rise even higher, to the point it threatened us and not just them.
My bad.
Secondly, these tribes have already seen how we take over territory, by flooding it and basically driving them out, using cleansed mana as our weapon. Why would they expect us to do anything different here, in the seat of their power? So they prepared a countermeasure. Condensed mucus to battle against condensed mana and prevent the Colony from pushing them out of their last bastion.
Dangit!
I let go of the wall and push off, dropping rapidly until I catch myself at the last second with the Gravity Well, preventing a leg-splattering crash to the floor. Releasing its hold on me, I fall the last few metres to the floor and then I'm off and racing, a Gravity Domain flickering into place around me, condensed and enhanced with the Altar.
Krath are extremely resistant to being squished, their flesh being as malleable and spongy as it is, but they sure as heck can't fight while being pressed down by hundreds of kilograms of added weight. Once a few get caught in the zone, they are forced to the ground and have to painfully slide away, unable to give battle any further. After they've seen what happens to their comrades, the other slugs are forced to back up before they get caught. With space to breathe, the ranks of Legionaries snap into place almost instantly, years and years of training coming into practice.
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[The lower chamber is flooded with mucus!] I tell Chyron. Or at least, I try to. I'd expected the bridge to snap into place, but it failed to materialise thanks to her stupid helmet. How do I even find her in here? Lined up in tight ranks, every Legionary looks basically the same as the next one, especially from my rather elevated perspective.
Aha! That's Morrelia! I can tell because of the twin swords she's wielding, one of the very few without a shield. I prod her with an antenna to get her attention and then barely pull away as she spins and swipes with one blade.
Sheesh!
As she realises her mistake, she stares up at me sheepishly as I tap the antenna to the side of my head. She quickly gets the picture and moves further into the area covered with cleansed mana before she takes off her helmet after speaking to the soldiers beside her. They move to cover her with their shields as she takes it off.
[Krath love attacking our minds, so this needs to be quick, Anthony,] she tells me.
[No apology? Alright then, I see how it is.]
[I'm sorry, alright! Quickly please!]
I don't think they've tried attacking my mind all that much… then again, I'm a heck of a lot harder to beat than a regular human, thanks to my heavily mutated and evolved brains. Just another way that monsters are superior.
[It looks as though the slugs have flooded the lower chamber with mucus. You can see the liquid mana isn't flowing through properly, something has already filled the space below.]
[I'm fighting a battle over here, I can't see anything.]
[Well I'm not as short as you. Trust me on this.]
[Okay, fine. What does that mean? What do we need to do? I'll pass your words onto Chyron as quick as I can, so tell me what you want.]
Uh… what do I want? If we leave things as they are, this lower section of the chamber is going to get flooded soon enough. Hyper-dense liquid mana continues to pour down here in a blue flood, and with nowhere to go, the Legionaries will be knee deep in it in five minutes. From what I'm told, a little exposure might not be that harmful to them, but extended? Not so good. To the Templars, who aren't modified in any way, direct contact with mana that concentrated is practically a death sentence.
I believe that eventually the cleansed mana will eat through the mucus clogging up the heart, which is great, but my worry is there won't be enough energy left over to fully cleanse the heart. After all, right at the bottom of the lower chamber is where the final boss is waiting, Theorazzn's foul poison. It takes a heck of a lot of cleansed mana to get rid of it…
Dangit, I'm going to have to go down there.
[You guys hold the fort here, keep fighting and try to push the Krath away from the valve. I'm going down there.]
[Down where?]
[Into the lower chamber.]
[Isn't it full of mucus? That's dangerous!]
[Well I can't do anything about it from up here. Put your helmet on.]
This… won't be fun.
-x-X-x-
I suppose I could just fire a Gravity Bomb directly into the valve, but that wouldn't exactly work the way I want it to. Even if it managed to break through to the lower chamber, it'd eat all of the liquid mana we so painstakingly delivered to this place and I'm already worried we won't have enough of it.
It might even just rip a hole through the wall of the heart and drain all of the liquid mana out the side, which would be an unmitigated catastrophe.
So that's out.
As far as I'm aware, I only have a couple of means of dealing with the concentrated mucus. I can burn it away using Dragon's Breath, but that's rather slow and painful. The other method is to blast a Gravity Bomb at it and let the mad compressive force of gravity rip it apart and squish it to oblivion.
However, I can't think of a way of deploying a Gravity Bomb in this situation without being very, very close to the point of detonation. Which isn't ideal.
"Don't follow me," I say, hoping Protectant is listening and, for once, obeys me.
She probably is listening, and probably doesn't obey, but at least I tried.
"Why not?" Jern says, appearing by my side.
"Gah! When did you get there?!"
"I was hiding in the shadows."
"That's creepy! Sheesh. Scared the heck out of me."
"Why? It's not as if I can threaten you. Or would. Because… you know."
"Don't tell me I'm a god right now, I really don't want to hear it."
"Is that a choir of angels I can hear?"
"Uh… no. It's a choir of snails."
"Huh."
Dammit! I was worried about this!
"Look, I'm going down to the next chamber, you and the others stay here and help the Legion out. Alright? Good. Bye."
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Thankfully Jern doesn't follow, just waves before shouldering his axe and dropping back into the gathering darkness at his feet like something out of a nightmare. Holy heck! What have the Nameless been teaching them?!
I try to shake that out of my mind. I've got other business to focus on right now.
I cut off the Gravity Domain and immediately all the projectiles the Krath were firing at me start finding their mark again. Also, the two lines of Legionaries and slugs slam into each other with renewed vigour, as if they were annoyed I'd stopped them from fighting each other even for a little bit.
Well, have fun I guess. Honestly, the pitched battle seems absurdly Legion-favoured. More of them are still dropping down from above and the fighting is only getting more one-sided, but that may change once the Krath get a little better organised. Right now the remaining bunkers are mainly shooting at me, and I'll soon be out of sight. Well, I'm sure Chyron knows what she's doing, and the Templars can help.
I have other matters to attend to.
With a running start, it doesn't take long to reach the valve and I jump right in, plunging down into the frothing mess of liquid mana. It's bubbling so much it practically looks like a spa bath, but I don't particularly enjoy bathing in it.
As a monster, mana of any density doesn't really bother me, but it's… uncomfortable to be immersed in this stuff. I can't quite put an antenna on it, but it doesn't feel right. More accurately, I could say that it starts to feel like I don't know where the edge of me ends and the mana starts.
Is it because I'm made from mana? Maybe.
Ants aren't exactly built for swimming, but I make it work, mainly by sinking down to the bottom. The lower I go, the more active the liquid becomes, to the point I can't really see a thing due to the churn. At some point, I manage to slip through the valve and into the chamber below, only to find myself in the middle of a whirlpool.
I can't see a thing, but thanks to my mana sense I have a limited understanding of what's going on. At the point where the cleansed mana comes into contact with mucus, it basically evaporates instantly, turning back into regular energy. That doesn't mean the battle is over, the mucus is also bubbling into nothing, turning back into energy and continuing the war. Both of these energies are designed to consume and replicate, making more of itself from whatever it touches, and in these hyper-concentrated forms, that battle is occurring with a furious intensity.
Unfortunately, the whirlpool sucks me down and pretty much shoves me right into the surface of the mucus, and I find rather quickly that I don't enjoy being there.
In direct contact with the poison of an Ancient, this mucus is unlike anything I've touched before and the acid absolutely sears my carapace, eating into my legs with absurd speed.
I'm not a fan, but there isn't much I can do but bear it.
I start pulling out mana from my Gravity Mana Gland, condensing it down in a constant flow to form a dark, slowly rotating ball of power. As the seconds tick past, it grows larger, and darker, becoming more and more dangerous, but I don't cut off the flow.
There's a lot of mucus in here after all, and it's very potent. No need for half measures.
Fingers crossed it's done before I melt.
-x-X-x-
Melting isn't a pleasant sensation. I didn't suppose it would be, but seriously, my legs haven't hurt this bad since the debt collectors showed up.
Folded up beneath me, my legs are held as tightly to my carapace as they can be, but they've still sunk into the surface of the mucus nevertheless. Even with the regeneration gland flooding my system with an avalanche of regeneration fluid, it simply can't work fast enough to repair this level of damage.
It's fine, I've got a backup set of legs in the chamber, ready to go.
As my face sinks inevitably closer to the surface of the mucus, what I worry about isn't the mucus in front of my face, but the growing ball of dense energy inside me.
A Doom Sphere isn't a complicated spell. In fact, of all the spells I know, it's by far the simplest in terms of structure. Take mana, pack it into a tight, dense ball, then fling it at a target. If the job has been done correctly, then that target will be gone.
Even using basic, plain mana without any attributes will work.
The only difficulty is that mana doesn't like to be packed down into a tight little ball. In fact, it really hates it. Apparently doing this is extremely difficult—at least, that's what the mages have told me—but I seem to have a natural talent for it, I suppose. A certain stubbornness and strength of mind that makes me rather good at fighting the mana and squishing it into a tiny sphere.
All in all, this talent has been almost as dangerous to me as it has to the things I've thrown it at.
As this dense ball of doom continues to build, growing darker and darker until the purple fades to almost pure black, I can't help but feel a little concerned by the fact that the target is literally right in front of me.
Like right in front of me. There won't be any way to get out of this, I'll be sucked right into the center of the Gravity Bomb the second it expands.
Now, that isn't ideal, I get that, but it's not like I have no confidence of surviving. My carapace is Gravity-Compressed Diamond—literally crushed in the heart of a star sort of stuff. If it can't handle the power of the spell, then what can? I'm hoping it'll hold up under the pressure and prevent my insides from getting totally flattened.
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It's not a great hope, but it's not nothing!
Alright, I don't want to build up the Gravity Bomb too large, otherwise I run the risk of blowing up the heart, but then again, I do need it to eat through a lot of mucus, this stuff is notoriously dense in mana and depletes the energy in a Gravity Bomb like nothing I've ever seen before.
I can't afford to make it too small… but then again, I can't afford to make it too big!
Once it reaches a point where I feel tentatively confident it's going to do the job, but also starting to fear I won't survive, I judge that the time has come. Within me, the ball of gravitational mana fights constantly against my control, trying to escape confinement and run wild, but I master it and prepare to launch.
Except….
Right now, I'm mostly surrounded by cleansed mana in liquid form. The stuff is still pouring in from the upper chamber and raining down on me. Where it contacts the mucus, the two forces clash, evaporating each other in a storm of conflicting energy. Less than a quarter of my body has sunk into the goop below.
If I unleash the Gravity Bomb here… won't I destroy as much cleansed mana as I do mucus? That would defeat the entire point.
With a sigh, I clamp down on the bomb, holding onto it a little longer as I tighten my resolve and activate the mutation on the Altar, empowering my carapace.
I'm not going to enjoy this…
With all that's left of my legs, I flail to orient myself and then start pushing my way into the muck, face first.
It's… unpleasant. Hopefully I don't need to go too deep before I unleash the spell.
…It'll be fine.
Searing pain erupts all over my carapace as I scrabble and push my way deeper in. When my entire body is submerged, I'm almost impressed at how potent the acid is, but equally surprised at how effective the infused carapace is.
Alright, this should be enough. Hopefully I survive this.
As I prepare to unleash the Gravity Bomb, the song of the snails swells, and my Pure Core bursts outwards with pure light.
Hauntingly beautiful, a single note held by a choir of snails rings outwards, with me in the centre as a wave of purifying light engulfs my surroundings. Mucus boils away into nothing, vanishing with a puff of putrid gas as the snails destroy it with their song.
Unable to hold on any longer, I aim down and unleash the Gravity Bomb.
-x-X-x-
Dazzled and confused by the soaring song and burst of power, I'm genuinely not sure what is happening as I unleash the Gravity Bomb. Since the mucus is dissolving, yielding to the unbelievable wave of energy conjured by the Pure Core, I don't even know how much space is going to be between me and the bomb when it goes off!
Suddenly feeling that I might have been bailed by snails, I desperately push my brains and start trying to whip together a Gravity Well. Half-melted and waggling helplessly, there isn't much left of my legs, but I choose not to eject them, hoping that the abundant healing fluid in my system will be able to sort them out.
I might need some legs soon, perhaps I don't have to try my luck in a cosmic crusher after all!
Several things happen in very rapid succession. The Gravity Bomb howls into existence, streaking away beneath me, racing towards the still-expanding wave of light from the Pure Core as it destroys a shocking amount of mucus.
All too soon, the bomb wins the race, catching up to the mucus and expanding outwards into a slowly rotating sphere of almost total darkness. Immediately, the savage force of it begins to take effect, pulling in everything within range. From below, that means an absurd amount of thick, highly toxic and virulent mucus begins to rise and be sucked inside.
From above… uh… me, I suppose.
Tiny, half dissolved legs scrabble helpless in the air as I try to pull together a Gravity Well as fast as I can. Despite all the practice I've put in, it's still a complicated piece of magic. It takes time, even with two-dozen individual minds working on it.
Which means there isn't much I can do as I'm seized by the sphere and start falling into it.
"We've got you, Eldest!"
Protectant and the gang materialise, showing themselves latched onto my back, once again forming a daisy chain back to the wall to try and save me from myself.
"How many of you are here?" I ask, boggling at the numbers.
There are twenty of them, but they have four bodies each, which makes an even hundred if they're all here.
"Eighty. Keeping one as backup."
"Smart."
I focus my attention back downwards.
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"How likely is it you can survive falling into that mess?"
There really is nothing quite as horrifying as a Gravity Bomb coated in mucus. A beautiful whirlpool pattern of the most hideous and disgusting substance, spiralling into the darkness. Thankfully the bomb is so much closer to the mucus than it is to the cleansed mana up above.
"Hold on!" I yell at my secret defenders.
"Of course we are!" Protectant yells back.
"That's… that's not quite what I meant! I meant: be ready!"
"Ready for what?!"
"Oh for goodness' sake."
Finally ready, I throw out the Gravity Well and immediately dump almost all of its energy yanking into me back upwards and away from the Gravity Bomb. A Gravity Well is more energy-efficient that a Gravity Bomb, but nowhere near as strong. It makes the job of Protectant and the crew a lot easier, which basically means it isn't completely impossible now. Winning!
However, that well is going to run out of gas sooner than the bomb at the rate I'm using it up. I'm going to need a plan B.
At this point, the cleansed fluid catches up and starts raining down on my head again, rather forcefully since it's caught in the grip of the Gravity Bomb below. Some of it is going to go to waste, tragically, but by the time it's finished, the bomb is going to have chewed up ten times as much mucus as it has cleansed liquid mana.
A successful spell! So long as I survive!
"That Gravity Well is about to run out of power!" I yell at Protectant.
"The what?"
"The Gravity Well!"
"Well what?!"
"Gravity!"
"Well gravity?!"
"No, Gravity Well! Are you practicing for some sort of routine?!?!"
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Just drop me already!"
As the well sputters and runs out of juice, an enormous amount of pressure is put onto the poor ants trying to hold onto me. I have a lot of mass, what can I say?
"We are certainly not going to drop you," Protectant replies, her mandibles grit tight from sheer effort.
They're doing a remarkable job holding onto me, digging into my carapace as best they can, but I'm way too close to the Gravity Bomb this time.
"I'm either going in there by myself, or you come along for the ride, and we both know you won't survive half a second in there, so what's the point? Let me go, Protectant."
"We can deplete the energy of the spell using our bodies," she says desperately.
"That's dumb, and you know it. When the spell is done, I'll need you to protect me, and you can't do that without any spare bodies. Let me go, dammit!"
Maybe my last argument holds some weight, maybe my security guards just lose their grip, unable to hold on any longer. Regardless, they let go, and I am falling.
Ah, Gravity Bomb, this moment could have come so many times since I was reborn. At least now I have a chance of surviving.
I fall incredibly fast, and in a blink I'm sucked into the darkness.
-x-X-x-
"Tribune!"
"Yes, Commander?"
"Who the hell is that?"
Morrelia turns her head briefly to see who Chyron is pointing at.
"I believe that's Jern."
Chyron directs a burning glare at the younger woman, and Morrelia, berserker and combat specialist, swallows heavily. Damn but the old woman was scary when she was mad.
"Jern is one of Anthony's–one of the target's Templars, Commander! One of the first two."
"He doesn't have a surname?"
"I… don't believe he does. I've never heard it if he does."
"Templar is his Class?"
"It is."
Chyron watched the young man fight a little longer, her eyes taking in every movement.
"Any chance we can recruit him? He fights like a demon."
Morrelia blanched.
"From what I understand, he worships the target as some sort of nascent divinity."
"Damned foolish nonsense," Chyron sighed. "Such a waste."
Indeed, Jern was putting on quite the show, along with the rest of the Templars. As elusive as a rumour, they slipped in and out of the Legion lines seemingly at will, striking at the slugs, then retreating, or lunging forward again, striking even deeper if they saw weakness.
Merciless, cunning and with incredible combat instincts, she had to wonder who trained them to fight in such a way. Even the mage was nimble, flickering into the heat of the battle to unleash her spells before darting out, confounding the slugs over and over again.
But it was Jern who caught the most attention, simply because of his enormous size and willingness to fight on the front. Every swing of his axe was mechanically perfect and reaped a terrible toll on the enemy before him.
"Luckily there's only three of them," Chyron noted, returning her focus to the battle.
"There's another three," Morrelia told her, "but they're young."
Commander Chyron acknowledged her with a grunt as she took in the field, soaking up the details as only an experienced Commander of the Legion could. Morrelia wished she had the insight Chyron did, but it took time to develop and was one of the many things she was deployed here to learn.
"I never thought I'd be fighting inside a heart," Chyron said, flicking her gaze upward to take in the enormous pulsing organ around them. "We used to dream of times like this, smashing the Krath tribes in their places of power. Now some ants have done what we couldn't for thousands of years."
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There was a particular zeal about the Legion today. Of all the foes of the Legionem Abyssi, without question they hated the Krath the most, even though they technically weren't monsters. Morrelia herself had fought them during her stay in the fifth stratum for training, and that brief exposure had burned an enmity into her that would last a lifetime.
"Do you have orders, Commander?" Morrelia prompted, hoping to get back to fighting, which Chyron no doubt saw.
"We are being pressed," Chyron observed, critically examining the front. "Ever since the ant went down, we've been hit hard from above, and the slugs are pulling in reinforcements from somewhere."
Doubtless they had established more living space nearby, since half of the heart was filled with mucus. Frenzied and desperate, the slugs were fighting just as hard as the Legionaries, eager to inflict whatever harm they could on the hated foe in front of them.
Mana continued to rain down from above and it wouldn't be long before it became too dangerous for the Krath to remain here. The Legion only had to stall for time.
"I won't have it said that we needed the help of the ants to win this fight," Chyron said. "Get in there, Tribune. Drive them back and reorder the lines. Once our formation has firmed, we'll drive them out in one push. Am I clear?"
Morrelia grinned like a wolf.
"Yes, Commander," she said, ripping her twin blades from their sheaths. "Gladly."
Freed from the chain, Morrelia was only too glad to push her way through the ranks, making her way to the front. As much as she wanted to run wild and unleash her full berserker might, that wasn't how the Legion needed her to operate.
Famed throughout Pangera, the Abyssal Legion were known for their discipline, their ruthless preparation and their dedication; they didn't need or want soldiers who couldn't fight alongside their brother and sister legionaries.
Waiting for her turn, she stepped forward as the woman in front of her stepped back, rotating the front line and keeping their stamina up. Of course, their opponent tried to take advantage of the momentary gap, but Morrelia was ready, two blades stabbing forward and unleashing beams of sword light.
Cursing vilely, the Krath twisted its body, flattening in places while expanding in others to dodge both attacks, spitting a wad of acidic phlegm at her face. Morrelia was already moving, her swords never ceasing their motion. One battered away the attack while the other slashed, more sword light exploding from the point.
With no shield to cover the Legionaries to her left and right, Morrelia needed to compensate for the offense they weren't able to provide as they were busy protecting her. Which meant there was no room for her to hold back—she had to throw out everything she could as fast as she could.
Triggering her berserker rage, Morrelia felt a shiver run down her spine as the red mist descended, her muscles swelling with the power of fury. It was as familiar a sensation to her as a warm blanket at night, and one she welcomed.
All of a sudden, her swords seemed to weigh nothing at all. All of a sudden, any fatigue was completely washed away. All of a sudden, she was eager to fight and fight and fight and…
"Berserking!" she grated out, letting those around her know as she allowed herself a single, solitary step forward.
It was all the space she needed.
Thrusts, slashes, lunges, Morrelia became a whirling dervish of sword light. Krath came to meet her, trying to bring down the threat, but every time they targeted her, allies stepped in to cover, using their shields and bodies to give her the space she needed to work. Against this storm of offence, even the frenzied Krath were forced to fall back, creating a pocket of stability that the Legion used to firm up the line.
Minutes later, Morrelia emerged from the rage, wary to remain too long and test the limits of her control. Lethargy and exhaustion hit her immediately, her body now able to feel the effects of her exhaustion.
"Good work," Chyron said, her shield and blade in her hands and the light of battle in her eyes. "Time to finish the job."
-x-X-x-
I have to admit, a part of me was always curious what it was like inside a Gravity Bomb. I mean, it's functionally a mini-black hole. Anyone would be a little bit curious.
Within a few seconds of being inside the spell, I can safely say, I'm no longer curious. In fact, I'd very much like to leave.
For one, it's dark as heck. I can't see a thing, which is as I expected. They don't call them black holes because they're a multi-spectral light sensation. More unnervingly, my antenna, normally constantly buzzing with warnings about the near future, has gone dead silent. No sight, no smell, no future sense.
Gravitational sense is going crazy, but that's not super helpful.
At least that tells me the antennae haven't been ripped out of my head, which is nice.
Of course, all of these impulses and feedback are rather secondary to my main concern, the unbearable, unbelievable, unending pressure that is applied to me.
Turns out my carapace is actually rather good at enduring pressure, it's pre-compressed diamond after all, so it barely cracks, even within the heart of the Gravity Bomb. That doesn't mean I feel good, however.
Because I don't! I feel terrible!
Now I know how a car in a crusher feels. It's completely suffocating. My legs have completely given up the ghost. After the acid half melted them, they were in no state to survive in here. Honestly, the worst points of pressure are between my three body segments. It feels like the Gravity Bomb is trying to squish them together, which it is, and that relentless grinding is really, really uncomfortable.
Crick, Crack, Crick!
Ooh, I don't like the sound of that.
Regeneration fluid still floods my system, and it's putting in overtime, making sure the many injuries I'm suffering every second don't immediately turn into something fatal. The main problem I have is my carapace. If it collapses, well, obviously I won't last long if that happens.
More like I'll be snuffed out instantaneously as my core is crushed to bits.
Come on carapace, you can do it!
I endure, and endure, and endure. My condition continues to get worse, more cracks in my carapace, my antennae are gone. Did I really think this was a good idea? No, I didn't, I merely thought it was survivable, and I might be right.
But holy moly! This is taking a long time. Like, I'm fairly sure I've never seen a Gravity Bomb last this long. This might be a fairly strong bomb, but I've made way bigger ones.
Again, I enforce my carapace with the energy of the Altar, replenishing the benefits before they fall off. Every little advantage is needed to ensure I make it through.
I never thought I'd have sympathy for the victims of the Gravity Bomb, but here I am. What a terrible way to go.
Fat demon whose name I don't remember, you had it the worst. I won't say I'm sorry, because I wouldn't mean it, but dang, you really had a hard time.
Pushed to the limit of my endurance, and suffering for way too long, I'm overcome with relief when the spell finally fades away.
A hint of light breaks through the darkness, the first sign the Gravity Bomb is done, which only informs me that my eyes are well and truly fractured. If I normally see a thousand different images, I'm now seeing a hundred thousand, with spidery cracks running through all of them. Fabulous.
I'm also falling.
Presumably, somewhere beneath me is the pit of Theorazzn's toxin and I sure as heck don't want to land in that. Thankfully, I was prepared and use Force Magic to blast myself to the side. I can't see where I'm landing for the life of me, but it should be fine. With an enormous squelch, I land into another pile of mucus which starts bubbling away as it eats into my carapace, which is great, but soon the flood of liquid mana from above crashes down right on my head.
With this much energy, it's sure to purify this heart in no time.
And I survived! Gweheheheh.
Take that, Gravity Bomb! All this time you threatened my life, but you weren't up to the challenge at all! I am greater than the power I command! As long as I don't cast one that's too large!
That's satisfying.
Well, hopefully things above are going well, there's nothing I can do about it in the near future except sit here and bubble away in this mucus/cleansed mana stew. I don't have legs, I don't have antennae, my eyes don't work. I've earned a rest.
"Eldest, you survived!"
"Of course I survived, Protectant. Did you really think I wouldn't? Bah! Although, if you could lift me out of the slime, I'd be grateful."
I've got way too many cracks in my carapace and I'm worried some of the goop is going to sneak through.
They manage to relocate me to a safer spot where the mucus has already receded and I spend a good five minutes just healing. Freed from the spell, my secret defenders can start prodding me with weak attacks again, getting the regeneration network back up to full speed. Well, that was quite the experience.
I hope I never go through it again.
-x-X-x-
I'm assuming things are going well for the fighting in the upper chamber. Not that there's much I can do about it. Resting and waiting, healing up, the only thing I do is activate my backup legs as I watch the mucus gradually lose the war to the flooding blue liquid that pours down from above.
I have to admit, it certainly is satisfying to watch the mucus bubbling and vanishing under the onslaught of cleansed mana. Yeah, take that! Stupid slime! You've tormented me for long enough. After today, I'm hoping that I'll never have to deal with the filth of the fifth ever again.
Although it does feel a little lazy to be down here doing nothing while others are fighting. Without someone up there to secure the upper chamber, the chances the Krath manage to block off the flow of cleansed energy is high, so it's definitely necessary.
"Hey, Protectant, any chance you could each send a few bodies up to help the fighting?"
"I… suppose that we could. Why?"
"Well, I'm not doing anything. The only threat to me right now is the Krath succeeding in stopping the flow. So I suppose, if you really want to protect me…."
"Say no more."
She doesn't move from her usual position on top of my head, but I suppose the rest of the secret service are moving to join the fight above. Has it always been this easy to manipulate Protectant? She's usually remarkably stubborn about not doing anything to reveal her presence to anyone. I suppose, with the new evolution, it's made it a lot easier for them to protect me and do other stuff at the same time, given that they each have four bodies.
Whatever, I'll just keep relaxing here and healing while the Krath empire slowly crumbles around me.
After the falling mana has eaten away at the mucus enough, it makes it all the way down the final, deepest pit, and there it confronts its most hated foe. The toxin of Theorazzn, virulently potent after thousands of years of infection, fights for its life against the wuffers' best produce.
And I have to say, it puts up a hell of a fight.
A whirlpool forms over the pit, bubbling and hissing as the two competing types of mana go to battle. Really, in this contest, the cleansed mana is hopelessly outmatched, Theorazzn's toxin is just that strong. I have no idea how we could make our own countermeasure more potent, but I suppose it's something we might learn if I keep evolving and the Colony keeps going deeper into the Dungeon.
Gradually, the cleansed energy permeates the lower heart, the diseased flesh of the heart burning away. I start whipping up some Healing Mana and flinging it around the place, hoping to help shore up the weaker points as I saw the healers doing during the first heart invasion.
It wouldn't be good if this place fell apart on us!
Brilliant really did make sure that a truly absurd amount of liquid energy was prepared. Despite being sent down five different streams, there's still so much flooding in here.
It takes half an hour after I send up Protectant and the others before anyone comes down to check on me. Unsurprisingly, it's Jern, Alis and Bertran who drop in, stepping out of the shadows nearby as if they were open doors.
It's creepy.
"All done up there?" I ask them.
"For the most part," Jern replied, scratching at the back of his head. "The environment became too much for the Krath to handle, so they retreated."
They'll have to retreat fast. It won't be long until this entire area becomes cleansed. Already the heart is starting to pump cleansed energy.
So long as things go well at the other sites, a vast area of Dungeon will become clean, gradually returning to what it had been long, long ago, and the invasion of the fifth will be basically over.
"We've won, then," I say, feeling pleased. I'm pretty much fully healed now, my legs are done developing and even the cracks in my eyes are gone, but I don't feel like moving much. Just watching the taint of that Ancient goop merchant get destroyed is satisfying enough for now.
"Hopefully the other hearts were fine," Bertran says, sitting down with a groan as he starts stretching his back.
"Don't worry about them," I snort. "Did you see how many troops Solant threw at each? They can handle it, no problem."
Jern looks at me, a question looming large in his eyes.
She sent you here, he's telling me, and you're like a… powerful monster.
Even in his eyeball message, he's careful to avoid hitting me with the g-word. Which is wise.
"No, I'm confident that this is done," I go on. "Just sit and watch as the legacy of an Ancient boils away to nothing."
There isn't anything else to do, so the three of them sit down next to me, leaning forward so they can look over the edge of the little pillar I'm on and see into the pit below.
With every passing second, I feel a little more smug and a little more gleeful, knowing that Theorazzn's hold on the fifth may well have been broken forever.
Take that, you miserable slug-brain. Now, when I see you in the center of the world, I can rub this triumph right into your disgusting face.
Right before you get eaten by a black hole.
Gweheheheheh.
-x-X-x-
The work the ants performed in the fifth stratum was most impressive to the people who disliked them the most: the Legionem Abyssi. After all, nobody knew how hard it was to make war in that hellscape better than they did. Of every attempt to capture and cleanse a heart, the Legion were the only ones to get close.
While most of the world stood in awe of the Colony's achievement, the Legion saw something else entirely. They saw a war machine so powerful as to overcome something they themselves could not.
- Excerpt from the private notes of Alberton, Loremaster of Liria
"What do you mean you expected them to fill the hearts with mucus?!"
At my severely irritated pheromonal shout, Brilliant eyes me a little warily and hops to the side, gaining a little distance.
"Don't thwack me! I've only just fully healed from the last one."
Deep breaths. Calming thoughts. Digging. Soft earth between my mandibles. Oh, a rock. No problem, we can move that aside and get back to the digging. Ah, so soothing.
"Sorry about that," I grumble, putting my flash of anger to the side. "Well, I'm slightly sorry about that."
Manipulating me to pursue her love of explosions… just thinking about it is enough to… digging, yes… the soil gives way so easily before my mandibles… I'm being healed.
"It's fine. I'm fine. So… you were saying something about your expectations?"
The mad scientist of the Colony has taken to wearing a strangely academic-looking robe, tailored for ants, of course. It's similar to what Merchant was wearing, sort of a loose-fitting fabric draped over the back, but tied around the joints where the segments are connected. Is ant fashion now a thing?
She dramatically flicks the robe back, causing it to billow behind her.
"Of course I was able to predict their every move. I'm BRILLIANT!"
My antennae are scraping against the soil in my mind, testing for moisture and stability. This will be a fine tunnel when I'm done digging, I can't wait for my siblings to see my excellent work. For now, more digging.
"Elaborate," I manage to say, trying to maintain my calm.
"Well, if we think about potential countermeasures against the liquid mana, it's fairly obvious, isn't it? I believe that's the main reason why they constructed that layer of lakes and did everything they could to conceal the entrances below. Doing that made it impossible for us to progress using our normal strategy. With control of the lungs, they could produce mucus much faster than we could make cleansed mana."
She's linked her middle legs behind her back and is pacing with the other four, putting on a lecturing air. How in the heck does she do that with her legs? She must have manipulated her body while evolving to specifically give her that capacity…. Why?
"After someone ruined that strategy, they knew we would come for the hearts eventually. I expected that they would fill the hearts with mucus to try and stop us from cleansing them. Indeed, I believe we moved too fast for the Krath and caught them well before their preparations were complete. They didn't anticipate our pumping projects, nor that we would be able to gather such a quantity of energy so quickly."
That makes sense. Solant was desperate to make sure we caught the slugs with their metaphorical pants down. How would a slug even wear pants? Shake that thought.
"So… if I'm following you correctly, you included in your calculations that the hearts would be filled with mucus, and there was enough liquid mana to ensure that they would be cleansed anyway?"
"Of course! My calculations took a number of possible counter strategies into consideration. They were flawless. Do you know why they were flawless?"
"Because you're Brilliant…."
"Because I'm BRILLIANT!"
I can't be mad at her, she didn't do anything wrong. I'm mad, of course I'm mad, I jumped into the heart of a Gravity Bomb for absolutely no reason, but I'm not mad at Brilliant. What is she guilty of? Being smarter than me? Everyone in the Colony is smarter than me!
"I only have one question, Senior."
"Oh? Something you can't figure out on your own? Wait, you need my help?"
"You were there, so you can obviously provide some insight. I want to know why your heart was the first to be cleansed. By such a substantial margin as well."
"It was that much faster?"
Brilliant makes a show of looking around.
"The others aren't back yet, are they? I certainly don't see them."
That's true. Word has come back that they've been successful, but so far none of the other groups have returned to the fortress. Along with the Legion and the Templars, we've been back for almost an hour. Right now, the campaign has basically boiled down to a waiting game. Either we've got enough liquid mana to ensure the job is done, or we don't. For now, each of the hearts is filled with cleansed energy while the lungs are still in the process of being purified. It'll take days, maybe weeks for the entire system to filter through, and only then will we know if the change is permanent.
"I managed to destroy some of the mucus," I say, feeling tired.
I'm suddenly exhausted. Not physically, but emotionally.
"You must have destroyed a lot of the mucus," Brilliant says, prodding me in the side, perhaps sensing my growing lethargy. "How?"
"Doom Sphere."
"Inside a heart?! How did you do it without getting caught in the blast?"
"That's the genius of it, Brilliant. I didn't."
-x-X-x-
Solant looked down at the narrow chamber below with a sense of unease. She had been here before, stood in this exact spot, and looked down into the lungs of the fifth not that long ago. At that time, what she'd seen was beyond disgusting. Diseased, rotting flesh, dripping slime and filth, spongy masses of mucus-covered material covering the walls. It had been positively awful.
To think that the Eldest had to run and fight in that mess. Unthinkable.
"Are you heading down?" Mendant asked.
"Do I have to?" Solant asked.
"You can't really see what we're doing from up here," the healer replied, irritated. "So yes, you have to go down."
She descended, but reluctantly. It looked vastly different from before. All traces of slime and rot were gone. The walls were now formed of bright pink spongy flesh that seemed to swell and deflate in a cycle. What hadn't changed was the absurd speed of the mana cycling through the area. It was like a strong breeze buffeting against her core.
Supposedly the pace would only accelerate as more and more of the lungs were purified. Right now at least half of the tunnels were still clogged up with mucus.
"This chamber is finished, obviously," Mendant said, prodding at the walls, seemingly satisfied with what she saw. "This is how it's supposed to look. Nice, healthy flesh, soaking up the mana and transporting it into the vessels behind."
"Are the vessels fully cleansed?" Solant asked, trying to look interested.
For some reason, she just couldn't bring herself to be comfortable in this overly organic place. She focused her mind. It was irrational to be so discomforted. She was a creature of logic and results.
"Not really," Mendant sighed, "which is a problem. The places we've repaired are working properly, but the vessels eventually combine to form arteries, and half of the inputs are still mucus sludge. Healthy material and mucus are sloshing together and creating a mess. Right now we're dumping it into a massive lake and throwing wuffers at the problem."
Solant found that she didn't really want to see it.
"Right, down this way."
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Mendant led them deeper and deeper into the tangled mess of tunnels and chambers, each of them at varying states of repair. Eventually they reached the foremost working teams where Mendant wanted to explain the difficulties they were having.
"We need dig teams in here," she said forthrightly. "Look over there."
Solant turned, almost against her will, and found a group of healers grumbling and muttering as they tried to pry a slab of rotten meat from the wall.
"We have to remove the dead flesh before we can start work repairing the tissue beneath," Mendant explained, "but we're healers. Our mandibles aren't made for that sort of work."
With a sort of horrified fascination, Solant watched as the healers continued to chomp away at the blackened meat until it finally gave way, sloughing off the wall and landing wetly, several healers tangled up in the mess.
"I see," she said faintly.
"Technically, that flesh isn't corrupted any more," Mendant went on, oblivious, "but it is dead and useless. In each span of tunnel, we've got to dig out tons of the stuff before we can get to work. If we can hand off the digging and transportation to someone else, then we can progress more than twice as fast."
The healers managed to extricate themselves from the mess and began to climb up onto the wall again. With careful application of Healing Magic, regenerative fluid and a great deal of irritated muttering, they began to restore the spongy flesh to what it should have been all along. Under their care, it regrew rapidly, healthy and pink, already starting to pull in the mana from around them.
Solant found it nauseating.
"Your request makes logical sense," she said, maintaining her cool. "I'll speak to the dig teams and get them down here to assist. How many do you estimate you'll need?"
Mendant looked at her oddly.
"You're letting me come up with the number? Wouldn't you normally calculate it all down to the finest detail yourself?"
She backed away suddenly.
"Is this a trap?"
Solant stared at her.
"No. You're doing the work here, so you know what you need. If that's all, I'd better get back to headquarters. Just report the number to me when you have it."
Solant turned to leave, only to be confronted with several healers carrying a huge wad of dead meat in their mandibles. She staggered.
"The general is ill!" Mendant declared. "I knew you weren't well."
"I'm fine," Solant replied, righting herself and cleaning her antennae fastidiously. "I'll speak to you later."
"Oh no you don't. Restrain the patient!" Mendant roared.
The healers came from everywhere, leaping out at her as if they'd spawned in mid air.
"Check her for parasites! A thorough examination! It must be affecting her brain!"
As she was borne to the ground and her face was shoved into the soft, porous flesh of the floor, Solant could only think that she should have let Brilliant blow up the lungs and been done with it.
-x-X-x-
There was a certain satisfaction Merchant felt deep in her core as she looked down on the page before her. Not for the first time, she used her claws to fold the page and slide it into her satchel, then immediately found herself having to resist the urge to remove it again.
Well… why not? She didn't have anything too pressing to deal with at the moment.
She lifted the top of the satchel, reached inside and withdrew the paper once more, unfolding it and taking another look at what was written on the page.
She clacked her mandibles, unable to contain her inner joy. That was a large number. A number larger than she thought she would see for a long time yet. Circumstances continued to trend in her favour and she had capitalised reasonably well. Certainly, she could have made more, but serving the interests of the Colony was more important than short-term profit-taking.
After all, the profits were for the Colony. Getting the family ahead for a smaller cut was probably a saving.
But now she was faced with the delicious dilemma faced by all successful traders: what to do with it.
Of course, liquidating a sum this large wouldn't be easy. It wasn't as if she could turn it all into cores, at least not quickly. Buying that many cores would send prices through the roof, sucking up all the supply. She would get twice as much for the same amount if she took her time and spread the purchases out over a few years.
But supplying cores to the antcademies was just one way she could use this vast sum of wealth. What she really wanted to do was establish some enduring income streams, turning this windfall into more and more wealth that she could use to invest in the Colony.
"What's the next move, boss?" asked Secretariant, her new assistant, pushing her glasses up with one claw.
Merchant had known it was only a matter of time until more of her siblings realised the power and value of what she did. She wasn't exactly sure why they all felt the need to wear glasses, though. Enid had suggested them to Merchant as a way to make herself appear less 'monsterish', which was valid, and there were several useful enchantments that could be placed on the lenses, helping to spot fakery in the market. Useful things, but there was no reason to wear them here of all places.
"We need to draw up an investment plan," she said, taking one last glance at the number on the page before putting it away for the last time. Well, the last time for the next few minutes anyway. "Can you bring the others in here? We should have a discussion. And some tea."
"Of course. One moment."
Merchant had spent far too much of her time lately inside the hold of a ship. It was one of the best ways to get around the fourth stratum, as zipping back and forth on a brathian-made vessel was fast and comfortable. She'd purchased a small fleet of five ships from the Island Conglomerate, leveraging their special relationship to prevent the Satrap from fleecing her too much, although the brathian crew demanded exorbitant wages. Already she'd replaced half of the crew with ants who were happy enough to learn the art of sailing from the experts, but it would take years and years before the expertise of the brathian could be dispensed with entirely.
She scuttled over and opened a circular window on the wall, letting in the fresh sea breeze before she pulled a cigar from her inner pocket and lit it with a click of her claws. Then, back to the table, where she began to organise the various stacks of paper strewn about.
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Soon, her small team filed into the room, each well-dressed according to her standards, with cloaks, glasses, the occasional hat and their own document satchels.
"I heard the payment was finalised today," Buffant said, taking a seat at the table and withdrawing her own papers to place upon it.
"Got the balance just before we left port," Merchant confirmed. "Currently it's held in the Sterling Bank."
"A solid institution," Mansa Musant mused, "but is it wise to leave it there long term? We can't rely on the Silver City to play fair with us all the time."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We can't move this much money unless we have something to do with it. Right now, we're collecting interest monthly," Merchant said. "Once we have solid plans in place, we can start to act. Which is exactly why I wanted to see you all."
Secretariant brought in the tea and served everyone at the table before pulling up her own seat.
"Let's discuss revenues then, shall we?" she said, withdrawing her own book of notes and cracking open the leather-bound volume with practised ease. Inside, neat rows and columns filled with her own writing, written in the human style, could be found. Merchant's antennae waggled with approval. Truly, her best student.
"Currently, the Merchant Investment Group is making little by way of regular income through steady business, but has a vast amount of capital on hand. You should all have the latest figures from my last report."
The others nodded and clacked their mandibles in appreciation. They had indeed read up on the latest documentation.
So far, Merchant had a few successful business ventures, but they were, by and large, on the smaller side. A great deal of her business, especially lately, had been conducted on behalf of the family directly. Now it was time to more firmly establish her own enterprise.
"There have been eight investors in the fifth-invasion scheme," Merchant said happily. Huge amounts of wealth in her own coffers, and support for the Colony, all at once. "As far as we know, there are going to be two invasions taking place as soon as possible, while the rest plan to wait until after the next wave, which is expected to start very soon. Let me ask you, sisters, what is the best way to make money during a gold rush?"
"Tapestries?" Buffant guessed.
Ka'armodo were intensely fond of gold and would aggressively seek to seize it whenever there was a chance. Of course, they needed to look good while they were at it.
"That's second, but a good guess," Merchant said. "The real answer is: shovels."
The ants all accepted this wisdom, nodding sagely.
"So we invest in shovel production," Musant said, slamming one claw down on the table.
"No," Secretariant said, looking irritated. "There is going to be a rush to make profit from the fifth. We can't invest in the race, the Colony has already done that. What we can do is sell to the participants the things they need to compete."
"Exactly," Merchant said, taking a puff from her cigar. "In this case, weapons and armour are the obvious candidates, but most empires either produce their own, or work through trusted suppliers with decades-long relationships. It's impossible to muscle in there. However, there are other things they're going to need in vast quantities. Things we know they'll need."
"Medical supplies," Secretariant said with certainty. "Two things the Colony could never get enough of were Healers and medical supplies to deal with poisoning and toxin exposure."
"Surely everyone knows they need those already," Buffant noted. "Will there really be that dramatic a surge in demand?"
"Oh yes," Merchant laughed. "What I want is a plan to put as many independent healers under contract as possible. Secure our own supply lines as a matter of priority and try to put a reasonable cap on prices. If it gets too expensive, the invasions will get called off, which will be bad for business! Musant, draw up a report on the supplies the Colony consumed during the invasion and the purchase price on the rights to those harvests over the next three years."
She tapped ash into the crystal receptacle on the table.
"We're going to take our fortune and make a larger one."
-x-X-x-
Time passed in a whirlwind of activity for Merchant. It seemed as though there was never enough time in the day to do all the things she wanted to. Getting the information she needed took time. Running the numbers took time. Travelling to meet contacts, negotiations, drawing up contractual agreements. Time, time, time.
She was so desperate for time that she began using teleportation more and more frequently. Merchant had inherited her dislike of gateways from Enid, who deemed them a trap for inexperienced traders. Moving goods through a gate was ten times as expensive as travelling with them, and if you were moving from one place to another, then you ought to be carrying something, otherwise what was the point?
Indeed, the cost just to move Merchant and her team from place to place was prohibitive enough, without taking any items through with them, and that was when they could get permission. There were still many places that wouldn't accept monsters in their gate network, despite the best efforts of the Colony diplomants to open doors and secure rights.
Despite the hectic schedule and seemingly endless travel, Merchant only grew more and more energised as time went on.
"How many signatures did we get from the Infusion Medical College, Buffant?"
"Only eleven, I'm afraid."
"What? At those rates?"
The offered deals were very generous, which they needed to be. Merchant wasn't in the business of lying. She didn't conceal the fact that anyone who signed the deal was going to be sent into the fifth to work in field hospitals. No frontline work, absolutely not, but still dangerous. A less scrupulous individual could have withheld that information and then used the contract to force them to go, but despite being immoral, such traders were, in the opinion of Enid, second rate.
Lying and cheating for short-term profits killed your future business as sure as an arrow to the core. Trust and reputation were more valuable than Ascended Platinum. By dealing squarely with these Healers and suppliers, the potential for future agreements would always be there.
"What are our numbers, Secretariant?" Merchant asked.
"Still eighty short of our target."
"Eighty? Hmmm."
So far, Merchant had found there was a critical mass to this sort of thing. The larger the number of medical personnel they could provide, the better the deals from the various invading powers became.
"Where are we going to find another eighty?" Merchant wondered, then shook her head. "You and Musant will have to work on that, I have other priorities. Offer another round of deals to those graduating next year and add a signing bonus. If we can't get the people we need right now, then we can assure people that we have them under contract."
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"Good idea."
"Secretariant, did we get a price on those vitalweed harvests?"
"We did," she replied grimly, "the price has doubled from the last quote."
"Doubled?" Merchant said, clacking her mandibles in surprise. "Already?"
"Someone has been throwing around huge amounts of coin, trying to secure the same materials we are."
"Any idea who?"
"The Merchant Cooperative."
"Georgia Wynn."
Looks like she'd had the same idea Merchant had.
"The race is on, Secretariant. Double her offer, but only if they lock in for the next three years."
"That much? Are you sure?" the ant asked, surprised.
"Absolutely," Merchant replied, pushing her glasses up. "You've seen the price projections. The profit is still there, but only if we act fast."
Those prices would continue to skyrocket as long as the invasion of the fifth went on, which would be years.
"That's going to eat into our capital faster than anticipated," Secretariant pointed out.
"That's a problem, but a manageable one. Make the trade."
"I'll see to it."
"Have we moved the allocated funds to the Colony bank yet?"
"We have."
"Any data on the uptake of the loans?"
"It hasn't been long," Secretariant said, flicking through a few pages in her notebook. "But initial signs are good. There's strong interest, particularly in Renewal."
"Excellent."
This was one of the initial planks of Merchant's strategy to economically develop the Colony's territories. Right now, the Colony did a surprising amount to stimulate growth in the underground cities they controlled just by patrolling the Dungeon and keeping crime staggeringly low. Of course, there was significant infrastructure buildout by the Colony as well, but those were being underutilised.
She intended to stimulate activity by offering low interest loans so long as the applicant was able to present a sound business platform. All in all, it would lose Merchant money, there was only a tiny amount of profit in the loans themselves and some of them wouldn't be repaid, but that was fine. Enriching the populace would lead to economic growth, which would lead to greater uptake of gates and trade, which would lead to an increase in the wealth flowing to the Colony.
Of course, if the people in Colony-controlled territory had more wealth, they would need to make more extensive use of banking services, which would mean more business and more capital for Merchant.
The harmonious cycle of profit.
"I'm going to work on the proposal for the Colony Construction expansion," Merchant declared, shuffling through her own papers.
She had to get this authorised by the Council first, but they should approve it. When they did, her construction teams would start operating on a much larger scale. Since the ant workers didn't take pay, their wages were paid directly to the antcademies, but this was another way Merchant intended to use her wealth to benefit the Colony. Subsidised construction projects within their territory to stimulate growth.
Yes, she had plans that would make the people living alongside her siblings very wealthy indeed.
-x-X-x-
As it turns out, there really isn't all that much to do now. Vibrant is running around like a mad thing, putting out spot fires on the borders. Most of the resources that were brought in for the rush of construction and fighting here have been dispersed back to where they came from, letting the broader Colony pick up the pieces that they left behind and start repairing the damage.
Meanwhile, down in the depths of the fifth, there's nothing to do. We dumped every drop of liquid mana we'd collected into the hearts and lungs, and now we're all sitting around waiting to see if it was enough.
Maybe just to stop me from being annoying, but also maybe because the threat is real, I've been put on patrol, making sure the Krath don't sneak in and tip the scales back in their favour.
I mean, if they found a way to get in here and load the lungs full of mucus, it would be a complete disaster. How exactly they'd manage to do something like that, I have no idea, but hey, it's the Krath, they're sneaky!
So Tiny, Crinis, Invidia and I find ourselves wandering around the tunnels, looking for trouble and generally being unable to find it.
[Did we check this heart already?]
[Not today, Master.]
[I swear we did.]
[We didn't.]
[Tiny, have we checked this one?]
The big ape looks at me seriously, then shrugs. You haven't been paying attention at all, have you?
[There's a monster spawning over there,] I sigh, pointing with an antenna.
He perks up, hops over and winds back one massive fist, a look of intense concentration on his face. Honestly, I feel sorry for the poor monster about to leap out of that hollow. Two seconds after spawning, it's going to get a tier seven gorilla punch straight to the dome. That's an unfortunate life if ever I've heard of one.
If we don't do anything, it'll try and gnaw our ankles off, so we'll end up having to bop it regardless. Or maybe we won't?
[Give it a second, Tiny. Don't hit it yet.]
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He turns to me, enormously disappointed, holding up his fist.
[Sheesh, you hit something just a few minutes ago! Give it a rest!]
Sure enough, the monster jumps up just a few seconds later looking… really weird.
I swear, all of the monsters born from the natural mana of the fifth are extremely odd. This one looks like… a blob with a long, snake-like bit extending out of it tipped with another, smaller blob. As far as I can tell, it has no eyes… or any other sensory equipment for that matter. I lean a little closer, trying to work out what the heck it is, but also curious to see if it'll just creep off, intimidated by my presence.
I haven't managed to find a hard and fast rule for whether or not a monster is going to avoid me yet. Some tier ones will still fight, though the vast majority won't, while some tier sixes will avoid me, while the majority will still fight.
As it turns out, this particular beastie is not all that intimidated. As I lean in, it promptly attempts to burrow into my brain, whipping its long segment through the air and splotching onto my head. Once attached, it tries to gnaw through the carapace to get to the delicious, highly mutated brain power within.
[Tiny, punch this thing, please.]
If it is possible for someone to smugly punch, then that is what the ape does. The offending monster is splattered in an instant and I have learned a new lesson.
What the heck was that thing? Some sort of brain-eating zombie cell? Bah, I'm unlikely to see it again, spawn rates are still relatively low through here as the natural energy returns. That won't last long, it's climbing fast, really fast, but for now the tunnels are fairly calm.
We head over to the heart and climb up into the lower chamber. There's still liquid mana pooling in some of the crevices and down the bottom of the chamber, not yet having dispersed throughout the network. I carefully inspect the spot where Theorazzn's toxin once resided and I'm pleased no sign of it remains. It appears this heart was completely cured just the same as the one I invaded personally. Looking about, there's a totally different feeling being inside one of these when they're healthy. The beating of the massive, muscular walls is much more powerful now than it was before, which makes sense.
Before the purge and subsequent healing, this heart was a disease-ridden mess, barely functioning. Now the flesh is hale and hearty, pink and red and brimming with vitality, which naturally leads to a stronger heart. Every pulse of the walls is like a hammer blow, shaking the surrounding Dungeon and setting my antennae to quivering.
Mana is starting to circulate faster and faster as the system recovers. At full strength, it's going to be suffocating in here. During a wave, I can scarcely imagine what it's going to be like. What happens when you pump an ocean of power through such relatively narrow openings?
Even the Legionaries, with their special adaptation to mana, probably wouldn't be able to stand in here without getting sick.
[Looks like everything is in order here, gang. Let's go and take a look at the lungs. We're out here for another five days, so make sure you're keeping your senses sharp. Any mistakes could set this whole area back to square one.]