by Simon Archer
While I lay there dazed, with the Soldier and its cadre of Sentries nearly upon me, a message flashed across my vision.
You have killed creature: Giant Minder Ant.
Laughter burbled from my mouth as I scrambled to my feet and turned to face my attackers.
“Got your healer!” I snarled as the Sentries fanned out around me to encircle me while the Soldier rushed me as if to say, “Yeah, but now we’ll get you!”
There was just one problem with that.
I’d face my share of Soldiers by now, and their charge attack was pretty predictable. I sidestepped the rush with practiced ease and drove my weapon into the joint between its head and thorax, and thanks to the added cutting ability of the mandible in my hand, it sliced through the relative weak spot in the creature’s armor like fucking butter.
Better still, the creature’s own momentum carried it forward while I braced my body, causing it to rend itself open on my blade. As it ripped past me in a spray of green ichor, its momentum finally pulled my weapon from my hand. I flipped the mandible I had in my other hand, caught it by the tip, and let it fly toward the Sentry on my immediate left.
The mandible caught it in the center of the head, and while not enough to kill it outright, it certainly made it stop its charge.
I charged the stunned Sentry as I manifested another pair of Soldier Mandibles from inventory. A quick slash put its head on the dirt, and that gave me enough time and distance to whirl around in time to meet the charge from the remaining Sentries. I rolled out of the way of the left one’s leap, and as I came up onto my knee in front of the right one, I leaned back sharply. As the creature’s mandibles snapped shut mere millimeters from my throat, I drove the twin weapons in my hand into the underside of its neck and scissored them outward.
Gore sprayed over me as I felt the last one slam into me, and as its pincers bit down on me, I was super glad for all the points I had put into Fortitude. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but that was fine because I wasn’t dead, and that meant I could fight back.
I gritted my teeth to shut out the pain and drove a mandible into its right eye, ending its life instantly. As its body dropped lifelessly to the floor, I used Auric Extraction on it to refill my Aura. Then, as my Aura began to drain away at a ridiculous speed from the raging battle around me, I sprinted over to the Minder and used the skill again.
Pattern: Giant Minder Ant has been learned. Would you like to create a Giant Minder Ant?
Only I couldn’t do it because even though I’d just used Auric Extraction twice, I didn’t have the Aura for it. Part of it was because my Aura was draining away at a furious rate, but most of it was because it would take nearly ninety percent of my maximum Aura to bring it to life.
“Damn,” I muttered as I used my Auric Extraction skill on the remaining downed enemies before I sprinted toward my army.
The Sentinel definitely looked like it was in trouble, but thanks to the relentless pounding of the enemy ants on my guys, most of them were gone. In fact, aside from Todd, Kurt, and One, Two, and Three, I was down to just five additional Soldiers. My forces had been reduced by half in the time I’d spent dealing with the Minder and its minions.
“Not good,” I mumbled as I readied my sling and let an unpowered rock fly. Part of me wanted to charge it, but that would use valuable energy that would otherwise go to healing, and I only had the barest sliver left.
My rock struck a Sentry in the side, and as it turned toward me, I hit it with a second rock.
You have killed creature: Giant Sentry Ant.
The moment the message appeared before my eyes, I used Auric Extraction, but the monster’s Aura had barely flowed into me before going back out to heal my ants.
That was fine though because no one was fucking with me next, and I used that advantage to take down the rest of the Sentries in a rapid succession of sling rock, extract Aura, and repeat so that by the time I reached the main body of fighting, all the Sentries were dead.
I once again called my Soldier Mandibles from my inventory, only this time, I used them in the back of the closest soldier. It didn’t take long to take it down, considering that it wasn’t even paying attention to me. I managed to kill two more of them before any of them broke off to fight with me, which had the added advantage of further reducing the damage on my guys.
So, I made an executive decision and summoned forth two of my Soldier Ants from the Auric Abyss from whence they were from, and as they appeared, I smiled with grim satisfaction because these weren’t under the effects of the Sentinel's taunt.
They hit the two attackers in front of me with a fury, ripping into them like the fuckers owed them money. I assisted because I wanted their Aura for myself. A moment later, the two ants were down, and while the Aura from one went to healing my guys, the Aura from the other went to bringing back another of my little army.
My team of three then tore into the backs of the other Soldiers, and I repeated the process of burning one down, and then if I could afford it, using its Aura to summon a new ant. Needless to say, I was so focused on what I was doing that when I saw a new message flash before my eyes, I barely realized I was standing in a dirt field strewn with the bodies of the fallen.
Your summoned creatures have killed creature: Giant Sentinel Ant.
14
As the adrenaline of the battle faded from my body, I realized that this one battle had got me to level thirteen. That was partially because I’d been nearly level eleven when I’d started, but I wasn’t going to complain a bit about the boost.
Instead, I quickly allocated my nine stat points, opting to put two into Strength, Intelligence, and Fortitude, and the remaining three into Agility. Next time I leveled, I’d dump an extra point into Strength to even it out because this was the second time I’d run out of Aura during a battle. I was starting to realize that using it to both power my attacks and my summons was going to get harder and harder the further I progressed, so I’d need some actual physical muscle behind my attacks.
After that, I used my three skill points to increase Auric Sense so that hopefully I’d just spot camouflaged monsters without having to go active. Had I known that healer was there from the start, my strategy would have been a little different.
That done, I set my ants to harvesting the corpses I’d already extracted Aura from before proceeding to use Auric Extraction on the Giant Sentinel Ant.
Pattern: Giant Sentinel Ant has been learned. Would you like to create a Giant Sentinel Ant?
Instead of immediately summoning the creature, though, I decided to take a look at its potential stats. It seemed like a pretty strong ant, but one thing had been clear about the battle was that it didn’t actually do a lot of damage because Todd had managed to tank the thing just fine. A quick look at its stats confirmed why.
While its defense was off the charts, both its speed and attack power were on a par with the Sentries, which was probably why we hadn’t been wiped out. Had it been as strong as a Soldier, it would have killed us all.
Still, having a tank, especially one that could take that much damage for that long would be useful. Thanks to my levels, even though I’d gotten all twenty of my ants back on their feet, I had six extra summon slots.
I brought one Sentinel to life, and as the creature looked at me, I decided to name it Hank for no reason in particular.
After that, I gave a quick look over the Minder Ant pattern and quickly realized that having Minder Ants would give me a spectacular advantage because they could heal the others without drawing down my Aura which would let me use Aura Infusion even more.
So, even though I had to spend some time letting my Aura naturally restore to do it, I summoned two of them, and because I was keeping up with my theme, I named the first one Scott and the second one Cassie. Then because I had the free slots, I decided to summon one more. I named that one Lang. Now you get it, huh?
The Minders looked a lot like smaller and paler Sentries with significantly longer a
ntennas that seemed to twitch erratically. Only, as I stared at them for a couple moments, I realized it wasn’t erratic at all. No, they were actually pointing at the various ants in my small army, and I instantly wondered if they were checking on each and every ant in turn. It wouldn’t surprise me at all, but I decided to test it out, anyway.
“Lang, can you target Cassie?” As soon as I said the words, Lang’s antenna twitched once before pointing right at Cassie. I waited for a few heartbeats, but when the ant’s antennae didn’t so much as tremble, I found myself satisfied that my deduction was true. “Um… about ease, Lang.”
Just as I thought, the Minder’s antennae went back to scanning the crowd, and I couldn’t help but let my lips slip into a smug smile.
Feeling particularly cheeky, I used the remaining two slots to get two more Soldiers, so my new army now stood at three Sentries, nineteen Soldiers, one Sentinel, and three Minders. Not too shabby if I did say so myself, especially since I’d now be entering the colony itself, and according to my overlay, it was bursting at the fucking seams with enemies. I’d thought it hadn’t been that bad, but now that I had upgraded my Sense skill, I realized I was very, very wrong.
Still, there was only one way forward, and that was, well, down. Once the ants were finished with their harvest, and I had stowed everything away, I told One, Two, and Three to make damned sure they protected the Minders.
Then I ordered my new Sentinel Ant Hank to make his way toward the entrance flanked by Todd and Kurt. I followed next, and my army followed behind me.
The ant cave itself was quite a bit different from the surroundings, and honestly, I was a bit welcome for the change in scenery. Instead of being nothing but fresh turned brownish earth, the walls were a mixture of reddish orange striations in a sandstone type substance that was almost glossy and smooth to the touch in a way that reminded me of kiln-glazed pottery. Better still, as we moved down into the depths of the cave, it began to feel moist, and that meant water would soon be at hand.
After all, I’d long wondered where the ants had gotten water on this godforsaken planet, but I’d judged that there were probably underground reservoirs and rivers because the dirt didn’t seem that dry. No doubt as we ventured forward, we’d run into the ants' source of water.
Unfortunately, that was probably still going to be awhile because, after only a few hundred meters, we hit resistance. I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d kicked the ant nest or if they’d just been a second contingent of guards that hadn’t been called forth, but we soon found ourselves facing another dozen ants that were a mixture of Soldiers, Scouts, and Sentries, none of which were much of a problem though. Since they lacked their own Sentinel, Hank was easily able to pull all their attention to him. After that, it wasn’t hard for the three Minders to take turns healing him while my Soldiers and I burned down the enemies one by one.
I got another level, dumped my stat points into Strength, Intelligence, and Fortitude and my skill point into Auric Sense, but better still, I got a Scout pattern out of it too. I’d been a bit dismayed about that since I hadn’t run into any after I’d gotten my special skill, so I was pretty excited when I finally learned the pattern. As soon as I saw it, I wished I’d had one earlier because the Scout Ant had an increased ability to find things like food, water, and treasure.
Though that fact made me a bit sad, I’d make the most of it now. I spent the Aura to summon an additional Soldier, and because I had the slot, I decided to bring forth a Scout.
“Okay, Scout.” Yes, I did name him that. What can I say? I liked the name. “Find me some booty.”
The ant didn’t really reply, but it did sort of shift slightly, and as it did, a dull glow began to emanate from it before flowing outward like a slowly crashing wave. Then my overlay began to light up with green, blue, and yellow diamonds. I didn’t know what any of them meant, but since they had come from the Scout’s ability, I was hoping it meant food, water, and treasure. Yeah, my momma didn’t raise a dummy.
Feeling pretty pleased with my assumption, I turned my attention toward the yellow diamond because it was the closest and not because I was really super sure it meant treasure. Then after telling One, Two, and Three to protect Scout, I began to lead us toward the glowing yellow marker.
It took over an hour to reach it, and we fought so many ants along the way that not only had I managed to get two more levels, but most of my ants had leveled up too. Hell, One and Two were nearly level ten.
That said, when I reached it, I found that it wasn’t really a treasure at all.
Instead, it was a giant stone door with geometric symbols emblazoned on top of it. Confused by its appearance in the cave and not seeing any traps, I turned on the Overdrive portion of my Sense skill and focused on it.
I saw nothing out of the ordinary or at least not more out of the ordinary than a giant stone door in the middle of an ant cave. After a couple more minutes of scanning the area, I saw no new information, so I approached, wary of any traps. None befell me as I made my way to the door and reached out my hand to touch its surface. As my fingers pressed against what I thought was stone, the face of the door rippled like a rock thrown into a pond.
“Well, that’s weird,” I said as my eyes widened in shock. I stared at it for a moment longer, and after repeating the process a couple of times, I turned to my Soldiers and grinned innocently at them. “Any volunteers to go through the door?” I held out my hand and began ticking off my fingers. “Possibilities include horrible death, destruction, and mayhem.”
None of them spoke, but Kurt slowly trotted forward. It made sense since he was the strongest of the Soldiers, and it wasn’t like he could really get killed or anything. If something horrible happened to him when he touched the door, I could always re-summon him. Probably.
As Kurt headed toward the door, he either didn’t care about his possible doom or at least did a good job of hiding his fear. The moment he made contact with the stone the door’s surface, it shimmered and shined before warping the surrounding area. Bolts of scarlet lightning exploded from the corners and arced across the stone ceiling and walls, blackening it before my eyes. Even still, none struck Kurt as he made his way through the rippling passageway wreathed in dancing sparks.
And because I was metaphysically linked to the ant, I knew one thing to be true: He hadn’t died when he’d gone through. No, if anything, the sense I got from the Soldier Ant once he’d reached the other side was… boredom.
Satisfied it wasn’t the worst plan in the history of bad plans, I stepped through the door, and oddly enough, the experience was strangely refreshing. Like having a glass of ice water after chewing some mint gum. Better still, my Aura automatically regenerated to full, even though it had been down about a third from all the uses of Overdrive.
The sight before me though was… different, and not just because it was filled with glowing luminescent algae every color of the neon rainbow.
“Well, that’s pretty damned amazing,” I said as I glanced at Kurt who stood right beside me on the small ledge, clearly not as impressed as I was by the fact that the ground was covered in gold and silver coins and the walls of jewel-laden cavern were something straight out of Disney’s Seven Dwarfs Mine ride. Glittering red, blue, and green gemstones the size of my skull protruded from the obsidian walls of the cavern, tantalizing me like I was Abu in the magic Aladdin Cave. Yes, I’m on a Disney kick, but in my defense, they own everything.
Still, I fought down my inner greedy chimp and used my Overdrive ability on the cavern. While I didn’t see any traps among the huge stalactites and stalagmites crisscrossed the area ahead, nor did I see any water sources that could have created the aforementioned rock formations, I did hear dripping water. I’d definitely have to find it and drink some. Then I’d have to figure out how to make a container and carry some out...
Turning back to the door, I gave Scout a mental command to follow me inside. A moment later, he appeared next to me, and I smiled lovingly at
my new favorite ant.
“Seems you hit the motherlode,” I said as I glanced around the cavern. Then when he twitched in a way I took for agreement, I smiled at him. “Wanna use your Finder ability again? Just for funsies?”
The ant clearly was pleased because he followed my command without hesitation. Only as the wave of power swept out from Scout, all the gemstones visibly lost their shine.
“Huh,” I said as I looked around. “The algae still seems pretty bright…”
It was true. The walls were still just as brightly lit, and the stalactites and stalagmites were just as brilliant. Now though, the gems were losing their luster with surprising speed until they looked more like chunks of coal.
As the last vestiges of Scout’s spell hit the far wall, there was a flash of light, and a tiny cave I hadn’t seen before began to glow like the fucking sun.
“I’m guessing that’s where we go,” I said as I glanced around and wondered what would have happened if I’d taken a gemstone. Would the place have filled with lava? Would I have been disintegrated on the spot? Would I have to watch Gremlins 2 on repeat for all eternity?
“No one would be that cruel,” I mumbled as I turned back to the door and summoned forth Cassie. Then I made my way forward with Scout, Cassie, and Kurt at my heels. I was half inclined to bring all my ants, but I didn’t want to leave the entrance unguarded. For all I knew, more enemy ants were on their way right now. So instead, I just brought a Soldier and a Minder with Scout and me.
It didn’t take long to cross the cavern because it wasn’t really that big, maybe a hundred yards or so deep. There was even a slick path through the rock formations that seemed to shepherd me toward the cave on the far end. It was strange because the path hadn’t been at all obvious until after Scout had done its thing. The path also made me glad for my shoes because they had no problem gripping the slick, wet stone.
