Extra Credit

by J. Arthur Klein

  The insect’s body shriveled like a raisin in the sun while its limbs and mandibles stretched and became longer, more like those of a spider than an ant. The last segment of its front two legs transformed further, growing into long, stiletto like points with jagged, serrated edges.

  I ordered the new minion to attack and watched as it leapt upon its former kin, forelegs piercing through their chitin with ease. The drones didn’t have a chance.

  You have killed Giant Ant Solider! You have gained 75xp!

  You have killed 8x Giant Ant Drone! You have gained 400xp!

  QUEST UPDATE - Destroy the Giant Ant Drones (18/30)

  The bugs had no actual loot, but I was able to dissect them for another sixteen pieces of Ant Chitin, eight doses of Minor Ant Acid, ten chunks of Ant Meat, and six Giant Ant Pincers.

  Hoss devoured another three pieces of meat to regenerate his health, and I repaired the skeletons.

  The XP for the ants seemed a bit underwhelming for their relative level. They’d have to be between ten and twelve to register as white, and the soldier being yellow should be either thirteen or fourteen, but the XP didn’t seem to reflect that.

  Maybe the whole group is considered together, I thought.

  Again, the anthill disappeared with a rumbling and churning of the ground and it was on to the next marker.

  I dismissed Moe and brought Larry back from limbo to repair his arm and give him a chance at vengeance at the next marker.

  The ant hills turned out to be relatively standard. There was no soldier at the next marker, so Hoss led the way with his shield and aggro’d the swarm.

  The ghoulish soldier crashed into the enemy, cutting into the drones with his sharp claws but then fell to the drones’ retaliation, leaking a nasty smelling ichor into the dirt.

  I re-summoned Moe as the stooges began their own rush, and I cast my debuffs targeting a drone near the center of their group.

  Miasma spread the afflictions to the rest of the enemy group and the three stooges hit the lines, smashing through the drones.

  Apparently, we’d hit the bonus anthill, as the ants continued to emerge after the tenth and my minions started to take more damage as they smashed the ants to smithereens.

  One Drone broke free of the scrum and rushed me, mandibles spread wide.

  I raised my staff defensively as it pounced, its mandibles reaching around the staff to pierce my wrist.

  A sharp pain shot up my arm, followed by a burning sensation as the ant’s acid started to digest my flesh.

  I pulled away, tearing my arm even further, but at least what would probably have been a bleeding wound was cauterized by the acid.

  The wound continued to burn and my hit points dropped down to thirty percent. Warding the ant off with my staff, I cast Necromantic Bolt point blank into its head, sending it skittering backwards.

  It leaped at me again, but before I was buried under the insect, I remembered my new cloak, and triggered Mist Step to teleport behind it as it crashed down on my previous location.

  I sped through the gestures for Drain as quickly as I could, and as the ant recovered and turned to face me the purple lightning of the spell reached out and started sucking the life away from the insect.

  Its hit points fell as it regained its feet while mine began to rise, and as it gathered itself for another leap, I timed a second teleport to get away from the insect and closer to my remaining minions.

  Luckily, I was able to maintain the spell through the teleport, draining the rest of the drone’s life force to replenish my own, and then some.

  You have killed 12x Giant Ant Drone! You have gained 600xp!

  QUEST UPDATE - Destroy the Giant Ant Drones (30/30)

  CONGRATULATIONS! You have reached Level 12!

  You have gained 2 Intelligence!

  You have gained 3 Attribute points and 14 Skill points!

  Your Hit Points, Mana, and Endurance pools have increased!

  The warm glow of leveling up filled me, but was quickly dispelled as my attention was drawn to a large eruption of earth further to the north where a small pack of soldier ants were bursting onto the surface.

  ***

  41

  QUEST UPDATE – Something’s Bugging Farmer Phil II (Optional)

  After destroying the drones of the local colony, the queen has sent her soldiers to the surface to avenge her children. Destroy the soldiers before they destroy you.

  Criteria: Destroy Giant Ant Soldiers (1/5)

  Reward: +200xp, Class Appropriate Reward (Yellow)

  Accept? (Yes/No)

  Four red dots appeared on my map as I accepted the updated quest, showing the locations of the soldier ants as they spread out searching for me. There were only four which was confusing, but after checking my logs I saw that the game was counting the soldier I’d killed earlier. Maybe it was left over from someone else’s version of the quest?

  My minions were still injured from our last battle so I needed to find some cover so I could repair them before they’d be ready to face more soldiers. So as soon as I spotted an opening, I rushed my minions into one of the fields, hiding in the center of a clump of extra tall corn.

  Trying to be as quiet as possible, I moved between minions and healed them one by one, saving the zombie for last to avoid his chomping from giving us away.

  I had to pause several times when the soldiers passed nearby. Thankfully, the game wasn’t as merciless with its mob tracking skills as it could be.

  Once everyone was healed, I tried to concentrate enough to upgrade my character but barely got my stat points allocated before the soldiers returned to the area. Screw it, I’ll do it later.

  I tracked the Soldiers’ positions on my map, making note of their current patrols and waiting for an opportunity to catch one by itself.

  I had a pretty loose plan for how to take out the tougher soldiers. Hopefully I could pull it off without attracting the rest.

  If I could draw it into the corn, at least two of my minions should be able to get off surprise attacks before they were noticed. The damage multiplier should put a pretty good hurting on the bug and allow us to take it out quickly.

  I positioned Larry and Moe in the corn, a little more than an ant’s width apart with myself between them and waited for the next soldier to pass by.

  As soon as it was in range, I cast a Necromantic Bolt into the back of its thorax.

  Sneak Attack Successful!

  Sneak Attack Damage Multiplier x2!

  The soldier’s health fell by thirty percent as my bolt blasted a hole through its carapace, exposing its gooey insides.

  The Soldier turned towards me and charged. I dashed back through the corn between my minions, the stalks whipping at my face as the ant followed me into the gap.

  From behind I heard the snapping of corn stalks as the soldier entered my trap followed by two satisfying crunches as my minions struck, destroying the giant insect.

  You have killed Giant Ant Soldier! You have gained 75xp!

  Quest Update: Destroy Giant Ant Soldiers (2/5)

  Apparently, I had overestimated the Soldier Ant’s durability.

  The ant had done a number to my cover, so I moved camp to another, undamaged section of the field, avoiding the patrolling ants until we were ready.

  The routes of the remaining three ants were closer together than the first, so there was a chance my initial pull might attract more than one so I positioned Curley and Hoss to intercept, and then attacked.

  Moe and Larry turned it into paste, but my concern about the second soldier joining in was justified. Hoss’ hit points dropped by a quarter as he and Curley engaged with the add.

  I emerged from the corn to see the giant insect standing over Hoss. Its mandibles had torn a nasty hole in the zombie’s chest, and as I watched, acid dripped from its maw onto my minion’s face, dropping his hit points by the second.

  Curley was on the ground a few steps away, only slightly damaged as he climbed back to his fee
t.

  I ordered Larry and Moe to assist and directed Hoss to turn his face away from the soldier and hopefully save himself from irreparable damage.

  I cast a quick bolt at the ant and it turned towards me, its acidic drool splattering the ground.

  It stepped off Hoss, who was hanging on by the skin of his teeth, and rushed towards me.

  A second bolt left my hand just as the two skeletons reached it, the combined blows of their maces and my magic dropping the soldier to under twenty percent.

  It lashed out at Moe, snapping his femur even through the armor and leaving traces of acid behind to further damage the bone.

  The skeleton dropped to the ground, overbalanced from his swing. A quick strike from the soldier’s foreleg shattered his skull and extinguished the dark light in his eyes seconds before Larry’s blow to the soldier’s back came crashing down.

  Orc Skeleton (Moe) has been destroyed! Your bound mana has been returned.

  You have killed 2x Giant Ant Soldier! You have gained 150xp!

  Quest Update: Destroy Giant Ant Soldiers (4/5)

  I glanced at my map to see where the last soldier was and sighed in relief. It was all the way on the other side of the farm.

  Hoss was still down on the ground, a mass of chewed on and melted flesh… but he still had a few hit points left. There was a giant hole in his armor from the ant’s massive mandible, but the rest of it was in ok condition, other than a few pock marks from splashing acid.

  The zombie turned its head towards me and a wave of nausea threatened to do me in. His head was almost completely melted from the acid. All that was left of his face was a single eye socket set amidst a mushy ball of meat.

  The back of the skull was still somewhat intact, but it was barely connected to the rest of the body by a half melted spinal cord. It was bad.

  I ordered the minion to rise and it just flailed weakly on the ground.

  How can I heal this thing, I thought? It needs to eat flesh to heal, and well, its mouth is gone… Hell, most of his skull is now a giant mouth. Hmmm… I wonder.

  I took out a small chunk of Ant Meat and dropped it into the gaping hole that was the zombie’s skull, watching closely.

  At first the meat sat there unmoving, but then small tendrils of undead flesh started to flow over the meat like a rotting amoeba. The flesh around the meat started to regrow, slowly reforming into Hoss’ zombie mug as it healed.

  I dropped in a handful of meat chunks and then rushed over to the soldier’s corpse, dissecting it for more meat to heal my zombie back to full.

  By the time I was done, the last ant had completed his patrol and was headed back towards us, and I was down a minion.

  I tossed a new orc skeleton on the ground and positioned the newly restored Hoss in the returning soldier’s path with Larry and Curley in position to flank.

  I rushed through the Create Undead spell, trying my best to ignore the red dot on my map getting closer and closer.

  The soldier charged in when it caught sight of my minions, leaping at the last instant and crashing into them.

  All three of their health bars started to drop, and the distraction caused me to miss one of the gestures in the spell. The magic collapsed, the mana I had already put into the casting evaporating along with the bones.

  “Damn it!” I yelled and turned to the battle to see my minions all smoking as acid ate away at their forms.

  Growling in frustration, I started contributing to the fight, casting Cripple on the ant and then chaining Necromantic Bolts while my skeletons struck at the ant’s flanks.

  The additional damage from my spells combined with the increased flanking damage were enough to finish off the ant, but not before he had chewed through most of Hoss’s hit points and reduced both skeletons to less than half health.

  You have killed Giant Ant Soldier! You have gained 75xp!

  Quest Update: Destroy Giant Ant Soldiers (5/5)

  As the soldier’s corpse hit the ground, there was a thunderous crash from across the field. The earth erupted in a geyser of dirt and stone as an ant the size of an elephant burst from the ground, emitting a shriek of fury.

  QUEST UPDATE – Something’s Bugging Farmer Phil III (Optional)

  The Queen is not pleased. After your bloody murder of her drones and the summary execution of her soldiers, the Ant Queen has come to deal with matters herself.

  Criteria: Destroy Giant Ant Queen (0/1)

  Reward: +100xp, Upgrade Class Appropriate Reward (Yellow) to Class Appropriate Reward (Orange)

  Accept? (Yes/No)

  I looked across the field and could see the orange difficulty Ant Queen trashing a section of the field in her fury.

  Cursing under my breath, I looked around for any avenues of escape.

  I would need all of my minions at peak to take on an orange creature but they were pretty trashed and needed repairs.

  The Queen Ant seemed content to rampage across the way glaring in my direction every so often.

  What’s she waiting for, an invitation? I thought, wondering why she hadn’t attacked.

  The quest prompt blinked again in front of me, waiting for my answer and then it clicked. I hadn’t answered the quest prompt yet. The AI wasn’t attacking because I hadn’t accepted the quest.

  I ignored the quest prompt and moved over to the soldier’s corpse, dissecting it and collecting its meat, some chitin, and another giant mandible.

  Hoss scarfed down the ant meat, healing up as I attended to the skeletons.

  I kept one eye on the Queen the entire time, losing sight only briefly when I raised a replacement Moe and the steps of the ritual took me out of line of sight.

  New Moe equipped his gear as I started casting Bind Minion on him, trying to maximize the strength of my force, but before I could begin another prompt appeared that put an end to that idea.

  Pending prompt, “Accept Quest – Something’s Bugging Farmer Phil III,” will expire in 10 seconds

  Crap. I guess unbound Moe will have to do for now, I thought and accepted the quest before the timer ran out.

  The instant I accepted the Queen turned towards me, abdomen expanding as a casting bar appeared over her.

  Ant Queen begins casting Acid Rain!

  I ordered my minions to run towards the Queen at an angle and followed as fast as my little legs could carry me.

  Ant Queen casts Acid Rain!

  The Queen raised her head to the sky and spit a giant stream of acid into the air towards where we’d been standing. Droplets rained down over the area, burning the crops and remaining corpses.

  A drop landed on my robes with a sizzle, making it clear I hadn’t cleared the area of effect. With a quick mental trigger, I used my cloak to teleport clear of the rain.

  The drops that had already landed on me ate into my skin, dropping my hit points by five percent.

  The Queen, having done her thing, turned towards me and advanced, her gigantic body moving slowly across the ground.

  Hoss charged in at my command and smashed into the Queen’s foreleg, cracking the thick carapace as his shield struck home.

  The Queen had much smaller mandibles than her soldiers, but her forelimbs were massive. She raised her uncracked forelimb and brought it crashing down onto Hoss’ shield, driving him to his knees and dropping his health by twenty percent with the force of the blow.

  She was strong, but I could do something about that. I grabbed a pinch of Bone Dust from my bag and cast the enhanced version of Rot onto the queen, following up with Cripple to slow it down.

  By then the stooges had reached their places around the Queen. I ordered them forward, each charging in from the insect’s flanks and rear, their spiked two-handers aiming for the Queen’s bulbous abdomen.

  Three cracks echoed across the field as the maces struck home, shattering pieces of the Queen’s giant thorax armor. Her health dropped to less than half and her back legs collapsed as a pain-filled screech filled the field.

  A br
oad swipe of her forelimb knocked both Larry and Curley across the field, smashing through their damaged armor and breaking numerous bones. The skeletons skidded along the ground, their health bars almost empty from the blows.

  Hoss struck the Queen’s injured foreleg with his own mace while her attention was elsewhere, widening the crack left by his shield and regaining the Queen’s attention.

  The Queen shifted her weight slightly, releasing some pressure on the injured limb. Seeing an opportunity, I target her injured leg and directed Moe attack it as well.

  The skeleton ceased smashing the Queen’s thorax and moved over to swing into the injured forelimb, his spiked mace breaking off a large chunk of the chitin.

  The Queen took her weight fully off that leg, resting on the other as she swung the injured limb at the offending skeleton. He raised his mace to parry, absorbing some of the blow but not enough to keep from being launched across the field.

  My bolt spell slammed into the injured limb above the cracks but still did a small amount of damage. The next bolt, however, was on target and blasted into the Queen’s tender flesh.

  The skeletons managed to regain their feet and resume their attack, albeit with a bit less gusto due to their wounds.

  Because of the damage we’d inflicted, the Queen was forced to rely upon her uninjured forelimb for support which drastically reduced her attack.

  Taking advantage of that, I had my minions perform hit-and-run attacks, dashing in and then retreating once she moved to counter.

  Their alternating attacks were a lot slower than a combined effort, but also a lot safer for my goons. I was all about the long game.

  Rot continued to eat away at her hit points, and my minions’ guerilla tactics combined with a steady stream of necrotic bolts whittled away at her massive health bar until she reached ten percent.

  Her body took on a slightly red glow and her abdomen started to swell.

  Her health started to drain away, and I immediately ordered a retreat, trying to get my minions clear in case she was pulling a self-destruct like the elementals.