Chapter 94 - Kingdom of the Ants

  To set the tone, I had Sue send a Fireball down the dark passage ahead. It flew a good ten meters before it hit a wall, bursting into a gout of flame and setting several nearby ants alight. The ants burned merrily, which was a good thing, since my NightVision expert was taking a cat nap.

  Those flames gave me enough light to see by, though, which was awesome because there were a LOT of ants headed our way. My mana was still recovering, but I still had enough oomph in me to hit one of them with a Drain Life before they got close.

  After that, they were all over us. Sue crunched one ant after another between her teeth, and I slashed wildly with my sword at the ones near enough, stomping on some of the others. A few moments later, and the rush was gone. For the moment, anyway.

  I tapped a dead ant to see if I’d get crystals from them, and was gratified to have a clear crystal pop into my hand. That was the best news all day. These things went down pretty quickly, most of them being tier one and all. I reached out to each body I could find, tapping each. It was mostly clear stones, but I also got a few green ones and even one that was a sort of grey color, almost like iron or steel.

  There was enough time to take a closer look at that one before popping it into my bag. It wasn’t a spell or a skill, interestingly enough. Instead, it was a passive power called Natural Armor. That definitely bore further investigation, when I had some time.

  For now, though, I needed to press ahead and get us all out of this death trap. “Sue, let’s march.”

  I started down the passage, moving slowly at first to make sure Sue would actually fit. It was a tight squeeze, but the dinosaur managed to hunch over enough to make it into the tunnel. We followed it forward as it curved around to the left. Unfortunately, I was pretty sure we were angling downward instead of up. We needed to find another passage up if we were going to get out of there. There was no way to go back, though; I’d already seen the opposite side of the passage was buried in rubble and dirt from the collapse. We’d have to push on and hope we found an upward-moving passage.

  The fires lighting our way were starting to gutter out, and I’d reached the point were I was about to walk past them anyway, so I shifted my shield around to my back and pulled one of my precious chem-lights out of a pack. I snapped the thing against my thigh and held it aloft in my left hand, sword still in my right. It didn’t cast a ton of illumination, but the dim green glow was much better than total darkness.

  Scrabbling sounds came from somewhere up ahead, the sound of many small feet scraping through soil. I readied my weapon, and as soon as the first enemy antennae came into view, I ordered Sue to fire at them again. The Fireball detonated right on the nose of an extra-large ant. Some sort of soldier or warrior bug, I was guessing—but as tough as he might have been, he wasn’t a match for Sue’s magic. The ant crisped, catching fire, and a couple of the other nearest enemies caught flame as well.

  These ones were tier two. Definitely tougher than the first batch. Sue’s spell killed three outright and injured a couple more, but after that they spread out, taking to the walls and ceiling as well as the floor as they rushed toward us.

  Was I wishing I’d loaded in Contagion instead of one of my other spells? Yes I was. No time to swap it out, though. I’d have to make do with what I had.

  Sue bit one of them off the ceiling while two others came at me along the walls. I ducked back, using Sue’s bulk as cover, and slashed with my sword at the nearest enemy. My sword sliced into it, but didn’t kill it outright. The ant bit angrily at my blade, mandibles clamping down on steel. If I hadn’t added the Strength crystal, it might have been enough to tear the weapon out of my grasp.

  As it was, though? Not a chance. I twisted my grip on the sword, pivoting the blade so I had more wiggle room—then I leaned in, thrusting forward with the blade to impale the ant along its length.

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  That still cost me time, though, which let another ant get near enough to take a bite out of my left leg. The pain was intense, like fire running up my leg. It was one of the tier two ants—did they have venom of some sort? Or was it just that the mandibles were that much bigger?

  I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t messing around, either. I slashed down at the thing with my sword, cutting off a pair of legs. That in turn got the bug to back up, letting go of me in the process.

  Which was exactly what I wanted. I didn’t have time to pry the thing off my leg like I had last time. Better to bleed a little and then—swoosh—chop the bugger in half with another blow from my sword.

  The wound still hurt like hell, though, so I cast Drain Life on another of the ants as it approached. The ant died and my leg healed. That was the last of this batch, too. Sue had dealt with the others, so we were in the clear, at least for the time being. I tapped the dead, collecting another handful of crystals, and peeked back toward Kara.

  She was still unconscious. Hope stood there, guarding her, the bodies of two dead ants in front of her. I slipped back to touch the bodies for their crystals and give Hope a quick pat on the head. “Good job, girl. Keep it up. We’re getting out of here.”

  I said the last bit at least as much to convince myself as her. Hope would follow my orders regardless of how foolish they were. I was the only one who could get out of the ant tunnels easily, though. All I had to do was retreat back to the cave in and fly myself out. It would be easy.

  Sure, I’d lose Sue, which would be a blow, and I’d lose Hope. I’d had her with me almost since the beginning, and I’d miss her. But I’d lose Kara, too. As much as I wanted to get out of this place, I couldn’t just abandon my friend. It wasn’t happening. Either we all got out, or none of us would.

  I moved back to my position under Sue’s head, and we got moving again.

  The tunnel kept winding down, though. There were a good number of side tunnels which looked like they might go upward, but none of them were large enough for Sue, and I couldn’t drag Kara out of this place without the dino. We were stuck following the only large passage in sight, even if it was taking us deeper into the ant nest.

  Another wave of ants came at us as we descended. This one was mostly tier one and two ants, a solid mix of both, but there were a few tier three insects in the mix, too. They were throwing everything they had at us, which made sense. The deeper we got into their lair, the closer we had to be to wherever they stored critical things. Stuff like larvae, eggs, food stores, and probably a queen ant were all down in this place somewhere, and we were growing closer to them with each step.

  Sue chomped one of the tier three ants, taking it down. I cast drain on another, weakening it, but a bunch of tier ones swarmed me before I could get another spell off to finish it. I fended them off with my sword, using my speed to dodge their attacks while backpedaling toward Sue. Having the dinosaur at my back just felt more solid, like at least enemies weren’t coming from that direction.

  Oh, and Sue’s Fireball spell was available again. The blast went off close enough to us that the heat scorched my face, but it wiped out most of the remaining ants in this wave. I Drained one of the remaining ones, killed another with my sword, and watched Sue happily crunch another one.

  A few taps of ant corpses, and the crystals were in my pocket. We kept moving, pressing ever onward. And downward! We still couldn’t find a way up.

  There was something up ahead, though. I saw light beyond Sue’s flames or my chem light for the first time since we’d left the area around the cave in. It was dim, but the closer we got, the brighter it grew. We were definitely headed toward some sort of major nexus for the nest. I felt a thrumming vibration through the dirt underfoot, too. It wasn’t quite a noise; it was a little soft for that. But the nearer we came, the more I felt it grow in strength.

  And then we came around a corner and I found myself face to face with the weirdest thing I’d ever seen. Given that I’d been living through a magical apocalypse, that was saying something!

  The tunnel opened up into a massive cavern. I wondered briefly how the ants had managed to tunnel something so large, so fast. But they’d had time, and ants were pretty amazing creatures. The space was huge, like half the size of a football field. The ground was littered with eggs—ant eggs, everywhere, as far as the eye could see. Each of the eggs had a faint glow. That was what kicked off the light I’d seen, and it illuminated the whole space enough to see the rest.

  Dozens of small tunnels sprang from the cavern, leading in all directions. But right across the way was one other large tunnel, a match for the one we’d been traveling in—only this one led upward. With luck, that was our exit!

  Something near the far wall shifted, moving where I hadn’t expected movement. I gasped, whirled to face it, and realized that it was much, much larger than I’d thought. The creature was about the size of two cars parked nose to nose, and as I watched it laid another egg on the cave’s dirt floor.

  Well, shit. I was pretty sure I’d found the queen.