Alright then! Those choices are all locked in, suppose I’d better confirm them and—
Wait!
I nearly forgot about the itch! Shifting my head, I can see Morrelia is leaning against the wall, almost appearing to be dozing, but I can tell her senses are attuned to possible threats here in this small Dungeon chamber.
If she sees me wiggling and rolling around on the ground, then all of my dignity as the leader of the ants will be lost! In fact, one could almost say my dignity is the dignity of the colony itself. That may be a little bit of a stretch, but still! I need to get her out of the room. Some sort of diversion is necessary.
[Hey, Morrelia. Any chance you could have a quick look up on the surface? I think I heard something moving around. Through vibrations, you know. We ants are very sensitive to vibrations moving through the dirt. It’s the antennae, fantastic wiggly things they are. You know what they say, they ain’t this long for nothing! Ha! Ha! Haaaaaaa.]
Smooth.
Morrelia lifted one eyebrow at my persuasive diatribe before she nodded. [Sure, I’ll take a look.]
She climbed her way up and out of our little chamber.
Quick as a flash, I dove behind Tiny. Not content with this level of coverage, I began to dig furiously, my mandibles sending dirt flying into the air, covering Tiny who groaned in irritation, but thankfully didn’t move.
Aha! Now I have secured a small trough in the ground, am screened behind Tiny, and Morrelia has left the chamber. I must seize this moment!
Confirm those mutations!
ACK!
So quic? Holy mackerel!
STAGRA-BALLI-GANUFFIN!
It doesn’t take long before I’ve assumed the now traditional position. On my back and flailing wildly at the air with my legs as the overpowering itch of mutation rips through me without mercy. I can only take some small measure of comfort in the knowledge that I have, for once, managed to not be observed.
Victory!
A few minutes later, Tiny, Crinis and I emerged from the chamber to find Morrelia resting on the surface. I take a moment to re-establish our mental communication that I’d let lapse during my… er… episode.
[Where do you think we should go next?] I asked, keeping it cool.
[There are a few smaller settlements I know of in the area that I’d like to visit. There’s a chance we’ll find some survivors. Other than that, I want to move toward the capital and get a good look at it.]
[Sounds reasonable. All of that is quite valuable for the colony as well. Let’s make a start.]
And so, we’re off!
63. Making Motions
Once Tiny, Crinis and I have refilled our cores, and Morrelia has snacked on her travel rations, we set out, this time moving slower and taking more care. We aren’t trying to chase anyone down, and stumbling under the eye of big momma croc is not something we want to experience. I make sure to train my External Mana Manipulation, putting those sub-brains to work and making them earn their keep. This has the added benefit of slowing down the drain on my core, since I’m able to capture the Mana in the air and pull it in to replace my losses.
I also attempt to see if I can sense where the Mana I lose goes, hoping I can retain it and drag it straight back into myself, and therefore never lose any Mana at all. But I fail. No matter how I try, I’m unable able to sense where the Mana that leaves my core goes. Whether it bleeds out into the air, is consumed in some way by my body, or just vanishes out of my core via some extra-dimensional portal, I just can’t tell.
This could be a research project for the colony one day down the line.
Morrelia seems to know what she’s doing, leading us down farm tracks and dirt roads to locate isolated clusters of homes that we investigate in the hopes of locating survivors tucked away in cellars, barns or attics. I’m surprised by our strike rate. We manage to find a surprising number of people who’d taken shelter from the monsters.
When we uncovered the first group of bedraggled survivors, Tiny cracking open the cellar doors with his bare hands, I’d been shocked. How the heck had the monsters managed to overlook them?
Turns out, monsters aren’t the best at checking the nooks and crannies. They may have been put under the compulsion of their croc overlords through some mechanism I have no understanding of. They do seem to be a little lazy in the execution of their sweeps.
The larger towns and villages have received the full monster horde treatment. Burnt to the ground, the buildings smashed in, and the people eaten or scattered. Whereas the smaller hamlets have been hit with a lighter hand. More of a smash and grab approach, without a vigorous hunt for survivors.
The people we find are not in a good way. Starved and half crazed from their time in isolation. Too afraid to stick their heads out into the open air in case a monster happened to be nearby. Half of them either attacked or hid from myself, Tiny and Crinis before Morrelia could calm them down. I thought we’d have a hard time convincing the people to move, so fearful were they. Yet each time we managed to uncover another clutch of starved, desperate people, Morrelia managed to convince them of the security that awaited in the village to the south.
After, Morrelia would help the people pack whilst us monsters sat about at a calming distance. We’d tried to assist by lifting and shifting things, but Morrelia suggested we move to one side and allow the people to get themselves organised without us, as it would cause less stress to the survivors.
Which is fair enough. I do hope Morrelia emphasised the presence of an entire colony of monsters living right next to this village of survivors. If any accidents were to occur, things could get very hairy down there, very quickly.
Over the span of a few days, we covered a lot of ground, running all over southern Liria. We had a couple of run ins with bands of roving monsters. Smaller ones this time, without any of the more evolved croca-beasts. We were able to clean those up without much fuss, and I made sure to grind my Skills across the battles.
It didn’t take long for External Mana Manipulation to Level to five and I was able to rank it up to Greater External Mana Manipulation. The rank up imbued me with the knowledge I needed to extend my reach farther and grasp hold of Mana at an extended range from my body. This increased the amount of Mana I could shift somewhat, though not by as much as I’d thought. I could use my will to affect Mana almost twice as far away as I could before, a range of almost five metres. The extended range came at a cost though. The farther the Mana was from my core, the harder it became to influence.
The downside was that my minds burned more mental energy. Whilst my sub-brains were able to grasp Mana close to me almost constantly, expanding their reach caused them to flame out before much time passed. I decided to slowly increase the range of my Mana Manipulation as my Levels increased and I became more confident with the technique.
After we made a pass through the surrounding region, we had to retreat back to the Dungeon in order to recharge and plot our move toward the capital. I had business with a croc.
64. Settling in
Since leaving Midum, Isaac and his fellow survivors made good time. Isaac found it was easy to motivate folks when they were escaping a literal horde of savage monsters that killed almost everyone they knew. Glad to have survived and worried it wouldn’t last, the townsfolk and former guardsmen and women packed their stuff with alacrity and hustled their way south, following the directions that Morrelia had given them.