She doesn’t sound good. I can barely make her out in my vision, smoke rising from her tentacles. We need to get the heck out of here!
The moment I’d been hit, Tiny had roared and leapt to stand over me. He paid for his dedication with another bolt of lightning ripping through his body. Fortunately, he seems at least somewhat resistant to the electrical damage. As a Dire Lightning Storm Kong should be.
[Let’s move it, Tiny!]
“Come on, senior! Dash!” Vibrant shouts.
She runs back alongside me, close enough that she’s able to offer me a speed boost from her aura, but far enough she’s not too threatened by the precision lightning strikes. I’m grateful for her bravery. Every little bit of speed helps!
Boom!
The lightning rages on like hammers from the sky as the Lizard Wizard continues to display its unrelenting wrath at me for daring to destroy its servant. You’re trying to kill my whole family, pal! Try to think from my point of view!
Boom!
Never mind then!
My HP had been cut in half by that first strike, only to be gradually rebounding now as the regenerative gland does its work. I clack my mandibles in irritation. I really need to work on my magic defence. Opponents like this one have me at a severe disadvantage.
Or do they?
As I focus on running and sensing the lightning with my antennae, I task my sub-brains with a new job. They look into the surrounding air, using my Mana Sense, and begin to monitor the Mana in an area around me.
Boom!
There it is! By focusing on my Mana Sense, I’m able to detect the mind-numbing amount of Mana the storm cloud above my head contains. It appears to the Skill as if a burning ball of fire exists directly overhead. That is an astonishing amount of Mana. Is this the power of a centuries-old giant lizard?
And right there, the Mana is concentrating toward a single point! My antennae begin to tingle and I leap to the left. Another lightning strike crashes into the ground, and once again, a hail of dirt clods spatter into me.
We continue on as fast as we can while the lightning targets me with unerring precision. How the heck is that lizard able to target me from such long-range! Is it through the scrying magic? It isn’t as if every lightning bolt targets me, but the vast majority do.
With my sub-minds, I try to reach up to the cloud above my head. If I could use the External Mana Manipulation Skill to break apart the spell, we’ll be able to get the heck out of this hell storm! Sadly, try as I might, I can’t extend my Mana Manipulation to that extent. My sub-minds strain as hard as they can, but the farthest away from my body I can manipulate the Mana is just shy of the clouds.
Dammit!
I really need to rank up that Skill! This is how I’m going to defend myself from magical attacks!
With the help of Vibrant and using the Mana Sense to predict lightning strikes, we run on for a kilometre before the storm finally abates. It’s quite a sight to see a crackling, dark cloud that had been pelting us with deadly lightning simply fade away over the course of a second.
I can only assume that we moved beyond the range of the lizard. I’ve never seen magic on that sort of scale and at such a distance before. What rank do the related Skills need to get to before you can start to cast something like that?
I guess after a couple of hundred years, I would be able to get a few Skills to rank nine or ten, at least. They must get incredibly powerful at that level.
[Haha! We made it out, senior!] Vibrant did a little dance of joy to celebrate.
[Could you talk to the council about pulling back the skirmishers for a time? I’m worried things are going to get more dangerous from this point on if the Ka’armodo starts to take a more direct hand against all of the colony and not just me.]
[Roger-roger!] Vibrant salutes with one antenna and races off, accompanied by her gang of fifty ants. I swear her group just keeps getting larger…
Desperate for rest and a bit of healing, my pets and I make our way toward the small Dungeon chamber the workers provided for us. Once there, we chew up the creatures who spawned in order to heal and satisfy our hunger before slipping into sleep or torpor.
After today’s excitement, we need a good snooze before tomorrow. That would be the day we abandon the forward HQ entirely and move back to the main nest. I hope things have been going well back there…
103. Cradle of the End Times
The role of the Brood Tender seems straight forward enough. It’s mostly in the name, after all. The brood consists of the unhatched eggs, the larvae and the pupae that are the future generations of the colony. Ensuring they were cared for in the most optimal way possible was the Brood Tenders’ primary responsibility.
“How goes the brood today, Florence?”
“Theresant? Nice to see you! You’ve been at the Academy for days! The darlings are busy little grubs, as usual!”
The two council members approached each other with gladness ringing from their antennae. The two ants had a peaceful and motherly disposition, which was why they’d volunteered to take up this role, despite the immense pressure involved.
“Are we going to reach our target for today?” Florence asked her sister. “Two hundred hatchings, two hundred graduations?”
“I believe so. My people in the Academy have assured me the current crop of hatchlings will be ready to graduate on time.”
“Wonderful!”
“I agree!”
They fell into a companionable silence as they moved to a brood chamber near the surface. The larvae needed warmth to accelerate their growth, so they were moved to chambers closer to the surface during the day as the sun shone, and then deeper underground at night, where the heat remained trapped. With the wave at play, however, the Brood Tenders were unwilling to risk their charges in the Dungeon proper, so they’d asked if some fire mage ants could assist in warming the chambers for the brood.
The siblings arrived and were greeted by their fellow Tenders already hard at work. The overlapping nourishing auras washed over them and gave them both a little shiver of joy. The aura gland was an expensive part of the evolution from worker caste to Brood Tender, which seemed like a waste because the gland itself didn’t have a powerful effect. It essentially calmed and nourished infants of the aura owner’s species, helping them grow faster and stronger.
But when the aura effect overlapped with others, the effect became more noticeable. When it had first been noticed that those hatched from chambers with more Tenders in them were slightly more developed, even having a few extra stat points, the colony decided to produce a large batch of Brood Tenders to further investigate this caste.
It was no exaggeration to say that currently, apart from the soldiers, the colony was pouring the most resources into the Brood Tenders. In order to combat the crisis facing the family, soldiers were needed desperately, but so were the specialised ants required to raise them.
Theresant and Florence cleaned the larvae, tickled them and played with them before they moved on to the next chamber, doing the rounds so they could keep an eye on the progress of every member of the brood. As they passed through the tunnels, other ants made space for them respectfully as they called out words of encouragement.
“Tenders, work hard today!”
“How fares the brood today, Tenders? Can I assist in any way?”
“Make sure those hatchlings are putting forth all of their effort, Tenders! We don’t want lazy ants in the colony!”