BOOM!
[Holy smokes, Invidia! You aren’t holding back!]
[I havessss no need to.]
I laugh. [True! Go for it, little buddy!]
I can feel his prodigious mind at work, weaving Mana together at an unbelievable pace to form detonation after detonation that rocks the air and sends shards of stone flying everywhere. It’s like an artillery barrage has landed around us, the noise, light, and devastation are savage.
Into the mix I throw my own shards of ice and jets of flame, roasting or spearing everything that manages to survive the ongoing explosions. At long last allowed to revel in his full and complete power, Invidia does not let the opportunity slip by and rains hell upon his opponents until even demons are shattered by the power he unleashes.
After ten minutes, the tunnel is a pockmarked warzone, covered in Biomass, shards of ice, and superheated rock. Invidia chuckles, an eerie ‘ssssshhh-ssssshh-shhh’ sound, before his teeth unveil themselves from thin air and he flaps his way over to the Biomass and starts chomping. Not far away, we can hear the tide of monsters swelling again, it won’t be long before we’re forced back into the fray. But, for now, we’re content to recharge our Mana, chow down on some Biomass, and reflect on the joys of magic.
[Feel good to go full force for a change?] I ask the demon.
[Yesssss,] he almost purrs. [I have been waiting to takessss what they had for myself, for sssso long.]
[You mean their experience?]
[It belongssss to me.]
[I mean, it does when you finish them off, I suppose. Or are you saying that all experience in the Dungeon belongs to you?]
[Not all,] he corrects me.
Oh? That’s a little surprising.
[That’s not what I expected to hear from an envy demon,] I tease him a little.
[I cannot take from the massssster. Or that which belongssss to the masssster.]
[Ah. So you mean, all experience in the Dungeon belongs to you, except for me, Tiny, and Crinis.]
[Yesssssss,] he purrs as he chomps down some more Biomass. [Alllll for meeee.]
75. While you were Sleeping
The wave ground on through Tiny and Crinis’ evolution, the ants of the Colony working industriously as they always did. The never-ending spawns both a blessing and a curse, disrupting all usual business, yet flooding the nests with Biomass and cores that were in turn used to fuel the further expansion and growth of the Colony.
Queens toiled, eating and laying eggs that were taken by the Brood Tenders and nursed in their protected chambers. Once hatched, each larva’s cared for as if they were royalty—fed and groomed, played with and tickled on an hourly basis. Each grub was tended by the same ant from the moment she hatched until the happy day she graduated the Academy. This also allowed the Tenders to maximise the utility and bonuses gained from their mentoring Skills.
The nest was a well-oiled machine, one that’s constantly in the process of being reinvented. The world of Pangera proved ever changing, and it was up to the Colony to adapt to stay ahead of it, lest they fall and become extinct. And it was exactly this worry that kept the two Brood Tender Council members on their claws.
Theresant and Florence worked tirelessly to ensure the next generation of the Colony were reared in the best way they knew how, and when that knowledge changed, so too did their methods. Nothing but the most effective, most efficient methods would be acceptable for such an important task, but even these tried and true practices weren’t always up to the task. Sometimes, they were forced to think outside the box, because, as strange as it might sound, not every larva, pupa, or hatchling, was the same.
Particularly this one.
“Where has she gone this time?” an unusually flustered Florence groaned when Theresant gave her the bad news.
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have come to you,” her fellow Council member grumbled, clearly suffering from a lack of rest.
“This is the third time she’s escaped today! If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed a grub could move that fast. What did her caretakers say?”
“They’re bordering on hysterical. The idea of a larva going missing is unheard of. The whole group is bordering on panic! They think they’ve failed in their duty to the next generation!”
The two dipped their antennae, such a feeling was beyond pain to the Tenders. This could not be borne!
“Make sure they are comforted. They have not failed the Colony, this grub is merely beyond anything we’ve seen before. What possible reason would a larva have to abandon the brood chambers? And how the heck could they even do it?”
“Calm yourself, Sister,” Theresant said. “We must take this situation in hand. No grub will be lost on our watch, no matter what.”
“You’re right, of course. Thank you, Theresant.” Florence collected herself and found her calm. “Do you have any thoughts as to where we should look first?”
“There must be tracks, it’s a grub. Let’s gather a team of Tenders and see if we can requisition some scouts. We’ll have that larva back in our care before they know it.”
Having thus firmed their resolve, the two ants moved quickly. In a matter of minutes, a search party was gathered, a passing group of scouts press-ganged into service. It made a strange sight, one rarely seen in the nest, when the Brood Tenders sallied forth from their chambers in search of a wayward larva. What they expected to be a quick search soon took a turn for the worse as the scent they followed ranged high and low through the tunnels.
Much business was thrown into disorder as the increasingly desperate party of Brood Tenders raced from place to place, bursting into the blacksmiths’ forges and turning them upside down before racing out again. Many an antenna was set to wiggling anxiously when they raided the resting chambers, disturbing the torpor of the workers and unknowingly throwing the unnamed ones into despair by throwing their counts off.
There was nothing to be done about it, there was not a single ant in the Colony who would stand before the Brood Tenders and impede their work. There was no hierarchy amongst the castes, no pecking order or chain of command, but all knew that the work of caring for the young was the most important work of all. When the Tenders burst into their workplaces, all the ants could do was get out of the way until they were gone.
So it was that Theresant and Florence grew increasingly frantic as they followed the trail of this impossible grub all through the nest until finally the scent led outside the nest itself.
“HOW!” Florence burst out. “It can’t possibly be this quick! It doesn’t have legs!”
“Do you think it might have latched onto other ants using its mandibles?” Theresant pondered. “That might explain the rapid pace and the lack of tracks.”
Florence stared at her.
“You don’t think they’d notice?” she asked.
“It’s a larva! They’re small and light. If it latched onto a leg, or underneath the carapace…”
“Dammit!” Florence swore. “That means it could drop off anywhere in the tunnels and crawl off. We need to move fast! What if a monster spawns next to it?”