[She says hi.]
Enid shakes her head slightly, brushes her skirts down, and shoos away the hovering ant-people.
[Apparently, there’s something important going on in the Dungeon? Must be big if you’ve come up here, it can’t be pleasant for you. Does it have something to do with your two golgari friends?]
[Look, it’s not great to be here, and that’s no knock on the company. I’m not sure exactly how to phrase this delicately, so I’m just going to come out and say it. I might have accidentally started a war with the golgari, which is likely to kick off sometime in the next week. There’s also a city under us, apparently? We’ll be trying to take control of that over the next few days.]
Enid just stares at me.
[You WHAT? With the golgari! Then why are they here?] She points an accusatory finger at Torrina and Corun who look back coolly.
[They, uh, just really believe in me? They’re on our side… because, reasons.]
[…Right.] She massages her temples, closing her eyes to think. [What do you need from us?] she says, her eyes calm and steady when she opens them again.
[I really thought you’d be a little more shocked by this,] I admit.
[There’s no point, is there? Things move so fast around here that I’m better off just accepting and not thinking about it for too long. I’ll need to get the town council together and discuss this, but I’m willing to pledge you our support.]
That takes me back a little.
[Really? I was just going to let you know what was happening, I didn’t have any intention of asking you to fight…]
[Anthony, if the colony is destroyed, we won’t last much longer. Anyone who’s cooperated with monsters as we have, isn’t exactly looked on favourably. For good or for ill, our fates are tied to yours.]
I scratch my head with an antenna.
[Well, sure. I guess we’ll take any help we can get. Probably best if you think about what you have to offer, since I have no clue. We’ll be able to coordinate more closely after that.]
[Alright. The work never ends around here,] she sighs.
[When ants are involved, it tends to get like that.] I laugh.
We exchange pleasantries for a few minutes before I decide to end the conversation. If anything, the surrounding crowd has grown, and I don’t want to deal with the unpleasant feeling of my core bleeding out any longer.
Saying farewell to the mayor, I head back toward the nest. I have a core I need to collect in there.
26. Picking up Something I’d Rather Not
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaait!”
I won’t. I’m running for it. With a great leap, I fly into the air, over the heads of the ant-robed people and crash back down to the ground. My legs creak under the strain, but I care not, forcing myself to sprint as soon as I can.
“WAIT FOR ME, GREAT OOOOONNNEEE!”
It’s not happening, you mad priest. I barely talk to you, and now people are wearing strange robes and following me around like secret service. A few more conversations and you’ll have newborn babies dressed up as larvae, and people will start trying to carry me around on a palanquin or something… Actually, the baby thing sounds cute—
No! I’ll be strong! DASH!
I kick up a huge cloud of dust, and just like that, I leave the humans and Beyn floundering in my wake. The sweet Mana, it calls to me! As do the more reasonable behaviours of my family members. I’d rather talk to Leeroy than exchange words with that nutty priest.
My time in the town was certainly interesting, and it’s nice to know the colony still has a strong ally in Enid, even if some of the more recent arrivals don’t look quite as favourably on us. I can’t help but feel a little disgruntled about that. Who saved all their lives, bore the brunt of the horde attack, and is even helping them build their town to this very day? Sheesh.
I speed back to the nest with Crinis still attached to my carapace, plunging into the welcome dark the moment I can. The sweet blue light of Mana infuses my body and I breathe a sigh of relief as the drain from my core slows significantly. With constant application of External Mana Manipulation, it’s possible for me to slowly replenish my reserves in the first stratum, a thought which unwinds the unconscious knot of tension in the back of my head.
Walking around with Mana leaking from your core is almost like a human taking a trip down the streets whilst bleeding from an open vein. Your very life energy is slowly dripping out of you as you try and ignore it and concentrate on other things, but it’s always there, the sense of impending death prodding away at your mind. I’m not a fan. Which is why I was happy enough to come back here in a hurry, even though there’s something I have to do that I’ve been avoiding for a long time.
Moving much slower now, I make my way through the nest, trying to make space for the many hatchlings and others that I share these more cramped tunnels with. Those tricky flickers in my Vestibule have returned, but I ignore them. I need to concentrate on this task, she deserves my full attention.
Pushing ever-deeper into the nest, I make my way to the brood chambers, where hundreds of pupae line dozens of chambers, each lovingly cared for by their Brood Tenders. In the centre of these lies the egg chamber, where several immature Queens now reside in what used to be Mother’s room.
“Hello, all!” I greet them. “Hope things are going well. I’ve seen the designs for the new nests and they’re absolutely out of control, you’ll love them.”
“Eldest!” they cry in surprise.
“Just passing through, came to pick something up from my old room.”
I can feel Crinis shift on my carapace, but she chooses to remain silent. She knows why I’ve come, even if she doesn’t understand why I’ve hesitated until now.
“We didn’t expect you, eldest,” one of the Queens steps forward to say. “We heard you had arrived in the nest. Is there anything we can help with?”
“No, no,” I laugh. “You do your best for the colony and leave this sort of thing for me. You have a very important job to do, much more important than mine. Good luck!”
So saying, I ignore their looks of surprise and crawl down through the gap in the floor and down into what used to be the space reserved for myself, Tiny, and Crinis. Just as the nest below ground has expanded, so too has this one. Dozens of extra chambers and tunnels have been carved out, the misplaced dirt and rock added to the towering ant hill above ground. This unadorned little chamber has been left untouched throughout those works.
It’s a bit cramped now. With my larger frame and Crinis glooped on me, I fill the space in a way I never did before. Which brings me uncomfortably close to the object I left here when I left, Garralosh’s core.
I still have mixed feelings about that fight, and the eventual death of Garralosh. If she hadn’t ended the life of one of my family, Grant the brave, who sacrificed her life for me, then I’m not sure I would have found it in me to finish her off. We made use of her Biomass, though the colony ate much of it, and her core was something I couldn’t bring myself to deal with at the time.
I could reconstitute her. Bring back a brand-new Garralosh copy to stomp around on behalf of the colony, but without her soul. The human who had been reborn on Pangera is gone forever, perhaps to another, even stranger life. Certainly the new Garralosh would be more sane than the last. It’s a fairly low bar to jump over, if I’m honest. Still, I don’t think that I’ll bring back the giant croc. The drain on resources the colony would experience trying to keep her up and fighting fit wouldn’t be worth it. Not to mention the baggage of all of those that were trying to hunt her down returning to finish the job.