Even the thought of such a conflict was enough to set the great bear to trembling, but she didn’t back down.
[You said it, didn’t you? Anthony said it as well. We can’t just run away forever. At some point, I have to fight. The colony hasn’t done anything wrong to me or you, why should they suffer for us? I-I think I’m going to stay. I’ll try to fight.]
[You might die, Sarah.]
The bear didn’t shrink away at all at those words.
[It’s not dying that I’m afraid of, Jim.]
At that moment, a flurry of movement from farther up the tunnel caught their attention. From the shadows emerged Anthony, his carapace covered by the ink-coloured pet he called Crinis, carrying a gigantic core in his mandibles. When he saw the two of them, his antennae perked up and he rushed forward to greet them.
[Hey there, you two! How’ve things been? Sorry I haven’t caught up with you since we got here, things have been a little… hectic.]
[Because of the war, right? I want to help,] Sarah told him firmly.
Anthony twitched and he turned toward Jim a little, as if to ask if she was serious.
[She seems to have made up her mind,] Jim muttered. [I suppose I’ll help out as well.]
The massive ant appeared to take them in for a moment, then his antennae seemed to shrug.
[Hey, sure thing. To be honest, the help is very welcome. I expect when the golgari get here, we’re going to have our backs against the wall. Why don’t the two of you come with me for a second, we can have a chat and I’ll try and sort out something for you.]
This branch tunnel wasn’t wide enough for the three of them to traverse at the same time, so Anthony had to back up until they reached a wider branch to turn down.
[I don’t want to tell you what you can and can’t do to help,] the ant was telling them. [You want to help dig tunnels? Great! You want to help defend the nest, also great! You want to fight on the front lines? You’re insane, but hey, that’s also great.]
[Isn’t that where you’re going to be?] Sarah asked him.
[Well, yeah. But it’s my family after all. Better me than them.] He pointed at the many smaller ants bustling throughout the tunnels.
[You really think that, don’t you?] Sarah asked.
[Of course. Anyways, I think what I’ll do is get one of our teachers to talk to you specifically, Sarah. Work out exactly what you want to do and how you can help. Florence is her name. A good worker. Jim, I might put you in touch with Cobalt, she’s a carver, in charge of building stuff. I’m certain she’ll be able to find a heap of things you could do…]
He kept nattering at them, totally unaware of the very different emotions growing within his two fellow reincarnators.
28. Taking Stock
After dropping Sarah and Jim with Florence, I rush back to the storage area I’m told we stashed our haul from the outpost in. I feel a touch buoyed by the run-in with Sarah and Jim. I’m not sure how much they’ll be able to help, but like I told them, every little bit is welcome. I doubt it would ever happen, but having Sarah on the front lines, a monster who’s supposedly strong enough to rip me up, would make an incredible ally. It would take a lot to get there, considering her aversion to violence, but I’m sure she’ll be able to contribute no matter what.
When I finally make it to the chamber, I find a wide, low-ceilinged chamber filled with precious loot. My siblings have been busy in here, categorising and stacking all the goods on neat shelves they’ve shaped out of stone. Probably another innovation they learned from the humans. At the time I arrive, Coolant is here, picking through various magical materials and items. Ellie is also here, taking a meticulous inventory of the many, many cores we brought back.
I crawl over and drop Garralosh’s core with a massive THUD. Ellie’s antennae begin to quiver uncontrollably the moment she notices it.
[Eldest! That core! Are you here to donate it?]
[Ah, no. This one’s for me, unfortunately.]
[Are you going to make a pet with it? Surely you will!]
[You know what core this is, right?]
[Of course I know! I still can’t believe you never let us study it, but it’s an amazing chance to create an incredibly strong pet.]
I shouldn’t be surprised that the core shaper would be interested in the most potent core the colony has gotten its mandibles on, but I kind of hoped they’d have gotten over it by now.
[No, I won’t. I’ll be absorbing this core after I’ve maxed out my current limit. That’s why I came here, have you finished categorising the cores yet? I want to take the more useless ones and absorb them.]
[Hmm. I may not have enough for you here. A lot of these cores are of real interest to us. Unknown monsters we haven’t come across before, new organs that we haven’t experimented with, there’s a dizzying amount of new information.]
[Surely there’s a bit of trash they had lying around. I just need the energy, not quality.]
[Give me a second,] she says and starts rummaging around.
I leave her to her work and wander over to where Coolant is busy.
[Hey there, Coolant. Did we actually get anything useful from those geezers?]
She scratches her head with one antenna.
[Well, it’s not easy to say at this stage. We certainly got a lot of stuff that we haven’t seen before. I assume it’s useful, otherwise why would the Shapers have been storing it? But since we’ve never come across this stuff before, we don’t know what we can do with it. Hence, my lack of commitment.]
[What sort of stuff did we get?]
She starts pointing out various things on the shelves with a claw.
[We managed to scrounge up a few pieces of equipment, staves mostly, a couple of enchanted robes and… loincloths? There are also many other items we have yet to be certain of the purpose of. Over here, I’ve collected a series of gems and implements that I believe are for scrying for certain Mana signatures over great range. If we can discover what each enchantment is designed to find, it will be a great advancement in our ability to create magical scouting tools.]
Fascinating!
[Are we making any progress on that front?] I ask.
[Not yet, we’ve only conducted initial studies on the tools at this stage. We’re assembling teams of our best tier four mages and enchanters to look over them. Claws crossed, they’ll be able to unravel the secret soon. If we can make scrying tools for golgari…]
[Holy. Moly. That would be a game changer. Because they surely have ways to scry monsters. Did we have anything else?]
[Well, we did collect quite a variety of Mana-infused ores and metals. Seems to be something they quite fancied, since we found such an abundance of it.]
She leads me to a separate shelf behind the first, laden with chunks of glittering ore. Flipping on my Mana Sense, I can feel the pure energy of the Dungeon flowing throughout these materials. Some are clearly more precious than others, but all of them are rich with Mana.
[Any idea what we can do with these?] I ask wonderingly.
Coolant shrugs.
[I have no idea. Our only thought is to try and determine what affinities these materials have and then pass them over to the carvers. They should be able to make something useful out of them.]
Makes sense. There’s not really any point in hoarding them. If the colony can work out how to create useful items out of this stuff, then we’d have a reason to actually seek it out and mine it.