“What do you mean?”
“Did you think we were done? You’re not even halfway to as evolved as you need to be! Your older sister is tier six! So am I! What exactly are you supposed to do running around as a piddly tier three?”
“What do you mean? I’m useful already!” she declares, her antennae waving wildly.
“At what? Annoying me or escaping? Those are the only two things I can see that you excel at.”
“Oh yeah? What if I told you that my mana shaping Skill is tier four?”
“I’d tell you—Wait… what?”
“I’ve been practicing inside Invidia’s mouth! No time is wasted!”
“Even mine is only tier five…”
She puffs herself up proudly.
“Told you I’m the best!”
“How are you the best if my Skill is higher than yours?”
“Well,” she deflates again, “it will be higher soon!”
“You know what, I’m starting to believe you. Are you practicing now?” I ask.
“Yes, of course.”
Dammit! I can’t be overtaken by this damn hatchling! What about my pride as the Eldest! Desperate not to be outdone, I order all of my mental constructs to start spinning mana, any form, any spell, I don’t care! Just get to work!
Still, as I look down on the smug little thing, I can’t help but be impressed. I think this might be her talent after all.
“Keep up the good work, Brilliant, but as I said, we still need to Level you up. That’s going to be our next port of call.”
“NOT YET!” comes a wave of pheromones from above.
A few moments later, there’s a slip, the scent of fear and then a crash which reveals itself as Smithant, covered in various bits of metal plating stuck on her back, legs flailing after her unfortunate fall.
“Ouch! Someone help me up?”
Crinis obliges with a tentacle extended from her place on my back.
“Thanks. I heard you’d shown up here, Eldest, and I didn’t want you to go running off into the third stratum again without having a chance to give you what I’ve been working on all this time! Down here! Hurry up!”
The last part she shouts up the pillar to a trio of ants carefully picking their way down the vertical slope, each of them laden with more metal bits and pieces.
“Just how much stuff did you bring?” I ask a little warily.
Don’t cover up the diamond!
“Oh, it’s not all for you,” she informs me. “I’ve got things for Tiny, as well as a few pieces for Vibrant, is she still here?”
“Nope.”
“Damn. I was hoping to catch up with her.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Anyway, let’s start getting this stuff sorted out.”
The moment her focus turns to the metal, it’s almost as if the mad ant in front of me starts glowing. She coos and clucks over her work like a mother hen as she uses her mandibles and front claws to pick through the pieces, taking some from her helpers.
“This is what I was able to put together for Tiny. We still can’t work with the Legion metal very well, or at all, and there certainly wasn’t enough to make a full suit for him, but this should help.”
What she was able to come up with was several individual pieces that can be strapped to Tiny’s arms, legs, and shoulders. Forearm guards, a chest plate, and some reasonably fitted and padded pieces protect his thighs. It’s pretty good work, all things considered. And when we take into account his immensely dense bones, the lack of a helmet and knuckle protectors isn’t nearly as big of a concern as it once was. Just having something to protect his heart in the event something slips between his ribs is a big relief.
Tiny seems much happier with this smaller and more focused set of pieces than he was with the more complete set he had on before. After scratching at the straps and pulling at the padding underneath the armour a little, he seems fairly content, even rapping his knuckles on the forearm guard to test its strength.
“Well, he seems happy at least,” I observe. “And I am as well. Great work, Smithant.”
She stops fussing with the straps and turns back to me.
“It wasn’t easy, but I’m happy with the work. As for what I made for you, have a look!”
With the air of an artist whipping a cloth off a new statue, she throws a series of pieces down onto the ground in front of me. At first, I’m a little startled. They appear to be, rings? Weird ones?
“Soooo… What are they?” I ask, confused.
“Well, you said you didn’t want full armour, and there isn’t much I can make that would protect you better than your own carapace, certainly not to the extent that would justify the weight, so I went in a different direction and tried to produce the purest alloys I could and pack them with the strongest enchantments I could. What you see here is a masterwork of enchanting, by our standards anyway.”
She sounds a little deflated at the end, as if not catching up to the rest of the world in a couple of months was somehow a massive failure on her part.
“Nonsense,” I tell her. “A masterwork in the Colony is a masterwork the world over. Tell me what they do.”
“I think you’ll like this, Eldest. Should work well with your current skill set.”
It doesn’t take much to get Smithant pumped up again; as soon as her attention turns to the task of explaining her creations, she is immediately obsessed.
3. Tunnelling
I’m not really wearing armour. It’s more like jewellery than anything else. Which isn’t something I wanted to point out to Smithant. She takes immense pride in being a smith, specifically in being an armourer, since she doesn’t make weapons. In fact, she takes an unhealthy amount of pride in that, such that pointing out how she has basically made what amounts to a series of necklaces might cause her to just scrap it all. Not that they go around my neck. Instead, they fit over my legs, basically tightening around the area where my legs meet my carapace, meaning I have six of them overall.
Apparently, Smithant tried to create some to attach around the base of my antennae but couldn’t find a way to fit them to an ant without irritating the heck out of them. With antennae as sensitive as mine, I imagine the problem would have been even more acute. Still, she was very satisfied with the work she’d been able to do, work that was only possible thanks to a breakthrough she had with her Skills. With whole teams of specialised carvers dedicated to mastering the craft of armoury and enchanting, it’s a minor miracle that Smithant still manages to be at the head of the pack.
It goes to show that individual talent is still a thing, even in a world like Pangera with a Gandalf-run System in place. I have to wonder if some of my struggles developing certain Skills are simply because I’m not personally suited to them, or perhaps I just get distracted too easily… most likely the latter.
After we get the equipment from Smithant, there’s nothing for it but to climb down out of the city again and make our way toward the tunnels that lead to the third stratum’s next layer. Obviously, that means running through vast fields of larval demons who continuously try to tear each other apart, even as they flow away from us while we walk past.
In a small way, my newly enchanted gear helps with this, since one of the functions provided is to reduce friction. It isn’t a huge amount, I’m a heavy ant-boi after all, but it’s enough to make a noticeable difference. I do a few test Charges as we travel, and it takes a little getting used to, but the reduction in drag is certainly there. A little extra speed, a little extra lightness on my claws, certainly nothing I’m going to turn away! If this is what Smithant was planning to give to Vibrant, then I have to laugh a little. The second she finds out she could be going faster, Vibrant is going to go nuts trying to track Smithant down and beg her to hand over the rings.