“Yes,” she says and I get the impression she would roll her eyes if she could, “I did all that ages ago. Have you?”
I have not—but she doesn’t need to know that.
“Never mind that,” I say a little too quickly.
[How about you, Tiny? Crinis? All ready to go?]
I get a firm nod and a thump on the chest from Tiny.
[Yes, Master. I’ve fully recovered from my injuries.]
[Great. Thanks, everyone. Well, we might as well get going, then.]
As I turn to lead the group to the newly installed lift that will carry us to the ground, a giant eyeball flares into existence in front of me.
[HOLY SMOKES! Geez, Al! How many times have I asked you not to do that?]
[Many.]
[Yet you still do it…]
[I find it… amusing. I will join you on this expedition also.]
He couldn’t possibly have said the word amusing with any less inflection on it. I also notice he didn’t bother asking… ah well. It’s not like I can stop him from tagging along if he wants to. Having a tier seven demon in your back pocket isn’t something I want to turn down either.
[Fine. Try not to hassle me too much for information, alright? I’ve got some stuff I need to work on, and I can’t be telling you about Middle-earth all day.]
With the group assembled, we walk onto the lift, which hangs over the edge of the plate, exposing us to the frankly dizzying drop beyond.
“Let it rip!” I cheerfully wave to the group of ants operating the lift, and they accommodate us, triggering the mechanism and starting the descent.
I’m not sure exactly how we power these things… but however we do it is going to get a workout on this trip. Invidia and Al can fly, but between Sarah, Tiny, and myself, we are packing a fair bit of heft. As we slowly drop, I look out over the edge into the still-breathtaking view of the third stratum. It blows my mind even now that this much open space exists inside the planet. It makes no sense! Yet here we are, lowering into a world of blasted black stone covered in fire and ash. Also demons. Hundreds of millions of ankle-biting demons.
I get the feeling it won’t be long until the Colony comes down here and starts aggressively pruning the demon population in order to farm Biomass. They’ll need to strike a balance between feeding the insatiable hunger of the family and allowing enough demons to rise to tier six to join the population in our controlled cities. I’ve no idea how they plan to manage that, but I’m sure they’ll have thought carefully about it. Perhaps we should even ‘sponsor’ certain promising young demons, make sure they max out their cores before they evolve to try and increase the quality of the demons that eventually join us…
That’s actually a good idea… I was bound to have one sooner or later!
It takes an hour for the lift to reach the ground, and we are more than happy to jump off by the time we reach it. Being cramped together on that small platform is far from comfortable.
[Alright, here we are, folks! Since the Colony is going to chill out for a little while, we have a few weeks in which we can go explore, fight, and conquer to our hearts’ content without worrying about anything crazy happening back here. First priority is to get Brilliant up to the next tier so she can finally count as a real monster, and then the rest of the XP can be funnelled into us! It’s a long road to tier seven, so we better get moving!]
I haven’t forgotten the warning that Granin gave me, that I wouldn’t really be safe in this stratum until I evolved once more. It’ll be a long time before I manage it, but I’m determined to keep pushing until I’m strong enough to secure the future of my family. Tier seven is only going to be the start of that journey.
[Alright, we already did a ton of fighting in the tunnels to the west, so I think we want to head north and then see how things go from there? We all happy with that?]
A few nods from the group around me is all the affirmation we need.
[Nice. Let’s get to it!]
46. The History
The Colony recoiled from the reprimand of its Eldest and most respected member as if it had been bitten on the antennae. It has not happened many times, the Eldest directly criticising the actions and decisions of the family, but each occurrence has resulted in great upheaval and a paradigm shift that changed the course of the Colony forever.
This instance was no different.
Warned of impending disaster if the reckless pursuit of expansion at all costs was not reined in, the Council and the Colony as a whole drew back and began to reflect. With the conquest of the demon city, Orpule, newly completed, there was a tremendous feeling of momentum amongst us, one we felt could lead us deeper into the Dungeon and catapult us into a large-scale invasion of the third stratum as a whole. Only when we drew back, only when we focused inward, did the cracks begin to become evident.
The need for reconnaissance of the new territories had become great, too great. In order to cope with the vast swathes of tunnel and open Dungeon that needed to be carefully mapped, examined for resources, and assessed for threats across both the second and third strata, older paths that had been considered safe were abandoned. Even those tunnels that lay between the main nest and the lands of the golgari had become criminally under-patrolled, and many a scout shuddered at the thought of what the Eldest might have said had they missed an invasion along those routes.
These irredeemable oversights were immediately corrected, and maintaining the watch of all approaches to the nests became the scouts’ highest priority, as it should always have been.
But the lapses did not end there.
So large had been the need and demand for metalwork, construction expertise, and Earth Magic within the third stratum that progress on other projects had stalled, or even regressed. The best forged materials produced by the carvers had been used to create the chains and lifts needed to utilise the lifts to move materials between the second and third strata, which had significantly delayed construction of the gates required to secure the newly constructed nests.
There too, a lack of attention and focus had nearly cost the Colony dearly. Desperate to push an overstretched workforce, the carvers had gone well beyond their tolerance, overworking themselves to the point of collapse, forcing the intervention of the unseen enforcers. Whole teams of builders had been lost to the shadows, not seen for days at a time as they were forced to recuperate and recover their peak condition, forced to suffer inhumane periods of relaxation and rest.
In this, the wisdom of the Eldest was once again revealed. Nothing shamed the carvers and teams of construction ants more than poor craftsmanship, examples of which could be found everywhere in their latest work. As the Colony withdrew and consolidated, the carvers rededicated themselves to the pursuit of perfection, tearing down everything they had built with the slightest deviation and constructing it from the ground up once more. Filled with righteous fire at having to correct their own mistakes, the standard they would seek to meet from that point on was established over this month.
Likewise, the Brood Tenders were forced to regroup and reflect on their decisions. In the never-ending push to fight and expand the territory of the Colony, they’d raised many grubs to become fine soldiers, scouts, and generals. The boundless hunger of the Colony for workers to build and construct had encouraged them to evolve huge numbers of carvers. Critical for both of those endeavours, mages were also churned out of the antcademies in droves.