[Crinis… how long was I asleep and mutating for?]
[Around six hours, Master.]
Holy heck! In just six hours, the Colony has brought in a further two waves of reinforcements and the termites have assaulted in numbers? I expected things to escalate, but not before I’d finished my nap! Dammit!
I spread my awareness out amongst the ants within range, dipping into the stream flowing through the Vestibule and letting the impressions of thousands of individuals wash over me. It’s true, many ants are fighting, and many others are still building, working, fortifying.
[We need to get out there, guys! Things have gotten intense in the last little while!]
I keep half a mind on the Vestibule as we rush to the front once more, trying to get a more complete sense of what is going on, and what happened while we were sleeping. It looks as if the Colony has continued to reinforce in waves of ten thousand, as there are roughly triple that number currently within range of me. Across an area that covers dozens of square kilometres, ants and termites are clashing in tunnels and behind defences, on open ground and buried beneath tons of soil.
A constant stream of termites seems to be flowing from unknown sources to contest the Colony, but not as foolishly as they had before, running headlong into our defences. The termites are being more cautious, smarter, probing and testing, rushing in and then pulling back, as if being controlled by a more potent intellect.
Which of course they were…
Damn these lizards! They really can’t stand being beaten, huh? All that’s going to happen is they get beaten worse! That, I can promise.
105. I’m Home, Part 1
“She did what?”
“She cut ties between the Legion and the ka’armodo, completely,” Titus said with a satisfied expression as he confirmed the news, whereas Morrelia could only sigh and bury her face in her hands.
“Isn’t that, a bit, extreme?” she pleaded with her father. “Isn’t everyone worried about a second Cataclysm? Isn’t the Legion being pushed on multiple fronts because we are undermanned and undersupplied? This seems like a poor time to be turning our backs on allies…”
“I agree with you. We shouldn’t be turning our backs on allies right now.”
“Then you agree?”
“No. By creating a race of subservient monsters to wage war on their behalf, the ka’armodo have shown themselves to be no allies of the Legion. Your mother has only made formal the arrangements their attitude deserves. Now our Legionaries will not have to fight and die to protect those who would stab us in the back.”
His arms folded across his chest, Titus was an imposing figure. A stern expression was carved into his features, as usual, and the steely glint of absolute confidence could be found in his eyes. Seeing it, Morrelia began to doubt her objections until her head began to swim. She brought both hands up and scratched her head furiously.
She didn’t like dealing with the politics and the wider implications of what the Legion did, but lately she’d forced herself onto the path of leadership, and so she’d done her best to pick up everything she could. Even so, decisions like this made her knees weak. The repercussions of what her mother had done would resound throughout all of Pangera for decades, possibly centuries!
Titus chuckled and clapped his daughter on the shoulder. Not that long ago, she would have been rocked to the side when he did that. Now she withstood his hand with ease. Her Levels were accumulating rapidly; the training was working.
“Don’t think on it too hard, I guarantee your mother didn’t. Her role as Consul is to faithfully follow the founding principles of the Legion, not to engage in petty politicking. We aren’t sophisticated enough for that. We don’t compromise, we don’t bargain, that’s it.”
“Don’t we have deals with demons in the third stratum to operate in their territory? Pretty big compromise if you ask me,” his daughter pointed out.
“True,” Titus agreed. “We did try to eliminate demons completely, then gave up after five hundred years. The final decision was that the effort was totally fruitless, killing them only makes them spawn faster. Trying to block or disperse the spawn points doesn’t work, since they spawn everywhere. In fact, by focusing so many resources on a single front, the Dungeon became hazardous in other areas. A further three hundred years of campaigning were required to settle things down again.”
“Dad, enough history, please. I know about the five-hundred-year war.”
“Then you know why we compromised with the demons.” Titus raised a brow as he looked down on his daughter.
Only very recently had she started to call him Dad. He would never admit it, but that simple fact brought him great joy.
“Not that I’m unhappy to see you, but why are you here, anyway? I thought you were campaigning with your new Legion. You… didn’t go and fight the Colony again, did you?”
“No,” Titus frowned. “I asked to be deployed back to the second along with four full Legions to run a proper extermination, but I was denied. Again. We did a snap tour of the third instead. It went well.”
The commander shifted his stance slightly.
“The Colony, as you call it, has been put on the back burner for the time being. We have so many fires to put out that a group of monsters who are actively helping sapients rather than eating them is hard to commit resources to. As long as we can stamp them out before the mana gets too high, it should turn out alright.”
Morrelia hesitated, then spoke her mind, “If the ants aren’t hurting anyone, and are in fact helping people, then why stamp them out at all? If monsters have to exist, then isn’t that the type of monster we want?”
This was a sore spot between them, and she searched her father for any sign he had relented on this point. There was none.
“What the ka’armodo have done, creating a race of monsters to do their dirty work, has been done before, even as far back as the Rending. No matter how hard you try, no matter what restrictions you place on them, eventually the monsters go wild. Every time, no exceptions. Even worse, the Ancients had the ability to dominate monsters that came anywhere near them. The servants that had been so carefully reared turned around and decimated the fools who had raised them by the millions.”
“I’d never heard that,” Morrelia said quietly.
“Talking about anything from that time is sensitive. You didn’t have the clearance for it before now.”
“Great. Any other perspective-shattering secrets you want to drop on me?”
“Heaps.” Titus smiled. “Though now isn’t the time. I didn’t come here for that. You’ll learn all of it in time.”
She stepped back from her father and sat on her cot in the confined resting domicile they were standing in.
“As happy as I am to see you, Dad, why have you come now? I’m sure you have a ton of things that need doing. Is there something particular happening now, or are you just bored?”
The last was said as a joke, but true to form, Titus did not laugh.
“You don’t remember?” he asked.
He didn’t sound mad, rather, slightly amused, which only confused Morrelia further.
“Remember what?” she asked slowly.
The room rumbled slightly.
Titus glanced toward the door and nodded to himself.
“That should be it now.”
The walls shook.
Morrelia looked around carefully, her hands reaching for her weapons as she rose back to her feet and took a fighter’s stance.