Antelligent Design

110. Dangerous Games

Blinded and frantic, I run as fast as I can away from the horde—I hope—whilst Tiny bounds alongside. As I stumble and trip over what feels like every obstacle, bump and uneven patch of ground on my path, I try to lunge left and right to avoid the fireballs and other spells that are endlessly flung my way. The odd explosion actually lands quite close, but thanks to Crinis latching onto my mandibles with a tentacle each, she is able to steer me away from the spells she detects by literally steering me.

It is undignified, but I’m more interested in survival than my pride.

I am confused as to what had occurred in that strange confluence of events, but I don’t have time to ponder over it until the very real mortal peril I’ve found myself in subsides. I persist in running as far and as fast as I can.

THWACK!

Ouch! I’m under attack! Still blinded and bewildered, my forward momentum is suddenly and forcefully brought to a halt by something blocking my path. Feel my wrath!

Shattering Bite!

Crunch!

My jaws flood with energy as the active Skill takes effect and snaps shut on whatever was barring my way. I felt whatever it was splinter and shatter beneath the force of my bite, followed by a vague tingling sensation from my antennae. What is this thing in front of me? I don’t detect any heat from it, so it shouldn’t be a monster. My antennae are telling me something is leaning over this way?

OOF!

A crunch of a different sort rings out as the tree I just felled lands squarely on my carapace, the weight and force of the impact flattening me in an instant and puting several hairline cracks in my exo-skeleton. At least those’ll heal up fast.

[Are you alright, Crinis? I think I just dropped a tree on us.]

[I’m alright, Master. A little flat, but otherwise fine.]

I feel her shift about on my back before another downward spike in pressure forces the wind out of me again.

OOF!

Crinis extends a few tentacles and succeeds in lifting the tree off of us before she threw it to one side.

We lay on the ground in a battered daze for a minute or two, neither of us sensing any danger and neither of us willing to move without a motivating force.

[Are you here, Tiny?]

[Hmm,] came his grunted reply.

Fantastic, the gang’s all here.

As I lay in a daze, waiting, the white gradually begins to fade as my normal vision returns. Blessed light! The power of eyeballs in all their glory. After spending so much time obsessing over my vision in my early days on Pangera, it’s more than a little disconcerting to have that sense removed, even temporarily. That lightning had surely been something special. I’ve never seen anything like it. The force, the power, the sheer destructive impact. I’m not sure even Tiny could have survived such a thing hitting him directly.

So how did I survive?

At that moment, I saw Isaac and his crew approaching.

My weary and still somewhat scattered minds put together the necessary Mind Mana and I reach out to the former guard captain.

[Well, if it isn’t speary mcspearface.]

He halts his step. [What the heck does that mean?] he asks.

[Nothing,] I harrumph. [I was just a little miffed when you threw that spear at my head!]

[If I hadn’t done that, the lightnin’ bolt would ’ave turned you into a crispy husk of yer former self!] Isaac protests. [I was expectin’ thanks, to be honest!]

[Er… You mean to say you threw that in order to make it act as a lightning rod to save me?]

He nods vigorously. [Of course! Why would I try an’ kill ya?]

[I’ve no idea. I just didn’t think you’d be smart enough to think of something like that.]

Isaac stares at me for a moment before he mutters something to himself. Then he laughs. [Well, perhaps I’ve a little more goin’ on upstairs than you give me credit for.]

I can only nod in agreement, still exhausted from my misadventure.

[Thanks, Isaac. You really pulled my portfolio out of the bear market.]

[You’re… welcome?]

[That was one heck of a throw, though. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with an arm like that.]

[Where would you have seen someone throw? I don’t think you ants have quite the physiology for it.]

He isn’t wrong, but he’s not quite getting what I’m saying, either. I was speaking of my experience on Earth. Obviously, there are tons of fantastical and insane things that are possible in this world that simply aren’t on Earth. The different levels of ability between humans is the one that keeps surprising me. He must have thrown that heavy spear over a hundred metres! An unspeakable feat of strength on my old world.

The man in question smiles as he pictures the scene in his mind. [I wasn’t sure I’d get there, to be honest,] he admits. [I saw the lightnin’ buildin’ in the cloud over ya head and figured you’d be toast if that hit ya. My throwin’ Skill isn’t the best, so I was worried I might skewer ya, but I couldn’t think of another way to divert that lightnin’.]

The more he concentrates on the image in his mind, the more his rustic accent comes to the fore. It’s one of the more interesting things I’ve noted about direct mind to mind communication, is that a person still tends to think messages in much the same way they speak them, accents and all.

[Well, let’s say I owe you and leave it at that, Isaac.]

[As you say, Anthony.]

We sit in silent contemplation for a time.

[What’s the play now?] Isaac says, breaking the peace first.

[I’m not exactly sure… We need to keep killing stuff, but it’s going to get more dangerous the longer this goes on.]

Isaac grins. [Danger, I can handle. As for the rest o’ my people here, they seem mighty devoted to keepin’ your shiny shell in one piece. I think they’ll stick around.]

[It’s not a shell. It’s a—never mind. The first thing we need to do is change our position and wait for the heat to die down. We’ll have to be extra vigilant at all times. The Ka’armodo could be scrying us and those mage servants have a habit of appearing rather suddenly in awkward places.]

[We should stay spread out as well,] Isaac points out. [If they try to spring another cage on us and we all get caught inside, things’ll get ugly.]

[Right you are,] I agree.

With the basics of our next steps planned out, we shuffle off with Isaac and his group to find somewhere to recuperate not far from the horde, but far enough to be comfortable. I desperately need that XP, and I’m going to have to keep taking risks in order to get it.