Between a Rock and a Carapace

124. The Early Colony Gets the Worm

When I finally come across Jim, he’s shivering up against the wall of the tunnel as dozens of ants keep watch on him, some literally on top of him.

[Jim! You made it out alright, I see!]

[Anthony! Thank the—WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?]

[You mean Crinis? She’s my pet.]

[THAT is your pet? SHE SMELLS LIKE MADNESS AND DEATH!]

[For sure, she’s great. Anyway, why are you shaking like a leaf in a storm? Something wrong?]

[Every cell in my body is screaming at me to escape from these ants. I swear they’re tasting me in their minds. They look hungry, Anthony!]

[You can’t tell if an ant is hungry by looking at them, Jim. And how would you even know? Blind worm and all that.]

[I can sense it.]

[No, you can’t! Besides, what would be the point? We ants are always hungry.]

[Nooooo. Don’t eat me, Anthony! I have a family! My poor worm-children!]

[You aren’t going to be eaten, Jim!] I scoff. [If the colony was going to eat you, you’d be eaten already! Just relax for a second.]

[It’s hard to relax when literal predators are climbing on you!]

He has a good point. When it comes to insects and small organisms, ants are just about kings of the hill. Worms are one of the near infinite number of things that ants will prey upon as they seek out the protein they need to raise the ravenous brood.

[Just appreciate your achievement. You’re free! You made it out! If you want to, you can slither into the wall and vanish back to the Dungeon!]

[I’m too exhausted to take it in. I think I need to rest before I can enjoy it. Besides, I can’t feel at ease knowing what Sarah is going through. If she doesn’t fight, then isn’t she just going to get eaten? It’s not right…]

He’s not wrong. He said before we left that he wanted to go back and rescue his friend. Now that the colony has exposed itself, there isn’t much reason not to go back and try to bust her out. If it’s going to happen, though, it’ll need to happen soon. The golgari will get word of an active ant colony soon and will start to mobilise their no doubt considerable resources against us. We need to get in, hit the outpost, and get out before that can happen. If we pull the colony all the way back to Liria, perhaps there’s a chance they never find us.

[I’ll let you rest here, then. I’m going to go talk to the leadership and see what we can do about getting Sarah out.]

[Leadership? What do you mean? What’s going on with these ants, Anthony?]

[It’s… a little hard to explain. Let’s just say, I made ants as smart as people?]

[You did WHAT?] the worm explodes.

Now I’m getting defensive.

[Hey! I just wanted to help out my family, you know?]

[So you made giant monstrous ants with the intelligence of humans? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?]

[…Made a super cool colony of ants?]

[Oh my god… I-I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to sleep.]

Having said so, the giant worm goes totally limp and flops on the ground under the watchful eye of his ant protectors. What’s his deal anyway? I don’t see how smart ants are any worse than smart apes or smart rock-skinned people. In fact, aren’t they better? I mean, I’ll take my current family over my old one in a heartbeat.

No time to worry about that now. I need to find whichever members of the council were foolish enough to come all the way out here. Wherever ‘here’ is. Time to plan a quick smash-n-grab and then we’re marching home!

I find the usual suspects gathered nearby, waiting for me to turn up for a chat. They dug out a convenient meeting chamber for us to use so we don’t block off the tunnel, which still has a ton of traffic moving through it as ants go about their work.

“Eldest, it’s wonderful to see you again!” This from Burke.

“It’s pleasing to see that this operation was a success.” Sloan tips her antennae at me.

“You must have gone through a lot, eldest! You didn’t happen to pick up any new magical secrets, did you?” Propellant eagerly asks.

“I’ve learned a lot. About a heap of things, which I’m happy to share later on.”

Phew. It’s all a bit overwhelming. The situation has changed so quickly, I need a moment to adjust. The Vestibule continues to pump me full of energy and keep me fresh, but the emotional fatigue is something it can’t help me with.

“It’s great to be back with you all. Thanks for coming for me.”

“Of course we came to get you! Through great danger and GLORIOUS battle, we have made our way to sacrifice ourselves to secure your freedom!”

“Shut up, Leeroy.”

“Yes, eldest.”

“Haaah. Where even are we? How far from the nest have we come?”

“I can field that,” Burke chips in. “We’re approximately a hundred and thirty-two kilometres in a straight line across the surface from the nest. In terms of movement through the tunnels, we could probably triple that number.”

“HOLY MOLY.”

That’s a heck of a long way.

“How did you guys even find me?”

This was an impossible mission. Three hundred kilometres of tunnel? In a matter of weeks! What the heck have they had to do in order to cover that sort of ground?

“It’s not as bad as you think,” Propellant chuckles. “The colony has kicked quite a few things into overdrive since you last were in the nest. We’re covering quite a lot of Dungeon territory every day. We need to in order to keep the graduates and larvae fed and growing.”

“I suppose the two new Queens are running at capacity now?” Victoriant and Antionette will be pleased to finally be performing their role. It’s something they’ve wanted for a long time.

Leeroy twitches.

“TWO Queens? What do you mean, eldest—there’s like… six?”

SIX!

“It’s true,” Burke shrugs her antennae. “It’s been a little while since I was last home. But the Tenders were setting up a second nest for the Queen in the second layer, and a new group of less mature Queens were being raised in the original nest.”

Somehow, when she says the Queen, it’s still obvious who it is she’s talking about. I guess we have more than one nest now? And a nest in the second stratum? That’s impressive as hell!

“That’s incredible. I’m so grateful you’ve been able to do all this,” I say.

“What do you mean? We’re just working.”

Ha… Just doing their jobs, what else would they be doing? Thankfully, they consider running hundreds of kilometres to drag their troublesome elder out of trouble part of their work.

“Things are going to get dangerous here soon. An empire of people called the golgari live in this area. We’re currently on the outskirts of their territory.”

“We’ve seen the signs, even observed them a few times. They look tough,” Burke says.

“They can be very strong,” I agree. “Once word gets out that we’re here, they’ll put together some serious firepower to hunt us down and eradicate the colony. I’d rather we didn’t fight them and just retreated.”

“Sensible,” Burke agrees.

“UNACCEPTABLE!” Leeroy shouts.

“Before we do that, though, I have something I want to get done…”