Enemy A(n)t the Gates

1. Who’s Tracking Who?

Following the scent trails the scouting parties had put down, it didn’t take long for us to make our way through the twisting tunnels to where the golgari would soon pass. We position ourselves in cover at an angle to better spot them from a good range. I don’t want to get too close. I will never underestimate the stone-people ever again. While the majority of Warriors and Shapers proved to be unable to damage me in small numbers, I’m not going to push my luck.

In terms of monsters, I’m quite exceptional. 99% of the Dungeon’s creations don’t get to evolve in the way I did, with a maxed-out core, or possessing this many mutations.

I might have started out as a measly ant, but I’m becoming stacked. It makes sense to me that the average golgari wouldn’t be able to match me.

But something I’ve learned from Granin still gives me pause. He’d told me most of the Shapers in the outpost are just scholars, hardly any were real Dungeon delvers. Stuck in offices and reading books all day, they had polished Skills but not many Levels or combat experience.

I even suspect the Warriors I’ve fought are of a similar bent. As far as I know, they aren’t members of an official golgari military or any such thing. If anything, Coriinam Balta gave me the impression of a pampered youth who’s done far more training than fighting. A show of strength, rather than the reality. Their sword slashes might make a fancy light show, but without the proper OOMPH that raw stats provide, they simply lack the penetrating power to deal with my carapace. If nothing else, that proves they’re under-Levelled.

Would that be true for all golgari? Hell no. These are people who made their home inside the Dungeon. Shapers like Granin have seen a ton of action in the tunnels. I have little doubt he’s the highest-Levelled Shaper inside that outpost. With the walls of the town, there must be individuals or a group that the others depend on to do the heavy lifting keeping them safe. A militia, a defence force. Heck, maybe a full-blown army.

Whoever it is, I never saw them and I’m not keen on fighting them. We’ve already had casualties on this rescue mission. Just another thing to weigh on my conscience. If I can avoid more death amongst my family, I sure as hell will.

For now, we’re only here to observe, so we settle into position and wait.

Tiny isn’t much good at being still… nor hiding, come to think of it. I end up sending him back up the tunnel a hundred metres or so where he promptly goes to sleep. The rest of us have more patience and keep a sharp eye. As promised by the scouts, the golgari turn up an hour later, moving fast. We hear them well before we see them; the pounding of stone feet on stone makes the sound more like a crunch than a thump.

The golgari in the lead are huge, even by their standards. A dozen giants stride forth, perhaps three metres tall, with comically large weapons strapped to their backs. And their skin! This is no ordinary true skin. These folks glitter in the dim Dungeon light from head to toe and are covered entirely with metal ore!

From what I’ve been able to pick up about golgari culture, finding ores capable of holding the Mana required to bond to their bodies isn’t easy. That means high-quality ores are expensive. When I’d asked Torrina how much her own ore was worth, she’d given me a strange look before telling me that asking a golgari about their true skin was simply not done.

Before I could apologise, she’d laughed and explained it anyway. The reason her own skin isn’t complete is due to the ludicrous expense required to purchase more. She’d made the decision to use a higher-grade ore and form an incomplete skin rather than substitute for something worse, but in sufficient quantity. Yet here are these freakin’ mutants wandering around, enormous, and covered head to toe in gleaming ores!

Each one of these guys is covered in enough money to buy a golgari mansion, I have no doubt.

Are these dudes going to be under-Levelled? NOT LIKELY. No way am I tangoing with them unless I have absolutely no choice. Behind them is a more usual procession of Warriors and Shapers, but each individual wears something I’ve not seen before: a dark brown, braided rope around their neck that nearly blends into their stone skin. Does this indicate they are all part of one faction? Or is it something they’d put on when becoming part of their expedition?

Mixed amongst the crowd are other golgari that don’t match anything I recognise. Robed figures gripping thick staves in one hand dot the procession, along with a few shorter members accompanied by what are clearly their monstrous pets.

In a small cluster is something I didn’t believe I’d ever see. Golgari wearing armour…

There’s only three, but they put the fear of Gandalf into me. Why the hell are they wearing armour! What’s the point? Does it mean their true skin is weak? Can’t be! Even Granin, who’d formed his true skin from the weakest, most common ore he could, just because he was a jerk, never wore a stitch of armour. Not leather, or cloth, and sure as hell not metal!

I have no idea what this signifies… When they come to the branch before us, the procession halts and various members converse. It appears as though the robed individuals are being consulted quite heavily, along with the pet keepers… Interesting. After a few minutes, they ready themselves again and take the path directly toward the colony.

“How do they know?” I wonder.

“What’s that, eldest?” a scout asks.

“They’re tracking us. They aren’t uncertain of which direction we’re in. They know. How?”

“I don’t know. We need to inform the others.”

“Send a scout back immediately.”

One of the scouts rushes off to let the rest of our convoy know, whilst my pets and I slink out of sight to stay ahead of the golgari. They might be tracking the two prisoners we took. Or perhaps there’s some sort of tracking spell on me? I can’t find any magic on my person, but there could be a method to hide it. How would I know? Perhaps they have a way of monitoring Dungeon traffic, like remote sensors they’ve built into the walls in their territory… Could they be picking up on our pheromone trails?

Like any good ant, the entire troop has been laying trails everywhere they go, it’s how we navigate. Just because the ants in the colony have better eyes than normal, doesn’t mean they’ve abandoned their instincts. Unlike me, who was human once, the others are pure ants at heart. The pheromone trail is their guiding light!

The more I consider it, the more I think it must be true. The golgari know they’ve come out to hunt an ant colony, and it’s not the first time in history one has spawned. What better method of tracking down the nest than following the pheromone trails? Thank goodness I came back here to scout, otherwise they’d have been able to follow us all the way back to the Queen…