Chapter 7

There have been numerous movies of Hunters in ant tunnels. Made against green screens, they never seem to get the lighting right. The sound is wrong too, in the movies there’s too many echoes.

Lightly glowing moss, or (more) brightly glowing crystals are the only source of light in the tunnels unless you want to build and light torches. When those are used, they have the effect of ‘extinguishing’ the naturally glowing materials so that if the torch fails you are really in deep shit. Jimmy had been studying available information on the net, so we were going ‘au natural’.

The first 100 meters were apparently the worst, since your eyes weren’t set properly for the dark, and the faint sunlight made the glow from the moss useless. Jimmy had a plan, and we donned sunglasses outside, then after every 10 meters or so, another one of us took them off. It was supposed to help, but I can’t really say if it did or not.

What I can say is that the tunnels were large enough for me to swing my staff, but small enough that I couldn’t hit any ants beyond 10 meters or so unless they were WAY up the wall. Until the roof level went up, I was basically a spear woman with a pretty blunt spear. Jimmy shrugged, and let me know I was rearguard, and that if I was going to swap to sling, I had to call it out.

The ant tunnel twisted and turned, but gradually went down. We found a lot of dead-ends and ambushes. All of our opponents inside had been drones so far (about 6-8 per encounter) and we had 9 encounters at that point ... apparently that was very high for level 2.

I was only really tested from the rear once, and it seemed like it was just a badly timed ambush. A wall seemed to just drop away, and three ants galloped out just after we passed. It would have been a lot worse if it happened with the group right beside the fallen wall, but as it was, I was able to jab and block while calling out to my team. Janet turned to help and as per plan only one of the crossbows turned also. Jimmy was worried that a second group might attack from the front while we had expended all our effort to the rear.

All day the crossbows had been ‘one shot, one kill’ and perhaps it was fatigue or fear, but Tarl shot high and completely missed. Janet nailed her target though, so the two of us fended off two ants ourselves while we called for more support.

As luck would have it, Jude had just loosed a bolt forward toward a group of 5 pressing us from the front (Jimmy was right to be paranoid). Janet and I played ‘keep-away’ for a bit until I found an opening. These guard ants method of attack was to rush in for a bite, using their two fore-limbs to sweep your weapon away to the side. Their limbs were definitely more powerful in one direction than the other. Swinging their leg forward (like they would to reach out to take a step) it was no more powerful than an arm. On the backswing (when it would be carrying the weight of the ant and moving it forward) it was stronger than an adult leg.

If I’d had a slashing blade, I’d aim for a joint during the fore-swing. If I was really confident (and strong) I’d try it during a backswing. With a stabbing weapon, you had to time head-strikes between the swings of their legs ... oh and avoid them lunging in to bite you.

As I watched the whirling legs and the snapping mandibles of the two remaining ants, I was surprised to be so calm. A horror movie might have had better lighting and more gross goo, but this should have terrified me and yet it didn’t.

Calmly I waited for a lunge. The swinging legs paused for a fraction of a moment, and planted themselves on the floor/wall helping to propel the ant forward for a strike at my leg. Bringing my staff down too early would just cause it to pause and bring a leg of its own forward for a slash. I had to wait long enough for it to commit. Timing it right; all I had to do was hang on tight (and aim it right) and the ant basically speared itself.

Janet didn’t have it worked out quite so well. She had her javelin knocked out of her hand twice and had taken a slash to her arm already. I stepped in and blocked a fore-swing that was headed for her head.

“Watch their legs, you can block a fore-swing but don’t try it with a back-swing, just dodge.” She watched and moved out of the way of a slash.

“Good, now look for him (were they him? Her?) planting all his feet when they go for a lunge. You want to drop the tip into place just as he commits...”

Janet saw it coming but dropped the tip of the Javelin too early. The ant slashed up with another fore-swing for her head and I batted it down and away.

“If you go too early, they just go for the slash instead. Wait for him to commit.” I said calmly.

She was breathing hard and sweating. This might not have been the best time for a lesson. The ant finally planted and lunged again. We both dropped our tip at the right time and scored direct hits.

“Thanks for the tips...” Janet managed to get out between gasps. Jimmy had been watching also, he and DeMarcus having finished off the ones that engaged our front line. “I’d never thought to look at it like that. We’d just been bulldozing our way through, hack and slash, block and bash ... amazing” he said appreciatively.

I think I blushed. “I gotta use my head, since I don’t have the horsepower of you two brutes...”

We had no further contacts until we found the Queens brood chamber. Jimmy had warned us that juveniles would attack en-mass when we got close to the Queen, and as soon as she felt threatened, she would start laying eggs like a machine ... the longer we took to get to her, the more opposition we would face.

Our first ‘flood’ of the juveniles went well. We were well protected, and even our crossbowmen got into the action, Tarl and Jude stomping the Dashound-sized ants with their size 13 steel-toed boots. These things weren’t ‘cute little babies’ they were a little faster than the full-grown ones, and small enough that we had to put another fighter (Me!) on the front line to prevent them from getting past and surrounding us. I ended up getting four of the little monsters, while our other front liners got 8 each. Together we took a break and reviewed how we were going to deal with the expected 4 ‘Kings’ before moving on to the Queen. We were interrupted by another flood of juveniles and took another few minutes to wipe them out. “Looks like we are pressed here, we gotta get it done before another clutch of eggs hatches.” Jude said.

Part 1 of the plan was to boldly step up to the entrance of the chamber and use long-range weapons for three cycles before (part 2) getting in there and engaging the remaining Kings (if there were any) and then killing the Queen. If Jimmy ever shouted ‘Charge!’ Then all bets were off ... We readied ourselves, stepped into position, and fired.

So did our opponents.

They had a grey-green goo that would burn the skin like crazy, if it contacted. We had our projectiles going in (one javelin, one stone, two bolts) and they had four balls of acidic ant spit coming out. We had shield men, they didn’t. All it took was three rounds of this and the Kings were down. Like clockwork, the flood of juveniles came out. Released by their Queen. They would be her last. I got to see Jimmys real Weapon, a 14-foot-long lance, in action. He skewered the Queens hearts (yes, plural) which was just as well, she was the size of a cargo van and digging through all that flesh would have been gross. We stomped the last eggs without letting them hatch.

After a celebratory drink (DeMarcus had carefully carried 6 cans of beer the whole way) we all looked around for loot.

We had all agreed to ‘call out’ as we found something. Mercenaries wouldn’t be proud, but we were also just regular working folk. The plan was to divide the spoils in the ‘Start’ room so that those with something to identify could purchase a scroll if they needed it. The glowing crystals in the wall were worth a silver each in the Store, so they would be gathered on the way back out.

Only the adults had a silver piece or two, the Queen had 100, each of the Kings had 20.

I was wandering the area, admittedly with a bit of a buzz from a beer (which I rarely drank) and was just taking in the scene around me. It looked like a battlefield with bodies (fortunately all theirs) strewn around. Something was tugging at my unconscious, but I couldn’t seem to place it. The more I looked around, the odder it seemed.

“Hey, something’s not right here...” I called out to the rest of the team.

“You mean other than the fact that we just killed four giant King ants the size of a horse, and a Queen the size of a Van?” responded Tarl with a laugh.

“Is your Crossbow even loaded? I asked, maybe with a bit of a slur. I really was feeling the beer.

“Relax, everything is dead in here Leslie” he responded.

“We need to be ready for anything, I want to get out of here alive and I’m telling you something isn’t right...” I replied, probably a bit bitchy.

“Les is right!” Jimmy called out and brought out his spear and shield. “We are being careless and unprofessional, weapons out! We are in hostile territory and I don’t want anyone switching off until we are all safely out of here. No Objections! I’m in charge of this run, and we’ll do it my way.” At least he was taking me seriously. Then again, he was the most serious portal diver I’d ever worked with.

The phrase “Leslie has a sixth sense for danger...” was used a lot after that first run as a team. I can’t tell you how I knew, or if I actually knew anything, or if I was just really paranoid.

There’s a saying: “We shouldn’t be asking ourselves if we are being paranoid, we should be asking ourselves if we are being paranoid enough...!”

DeMarcus had he’s shield out and his hatchet in hand and was walking toward the entrance to the brood chamber, and that was the only thing that prevented us from being surrounded. It had never occurred that there was no other place in the whole cave/tunnel system that was large enough for us to be easily surrounded.

It turns out that the ant colony was preparing to split in two, like those in our world. There were a lot more drones (we’d noticed, but not understood the significance) and what we hadn’t seen was a second chamber for a second Queen.

The second (young) Queen had four Kings as well and must have figured that with the old Queen gone, she’d just move in instead of taking off with her half of the colony.

For about 10 seconds, DeMarcus stood alone against the two Kings who could just barely fit side-by-side in the doorway. Jimmy charged up with his Lance out and his shield away so he could support it with both hands. By the time I got there and he’d skewered one King, DeMarcus had a brutal cut on his axe-arm.

Our Crossbowmen (who had only moments before bent to re-arm their weapons with grumbling complaints) were now winding away as though their lives depended on it.

Janet and I had the room to work, and clearance above the frontline, so we wouldn’t hit our own guys. I had actually gotten a stone off before Jimmy was there. I’d injured the King who had been lining up to slash DeMarcus in the side and he’d stumbled, only injuring our hatchetmans’ arm.