Alpha floated as a melted pile of data bits in the middle of his empty core world.
“I’m boooooored!… Again!”
Alpha was bored.
“I said that already!” Alpha complained to the voice in his head.
The antborgs were baking, the nests were built, the base was under construction, and the samples were being studied. And Alpha had nothing else to do.
For the first time since planetfall, Alpha was taskless. Everything that could be automated had been, and those that couldn’t would take time before they needed his input.
So what was an AI to do?
Alpha supposed he could wander the colony, maybe hope he stumbled on something interesting. But he already had [Wasps] scouting out most of the known tunnels. The map of the colony was growing by the minute; one more scout wouldn’t matter much.
He could check on Alphantonso, but unless Alpha actually needed to use the antborg for something, he’d just be hitchhiking along their daily life. And an ant’s ‘daily life’ was as boring as watching paint dry.
“Hmmmm, maybe it’s time to check out the forest…” Alpha muttered to himself. He’d been putting it off, as he didn’t want to get distracted from the important task of establishing his base. Honestly, though, with how well things were going, maybe that was the best thing. Nothing got the creative sparks flowing like a little adventure, right?
It would be a good time. Fun. Relaxing, without any real goal other than exploring.
Ya, this was a great idea!
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Bosco and his team moved silently down the tunnel, each pair of eyes on alert as they scanned the tunnel walls for hidden openings or enemies. Despite being a band of thugs and ne’er-do-wells, they were a band of thugs and ne’er-do-wells from Halirosa, a place where even the friendly neighborhood baker had some adventuring experience. After all, everyone grew up one day hoping to be an adventurer.
Those who didn’t learn the tricks of the trade quickly, often didn’t survive long enough to ‘retire’ to a nice bakery or the local gang. That said, only some were professionals.
Three men walked at the end of the formation, facing backward as they watched the group’s rear. The man holding the torch yawned, turned to his neighbor, and whispered, “So, what do you think we’ll find down here? I bet it’ll be a hidden cache. Maybe some old cultivator inheritance! Can you imagine?”
The rough man he addressed didn’t bother to look his way. Instead, his sharp eyes stayed trained on the darkness in front of them as they walked backward, keeping pace with the group a dozen meters ahead of them. The thug grunted and scoffed at the other man. “Right, and there’s a dragon hoard right around the corner, too. Stop daydreaming, Bill. We’d be lucky if we found a decent-sized spirit stone vein. Most of these tunnels turn out to be nothing more than dead ends. Emphasis on the ‘dead’.”
Bill frowned and waved his torch. “But Hugo! Didn’t you hear what Seeker said to the boss? These tunnels are well-traveled! There’s gotta be something amazing at the end!”
Hugo sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Bill… what use would monsters or beasts have for a cultivator inheritance?”
Bill blushed and looked away, shrugging his shoulders. “Dunno, maybe they ar — ”
“Will both of you shut up!” the third man whispered harshly. His eyes flicked back and forth, stopping on every shadow, his sword hilt grasped with white knuckles.
Bill turned and raised an eyebrow, his voice light with a laugh as he spoke. “What Claude? Still afraid of the dark? I don’t get why you keep volunteering for missions like this if you’re so scared of caves.”
Claude turned and scowled at the torch-wielding man, “It’s not the caves I’m afraid of, you fool. It’s what’s in them you have to be scared of!”
Bill smirked and shook his head. “Dude, we’re at the back of the line. Anything scary the boss up front will have already handled. Really, what are the chances that something slipped by everyone else? Right Hugo?…”
Only silence answered the man’s question.
“… Hugo?” Bill turned around to see Hugo frozen in place, his mouth open and eyes locked on the space above Bill. A chill ran down Bill’s spine. He slowly looked above him… and stared into four red glowing eyes peeking out from beneath a rock in the ceiling. Slowly, the ‘rock’ pushed away from the ceiling, and a long, thin body with dozens of sharp-looking legs emerged.
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Bill stared, transfixed, as the giant centipede-like creature clicked its drolling fangs.
Softly, he whispered, “Oh… Dam — ”
And then the creature struck.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
“THIS WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA!”
No one was quite sure who had yelled those words, what with them being lost in the chaos of battle and the screams of adventurers as the giant centipede-like insects tried to drag their various prey back into the holes in the ceiling.
Bosco roared as he threw his massive axe like a boomerang over the crowd. It spun through the air and cleaved through a dozen long insects, and one unfortunate man whose centipede was a tad quicker than the others.
The axe slammed into the far wall with a thud that shook the tunnel.
The fighting men and women were sprayed with thick, foul-smelling centipede blood as the thrashing bodies of the insects fell out of their holes. The surviving centipedes seemed to take that as a sign and quickly retreated into their tunnels in the ceilings.
The group of humans and awakened beasts gathered their wounded and retreated down the tunnel.
Bosco fumed the entire way. They’d been making good progress for the first few hours. Maybe slower than he’d wanted, but that was the kind of caution you had to take when delving into unknown cave systems. Caution that apparently hadn’t been enough.
A quick headcount showed three missing, including the unlucky bastard who’d gotten in the way of his throw. Five more were alive, given the rising and falling of their chest, but their stiff bodies and the strange purple coloration of their skin didn’t bode well.
“What the hell were those?!” Bosco roared as he pulled his axe from the wall it was embedded in.
The survivors mumbled among themselves, but none offered an answer. Most of their adventuring had been done above ground. Few knew more beyond the basics of cave delving.
Bosco’s fury slowly built, but it was Seeker who eventually spoke up. “Rockcaps. Nasty little buggers…”
Bosco turned to see Seeker holding up one of the severed halves of the centipedes. He gripped the insect by a large stone seemingly glued to its head as he stared into the thing’s eyes. Seeker tossed the thing away, then turned to look at Bosco as he continued. “Ambush predators common in the Deep Tunnels. They burrow holes into the ceilings of tunnels, covering the hole with the rock they attach to their head, and wait for something to pass by.”
The man turned to stare at the stiffened adventurers and spoke again. “Mildly venomous, but not deadly. Their venom is designed to restrain, not kill. They’ll be fine in a few hours. The creatures are basically worthless, and even the venom isn’t worth the effort to collect beyond its use in a few esoteric potions and pills. Though they’re good eating, I’ve heard.”
Bosco bristled and strode up to the much smaller man, and shoved a large finger into his chest as he yelled. “And how did they get right on top of us before anyone noticed?!”
Seeker stared up at the irate man with a blank face before slowly pushing his finger away. “No one noticed them because their spiritual presence can mimic minor spirit stones, like those you find in tunnels just like this. Not worth digging out for most people, but enough to entice smaller prey to get within striking distance.”
Bosco frowned. “Then why didn’t you warn us about them?! Nearly a quarter of our number are down or dead. What do you have to say for yourself, Seeker?!”
It was Seeker’s turn to look frustrated, and the smaller man poked Bosco back as he spoke. “If you were paying attention to what I said, Bosco, you’d have realized I said they were common in the Deep Tunnels. We’re barely past the surface, if at all. They’re not supposed to be here. The energy levels can’t support them here for long.”
Bosco smirked and folded his arms. “So you said, yet here they are, blocking our way.”
Seeker frowned and looked back down the tunnel. When he spoke, it was half to himself. “Yes… that is strange. Why would they be so high up? Hmmmm.”
“Ma-maybe s-something chased t-them up here?!” a voice from the crowd stuttered.
Bosco turned and narrowed his eyes at the speaker. He recognized Bill from previous missions. A jokester who could take nothing seriously. How he’d survived as long as he had in Icefinger’s gang, Bosco would never understand. The man stood shaking, his hands gripped tightly around the hilt of his spear, his upper body covered in centipede slime and blood as his eyes nervously darted from shadow to shadow.
Bosco was about to tell the idiot to shut up, but Seeker spoke up first. “Possible. This nest is new. Not enough bones or waste for it to be anything but recently established. But there’s another possibility as well.”
Bosco turned and raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Seeker smiled from ear to ear, “Given what we know so far… we may have found a new entrance into the Deep Tunnels.”
The gathered crowd went still.
The Deep Tunnels.
A place of legend, said to be bursting with treasure of all kinds… and just as many dangers.
There were hundreds of known entrances scattered through the Crimson Mountains surrounding Halirosa, but every single one was heavily controlled by one power or another. Heavily taxed, too. Adventurers had to pay heavy fees just to step foot into the Deep Tunnels, and tunnels closest to those entrances had been picked clean centuries ago.
If this really was a new entrance… one that hadn’t yet been claimed or even touched…
Bosco turned his gaze back toward the centipedes, practically drooling.
After a long moment, he broke his gaze away and yelled to the crowd. “Set up camp! We’ll wait for the poisoned to recover, then head deeper in the morning!”
The adventures did as they were told and began setting up camp along the wide tunnel. Not many would complain about a few hours of rest.
Bill walked toward Hugo and Claude, who were rolling out their sleeping mats. He desperately tried to remove more of the slime. It was foul-smelling, sticky and made his skin itch. He was just glad he hadn’t gotten bitten, the centipede’s fangs having been blocked by his chest piece. It didn’t make seeing the inside of the giant insect’s throat any more pleasant, at least.
He finally cleared off as much as he reasonably could, then pulled his own sleeping mat out of his storage ring and unfolded it. As he did, he muttered to the other two men close by. “Remind me to never go cave delving again…”
Hugo only sighed and shook his head, while Claude nodded sagely.