The Influence Zone of the Lanaan Hives was a disturbing sight. The brown grass was thick and vital. It had complete dominance over the flat landscape. A monoculture that was a stark difference to the chaos of Chimerion.
Incursions were a common sight here. They occurred more frequently and were seldom cleared out. The hills and tunnels created by those mini-dungeons marked the land like hole-riddled boils. All of the holes were just evenly enough spaced to feel like a pattern and just off enough to not be uniform. Insectoid creatures swarmed and wiggled around them, patrolling their territory until the day that adventurers would come and claim it all for the sapient species of the Omniverse.
Four such adventurers were currently advancing into the flatlands. They stepped on foot, their pace moderate. For a journey of this length, haste was not advisable. They were best advised to remain as rested as possible to cope with circumstances and the path ahead.
A path that had been, so far, absurdly smooth.
“Something is super off.” Korith finally said it out loud.
“Affirmative. Aggression of the creatures in the area does not match previously encountered patterns.” Aclysia’s emerald eyes fixed on a cluster of monsters less than thirty metres away from them.
The monsters that expanded into the Influence Zone of the Lanaan Hives came in many shapes and sizes, but they had shared characteristics. In body plan, they were insectoid, with six thin legs propping up thin bodies with large heads and abdomens. Some had stingers, others pronounced mandibles, a few had additional limbs such as pincers, antennas, or tendrils.
All had skin.
Lanaan insects were covered in a thick layer of dense flesh that stretched over the underlying carapace. The combination of skin and chitin gave them remarkable defences. That skin was also one of the reasons to hunt in this area. It was highly regenerative, an attribute it kept, with proper care, even after being removed from the organism. Reysha’s new bodysuit was made from it, as were most leather armours on Alarshus.
Courtesy of the closeness to Drowse, the Lanaan Hives were the second most studied area of the Leaf. The guidebook on the matter spelled out their tactics clearly. Alarshus insects had no regard for personal wellbeing and swarmed their target with mass rather than quality. For dungeon monsters, they were relatively small, standing between the size of a dog and a grown wolf. This allowed them to do as ants did, attacking the target from various directions. A lack of size was an advantage when one had numbers.
The insects were trotting about in their usual, mindlessly patrolling ways, passively doing what dungeon monsters were usually doing when no one was around. The party members had seen it before, but that had been when they were concealed by the landscape. There was not even a tall rock to hide behind. They were just standing there, being ignored.
The wind turned.
The creatures raised their heads. Throaty clicks spread amongst the creatures, then they galloped towards the group. The sudden shift in behaviour surprised the party, but the distance was enough for them to get in proper formation.
The formation of the monsters resembled a wedge. The three points were tipped by the largest members of the hive of a dozen monsters. Korith leapt forwards, meeting the assault with a strike of her hammer. The skin helped the creatures against crushing blows, but it could only do so much against an adventurer of superior level. Korith’s strike splattered the head of the monster, sending its compound eyes flying like spheres tossed out of their socket.
Two insects grabbed her arms with their mandibles and pulled. The incisor instruments slipped off, incapable of penetrating the reinforced scales, turned grey with Ki. A third insect was upon her with its stinger. Korith let the attack bounce off her sturdy chest plate, before delivering a counter strike.
The rest of the enemy formation encircled the party. Aclysia was up in the air, where she only needed to worry about one of the insects. It spewed a chemical cocktail, missed, and was then swiftly obliterated by an automatic response of the Priest’s miniature companion. The diamond-shaped familiar cast a ray of golden light that sliced through the open mouth of the creature, drilling through and cooking the internal organs.
On the ground, the encirclement completed and then broke. Apexus charged at it and the monsters parted around him, as if they had suddenly become bored. Bad news for Reysha, who was not benefitting from a similar change in moods. All of the monsters that were ignoring Apexus now came for her.
“Yeah, no,” the Rogue said out loud, then used a Shadowstep to escape her precarious situation. Momentarily confused, the monsters skittered at each other, turned to Korith, then spotted Reysha again. Not before the redhead had rammed a dagger through the thin neck of one insectoid, however.
Apexus caught up with the skittering monsters. Theories on what was happening were forming in his head, but he was focused on combat for the moment. The passivity remained until he ripped the head off one of the Lanaan insects with his bare hands and lingered until he had dispatched two more with swiftly administered Rippling Palms.
The numbers of the monsters were swiftly dwindling. Korith and Apexus kept them occupied, while Reysha dipped in and out of awareness, sowing confusion in their ranks. While the Rogue dealt precision damage, the angel above delivered magical attacks. A hand on her charm, she drew in ambient magic. There was plenty of it to fuel her attacks, a result from the infrequency of adventuring activity in the area, and so she could bombard the insects with little worry about lacking the power to heal. The hovering gem above her shoulder periodically flared, adding its own ray spells to the mixture.
“Do not kill this one,” Apexus declared, when only one was left. The other three stood down, watching with interest when their leader met the monster alone. He was larger, stronger, and tougher. He let the last insect grapple his arm with its mandibles. Ironskin prevented any damage. Even breaths kept the technique active, while the Monk lifted the arm. The monster soon dangled in the air, too simple in its programming to realize that it should let go. It kept to it even when Apexus calmly ripped the legs off it.
Cruelty was not within Apexus’ nature, yet he did not shy away from it either. It had been cruel to slowly dissolve clams alive, but it had also been necessary for the young slime to survive. Sometimes, utility justified a degree of cruelty and it was certainly easier to justify against monsters that existed to be fought than actual animals.
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Apexus concentrated on his Growths. Three seconds later, the unrelentingly aggressive insect suddenly released his arm and fell to the floor. It remained there, inconvenienced by the lack of legs, but otherwise passive. Once more, the slime’s attention turned inwards and the wiggling of the monster turned violent. It stretched as best it could towards the Monk’s foot, the heel of which brought an end to the monster a moment later.
“They respond to my pheromones,” he revealed.
“They do? I thought that was for making horny girls hornier,” Reysha commented.
“That is a development on the original that came with making it permanent. Originally, I got this from ants.”
“…I’m getting excited by ant smell?” Reysha asked, lightly weirded out.
“It is ant based,” Apexus clarified. “It is my scent. I believe we talked about this before?”
“I can’t remember everything.”
“Why is this the part that weirds you out the most anyway?” Korith asked. “You let him dissolve your hair on a semiregular basis.”
“Yeah, and that’s weird but the results, squishy!” Reysha tugged at her waistbands to reveal a pubic mound that was not just smooth but spotless. As a Ragressian, she had little body hair to worry about to start with. Opinions differed on whether one should grow their public hair or not and to what degree. Reysha preferred the shave and the full removal by sapient acid left her positively shining down there.
Aclysia, as an angel of metal, and Korith, as a kobold, did not experience hair growth below the ears whatsoever and could not properly relate.
“Seriously, look at it!” Reysha pulled at her waistband a bit more. The skin-tight bodysuit peeled back, revealing parts of her legs as well. They were a wonderful fusion between long, toned, and squishy.
“We can indulge in your exhibitionism another time,” Aclysia reprimanded their nymph-cat.
“Fine.” Reysha let the flexible material snap back into place. “Question though: do ants really communicate via scent?”
“Yes,” Apexus answered.
“Huh… man, insects are weird.” Reysha scratched the back of her head. “Did you know that, Korith?” The kobold shook her head. “Alright, so I’m not the only stupid one for once.”
“But I gladly will give you the title of Head Stupid,” Korith offered.
Reysha laughed out loud at the rebuttal. While her shoulders trembled with glee, she sashayed to one of the legs Apexus had ripped off the last insect and picked it up. She gave the skin a nibble, deemed it bland and rubbery, and then went for the fibres under the carapace instead.
All the while, Aclysia raised her voice. “Am I correct in my estimation that this broadens our strategic horizons considerably?”
Apexus nodded abruptly, then remembered to be more expansive in his explanation. “Pheromone production costs little energy and mass. Once I find the exact scents they react to, I will be able to create desired reactions accurately. Theoretically, that is.”
“W-well….” Korith looked at the path ahead and the dozens of Incursions that were just in their current view. “…plenty of testing grounds, aren’t there?”
There were indeed. The party had set out only to clear what they encountered on the way. This development changed things considerably. If it worked to even a slight degree, their time in the dungeons had turned considerably easier.
For the Incursions, it worked well enough. The monsters outside, typically around Level 20, were easy to dispatch to start with. The monsters within and the mini boss, going up to Level 25, on rare occasions, were harder. The boss monsters were notably resistant against the pheromones. They were not, however, immune.
Night had come. That was not saying much, at this time of year in this part of the Leaf, night came early and lasted long. Four sources of light broke up the consuming darkness. One was the moon above, three-quarters full this night, bathing the simple landscape in enough illumination to let shapes be visible. Second and third were the spell of Aclysia and the nails of Apexus, both channelling magical power to make the world around them a brighter place. In other areas of the Leaf, travelling in the dark hours, especially with light out, was not recommended. Lanaan insects, however, were inactive during the nights of cold months. They were easily chilled and thus retreated to their holes, making travel safe.
The fourth source of light was a ring of torches and lanterns placed on the roundabout of a circular fortification. This was the group’s target for the night, one of the basic settlements that the map pointed them towards.
The walls were earthworks reinforced by wooden planks and tree roots. Stone walls would have been of little use against the Lanaan insects. They were quite capable of scaling all but the smoothest surface. Therefore, the wall existed only to delay and funnel approaches, not to outright stop them. Plus, stone was harder to transport to this barren region than wood was. Druids could always regrow the roots.
The fortification had two gates, located on opposite sides. Solid things of studded wood, moved from Drowse with great care. A half-developed moat surrounded the settlement. It was just deep enough to create a thin pool of groundwater at the bottom. The path to the gates remained unexcavated for now.
Their approach was met with two archers standing atop the wall and a third guard sliding a piece of wood to the side to speak to them through the gate. The archers did not even bother to hook their strings and the guard smirked. “Alright, adventurers, give me a reason not to let you in?”
“I have none,” Apexus answered so seriously that the guard waited a moment, before laughing all the same.
“Give us a moment.” The viewing hole was closed, the locking mechanism unbarred, and the gate opened. The guard waved the group inside. “Any name we can put on the register?”
“The Inevitable party,” Apexus responded.
The guard whistled. “The famous newcomers, ey? Did the lady Frashina send you to check on us?”
“In a sense. We are here on a private endeavour.”
“Mind sharing? Not a lot of news gets to these parts. Not important enough to get a Feather and all of that.” The guard gestured at the village. Whether it qualified for this high a title was highly debatable.
There were five houses within the walls. A long one served as the barracks, a similarly long one as the facility to store and prepare food, one served as the residence of the minor noble that led this operation and the other two were used for various purposes depending on the current needs of the settlement. It was a research station, military outpost, and claim to the land all at once. The elven noble, peacefully sleeping at the moment, had the lifespan and patience to wait for the territory of Drowse to expand until this fertile flatland could be exploited by farmers.
“We can talk,” Apexus agreed. “Before that, however, I would ask if you have alchemical agents?”
“We got some stuff in storage that might qualify?” the guard asked. “Fair warning though, we do not take coin here. Not much of a market around here.” He gestured around the tiny square between the houses. “We’ll have to barter with actual stuff.”
“How about Mana Gems?” Aclysia asked and brought out the pouch she had filled with the day’s work.
The guard nodded deeply. “That’ll work. Alright, let me take you to storage. The quartermaster is the one you’ll negotiate with.”
They spent the next hour getting a few items Apexus felt like he needed and serving as entertainment for the guards. Little changed around these parts, so they jumped at the opportunity to hear anything interesting at all. Aclysia exchanged some of the books she had already read for several that every local had gone through thrice. Once such civilities had run their course, they retreated into the Mobile Estate.
The next day, Apexus had some experimenting to do.