There was a shuffle of steel as Hughestace settled his recovered javelins across his back, little leather loops holding against the backs of the spearheads. The sinuous clinking of Mila’s tail blade, link gliding across link, ran underneath the clanking, and was unlikely to stop soon.
They were still in hostile territory, and nobody was arguing against Aluca’s call - they had kicked the ant hive, and sticking around was an awful idea. But that meant they did not have time to take a break, for Mila to pull out her notebook and calm herself down. That left her snorting like a bull, blood screaming and feet stomping a back and forth at the front of the group, even as they pressed forward.
That was an upside of being the fastest walker in the group by a stretch, part of her mind put forth. Sure, casual group strolls were kind of annoying because she had to slow herself way down to keep with the group, but when they were hustling for fear of an anty death, she could still get some extra lateral movement to pace and have speed to spare.
Maybe she would even remember this perk next time her knees were aching from taking short, slow steps in Rat-Hate.
That rational part of Mila’s mind yanked hard away from the pool of darker thoughts that she threatened to plunge into, all still under the surface of a pissed off woman that wanted to sink her teeth into something’s throat. To slake a bloodthirst, as literally as possible.
“S’what we doin’ ‘bout the ants, then?” Was eventually put forth, which was a damn good question and helped Mila slowly surface.
No damn good answer was fielded, with only the sounds of steps on the shoddy road sounding off.
It was a few minutes before Rora hesitantly said, “How long would it take to get back, and mobilize everyone?” They were five folks a long way from home, after all.
Aluca started mentally doing the math, estimating travel times and how long it would take to convince folks, gather resources, all that, but Mila interrupted him with the answer she did not like. “Too long.”
She shook her head, trying to shake free all that she knew about red important fire ants, scourge of the Scienceland South. That was a better basis than any analogue she could think of native to Fantasyland.
“We might be on the clock. This ain’t a normal species to the area, and all this weird bullshit, they can’t be allowed to stick around. Too predatory and too effective for anything else, and I suspect we’ve already seen what they do to people.” The field of dead scavengers and what the magic users had to scrape together into a bag still dwelled in all their minds, and Mila would bet money the ants were the cause. Potent venom and mandibles that could shear off limbs? Sounded about right.
Kraddel was not that far - way closer to their current location than Rat-Hate. It would be weeks before they could come back with all their fellow professionals from back home, weeks for people from Kraddel or the tiny communities around here to have a run-in with the new local menace. All for some spare hands that, well. They could be dealing with millions of ants, but were definitely dealing with hundreds and probably thousands or tens of thousands. Twenty extra sets of hands were not going to be the deciding factor there.
Hughestace nodded, Mila not seeing, but he put forth his own thoughts. “If this is the first colony, we have a chance to stop them.” A low chance, pulling a miracle out of thin air, but doable. If this was one of many colonies, they were already screwed. Fingers crossed, no pressure.
Rora did not push back. “We need some time of our own, then, to… put a plan together. Something. How far until we are safe?”
“Mila, you still smelling that smell?” Aluca lobbed forward.
A nose wrinkled, because the citrusy smell was once more omnipresent. “Yup.”
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“Mhm. I think that’s how the ants are marking their territory. No idea why Mila can smell it. But that’s way too far out. Uh. One of your moonlight bridges upwards at an angle, so there’s only one approach?”
Mila snapped her head around, pink in her vision now gone. “Won’t be one approach. These are fire ants, but big. And they will build structures with their own bodies, so could build up to us.” Mila chewed on her thought, tongue sticking out minutely as she focused. “But their dead pile? If we find where they’re putting their dead, we can hide there. As long as we smell like their dead and stay at the pile, we’ll be fine?”
That definitely did not feel like the sure-fire, completely solid plan that Mila wanted. That they all wanted. Find whatever mass grave these ants used, travel to it and hope they did not get swarmed to death, roll around in the bodies, and hope that these giant, xenomorphesque fuckers relied on the same scent queues that regular ants in a wholly different universe used? All to buy time to think of an actual plan.
“Did we need those ants we killed?” Rora asked, an edge of anxiousness creeping in. Enough to remind Mila that this gamble would be with everyone’s lives. And that no better bet was immediately forthcoming. “The last two did smell extra bad, but the first did not.”
Hughestace shook his head. “Those ants died violently - they likely smell different if they die of illness or age.” Although it was weird to Mila that the two that she fought, she assumed, smelled different. But then again, they had ignored Rora when she had approached to finish them. She filed away the effectiveness of that screech, which her manual had described as ‘distracting to one’s enemies’, for later consideration.
“An’ I wan’ to verify. Y’all feel we need t’ act now, ‘cause if’n we wait, the ants may become more’n one colony, ‘n’ more’n can be handled?” Naw-Naw laid out, eyebrow raised high as if their saying the words was swallowing a bitter pill. Given how everyone else got a similarly sour look, it was not an incorrect feeling.
Aluca was the first to nod, although Mila and Hughestace joined him. “If this is the first colony, we can stop it before it gets very bad. Very very bad. And Mila’s idea will buy us the short-term time we need to figure out how to stop it quickly and safely.”
“Mila’s idea does involve rolling ourselves about in the corpses of her nightmares. She is open to better suggestions!” Was Mila’s cheery addition, which was drained of its false positivity as nobody immediately fielded a dozen better alternatives.
The four lightly pitying looks she did receive as a reply got a flash of bared fangs - she was a big girl, metaphorically, and had been smart enough to pack her big girl panties. Immersing herself and her closest friends into a mountain of dead traumas, with the vague sense that if they fail, a lot of people would die, was something she could totally handle.
After a few more beats, Naw-naw nodded, their muzzle sweeping up and down in massive arcs. “Na’ we just fin’ thei’ dead pile, eh? And get there. Easy as pie, right as rain.”
And the steps for doing that, well. That was easy as pie. The group came to a quick stop, their forward march discarded in favor of fast preparations. Hughestace focused, drawing water forth from the air and giving each person a quick shower to try and rinse off any ‘prey’ smells, each person making sure their bags and pouches with humidity-sensitive goods was sealed tight before their turn.
That left Rora to take on the role of predator ad scavenger both, something that the moon gladly moved to provide. The fist-sized globules of moonlight that the knight drew down were swiftly shoved into her eyes, filling them fit to burst with silver and then some, shining liquid spilling over and almost running down the front of her face. Yet whenever it seemed like a drip of the stuff would slip down and away, there would be a flicker of the sun’s light, cast through the leaves, and that trailing tidbit would be pulled back, sitting shimmery and wet at Rora’s eyes.
It was the strongest that Mila had seen Rora wear the eyes of the hunter, and as with anything that Mila did not understand but felt was maybe dangerous, it unsettled her just a bit. That the look, something akin to runny, alien mascara, was kind of hot did not help at all.
It had results, though. Rora had been the first to be rinsed and Naw-Naw was the last, shaking out their wet fur with two vicious shakes of their head. The flying water did not affect the golden kobold at all, though. Instead, her eyes were locked on, back the way they had retreated from but angled north, into the trees.
Rora was wordless as she strode forth, quickly exiting the road and leading the way, her companions falling into a compact form of the same formation behind her. This time, they were prepared for whatever trouble was to find them - javelin in hand, spell components a flick of the finger away, and empowered biscuit at the ready.
Mila’s knives were in hand, and she had no memory of drawing them. That did not bother her, though, as they pushed deeper into the the angry, old forest that also smelled so heavily of lemons that were not quite right. No, her knives finding their way to where they should be was about the only thing that did not bother her, and she had a sharp suspicion that things were only going to be getting more bothersome, by a lot.