I begin my reactivation calmly.
I have worked on this, I am good at this, I got this.
“Status”, I think, and ready myself for the inevitable Onslaught of cold thoughts.
“Name: Charlie.
Gender: neutral.
Alignment: Neutral
Diameter: 2 mm
Force: 0.001 N.
Level: 1.
Experience: 7.479/16
Mana: 13.979/12
Mana Regeneration: 1 per 24 hours.
Mana Storage: N/a
Ressource Nodes/Types : 1/1(Mushroom)
Upgrades:
Layer (Layer / Number/ cost for next Level): 0/2/4, 1/0/4, 2/0/8, 3/0/16, 4/0/32, 5/0/64, 6/0/128, 7/0/256
Minion: 1 / 2.
Minion 1: Ant “Langton” / 10 XP/Level Up possible.
Activity: 1/week”
I am very pleasantly surprised. I had not suspected an almost melodic undertone in the thoughts of cold thoughts.
I get my perspective going, and check on the progress that happened during my downtime. The first thing I notice is the small mountain of sand that is outside the designated hidey hole, that Langton has made considerable progress with.
Langton has done more than its fair share, and has gone beyond what I would have expected. The diminutive ant looks better now, as I see it clear out the last few kennels of sand from the area I hollowed out. Nothing standing off the wrong way or anything, no legs bent, nothing leaking, just what I presume to be a healthy ant. Antenna not droopy, mandibles going klickety…
I think positive, very happy thoughts, and Langton takes a break, proud and accomplished, the very model of a modern ant. Again, I have to wonder, how does Langton see the situation? Is it experiencing a level of religious fervor? Does Langton think that was its idea? I wish I could take a look into the most excellent ant head of my number one minion, but no sudden and inexplicable superpower that comes from nowhere. That black and insectoid head remains closed to me. I contend myself with watching Langton, as it stretches its legs, does one last round around the mound of sand, before heading out to get its bearings on a delicious looking clump of sugar, with some definite swagger in its step.
I freeze, and am ready to make a decision, as I feel more than I see Movement in the flow, before the cold thoughts give me a certainty of cold dread. Those are some big waves in the flow. They go up and down a lot. “Cold Thoughts” is there, in the back of my mind, thinking nothing.
I check how big the waves are, in comparison to the ones that Langton makes when it moves about, and get a similar size, if a little bit above it. Langton is a chonker , an absolute unit of an ant, that has a big butt, and looks very ruffled from having worked all throughout my period of inactivity, but the bogey could be anything.
I remember basic tactics. I have to prepare for this. Not to win anything, but if they get langton, it’s going to be watching the mushrooms grow for some time. Langton is a delight and a blessing, I know that for sure.
Okay, new plan.
I stop myself, twist the perspective so that I can survey my small area, and force myself to think this through, nice and slow. I have the time, I tell myself, I am smart, I am capable, I got this. Positive reaffirmations. Sounds silly, but they seem to work. .
The first problem is that I have way too little data, nothing concrete, no out and out “this is what is coming, prepare yourself…”. It could be that out there, there is just a thing that makes Mana waves. I don’t know who is coming, where from, and how far away. I know too little about my own capabilities, too little about…
Well, pretty much anything.
I can not win this by brute strength. This much is clear to me. I could flick grains of sand against the ….
Could it be? Could it actually be THAT simple?
Nope, first, I have to determine the time frame.
I focus on feeling, and get a good idea of the waves. I feel them go into the mycelium, and push bits more energy into this. That is something that I have figured out. Proof of my worth. I made that mushroom roots grow, with fucking mana. Fear my capabilities. That is in fact good.
I use the focus to draw a thick line of stillness on the ground, in between the mushrooms. I get the attention of Langton, and let it wander about a bit on the opposite side of the dividing line. My suspicions are justified, as the area where Langtons waves in the ambient flow mana hit the stillness dissolve faster then the far areas. Mana seems to behave like some sort of liquid. Living beings create waves. Waves in liquid flow for a while.
I can work with that. That dictates certain rules. Rules can be exploited.
But one thing after the other.
I play “catch the focus” with Langton, and make a few observations. The overworked and underappreciated ant makes its way hither and thither, seemingly knowing that it is important., and vital to defend its “antself”? I am not sure how I like thinking about gender based language. Langton has no idea about what gender it is, and seems to be more focussed to bite seven shades of pain out of the focus. Studying the waves, I see that the rate of the tearing down of stillness is faster the closer Langton is.
This tells me the basic rules. I cease maintaining the wall of stillness, move the focus over to the feeder (today's special: Sugarcystal and water, everything a growing ant needs), and wait till langton gets the message and catches a break.
I decide on drawing a ring of stillness in the center of the mushroom pentagon on the floor. This way, if things turn out to be grievously wrong, at the very least I get an accurate idea of where precisely the waves have to come from.
After a second or two of dedicated observing, I draw a line towards the wave, trying to get the flow to hit on the top of the line alone, and not on the sides. After I manage this, I draw one at a 90 ° angle, and redraw it a few times more, until I am happy. The waves hit the line precisely in the middle first, and then woosh up the outlying parts. .
The more I think about things, the more thoughts return to my brain, and this very special thought showed up as a wonderful thought about geometry, which I must have liked a lot. It is, from what I can get, a sort of game, where you have things that you know, things that you don’t know, and then you try to prove things that you do not know by showing how things that you do know make the things that you do not know necessary. .
The line if stillness goes from Point A to Point B. I had a Point X, which was a potential attacker, that was somewhere out there.
How can I determine it?
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I look to the line, and try to see the stillness. I can begin to see a miniscule dent in the material, which by all appearances seems roughly round shaped. I observe it in detail, and when it becomes more pronounced, I am content. The two points on the line where the round line of the abrasion starts I name point C and D .
[CD] is a line. I know it well.
E is a point in the middle between C and D.
CEX is a triangle with a right angle at point E, and a known angle from point A.
CE is known, because CD is known, and E is defined as the middle between the two.
The angle at E is known, 90 °.
The angle at C is known.
I know that CEX is a triangle.
The sum of all angles in a triangle is 180 °.
Angle CEX + Angle EXC + Angle XCE = 180 °
I thank whoever is responsible for allowing me to measure things, before I make an educated guess that it is possibly “Cold Thoughts”. Better not thank that vile intruder too much.
I run into the first problem, but only shortly. I have no idea what unit of length is. I know not much about math, but I know it works with units. Thankfully, whatever makes the waves seem very far away, so I have some time.
The answer is Langton that puts its head out of the shelter. Langton is a unit. A LITERAL unit of measurement…. I am as well. The status tells me about my size. 3 mm.
Not very big, but I guess you have to start somewhere.
I take my own size first, and discover that I am shorter than my ant. A regrettable coincidence, (I have vague memories that being big and tall is good, and being small makes me smoll) but not a downside.
If I am 3 units tall, Langton seems to be 4 units tall. I myself am still growing, but if Langton gets any fatter (do ants get fat? Or do they just get big?), Langton will be as wide as long, so I make a boss decision, and use Langton as the basis for my measuring system. Comparing length is easy. IF someone complains, they can take it up with Langton, my number one Minion will bite the shit out of them.
The Langton unit says the Line of Stillness is 3 Langtons long. So, 12 mm.
I begin to calculate. It takes me an embarrassingly long time, and soon, I reach the limits of my math. I know that now, I have to do something that I know as cos, but I have no idea what that is or how to calculate it. I have vague memories that cos was hidden in black rectangles, and I have to press buttons, but that does not help me much right now.
Back to the basics. I bet, if there are others in my situation, they would see it and go, “THis is easy, you just do that and this…” Well, fuck you, you had to look that up.
I get an idea, and do a right angle next to the end point of the line. IF a triangle has 3 angles that taken together have 180 degrees…. I have a workable idea, I correct myself. 180 degrees, I know that clearly, is a line like CED. so, if I now take the angle of ECX, and put it so that the pointy end is at e…. And do the same with EDX….
I stare at an almost fully covered upper line. There is only a tiny little sliver missing. I draw a copy of it in stillness on the floor. NOW, I have an angle.
So, all I have to do now is fit those three angles together. Right now, if I did it in my mushroom circle, things would be pretty much outside of my area of influence.
But, I remember with pride, that angles stay the same no matter the units. And with the angles that I have, all I have is to fit them in a triangle, any triangle really, and then do what the upgraded layer zero seems to be pretty good at. Compare distances and see relations.
I fit the angles together in my mind, and take a single sandgrain, that I blow up to dimensions with mana. The crystal sliver is long and pokey, and now, I can compare it to the big one. If the model is right, the rough idea is that point X is roughly 150 units away, if Langton is 4 Units long, and I am 3 units long…. That makes it around 600 units away.
Okay.
Distance figured out: done
Now, what to do with that information?
I get an idea, and let Langton rest from following the focus. I then draw the world's crappiest labyrinth in the floorplan. I have a vague idea of what a labyrinth is supposed to do. Buy you time to get a defense going. .
I know, embarrassing. Here I am, thinking my way through what for some reason I consider basic math, and there is the labyrinth, looking just like a really long noodle. BUT, it is functional.
For some reason, I expect Cold Thoughts to be shitty, and call things out, and I am in half a mind to give Cold Thoughts a piece of my mind, before the reality sets in. It is at the very least functional, because I have added a second layer that I can work with.
The mushrooms. I would be very stupid to not put them to use as well.
By now, I have a good enough idea of what I need, so I realize, that if I make the walls high enough, and angled inwards, chances are, anyone walking through the labyrinth is going to have to make the way over the thin crust of the Mushrooms if they want to go to me. I measure a very patient Langton again, and then leave just a little bit of room at the edges. This way, if Langton has to pass, it can skitter along the edges.
A minor downside is that the flow of mana runs straight through the middle.
I ponder this. That means, an additional rule is in place. I have to make sure that there is a way for the flow to reach me.
Hrm.
So, let's review. I measure the distance to the supposed outside influence making the waves again (This time, I have less problems), and arrive at a nice 140 units to target. Either, the waves got bigger, and the target got closer, or the target will be outsized.
I look at the labyrinth. The flow is still there, behind the labyrinth, reaching directly to the core. That is… problematic. IT would be more secure to just put my core away somehow, but I have to leave it out in the open. Anybody wishing to come get me is going to have to spend a time walking, and burning off some calories.
The mushrooms are in between the walls of the labyrinth, blocking the path in the middle, and requiring other people to walk around. IF they were reasonably close in weight and dimensions to the ant, it should not present a problem. Anything heavier should have a chance to break through the layer of crystalline sugars. I am content at the idea of bigger and better units than Langton chasing my main minion, Langton with light feet scurrying over the fickle surface, and the units behind it breaking in, and drowning horribly, pulled into murky depths by sticky blobs. .
Can I perhaps round this off nicely?
I feel the warmness coming from my core. That was the ONE thing that pissed me off. I do not like being warm. Being warm and cozy sucked, and I have a suspicion that cold thoughts feels the same about it.
So, what can I do about that?
The first idea I have is to spend the mana, as if there is no tomorrow. I like the idea, and try it a little bit.
I discover that the build library allows me to make changes to visible material. I shift my perspective around, and look at the hidey hole. After a few seconds of intense pondering, I Try my hand at basic iconography, and am delighted as the geometric shapes and patterns drain the mana nicely. I start at smoothing the walls, letting the sand fall to the floor, and then carve squares, circles, triangles and so forth into the sandstone. I am halfway in covering the hidey hole with a mural, that for lack of my artistic ability looks like a chamber with the intent of celebrating the divine egg (Maybe the big engraving at the back wall, showing my small ball, was too much, but it can never hurt to be too boastful)(and of course, a picture of my number one minion, a very badly chiseled ant (not bad for someone without a body)), when I notice that I am no longer solidly above, but just above my capacity, and second, most of my losses start to get rebuild the second I stop spending.
This falls back in importance when I see how far the wave maker is from my area. I do the calculations again, and am not happy at all. I can deal with an attack. I can deal with no attack at all.
I can not deal with the wave center of the disturbance …
“Further away? That is way further… ”
I relax a bit, and Langton takes up its work again. And then it strikes me.
Mana behaves like a liquid! Liquids can be stored!
I shift my perspective very carefully, until I find what I see as a natural occurring quartz. I carefully grab my mana, and start growing it by massaging it outwards. I grow the crystalline structure a bit taller, and massage it out in a circle. Finally, I have a hollow cylinder of the crystal. I thread the mycelium into the main chamber, and focus on extruding the mana, very softly. If it already managed to store this, if it managed to contain this, with just a hint of pressure…..
I am very happy that I am incompetent. That I could only make those walls very very thin, and a dishonor for all builders everywhere. Because When those shards of crystal fly everywhere, as the Canister rips, with enough force to actually puncture, I just get a very very sad smile on my mind.
I just failed, right? I used Mana to store mana, and I failed.
I know next to nothing about how it really is, right?.
I failed at an engineering task, right?
I try my best to keep a straight face, and say and think exactly nothing, as I use the last bit of mana, to accomplish a simple task. I hope I do not forget.
I grow a very tiny chest out of sandstone. It is big in its own right, but compared to the titanic floor plates (I have come to accept that my core is still very much a grower, not a shower), it is diminutive. With all the love I can muster, I go for a simple lid, too far off the ground that even Langton the Mighty could lift it.
I make sure it is firmly closed, and grow a few of the crystals, including mycelial threads, on the inside, making them nice and big. I make them as beautiful as I can, to remind me of that failure, and then engrave the box with geometric symbols.
I am planning nothing wrong, but the location straight after the fifth mushroom is kind of telling. A sort of monument of my failure to create, and to properly engineer. Someone very small, like me or Langton, could, in the right perspective, read the symbols as forming words on the outside of the box.
I do not know from where, but I am a huge sucker for following traditions. I make sure that my chest is as decked out as possible, with strands of spores covering spikes of crystals, making sure that my failure in engineering is plain for all to see. I then fill the construction with lots of crystal splinters, and crumbs of sandstone. I am so pleased with myself that I almost hum.
I rest, and would have yawned again if I had anything to yawn with. I check the status one last time.
“Status”, I think clearly, and already feel myself growing calmer and more tired.
“Name: Charlie.
Gender: neutral.
Alignment: Neutral
Area: 24 cm
Core Diameter: 3 mm
Force: 0.001 N.
Level: 1.
Experience: 7.791/16
Mana: 3.792/12
Mana Regeneration: 1 per 24 hours.
Mana Storage: N/a
Ressource Nodes/Types : 1/1(Mushroom)
Upgrades:
Layer (Layer / Number/ cost for next Level): 0/2/4, 1/0/4, 2/0/8, 3/0/16, 4/0/32, 5/0/64, 6/0/128, 7/0/256
Minion: 1 / 2.
Minion 1: Ant “Langton” / 10 XP/4 mm / Levelup possible.
Activity: 1/week”
I smile, giddy one last time, settling down for my period of rest. My perspective rests on the gift, that I totally have no bad intentions with. Totally. I swear on my honor as a 3 mm big marble. I am in no way having bad thoughts. And only a fool would suspect anything, as I have written on the edge of the chest, in big friendly letters:
“This side towards intruders”
I hope they like the gift of crystal splinters I left for them . “Cold Thoughts” seems cautious, but hopefully can not figure out why I am in such a good mood after a clear and unambiguous loss.