A step towards the hole brought Stanley up short. "Gah!" He choked and gagged while behind him Daryl staggered back as well.

"Good lord that is strong!" Daryl exclaimed and then started coughing.

Caffeine and Princess both growled at the dead ant in unison. Stanley saw the fox glance at Caffeine with what felt like surprise and then away angrily. Stanley chuckled and immediately regretted it as he started gagging again. It wasn't so much that it smelled that bad, it did, but it was also just so strong. "I hope we get used to that." He said and spit to the side.

"Yea…" Daryl agreed before walking past the stinking corpse with quick strides. "We should hurry."

Stanley followed him, floating around the mess and mentally grabbing the Core as he went past, touching only the tiniest bit of a fingertip to it.

+0.3 Vitality

"This might be a good opportunity for Cores as well as helping out a friend…" Stanley thought, suddenly feeling a bit better about the smell. Then he had a thought. "Daryl…" He asked. "Shouldn't we have brought more people?"

Daryl shook his head in the deepening gloom of the tunnel and then lifted a hand. Red and yellow fire blossomed around his hand and lit up the walls and a short distance down the passage. "The best fighters were already with Adrian." He kept moving forward. "I should have gone with him!"

"Why…" Stanley started.

"I was leading another team." He spat out. "They fought one monster and ran crying back to the tower. We have too many lazy people and cowards." His Soul radiated anger and frustration. "When Adrian didn't come back, no one would come with me to go find him. Fucking cowards!"

Stanley wondered how many people had been fighting against the Raid Leader… that experience could make anyone refuse to step foot outside… but still.

"Not even Walter?" Stanley wondered why the man hadn't joined them and then remembered something. He'd never seen the man step outside. Plus the way he had spoken about being helpless… that was something he hadn't stopped to think about.

"Is Walter…" Stanley tried to think of how to word his question without being rude.

"He can't help." Daryl supplied before glancing back at Stanley. "He can absolutely, as he said, 'preserve our home' while we are gone… but he has to stay inside."

"Is that related to how he teleports around?" Stanley asked as he floated alongside Daryl, now curious about the butler.

"Yea. He won't give me the details but as long as he is inside, he's a badass. If he leaves, then he is weak. At least that's the gist he gave me." He laughed without much humor in his voice. "I have heard stories from some of the people that have seen him in action. Let's just say, I'm trying to figure out a way to draw the monsters inside… if only the Lair below us wasn't underwater."

Caffeine suddenly launched forward from Stanley's lap, out of the circle of light and something crunched in the dark. When they caught up a moment later, the light revealed Caffeine gagging and pawing at his mouth over a dead ant. Stanley did his best to help scrape the gunk out and then set Caffeine on his lap. "You can rest Caff. I'll handle these."

Caffeine sighed and lay down, then immediately sat up to gag again. Stanley chuckled and gave the poor pug some extra ear scratches. Daryl started jogging at as fast a pace he could manage in the dark and sloping tunnel. Stanley kept the pace easily after Daryl declined the offer of being carried.

Then they came to the first intersection. Three dark openings, all leading further down and in different directions.

"Which way?" Stanley asked. All the tunnels looked the same, dirt and rock.

The light flared and Daryl pointed. "Follow the scorching." Stanley hadn't noticed it in the flickering light, but there were some faint blackened spots down the leftmost tunnel.

They continued.

The next intersection had three of the small Ants milling around each other with waving antennae. Daryl thrust his hands forward and fire flew from his palms.

The Ants made no sounds as they burned, at least nothing Stanley could hear over the roar of the flames. They died quickly enough that Stanley didn't bother to attack, though he did start to wonder about the wisdom of using fire in an enclosed space, like the cave they were in. "Do we need to worry about burning up the oxygen?" He asked the other man.

"Nah." Daryl said. "Don't worry about it. My flames… it won't matter."

Stanley wasn't sure what the difference of magical flames was but figured Daryl must have done some experimenting or maybe he'd gone through some similar Lairs.

The smell of burnt ant wasn't much better than chopped ant.

Daryl led the way down one of the tunnels and Stanley tried his [Soul Awareness] again. All he could tell was that at least one Human was further below and in the general direction they were headed. As Stanley followed Daryl, he pushed his power ahead of the man, following the tunnel and trying to find anything ahead of them before it saw them.

It worked and he blindly cut the two ants ahead before they entered the light. Daryl's light spilled over the oozing corpses and he slowed and glanced back. "Your doing?"

Stanley nodded. "Yep. I'm practicing, but keep an eye out, I might miss something."

Daryl continued, picking up speed and throwing tiny yet brilliant sparks out ahead of himself to illuminate the winding tunnels.

Stanley tried crushing the next group. Four of them this time. The main bodies resisted his crushing but the legs were ruined enough that all of them were helpless when Daryl saw them. The man didn't slow as he ran past them, hoping slightly to get over a pair of pincers that were still snapping at the air and nearly clipping his head on the ceiling.

Stanley slowed and punched spikes of Psionic energy into their heads. It didn't kill them, or at least it didn't seem to as they all kept squirming and snapping their Jaws. He bisected them lengthwise and they stilled. "Do ants have brains?" He wondered before collecting the Cores and hurrying after Daryl. Of course the other question was did it matter at all what they had been before the changes.

A few intersections later and some distance deeper, they found a new ant. It was bigger than the others and Stanley thought it had a bit more red in its coloring, though he couldn't be sure in the firelight.

Daryl blasted it with his fire and Princess even breathed out her own flames to help. It seemed to take longer to die than the earlier ones, but it did die.

A bit further in, Stanley noticed something. "Daryl, is the tunnel getting wider?"

Daryl didn't slow his jogging run as he looked around and then shrugged. "Not sure. Maybe?"

"Have you gone through a lot of Lairs?" Stanley asked after another hundred feet. "What are they usually like?"

"A few." Daryl huffed from ahead as he jogged. "Usually one monster type as far as I've seen and from what Adrian has told me. They tend to have tunnels or narrow halls, something to keep you from going right to the queen or boss and the monsters get bigger or stronger as you go deeper."

Cut

Stanley killed a few more of the big ants ahead. He was almost surprised that he could hit three at once with one attack.

"That's basically what I saw with the bats. Almost like a game dungeon then…" He scooped up the Cores as they passed and offered them to Daryl by way of hovering them in front of him.

"You killed them." Daryl said and didn't reach for the Cores.

"I don't mind sharing." Stanley said. "At least with someone that can actually watch my back."

Daryl snatched them out of the air as he ran. "Yea, that's what I hear, about the Lair's being game-like, I mean."

"Do you get a Skill Shard for killing the Queen?" Stanley asked, wondering if that was only the reward for sparing it or not.

"Yea." Daryl said back to him and Stanley perked up. He started about what skill an ant would drop. Biting? Strength? Though he didn't actually know how strong the ants were since they all died before being able to attack.

"I heard that you got one without killing the Queen." Daryl said after a minute and Stanley missed one of the ants ahead as he lost his focus.

"Yea." Stanley told him while refocusing and finishing off the straggler. It had started to run away further down the tunnels by the time he killed it. Stanley remembered playing games where the monsters would run if you didn't kill them fast enough and bring back reinforcements…

"You threatened it right?" Daryl asked.

"What?" Stanley looked up from the corpses that he was pulling Cores from. "Oh, yea. They were holding off the Undead fairly well and I didn't want to wipe them out."

"Not sure that was a good idea…" Daryl muttered as he ran.

"Plus, Caffeine kinda made friends with them…" Stanley added.

"Yea…" Daryl sighed and glanced at the flaming fox running alongside him. "That would do it."

Stanley noticed something odd in his mental touch about the next intersection, more tunnels and this time one leading straight down.

They slowed and stopped at the edge, looking down into the darkness. Daryl dropped a flickering ball of fire into the pit and it fell straight down without hitting the walls until it went out far below.

"The burns go that way." Daryl pointed at one of the horizontal tunnels. "But what if this is a shortcut…" He glanced back down and then looked at Stanley. "Can you get a read on them yet?"

Stanley dropped his shield and tried again. He pointed at a ninety degree angle from the burnt tunnel and deeper than the current level. "Over there somewhere, but I'd rather follow a trail than go blindly into a maze and we should hurry…"

Daryl looked torn in the flickering light and Stanley could feel his worry warring with his logic. "Damn it." He finally agreed with a curse. He leapt over the pit easily and they continued at a fast pace down the gentle slope.

Stanley pushed his mind further ahead as he split his focus between floating after Daryl and checking for incoming ants. He found them.

Cut

Cut

Cut

They only slowed slightly as Daryl jumped over the still twitching bodies while flaring his fire to light up the tunnels. He saw the trail and swerved into the correct tunnel. Stanley had no trouble following him.

They were maybe a hundred paces down the next curving tunnel when Caffeine suddenly growled, his head twisting to look over Stanley's shoulder. At nearly the same instant Stanley felt something approaching his back at speed.

He launched forwards in a burst of acceleration and threw up a wall behind himself. Stanley felt something strike his wall and spun around.

"Behind!" He shouted as he tried to see what had attacked him. The light was ahead with Daryl and he couldn't see anything in the tunnel behind them.

Then light bloomed as Daryl skidded to a stop and sent fireballs sailing around Stanley. There was nothing there… "That's not good." Stanley thought as he felt Daryl move up behind him and then turn to scan back ahead.

"Daryl…" Stanley said quietly. "Have you seen any stealth skills or invisibility?"

"Not yet…" Daryl replied as light bloomed behind Stanley.

Then fire billowed out, coating the entire tunnel circumference, floor to ceiling, and rolled down the tunnel in both directions. Stanley sent his mental touch down the tunnel as well but nothing showed.

"Can you pull me?" Stanley said in a whisper and held one hand out to Daryl. "I think I can defend us from whatever that was but I'll need to concentrate."

Caffeine tried to jump out of his lap but Stanley held him back with his other arm. He really didn't want to watch the pug go running off into the dark chasing god knows what. Caffeine could probably find them again easily but… Stanley didn't like unknown monsters that could pounce and vanish like that. "Stay with me Caff." He whispered.

Daryl clasped his arm and Stanley let himself float freely, closing his eyes as the other man started sprinting down their original course, once again following the burns, now dragging Stanley behind him.

Stanley stopped trying to see far ahead and focused on the area directly around them. The tunnel ceiling was a few feet above their heads and Stanley was pretty sure it had gotten wider since the entrance. The walls were wide enough that they could move side by side and still have a couple feet on either side.

His mind touched everything around him and Daryl as they moved and he saw everything at once, or rather he felt it. Daryl's pounding feet and his free arm held ahead, launching magical fire down the tunnel to illuminate the way. Princess ran alongside him, her paws touching lightly as she easily kept pace with her three puffed up tails swinging behind. Caffeine sitting in his lap, his head tilting and turning as he listened and smelled the air.

"There!" Something darted into his circle of awareness and Stanley didn't hesitate.

Cut

Daryl heard the monster crash into the floor and spun around as he slid to a halt, fire flaring bright. They both stared for a moment at the oozing and twitching bisected ant. At first, it looked like a weird slice of goo, then colors shifted and the rest of its body appeared.

It was an ant, of course, but aside from being a bit bigger than the previous ones, it had a few other differences. It's jaw's looked more like blades than the others and all of its legs ended in glittering needle points.

"Shit." Daryl hissed. "Chameleon ants… we need to hurry!"

Stanley pulled the Core to himself as Daryl continued to drag him down the tunnel and confirmed that it was only a base E Rank.

+0.1 Perception

It had been basically invisible, visually and Soul wise and it hadn't given any resistance to his cutting. Unfortunately for it, it had still taken up physical space and Stanley had felt it coming easily enough.

He closed his eyes and focused wholy on his mental perception. "We don't have a healer unless we find Adrian…" Stanley wasn't too worried, he knew his Regeneration would keep him healthy, though he would get hungry if it came to that and he wasn't sure how much he could actually heal before he started gaining hungry and starving Debuffs. He didn't know how Daryl's regen was though.

"I wonder if we can eat the ants…" Just thinking about how they smelled made him want to gag. "Last resort."

"Ahead!" Daryl called as he slowed. "I can handle it. Keep watch!"

Stanley took him at his word and didn't even open his eyes, keeping his focus on the area directly around them both. It was the right call.

Caffeine growled right as two parts of the tunnel suddenly moved on either side of them. Stanley felt what he had at first taken for another lump on the already bumpy walls, suddenly stand up on thin needle-like legs and spring towards them.

Cut Cut

He caught the now four pieces and threw them down the tunnel in the direction that Daryl's magic was flying out of his current range of perception.

Daryl finished his part with a lot of booming, roaring fire and the sizzle of roasting flesh. Stanley tried very hard not to breathe through his nose as Daryl dragged him over the still smoking monsters.

He did open his eyes to spot and grab the Cores as they passed, picking out the blue glowing chips and pulling them to himself.

He absorbed them all, there would be more for Daryl later, Stanley was sure of…

Something shot into his perception and Stanley threw a wall up reflexively. He felt something strike at the same time Daryl cursed and slid to a halt. Stanley looked with his eyes at what he had caught. Some kind of goop. And it was glowing… faintly. At least he was pretty sure he saw a glow before Daryl's hands bloomed into brilliant light.

"They are spitting!" Daryl shouted over the roar of the flames.

Stanley threw the goop back just ahead of the twin fireballs that shot down the tunnel and crashed into a new kind of ant.

"Shit." There were two of them, each standing as tall as Daryl and wide enough that they barely fit side by side in the tunnel. That was all he had time to see before the fireballs made contact with a booming fiery detonation. This time the ants made noise. A hissing high pitched screech that made Stanley's teeth hurt.

He could feel a rumbling vibration coming from Caffeine and Stanley forced himself to refocus as much as possible while keeping his eyes open. Two more glowing globs of goop shot from the firestorm and Stanley was ready. He blocked them and at the same time felt another stealth ant launch into his 'sight' from the rear. "Where are they coming from!" Stanley caught the goop and threw it past himself and Daryl, and directly into the attempted assassin.

It melted. Almost instantly as the goo seemed to drive right through its body and out the otherside, leaving only a few legs and a bit of chiton to clatter onto the floor while the goo splashed across the ground and dug little holes wherever it splashed down.

Stanley was still facing forward and he only felt but didn't actually see the results. "Don't let the spit touch you!" He yelled at Daryl. They would be so fucked if they got hit, Stanley wasn't even sure if his Regeneration could handle something like that. "How did anyone else survive in here?"

"No shit!" Daryl responded and more fire raged up from his hands. This time he held onto the fireballs and the color shifted from a flaming orange and into brilliant blue spheres. He threw his hands forward and the blue fireballs shot forward like bullets from a gun.

The ants didn't get another chance to spit their goop before they were surrounded by a spinning blue inferno.

Daryl pulled both hands together and blue light started shining between his fingers as he prepared another attack. Then the fire around the two ants dwindled and shrank away.

They were down. Both of the large bodies were slumped on the floor, sizzling with spots of their armor glowing red hot. Their antennae were gone and most of their legs were now stumps with glowing tips.

Stanley saw the Souls fading and swirling into Cores. "They're dead." He confirmed the kill for Daryl.

"Damn! They must have fire resistance!" Daryl spat as the glow in his cupped hands faded and he dropped to a knee. Princess sat in front of him and whined, her tails lashing the air behind her in worry.

Stanley realized that his Soul shield had fallen at some point when he picked up the other Humans within the Lair. They were still muted and he couldn't get an accurate number but he did pick up a lot of fatigue and pain as well as fear…

He started to wrap his shield back around and then stopped. "We're closer." He told Daryl. "I think they need help."

Daryl pulled himself upright after a quick stroke of the fox's head. "Let's go!" He took a step and stumbled slightly. Stanley started to reach for him but the man recovered and started walking.

"Want me to…" Stanley started to offer to carry him again but Daryl waved him off.

"I'm fine, I just used a lot of Mana all at once." He approached the dead ants, Stanley floating alongside. "I'll be fine."

Stanley didn't see any Cores and went for the heads to speed up the extraction. They were disturbingly tough as he ripped the chiton apart.

+1 All Base Attributes

"That's good… and a bad sign." He muttered as he handed the second Core to Daryl and looked around at the branching tunnels for a sign of which one to take.

"Fuck!" Daryl exclaimed. "That's the first plus one Shard I've seen at E Rank… This way." He pointed down a tunnel.

Stanley noticed the scorch marks once Daryl pointed it out but his attention was pulled by something else. The area around the two dead ants wasn't scorched. At all. The bodies were smoking and sizzling and radiating heat but the ground looked untouched.

"Daryl… is your fire an…"

"Don't say it!" Daryl cut him off, his eyes flicking from Stanley to the tunnels around them. "I don't know how intelligent the ants are and I don't want them to become… extra annoying."

Stanley nodded and then moved ahead of Daryl down the tunnel. "I'll take the lead now."

Daryl didn't protest and Stanley could feel him sprinting along behind as he flew towards the flagging Human Souls somewhere ahead. As he traveled Stanley was torn between fear of monsters in the dark and a greed for more of those Cores. How much stronger could he get if he cleared this entire Lair?

Stanley shoved his dreams of power away. "Focus first." He pushed his mental touch further and further ahead even as he let the Souls all around bombard against his own [Soul Awareness].

They were everywhere, all around, above and below. But thanks to the winding of the tunnel, they kept getting turned away right when he thought more were just around the corner.

Then his reaching touch felt something. Stanley slowed before the curve when he felt at least another two of the large ones. He held up a fist in a gesture he'd seen in movies that he was pretty sure meant, hold position. Either Daryl knew the signal or was simply following his lead, but he slowed to a stop behind Stanley.

Stanley meanwhile was spreading his touch throughout the much larger space ahead. "A cavern?" He never reached a far wall before at least a dozen ants were inside his field of perception. There were three of the big ones, a swarm of little ants skittering around the feet of those, and one even bigger ant.

It was twice as tall as the spitters and about the same width. It's legs felt like giant one sided swords with the points sunk slightly into the stone underneath and it's jaw's felt like a death trap of bladed pincers. Stanley didn't get to count them all before it's antennae twitched and the monster turned away from the tunnel it was facing and towards the tunnel that Stanley and Daryl were huddled in just around a corner.

"It sensed something." Stanley thought he heard something high pitched and Caffeine growled almost inaudibly. "Too late…" The large one started to turn around and some of the smaller ones also turned to head towards them. "I need all of you…" Stanley breathed in slowly as he carefully felt every ant in the cavern. "...to be…"

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Cut

Stanley dropped and almost landed on his butt on the ground as over half of his Psionic Energy vanished. He recovered in an instant and hovered slightly closer to the ground as he mentally surveyed the results.

"You good?" Daryl asked behind him. He must have felt something from Stanley's Soul now that the shield wasn't muting him.

"Very good." Stanley grinned slightly and started floating forward. He made sure to keep his perception around them both with extra attention to any surface irregularities that might be an assassin ant. As they moved into the cavern he heard Daryl mutter something in surprise and then light flared behind him.

The light didn't reach the far wall but it did illuminate the slaughter in the center. Stanley had purposefully bisected them with a vertical cut through the heads and bodies, to make the Cores easier to get out.

It did and Stanley had a pile of them flying across the room as he and Daryl started circling, looking for another tunnel that would lead to the other humans.

No assassins pounced on them but Stanley did see one stand up on the floor as the light passed over it. Instead of attacking it ran away. Or tried to.

It looked like the rocks around it but unfortunately it still cast a shadow. Stanley took its Core and thought about the difference in it's Soul versus the ones who immediately attacked. The odd part was he felt no difference in its intent, what there was of it at least.

There was no real intelligence that he had felt, from any of them, only some simple drives or purposes… It was hard to describe. Maybe instincts was a better word. "I'm glad." He thought. "The last thing we need is smart ants. Giant, fire resistant, acid spitting, chameleon, ants…"

This time Stanley spotted the signs of scorching without Daryl pointing it out and he led them into the new tunnel. A glance at his Status showed his Energy nearing 75%. "About 1% a second." He thought as he watched it ticking up. "Maybe more…" It was hard to gauge without a watch.

He did offer one of the big Cores and a handful of the smaller ones to Daryl but the man just waved them off. "Keep em." He told Stanley. "Use em all."

Stanley didn't protest, he could feel the other man's Soul. Daryl wasn't here for Cores, he only wanted one thing. Adrian. He didn't care about anything else and only sprinted behind Stanley as he raced for the next junction or the other Humans, whichever they found first.

Stanley was starting to feel more hopeful about Adrian being alive. The blurred sense of the Human Souls ahead felt similar to what he'd felt in the tower when the man was blocking Stanley's Soul from hurting people in the building below. But he wasn't positive. So he didn't say anything, only moved as fast as he dared in the dark passage.

They didn't find any more large caverns but the trail was getting more and more obvious. Burnt stone as well as bits of ant guts splattered around. No bodies, ant or Human, but that mystery was solved when they saw a half dozen of the Caffeine sized ants dragging a spitter corpse from a scorched tunnel, through the intersection and down into a different one. The corpse barely fit through the tunnel and its carapace was scraping loudly against the walls as they approached.

Stanley killed the small ones by simply flattening them into the floor. He didn't see a Core for the spitter and he left the small Cores behind as they hurried down the trail.

That tunnel opened up into another cavern, this one smaller than the first. Stanley could easily feel the entire area. As well as the crowd of various ants trying to enter into a narrow tunnel on the other side of the cavern.

Cut

Stanley was more prepared for the drain this time and didn't slow down as his Energy dropped substantially. As ant bodies fell ahead of them the far tunnel mouth was revealed and a golden flickering light shone from inside.

"Adrian!" Daryl shouted and sprinted past Stanley across the room, Princess on his heels. A voice sounded from the tunnel but Stanley couldn't make out the words. Caffeine jumped to follow and Stanley let him go, his focus spread around all of them and watching for the assassins.

He killed three more of the bugs before he entered the tunnel mouth behind Daryl.

He felt the other Humans clearly enough to tell that no one was in immediate danger and paused to collect the Cores from the cavern. A couple more plus ones put a smile on his face as he rounded the corner and saw the wall of fire filling the tunnel. He put his Soul shield back up as he approached the familiar flames. His smile faded after he stepped through the warm, soothing Phoenix-fire curtain.

A man holding what looked like one of the ant's sharp legs, lifted it threateningly towards Stanley as he stepped through but then his eyes widened in recognition and the man hoped back on one foot and joined some other people who were slumped against the walls, the golden fire rippling behind them.

It was a fiery enclosure, Adrian's flames completely enclosing the small area in golden light, and it was a war zone. Blood was everywhere, splashed on walls, pooling into puddles on the ground, covering armor and exposed flesh.

Stanley didn't see anyone actively bleeding but he did see a lot of stumps. Missing feet, arms, hands, and in one area he saw lumps under a spread jacket…

Caffeine moved among the wounded, his tail dropping in sadness or fear as he sniffed people and gave encouraging licks to any of the people who didn't shy away from him.

Daryl was on his knees, his arms around Adrian whose face was haggered with sunken eyes and with blood and dirt smudged across it. Stanley would have thought the man was dead if he couldn't feel his Soul crying out in joy and fear as he hung limp in Daryl's arms. Joy that Daryl had come and fear that now he too would be trapped in this hell. At least that was what Stanley interpreted.

Standing on Adrian's head was Cheesesteak, the Phoenix. It stood tall, his wings spread wide. Fire blazed from the small bird and flowed from his wings out to the encircling perimeter. Stanley could feel the fatigue and single minded determination coming from the Phoenix. It made him think of Caffeine standing over him that night, in the dark, bloody and unyielding.

His blood was roaring in his ears. "Blood…"

Adrian opened his eyes sluggishly and looked at Stanley. There were tears in his eyes and his mouth moved into a weak smile before he sagged into Daryl, eyes slipping closed. "Pain…"

Something in the tunnel outside the fire moved into Stanley's perception and his power grasped onto and wrapped up one of the spitters. It's mouth was clamped shut and it's head was forced up and away before it could launch any of the deadly goop. "Die…"

The head kept tilting back. Something crunched as the head suddenly snapped back and the ant tried to flail its appendages but it couldn't move as it's legs lifted from the ground. It's back followed the head around until the whole thing folded itself up into the gooey ball of shattered chiton. "Die!"

Stanley felt his Still Mind ability about to trigger and forced it back down. "I will not be afraid of my emotions! Not this time." Plus he was surrounded by wounded and crippled people. He wasn't sure he wanted to find out what his Skill would suggest for them… "Sometimes emotion is the right call…"

Stanley breathed in the anger, letting it drown his fear and let his breath out slowly as he settled into position in the middle of the tunnel. "I'll kill you all."

He closed his eyes and spread his perception down the tunnel in both directions. He found the ants approaching.

Stanley smiled grimly and the slaughter began.

Caffeine licked his face and Stanley pulled back his mind. He shuddered as his mind left behind the mass of tunnels that he had been spread out into and shrank down further and further until he found himself sitting on the stone floor of a cave.

His head throbbed and he was sweating. Caffeine kept licking his face with sad whimpers and Stanley struggled to pull his limp arms up to wrap them around the pug.

He noticed something blinking in his vision and tried to focus on it. It was his Energy bars… Psionic was empty, Stamina was empty… his health was at 80%. "How did I… get wounded…"

As he sat and just struggled to breath, Stanley saw his Psi and Stamina tick up to 1%. "I guess I got a little too angry, Caff." The golden flames covering the floor underneath him were licking up his legs and crawling up to his head as he watched. With each tongue of flame that reached his head, the pain receded just a bit more.

He finally looked around when the pain had dulled enough and saw Adrian laid out flat, asleep, his Soul mostly calm as he lay there. Cheesesteak was sitting on the man's chest, his head under a wing. As Stanley watched, it popped it's head out and breathed out a wave of fire over Adrian and then across the tunnel floor before tucking back in.

His gaze followed the wave of fire and Stanley found Daryl next to one of the wounded. One hand was holding the man's leg, just above the stump where his foot had been, Daryl's other hand swept to the floor and lifted up with a handful of the golden fire which swirled around his hand as he lifted it up and then pressed it into the wounded man's stump.

Stanley blinked when the man screamed, too tired to muster more of a reaction. He did feel a widening of his eyes when Daryl's hand moved slowly away from the stump and the leg grew noticeably underneath his hand.

"He can heal missing limbs!" Stanley thought as Daryl slumped forward into the arms of the no longer screaming but still wounded man.

"Thanks Daryl." The man said between deep gasping breaths. "You have no idea how glad I am that you can heal me, I owe you one."

"No." Daryl responded. "I owe you. Thank you, for…" Daryl turned his head and the other man followed his gaze.

"Stanley. You're back." Daryl grimaced. "If you're done with whatever that was, could you… shield?"

Stanley wrapped his Soul shield back around himself. "S…" His mouth was dry and he had to work some saliva around before he could talk. "Sorry."

Daryl tried to stand and the other man caught him when he collapsed back to the ground.

"Take a minute." The man said. "We're safe now. We have time. You said he could protect us." He glanced at Stanley.

"Stanley." Daryl said. "Are we clear?"

Stanley closed his eyes as he thought back on his killing spree. "No…" He shook his head. "The queen is still alive. I haven't gotten to her yet."

"Wait, did you kill them all?" Daryl sounded surprised and Stanley looked at him.

"No…" Stanley shook his head slightly and winced at the thundering headache. "No. I told you the Queen is still down there." Daryl muttered something under his breath but Stanley was busy thinking of something else. "I didn't kill that many of the Chameleon ants…" He still couldn't see them in his [Soul Awareness] and mentioned his worries to Daryl.

The other man responded. "We've seen some of those, the fire lights em up good and once you can see them they die easily enough." He gestured at the golden flames all around them.

"That reminds me…" Stanley said. "How do we still have oxygen?"

"Magic." The man shrugged and smiled tiredly at Stanley's expression. "Adrian said his fire purifies so…"

Stanley's stomach rumbled and he forgot about the air quality. "Is there any food?" He asked them instead. He was really regretting that chicken snack he'd eaten earlier and the lack of said chicken currently.

The man nodded and looked to the side and Stanley had a bad feeling. "No, no, no."

"Fried ant." He said. Something must have shown on Stanley's face because he quickly continued. "It's not as bad as you think. The Phoenix fire makes it palatable." He gestured to a half shell of chiton nearby.

Stanley really wanted to forget about it and wait for some chicken later, then his stomach growled again and he checked his regen. It was barely moving. "Damn it." He pulled the shell to himself and looked at the pale 'meat' inside. "Eww." Stanley ripped a chunk out and offered it to Caffeine. The pug sniffed it and then whined at him.

Stanley shook his head and then immediately regretted it. "Ow…" Caffeine gave him another face lick and Stanley checked his regen. It was barely moving… his health and stamina showed full but his Psionic was only creeping back up. He checked his Debuffs again and sighed.

[Famished]

[Fatigued]

[Thirsty]

"It doesn't taste particularly bad." The other man said. "It doesn't taste good either… but it gets rid of the hungry Debuff."

Stanley took a very small nibble and chewed hesitantly. He was right, it didn't taste good. He swallowed the bite and waited a moment. When his stomach didn't respond, Stanley took another bigger bite and Caffeine suddenly decided it must be delicious and started licking his lips and glancing between his hand and the ant. Stanley chuckled and offered him another piece. Caffeine gobbled it down in an instant and begged for more. "If I'm eating it then it must be good right?" It was actually rather bland but there was a faint flavor or aftertaste that tasted very… ant? A bit acidic and bitter.

He watched Daryl pull up more fire and apply it to the man's leg again. This time the man grit his teeth and didn't yell while his leg grew a bit longer.

Stanley opened his pack and pulled out the metal thermos. It looked odd where some plastic had melted but had retained most of the water inside. Stanley had a drink and held some water in the air for Caff to slurp and drool most of it onto the floor.

Debuff [Thirsty] Removed.

He had another bite and went back to watching Daryl.

"Does it hurt?" Stanley asked between chewing.

"Not… quite…" The man got the words out with difficulty and when Daryl stopped he continued. "It's like a crazy itching and tugging… but I'll take it to get my foot back."

Stanley couldn't argue with that logic and ate some more ant while he watched the healing.

The most interesting part of what Daryl was doing was the fact that Stanley knew the man's fire was all an illusion. It seemed like it burned things that knew fire burned but didn't touch the inanimate stone around them. And now he was using it to heal people… so if people believed that Adrian could heal with his fire and Daryl told them that he was using the same fire, even reinforcing the idea by grabbing a handful or maybe pretending to, Stanley wasn't sure, but then their belief healed them?

Debuff [Famished] Downgraded to [Hungry].

Stanley smiled at the craziness, even though it wasn't much crazier than what he did. "I wonder how it works… is it his Willpower? Or just a power of the Magic?" He wondered. It obviously used Daryl's Mana to heal or cause damage, but rather than actually doing the damage, it attacked the target's mind and they hurt or healed themselves…

He ate some more fried ant and fed another piece to Caffeine. Daryl reached for more fire and Stanley interrupted. "Save your strength, Daryl." He hesitated. "I'm going to go kill the Queen and then I can carry everyone back to the tower. You can finish the healing there."

Daryl smiled tiredly and struggled to his feet with help from the one legged man. "Good. Fuck the ants."

"Yea, fuck the ants!" The wounded man agreed.

Stanley nodded and focused on his [Soul Awareness]. He confirmed what he'd been pretty sure about, nothing was left in almost the entire area. Only a small cluster of Souls remained, deeper and further to the… that way. He had no idea which direction was which down here.

He finally noticed something else as well. His old spear was lying on the ground near some of the unconscious people. Stanley thought that one of them had a similar feeling Soul to the aura of the spear but he couldn't be sure. He was glad that she was at least one of the brave people. "Hope she survived... But I can't worry about everyone."

"You can handle the chameleons right?" Stanley asked as he looked around and realized that the three of them were the only conscious people in the tunnel.

Daryl glanced at the wounded man. "I can wait." He told Daryl, then looked at Stanley. "Yeah we can handle em. Give that queen bitch an extra kick for me." He waved his stump at Stanley with a grin.

Stanley smiled and ate some more ant.

Debuff [Hungry] Removed.

Stanley put aside the rest of the ant and coaxed Caffeine into a belly rub while he waited for his Psi to regen and Daryl to recover. Princess sat nearby, her gaze swiveling from Caffeine sprawled out on his back and twitching in his sleep, to Daryl and then back to the relaxing pug. "She wants a belly rub too." Stanley didn't try to pet her. He could feel her distrust of him and Caffeine, plus a strong and growing fatigue in the fox as she lashed at the air with her tails on fire.

"Foxfire…" Stanley thought as he watched her, he'd heard the term somewhere before, some mythological creature or maybe just from a story. "I wonder if her fire is an illusion as well?" She hadn't attacked anything in the Lair except for the few times assisting Daryl, or at least he hadn't seen her attack anything else by herself.

Stanley could also feel something of an echo from the fox and Daryl as he observed and listened closely to the Souls around him. It felt like he was feeling a bit of each coming from the Soul of the other. "Right. Daryl said something about being a Soul Bonded Class… is she giving him strength?"

He remembered the Phoenix standing on Adrian. "I think he mentioned something about them both having similar Classes and bonds with their pets?"

He shook his head and floated into the air with Caffeine in his lap. "I'll be back."

Daryl nodded. "Be careful."

Footless waved. "Yea don't die. I still need a lift out of this shit hole."

Stanley stopped at the edge of the fire and looked back. "The Lair's not gonna start collapsing when the queen dies right?"

Daryl chuckled and shook his head, then shrugged. "Don't think so."

Stanley waved, focused his perception back around himself and headed down the tunnel. He could still mostly remember the way through the maze and he headed for one of the vertical shafts.

Caffeine abandoned his belly rub as they approached the pit and rolled to a sitting position. Stanley took the hint and was ready when an assassin attacked. And died. He killed a dozen of them by the time he got near the queen.

He stopped as far away as he could comfortably reach with his mind, at least as far as he currently felt comfortable. The fatigue Debuff was wearing on him, making his head ache and his mind sluggish… Stanley paused his train of thought.

"I am tired. It's not the Debuff that is making me tired… is it?" That felt like some circular logic and he dropped it in favor of a new concern. "Am I too tired for this?" He was still mad and still wanted the Queen dead and the Lair destroyed, but… he wasn't an idiot, he was not up to his peak performance at the moment and this might be a stupid plan.

"What do you think, Caff?" He looked at the pug in his lap while giving him some head scratches. Caffeine could not read his mind, he was pretty sure of that, mostly sure. Caffeine must have understood something because he hoped out of his lap and took a step in the direction of the Queen. "I'll take that as agreement."

He had his Soul shielded at the moment, partly to not broadcast his approach and also in an experiment of sorts to test how well he could still sense the Queen. He could, just barely, she was some distance away still, past another cavern and a tunnel from that one leading to her own cavern. He could stretch his mind all the way into her room and touch her.

And that was the other reason he felt reasonably safe attacking her. She was too big to fit through the tunnels from her cavern to the one Stanley was currently in. She had some guards, sure, but they were only a half dozen of the big ones and a handful of spitters. Stanley didn't count the little ants crawling around and over her, he guessed those were like the worker ants or drones.

Regardless, he decided to start with the Queen, just in case she had any surprises. He picked a spot behind her head where her neck felt thinnest at the joining to the rest of her body. She was large and he didn't know exactly how tough she was or exactly how strong her Soul was, not without broadcasting his presence but he knew she was no Raid Leader. "Easy…"

Caffeine moved. One moment he was sniffing at the tunnel ahead and the next he was towering next to Stanley.

A wall of wind slammed into him and Stanley slid away from the giant pug. He couldn't see anything in the darkness but he could feel it. A giant ant loomed over him, nearly as big as the Queen. It's legs all ended in points similar to the chameleons except for the two front legs, those ended in sweeping blades and one of those blades had stopped a couple feet from his neck.

Caffeine held the leg in his jaws, just above the bladed section and he was rumbling.

"Light!" Stanley thought frantically. "I need Light!"

Stanley felt his power dip and at the same time, light appeared. It came from no specific source and filled the cavern with a soft white glow.

Unfortunately it did him no good. Stanley still couldn't see the attacker. "It has stealth too!" He was still touching it and he noticed when it's mouth moved in a way that had become somewhat familiar lately. "Caff! Watch out…"

The growling rumble cut off and Caffeine took a step back while twitching his large head to one side. The leg snapped off with a crunch and the ant staggered but it's mouth still bulged in preparation. "...for the spit!"

Caffeine moved faster than his eye could follow, his head turning back, bringing the now amputated leg and it's built in blade, back around towards the ant. The ant vanished from Stanley's perception and he heard it spit from across the cavern.

A flash of light shot straight at Stanley and he threw up a shield. Before it could even reach his shield, a wall of fur blocked his view and Caffeine yelped in pain.

"Caff…!" Before Stanley could finish his panicked thought, he abruptly calmed.

"You shouldn't have hurt him." He thought as his mind felt along Caffeine's side. There was a patch of fur missing and sunken pits in the flesh.

Stanley felt something screaming faintly, some distant, small part of his mind as he felt the wound but the Skill held strong.

"This one belongs to me." He felt Caffeine's muscles tensing and coiling as the pug prepared to attack. Stanley was faster, his mind already wrapped around the ant on the far side of the cavern.

He felt the large ant's mouth already poised to launch another spit attack and he soflty but inexorably closed its mouth. "No more of that. You are dead."

CUT

It resisted his power, with Willpower and with Attributes, Skills, and armor. At least it tried too. Stanley didn't care, he simply poured more power, more Will, into the attack.

Caffeine kicked off and blurred across the space between, growing even larger as he went.

His massive jaws settled around the ants head, teeth driving inward as muscles pulled.

Stanley Cut the ant in half.

Caffeine ripped it's bisected head off and sent it sailing across the room in one motion.

Stanley's Skill ended. The pain flared as his emotions swelled back up. At the same time he felt the rest of the remaining ants rapidly approaching the cavern he was in. His rage overpowered the pain and fear. "I'll Kill You…"

Caffeine moved.

Lair Defeated. The Fire Ant Queen is dead. The Exit is open.

The pain rose up brighter and ever more demanding as the rage faltered at the lack of any targets. Stanley sank to his butt on the ground, his head in his hands. "Ow…!" It was worth the pain though, for… "Caff!" The fear didn't have time to force him into motion before a cold, wet nose bumped into his own nose and a tongue smeared something foul over his whole face.

"Caff... You..." It was too much. Stanley turned his spinning head and his stomach heaved. Only bile splattered onto the stone next to him and he had just barely enough of his faculties left to wonder about that. "My digestion is sped up?" Considering his very recent meal it did seem to be. But thinking about his digestion didn't help with his current problem and Stanley forced it away.

Focusing instead on his [Soul Awareness]. It was rather quiet at the moment, with only the Humans in the distance and no monsters, big or… No, there was something faint, where the Queen had been. He looked at the rest of his most recent Notification.

The Death of the Queen will allow a new Queen to hatch from one of the viable Eggs. Lair will Repopulate if left undisturbed.

"No it won't." Stanley dry heaved while Caffeine whined nearby, then spit and wiped his mouth on a sleeve. "Thanks Caff." He told the sad pug. "You're a Good Boy."

The drooping tail sprang back up into a curl and Caffeine bounded into his lap and tried to lick his face again. Stanley laughed weakly but kept the tongue away from his face. His hands found where the spit had struck the pug and he felt better when only unbroken skin met his touch, along with a patch of short and fuzzy, regrowing hair. "Let's go end this place for good."

He gently lifted himself off the ground. His head throbbed but it was bearable. "And get the Cores."

Caffeine bounded across the room and returned a moment later with a Core. He dropped it into Stanley's lap and headed for the Queen's cavern.

+1 All Base Attributes

Stanley was a bit dissatisfied with that. "It was so much stronger but still only gives the same Core?" It felt like a poor return for the struggle. He sighed and followed the pug into the dark tunnel, leaving his Willpower created light behind.

He hovered in the dark tunnel as he pulled out the easily visible Cores from the equally dark cavern. When the glows were all gone, he listened for the faint Soul signals of the eggs, and started smashing them.

He didn't try to create more light, he didn't want to see what he was sure would be disgusting, even touching them with his mind and feeling them pop was a bit nauseating. Luckily the eggs were spread across the floor and halfway up the walls and he was able to wipe them out with a weak yet sweeping slash.

Lair Destroyed. All Denizens Removed. If Lair is not Claimed within 24 Hours, the Lair Structures will lose Increased Durability.

"Good enough." A few of the eggs dropped Cores and he picked them out before leaving. Caffeine hopped into his lap and settle down for a belly rub while Stanley absorbed Cores and considered what to do with the Queen's Core.

You have found a [Core Fragment(Shard)].

[Skill Shard(Rare)](E Rank)

Effect: Attempt to Learn Skill: [Fiery Acid Spit]

Absorb [Yes/No]

He looked at the Skill.

[Fiery Acid Spit](UnCommon)

Allows the User to Create and Launch a Burning and Highly Corrosive Spit attack.

Quantity and Power of Effect dependent on Skill Level as well as Vitality, Strength and Dexterity.

He really didn't want to learn it. Spitting acid… fiery acid… Nope. Caffeine didn't want it either.

Stanley moved slowly as he headed back to the others, trying to give his mind time to recover from the latest draining ordeal. He could feel their Souls and since he also knew that nothing else was left alive in the Lair, he took the time to collect as many of the Cores as he could find from the slaughter earlier.

Each Core helped to perk him up just a bit. It was a weird sensation. Like each new Attribute he gained was fresh while the rest were drained and fatigued, used up... It was weird...

Caffeine figured out what he was doing and started helping, and eating some of the Cores himself. Stanley was perfectly happy with that.

He felt a bit better by the time he got back but his [Hungry] Debuff had returned. He wrapped up his Soul Shield before stepping through the fire.

"The vanquishing hero returns!" The footless man cheered. Stanley looked again and noticed that his foot was back. He glanced at Daryl, the man was sitting next to a still unconcious Adrian and holding his hand. Princess was lying next to him, her head in his lap, though she did sit up and watch as they came close.

"I couldn't sit still." Daryl said, sounding a bit defensive.

Stanley didn't say anything, he didn't care, instead he tossed the Skill Shard to Daryl, grabbed some more of the cooked ant and started eating it. It still tasted bad but he tired to minimize the chewing and swallowed quickly until his Debuff went away.

Caffeine meanwhile approached Princess slowly while she tensed up and showed him flashes of white teeth. He dropped a glowing Core from his mouth onto the ground in front of her and stepped back a bit.

Stanley and Daryl both watched with small smiles while Princess alternated between sniffing at the Core and watching the pug.

Caffeine yipped and dropped into a play bow and she snatched the Core up before he could try to take it away. Caffeine spun in a circle and started sprinting around the small area. Princess stood up with some alarm but only watched him run around until Caffeine got tired and lay back down in Stanley's lap for snuggles and belly rubs.

Daryl smiled at her and spoke to Stanley. "She wanted belly rubs while you were gone." Her head snapped around to look at him and Stanley felt her outrage, even through his shield. Daryl chuckled and reached out to pet her. "I didn't say it was a bad thing." Princess stepped to the side, out of his reach and looked away.

Stanley laughed and almost choked on some ant. "A real Princess."

Daryl laughed too and reached out for her. "I love you Princess. Please don't be mad." She turned further away with a huff.

The trip back outside was uneventful once Stanley had everyone floating along with him. Well, everyone except Daryl and the other man whom he learned was named Hakeem, they walked and brought up the rear while Caffeine led the way. There had been a total of ten people that went into the Lair. Two of them didn't survive and the rest barely survived with crippling injuries that Daryl was sure could all be healed. The physical wounds at least...

The flight back to the tower was a bit stressful for Stanley as his fatigue increased and it didn't help when a crow suddenly appeared on his shoulder and cawed in his ear. He managed to catch everyone that he dropped and the crow must have picked up on his anger because it vanished and didn't reappear.

Walter saw them coming and had the sliding doors open wide as Stanley pushed to finish the final stretch. He fumbled a bit after getting inside and struggled to avoid knocking people into walls or furniture. Walter must have helped him out because the people vanished from his grip one by one as the butler seemed to be everywhere at once.

Stanley landed on the carpet in a sprawl and it felt wonderfully soft as he closed his eyes and relaxed. "Just going to rest my eyes for a second."