As I left Octavia's den, I turned around and raised a foreclaw, waving back at her. She raised one of her eight legs and waved back. It was funny, the way we seemed to retain that gesture from our former lives. The fact that we were both reincarnated beasts was something that we shared, something that had somehow given us an instant bond from the start. Had Octavia gone her entire life before meeting someone like me? It must have been a lonely life.
Maybe that was what bonded us: a fear of loneliness. Even if I had worked my tail off yesterday to save her, it hadn't been an entirely selfless act. I benefited from having Octavia around. Part of me hoped that she saw me the same way, with my presence enhancing her life, rather than detracting from it. Last night probably hadn't been a high point in her life, however. Not only had she nearly died, but she seemed to be under the mistaken impression that she was the one to blame for the aggression shown by the fire ants, when I was all but certain that I was the one responsible for their increased presence above ground. That thought weighed heavy on my mind as I wandered out to my stomping ground, hoping to once again make a meal of some helpless rabbits, a species that was too weak to fight back…probably. I had once thought the same thing about the ants, I had even invested heavily into my [mouth] while under the mistaken impression that the ant colonies would serve as an easy and abundant way to farm exp. How wrong I had been. At least my investment in [mouth] hadn't been for naught: it had been the one thing that allowed me to save Octavia last night.
By my count, this was the fourth time I had come to this spot to hunt rabbits. The first time I had been interrupted by hyenas, the second time I had been interrupted by fire ants, and the third time I had been interrupted by a fire ant attack not on me, but Octavia. I felt that by now I had a good sense of what to keep my eyes peeled for and what to avoid, and by now I was practically hunting on auto-pilot, my body performing the rote actions by habit, the same way I did when driving or walking a familiar route back home. Find a spot near a patch of grass, wait, watch for movement, and…strike.
After my first several rabbit kills, I started to grow slightly paranoid — things were going almost too well — but I was at full stamina, full health, and repeated scans for any sign of danger revealed nothing. So, I continued my hunt (eating every rabbit along the way as I killed it, partly to hide the evidence, but mostly to feed my greedy appetite). I repeated the cycle of waiting in ambush, moving to stake out a new location after each kill, as I tallied up two more rabbit kills, then three, then four, until eventually was up to [satiety: 80%]. It had been a long time since my belly had been this full.
Eventually, the rabbits became less abundant, and I began to consider other ways I might spend the night. Were turtles nocturnal? I wondered what Octavia would do if I presented her with a dead turtle. Maybe her long, slender legs might be able to dig meat better than my stubby claws. Then again, dragging a creature that large across such a distance would be a significant undertaking, probably not worth the effort…
I was almost so lost in thought that I was startled when I saw the familiar shape of a fire ant approaching me — and then retreating. My leisurely night out, it seemed, was about to come to an end. Unless…the ant was alone. All I had to do was kill it before it could call for help, right? I chased after it, sprinting, getting ready to strike it down before it could make its way home…and then I stopped. I had been in this situation once before, ready to strike down an ant, before greed struck. It was leading me back to its nest. Back to the ant farm…the experience point farm.
The first time I had done this, my greed had escalated and culminated in what seemed like an eternal grudge from the fire ants. That, in retrospect, had not been an optimal move. But, at this point, why not try to farm the fire ants for experience? They had already marked me for death, and according to Octavia, they seemed to lack the capacity for forgiving or forgetting. The fight that they had picked with Octavia last night, seemingly based on some old grudge with her, seemed to be evidence of that. What were they going to do, mark me for death a second time?
That was the problem with jumping straight to DEFCON 1: starting at the extreme left no room for further escalation. I had already earned the fire ants' ire, and based on everything I knew, there was no changing that. They'd already demonstrated a willingness to send hundreds of ants after me. Given that, was there really any risk of escalating things further?
Maybe there was. Maybe if I provoked them further, the next ant wave would number in the thousands, rather than the hundreds. Maybe I was just rationalizing a decision that I had already made several minutes ago. But maybe this conflict with the ants wouldn't end until one side of had been completely wiped out, and if that was the case, then there were two ways I could make progress toward that goal: preemptively decimate their army, and make myself stronger. Fumigating their nest would make progress toward both of those goals. Besides, even if they did come at me with greater numbers, did a thousand ants really pose a greater threat than a hundred? The defensive measures I was relying on — Octavia's web, and my breath attacks — seemed to scale well with enemy sizes. That was the great thing about chokepoints: there were only so many ants that could fit into a tunnel at the same time. There were reasons to go through with this, and reasons not to, but as I pondered them, an image stuck in my mind: I remembered the previous night, the frantic moments when I had dragged Octavia's rigid, lifeless body away from danger. She must have been so scared. Octavia had been through hell. And Octavia knew these fire ants couldn't be negotiated with.
The ants were the ones who had apparently decided that this conflict would continue until one side was completely wiped out. It was us or them. And I wasn't going to let myself be on the losing side of this conflict.
So with eagerness (and perhaps an unhealthy amount of bloodlust) in my heart, I followed the fire ant, glancing around periodically to confirm it wasn't leading me into some kind of trap. As soon as it disappeared into a crevice in the ground, I leaned down, and unleashed my breath attacks in quick succession: [paralyzing breath]. [poison breath]. [noxious breath]. [poison breath]. [noxious breath].
SP: 8/16
No sense in doing things by half measures. I didn't bother to stick around; I was already running back to Octavia's nest at a full sprint when the "fire ant defeated!" exp notifications started flashing across my field of view, too rapid for me to fully register them.
Fire ant defeated! 2% exp toward next level Fire ant defeated! 2% exp toward next level [...] Fire ant defeated! Level up! You are now level 8 Fire ant defeated! 2% exp toward next level [...] Fire ant defeated! Level up! You are now level 9 Fire ant defeated! 1% exp toward next level Fire ant defeated! 1% exp toward next level [...]
The notifications were still scrolling past when I entered the cave.
"Done hunting?" she asked.
I squawked once in affirmation before walking further into the cave, hoping that she would understand that hunting time was over, and now was the time to seal the tunnel. I wasn't sure if the urgency was even necessary, but I felt like if anything was going to kill us here, it would be a lack of caution, not an overabundance of it.
Octavia's movements didn't match my own sense of haste and urgency, but she seemed to understand that I had been running from something, and she dutifully webbed up the cave entrance before lifting me and carrying me through the web-laden tunnel. As soon as she set me down, I turned back to face the cave entrance.
"Was something chasing you, little dragon?" Octavia asked the question in her usual raspy spider voice, but something in the way she spoke the words conveyed concern.
I tapped three times. I don't know.
"You don't know? Or am I asking the wrong question?"
I raised my claw, annoyed that she hadn't phrased the inquiry as a yes or no question.
"I think maybe we need to work on our communication," she said. "How about: three taps means you don't know, and four taps means I'm asking the wrong kind of question?"
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One tap. Yes.
"Okay. Were you being chased?"
Three taps. I don't know.
"So you had reason to believe you might have been chased."
One tap. Yes.
"Did you run into the fire ants again?"
Yes.
"But they didn't start pursuing you right away, is that correct?"
Yes.
"Hmm, that's interesting. I would have thought for sure that they'd react to you, the same way they reacted to me. Maybe they don't have a grudge against you after all."
No.
"You mean, you think they do have a grudge against you?"
Yes.
"Hmm, now why do you suppose that is? How do you know?"
Four taps. Please ask a better question.
"Right, right, I'm sorry. Let me think."
It took almost ten minutes of questioning from Octavia for me to relay the essential details: Yes, I had found food. Yes, I would be fine without food for another day or two; No, it wasn't enough food to feed me past that point. But the most essential detail — my fumigation of the ants nest — was something that I wasn't able to convey in Octavia's line of questioning. I hoped that my action didn't have any dire consequences. I wished I could have just opened my mouth and explained to Octavia what I had done. I should have brought something back with me I could have used to write. That would have been a better use of my time on the surface. I could have brought back…I don't know, a mouthful of sand, maybe. I made a mental note to brainstorm ideas before my next trip out.
Finally, Octavia's questioning wrapped back around to something that seemed relevant.
"So, you did have an fire ant encounter. Did you end up battling them?"
Yes. Admittedly a bit one-sided to be considered a "battle," but I had definitely attacked and defeated a large number of ants.
"And yet you made it back…unharmed?"
Yes. Not a scratch on me, sister.
"How many ants did you battle? More than ten?"
Yes.
"More than twenty?"
Yes.
"More than fifty?"
I recalled the notifications that had sped past my field of vision twice and consulted my character sheet, assuming that my exp gain from the encounter would give me a rough estimate of the size of the ant population I had killed. I realized with surprise that I had leveled up twice. I was now level 9. It must have been around a hundred ant kills, then.
Yes, more than fifty.
Octavia looked at me with awe. "More than a hundred?"
Three taps. Not sure.
"Less than a hundred?"
Three more taps. Not sure. Maybe more, maybe less, but about a hundred was about right. Octavia seemed to sense my meaning.
"You're quite an impressive little dragon. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, considering that you're a dragon, but…you're so small!"
Yes.
"So how did you do it? Breathing fire?"
Two taps. No.
"Oh, of course not. They're fire ants. I bet they're immune."
I considered Octavia's idea. Were fire ants immune to fire? In the old world, "fire ants" were named such because their venomous bite caused a burning sensation; I assumed that earth's fire ants were just as flammable as any other insect. But in a world where having the name "Octavia" was apparently enough to cause you to be reborn as an eight-legged arachnid, maybe simply having "fire" your species name (class name?) was enough to grant some kind of heat resistance.
"So how did you defeat them?"
I considered Octavia's question. I was tempted to flippantly give a four-tap, "ask a better question," but why not answer her with a demonstration? I glanced toward the cave entrance. There was no sign of a counter-attack. I still had SP left, and I would recover it all the next time I went to sleep anyway. Spending 1 SP on a noxious breath couldn't hurt…and it might hopefully answer a lot of questions Octavia might have about how things had gone down last night, considering that she had been blind (and unable to move) for a good chunk of it. I stepped toward the entrance, pointing.
"You want to go outside?"
Yes.
"You didn't answer my previous question, about how you dealt with the fire ants."
Yes.
"Oh! That's why you want to go outside?"
Yes.
"….will we have to go far?"
No.
"Okay then…"
Following our usual cave-exit routine, we headed outside, and after confirming that the coast was clear, I walked a safe distance away from the cave entrance, then exhaled [noxious breath].
SP: 6/16
I hoped that the illumination of the moonlight would be enough for her to visually register the gas cloud. After exhaling, I trotted back to Octavia, and her face registered something like recognition, then disgust.
"That smells nasty."
One tap. Yes.
"I remember that odor! I smelled it last night, when the ants first attacked. And then you came up and…is that your attack? You attack people with bad breath?"
One tap, accompanied by a facial expression that I hoped conveyed annoyance. Yes.
"I guess it's not just unpleasant. It must be lethal. I probably would have choked if I hadn't moved away from it."
Yes. Probably, yes.
"And that's how you defeated so many ants at once."
Yes.
"You know, an attack like that could be really deadly if it got inside their tunnels."
I tapped once for and squawked for emphasis. Yes, that's what I did!
"Have you tried that before?"
Yes.
"When was the first time? Was it…" She counted a few moments. "Was it a day and a half before you came to my cave?"
I thought back. I had fumigated the ant colony, then gone to sleep, woken up with fire ants all over me, spent the day hiding out in her upper cave, then that evening she had found me tangled in her web. Yep, a day and a half. I tapped once.
"Oh," she said. "That's why the underground has been so active lately."
My eyes widened. I hadn't considered the consequences that my actions might have for life underground, but of course, killing a large number of ants — and sending more fleeing for their lives — would have consequences for the underground ecosystem. Did the tunnels in Octavia's den somehow connect to the underground fire ant nest? Was there an entire underground battlefront that I had been completely oblivious to until now?
"Hey," said Octavia. "You said you just killed about a hundred of them, just now, right? Were the ones that you killed…underground when you killed them?"
I gave a nervous single tap. Yes.
Octavia ushered me into the cave. "In that case, hurry in, smelly dragon. I have to reinforce a few things down below."
Class: Baby Dragon Level: 9 Progress toward next level: 12% HP: 29/29 SP: 6/16 Satiety: 78% Claws: level 1 Scales: level 2 Mouth: level 8 Wings: level 0 (wingless), max reached for current class Traits: Carnivore, Kin sensitive, Carrion feeder Abilities: Sprinting, Noxious Breath, Poison Breath, Paralyzing Breath, Harden scales Unlearned Abilities (Mouth): Hot Breath, Cold Breath, Poison Fangs, Roar Unlearned Abilities (Scales): Abrasion, Camouflage Active Quests: Say Hello Unspent skill points: 4