Class: Baby Dragon

Level: 10 (max level reached for current class)

Progress toward class ascension: 36%

HP: 30/30

SP: 17/18

Octavia and I huddled near our hole in the ground, looking at the cascading waves of approaching hostile red fire ants, and the line of seemingly-friendly black armored ants that stood ready to intercept them as they came.

"Let's wait it out," I said.

"Where should we wait?" she asked.

"I don't know." I looked at the hole in the ground. Our 'niche.' "Do you think it gets better than this? Are there any safer options for places where we could observe from?"

"I can make it better," she said.

"Then do it."

As Octavia began spinning her web, I watched as the fire ants continued to pour in from the tunnel above, the place that Octavia and I had once called home, their red bodies gliding over the rough terrain with ease.

The fire ants, while more numerous than the black armored ants, were chaotic and disjointed in their movement. While they all seemed to converge on approximately the same location, their routes for getting there seemed to be all over the place, some climbing the wall, others sticking to the ground. Some zig-zagged across the ground, while others made an immediate beeline for the row of black ants.

Watching the fire ants made me realize just how controlled and synchronous the black armored ants were in comparison. Back in the moment that Octavia and I had bounded toward them, they had all stepped out of our way in an orderly fashion, almost as if acting on cue. "A hivemind," I muttered.

"Huh?" asked Octavia.

"The armored ants are more coordinated than the fire ants," I said. "Look at them. The red ants are a chaotic mess. They're all converging on a single target, but it's like none of them are really communicating with each other apart from the fact that they're all headed in generally the same direction."

Octavia and I observed the battle, watching as a swarm of the black ants assembled to create a barrier, blocking several wandering fire ants. The wall of armored ants intercepted the fire ants, picking them off one by one, in several cases tearing the fire ants in half as a pair of the armored ants gripped each half.

"You're right," she said. "I never noticed it before, but it seems like the armored ants are better at cooperating."

I thought back to one of my earlier conversations with Octavia. "One of the first things you told me about the fire ants was that they can't be reasoned with. Starting a fight with the fire ants meant a grudge for life: they'd fight you to the ends of the earth, beyond what was reasonable or rational."

"Yes," she said. "I've killed armored ants before, but they never bore a grudge in the same way."

"Maybe the armored ants are better at thinking," I said. "Maybe it's because they're controlled by a central intelligence."

Octavia nodded. "You called it a 'hivemind.' Are you sure about that?"

"No," I said. "It's just a thought."

The battle raged on, though the fight was extremely one-sided, with the armored ants defeating large clusters of the fire ants with what seemed like almost no casualties. Within a minute, the fire ants' numbers had been reduced to the point where the armored ants began breaking into groups to chase down straggling fire ants, particularly the ones that seemed to be taking a more roundabout path across the walls.

Octavia said, "The armored ants seem better at working toward a shared goal."

I nodded.

"So…" she said, sounding uncertain. "If that's true, then how do you explain the fire ants' grudge?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, it seems like the armored ants are better at cooperating and working toward a shared goal. The fire ants seem more independent, and more likely to do things that break off from the group. But clearly, when it comes to fire ants, it's not a free-for-all, 'every ant for itself.' They're working together toward a goal of exterminating us."

I nodded. "I see what you're saying. The fire ants don't cooperate as closely. But they're not selfish, because otherwise, there wouldn't be so many who are willing to throw away their lives trying to wipe us out."

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"Yeah," she said. "So really, who is it that's better at cooperating?"

"Having a shared goal isn't the same as cooperation," I said. "The fire ants aren't 'cooperating' with each other. It's more like…they're all working independently toward a goal in the way they best see fit, but they're all aligned toward the same goal."

"And the armored ants aren't?"

"Maybe, maybe not," I said.

By now, all but a tiny fraction of the fire ants had been torn apart or otherwise defeated by the armored ants. The armored ants formed into clusters of fire ant-hunting parties. Some of them chased fire ants down the wall that led deeper into the Shimmergrove, but a few of the armored 'search and destroy parties' were now returning to the path, having apparently completed their part of the mission. The smaller search parties reconverged, forming into a larger group of black ants.

The black ant group began marching toward us. I felt a moment of panic, and I instantly heard the fear in Octavia's voice as she spoke.

"They're coming right toward us," she said.

"Back to the niche," I said. I dove into the hole. Octavia paused for a moment before climbing in after me. "Are we sure they're hostile?"

"I'm not sure if they mean to attack us," I said. "And that means I'm also not sure that they don't mean to attack us."

"Okay," she said. She began stringing up her webs, covering the entrance above us. "I was hoping that they might be nice to us. They did let us pass and attack the fire ants instead."

"I hope that's the case, but I think it's best for us to prepare for a contingency in which that hope isn't made manifest."

Octavia finished the first layer of her web covering, and began spinning another. "It's just…they seemed nice before. They made a path for us when we were fleeing the fire ants. What would have changed since then?

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe they ignored us when they considered the fire ants a bigger threat, and now that they've finished off the fire ants, they've come for us."

"But they were against the fire ants," she said. We have a mutual enemy. Maybe they're friendly toward us."

"Maybe," I said. "Maybe not."

Octavia said nothing as she tied off one of her horizontally-strung webs and got to work on another.

"Thank you for indulging my paranoia," I said.

"Do you think we'll be safe down here?" she asked.

"From the armored ants? I don't know. I guess it depends how intelligent they are. If they decide to drop something on us…"

Overhead, I heard the skittering of armored ants. One of them poked its head over the gap, looking down at us, but apparently managing to avoid becoming ensnared. A moment later, I heard what sounded like the tap of stone hitting stone above us, and I looked up, spotting a beam of light penetrating Octavia's web covering and illuminating the wall of our niche.

"Seems like one of them had the bright idea to bring some glowstone," I said.

"A bright idea indeed," she said. "But why?"

"I don't know," I said. "The armored ants seem obsessed with this stuff. I hope they're not planning to use it as a weapon." I looked up, considering the entrance to the hole. "I wonder how much time one of my breath attacks would buy us."

"You're going to attack them?"

"Maybe," I said. "If they start acting hostile, a preventative attack might buy us some time."

"To do what?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," I said. "I guess you're right. We probably wouldn't survive a siege if they were really serious and smart about attacking us down here. There's too many of them."

The ray of glowstone light bounced off Octavia's rows of eyes as she looked at me. "Can you promise that we won't attack them unless they attack us first? That stinky breath of yours seems like a terrible way to repay them for the favor of wiping out the fire ants. Plus, I wouldn't find it very pleasant."

"Oh," I said. "That's right. I forgot. You're trapped down here with me. I guess there's no way for me to attack them without affecting you."

I heard the plunk of another rock being dropped above us, and the illumination got a little brighter. "More glowstone," I said. Then, two more plunks. "That's four chunks total."

Several short moments later, the entire perimeter of the hole was lined with glowing rocks of various sizes. I heard the skitter of ants, but the sound of their chittering slowly faded.

"Are they leaving?" she asked.

"Sounds like it."

"Why did they do this?" she asked. "Is it some kind of trap?"

"They probably don't need to set a trap," I said. "With just a little bit more effort, they could have dropped all of those rocks on top of us."

"But they didn't."

"They didn't," I agreed. "They could have crushed us, but they chose not to. Maybe that's the message. A gesture of peace. A 'laying down of arms,' so to speak."

"Arms? Those ants have six legs, but no arms to speak of."

"Arms, as in armaments," I said. "Like putting down your weapons and backing away to show you're not a threat. I think that's what the ants just did."

That seemed to reassure Octavia, whose expression turned from concern to contemplation. I had another theory that I didn't share: the ants had just made a great display of force. What they did could be seen as a gesture of peace…or a gesture of intimidation. There was another way to interpret that message: we could kill you if we wanted to, and we're choosing not to. Conditional kindness.

"So," she asked, "what do we do?"

"If they made a show of good faith, maybe we should reciprocate," I said. "How about we get out of here and see if we can, uh, speak to them directly? Or communicate in some way?"

"Okay," she said. She pulled down her web barriers, and I led the way out of the hole, climbing up and bumping one of the smaller chunks of glowstone with my snout to clear an exit path.

Several of the glowstone pieces were tiny, too tiny to have broken through Octavia's web if they'd been dropped on us. That bode well: it seemed that the glowstone was more of a symbolic gesture.

As I finished climbing out of the hole, I gasped.

"What is it?" she asked from down below.

I looked at a trail of glowstone leading away from the entrance to our niche, several feet up the Shimmergrove path, with several stones forming a triangle at the end.

"They left a shape on the ground," I said. "It's an arrow. I think they're trying to give us directions."

She climbed out after me and observed the arrow, then looked up the path. "So what do we do?" she asked.

I hesitated before answering. "I guess we follow their directions."