As it turned out Rifts were a new weapon that had been deployed by the Hives in the latest past war against Humanity.
It was the last time Humans had tried to expand beyond Doc Forrest. Not to invade anyone else, but merely to harvest resources in their bordering untamed lands that only they had the methods to find.
Even that limited activity ended up drawing attention eventually however, and the resulting combat escalated into full blown war when the people who had gotten rich did not wish to give up the future gains.
They did not face the combined wrath of the Hives–in fact it was a bit of an open secret that they only ever actually faced one Hive, albeit a highly ranked one–and that the few units seen from other Hives were mere mercenary bands for hire, rather than signs of participation from their full Mantis leadership.
Most of the people who had participated in the fighting would protest vehemently at things being characterised this way, if it was mentioned in their presence.
But not much to do about that so there you go, if you asked Redd.
Summonings were an older ritual of the Hives, and it had been used in the lands of other races just as much as the Humans’.
The mess it left behind meant nobody would willingly use it in their own lands, but the results were Natural Treasures that would have taken years on years, and usually rare circumstances, to manifest otherwise.
The rituals that could end up creating Rifts were similar, in that they ultimately manifested a Natural Treasure by draining the area. This particular Hive had developed the magic further however, into a longer ritual with both higher risk of failure and potential gains due to the additional phases.
The newer blueprint allowed for the ritual to both drain the local energies of an area–huge or small–depending on the lack, or abundance, of magic in the environment, and to then rip reality to open a Rift to the most turbulent Daemonic dimension; should it fail at the latter stages.
Completing the final step would manifest a great Natural Treasure, but aborting in that final, crucial phase could lead to a Rift being stabilised instead.
A Rift to a place where every affinity roamed wild in a constant immaterial flux and the few beings who could survive took on all manner of forms made up of different magic affinities, without sense or cohesion, during their short lives.
Such trapped beings longed for the stable existence and longer lives promised by other planes, such as that of Ross’ magic landscapes.
“It’s where all the deranged [Warlocks] and [Witches] find their familiars,” The fire was dying down, and only the conversation about fascinating magic, and need for reassurance that the ants would stay in their place, was keeping them all from their tents and bedrolls after the long day. “Achem, No offence Kalle, that’s just what they say in the army.”
When Redd was done explaining they all knew what was at stake. If the ritual finished it would drain and kill the lands for many kilometres around for decades to come, causing potential starvation as the resulting void drew magic from miles around, and opened a giant hole in Humanity’s natural defences where nothing of magic could grow.
“The rituals are most effective where the Spell can easily reach deep into the earth, which is what I am guessing the sinkholes are about, nonetheless, these things were very rare even during the war, so finding them here is a shock to be honest, with so many years of only minor raids.”
All this information about the rituals had taken years for Humanity to uncover and figure out, but by the end of the war it was common knowledge among the people who had fought.
Which was why Redd had never seen it, but could recognise it after hearing Kalle explain and matching it to those old rumours.
“Their bright colours indicate it’s the same Hive from back then; another of such high rank should not be close enough–even if we cannot completely rule out a long-distance project–the risk would be that much greater for them.
If it is the same one, we could still be lucky and have it turn out to only be a summoning ritual, but then there is also the added chance of it being a Rift variant, meaning we would be in greater danger still,”
Only three of the greater rituals had ever been deployed in Doc Forrest.
If the standard one was interrupted the result could be anything from an implosion that left little sign, to a massive spill of whatever affinity that the Natural Treasure being manifested had belonged to.
But the Rift varieties seemed much more random. It was theorised that the Hives had access to a select variety of affinities for the original ritual, and that the greater ritual was one where a Natural Treasure of any affinity could potentially manifest–making for a more volatile process, but one which generated enough power to then open up Gates to other dimensions.
These Gates were cycled through during the ritual, but the only way they would change the environment enough to stabilise was from the resulting backlash if the ritual failed.
Those Gates to dimensions of specific affinities could be closed prematurely if you controlled the site and could prepare a working, but a Rift was a different matter. When the greater ritual was too far gone but then failed - which had only happened once, during the culmination of the war - a stable Rift was created and the spill-over from the Daemonic realm was continuous.
That one failed ritual during the war had resulted in a Rift outside of Doc Forrest which had lasted for a decade and only been closed now a decade past.
Thankfully Humanity had suffered only minor repercussions, with the richer lands of the Hives drawing away the majority of the Daemons who manifested, thereby signalling the end of the Hive offensive as they dealt with this new threat to their interests.
It now seemed that Hive was recovered and back to their old schemes.
They had a hell of a task at hand, but Redd was proud of how they were handling things so far. And Kalle made sure everybody could get their much needed sleep with his [Esper’s Balm] that night.
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Come morning they got to work looking for caves, spent time learning of the surrounding area–including potential ambush sites–and then waited for Alfred to return with the Voracii fungus.
Algernon’s mission during the night had been a success, and the owl even wagged his long eyebrows and managed to convey how it was easy work.
Stolen story; please report.
The pattern was so large at this point that it was impossible to miss with his drops, and even minor disruptions could force the warrior ants to backtrack and repeat whole sections of work.
Livia had now gone to join Redd for a while to observe the results directly.
What they learned was this: The Mantis commander in charge seemed to blame all the damage done on his warrior ants, executing a hundred of them and putting their remains up for the area’s carrion birds to feed on, in the hopes of deterring the lesser birdlife from approaching again, presumably.
It made Algernon’s next mission all the more difficult, since he would need to drop his second payload from a greater height to avoid being mobbed by the greedy lot.
Livia and Redd returned with their profiling of the enemy leadership done to the best of their abilities, and then they just had to wait until dusk for Algernon to perform his second air raid, just to lower the chances of the Mantis spotting something and suspecting arial foul play.
Alfred had found enough fungus for a second attempt but they were out of luck until tomorrow unless he hit the target with one of those shots.
Algernon took off and flew above, soaring over the valley floor. The river was glistening with the last of the pink-orange sun descending, and the ants were all busy at work, constantly expanding the circumference of the complex pattern being laid with heavy paints.
They were approaching the forest on the other end, but it was hard to tell if that meant they would run out of room or if the ants would simply get started tearing more trees up by the roots–despite the backbreaking labour involved.
He dropped his first package of Voracii and the small pouch went falling down–buffeted by the winds and being steered all over the place–but still falling on target so far.
That was until a large, curious raven swooped in for a peck, only to find the orange thing absolutely vile and immediately start hacking to try and get it back up. Oh damn you, you greedy fool, all the cleverness in the world and not a lick of sense, I curse you, you particularly imbecilic raven, I curse your children!
When Algernon was over his fit of pique he returned to camp at once to pick up his second pouch for his last attempt by the final light of day; their first of a planned three days full of disruptions.
Yet the opening salvo is mine alone. He unleashed his 2nd and final pouch, and this time he used his wind affinity to take control of the descent.
Not to steer in a controlled manner. No, he just wanted the window of opportunity to close as swiftly as possible. Strike home, DAMN YOU!
Algernon propelled it down in a burst of wind-powered force.
And far below the payload struck pay dirt, and in seconds an orange mushroom cloud bloomed among the grasses, causing tens of thousands of giant warrior ants to mill about in a manic frenzy.
Satisfaction.
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Come the morning of day two they found the ants being busy at work constructing a palisade while another force of ants had gone into the forest–and the direction of the human settlements–to replenish their now significantly depleted supplies.
It was apparent they were now prepared to ignore the risks, since they must have concluded their discovery had occurred already.
Livia and her company figured they should be safe from discovery as long as they stayed put.
They were relying on the fact that the forest behind the ant army, where they were hidden, was much smaller. And not to mention over an hour away from even the most recent edge of the ever expanding ritual pattern. That was not to mention the enclosing heights on either side, both features of the valley which made hunting in any other direction but forwards unlikely.
That side was also the only direction where they were building an extensive gate, but it was clear that they were going to continue building all the way around to keep the coming force of Humans out, which was likely to complicate matters for Harold a great deal once they began driving poles deep below ground.
Livia made sure everyone knew they would have to hurry today, because the damn diligent ants were still being killed by Mantis whenever their pace was not up to speed.
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Harold was sneaking through the caverns below the valley floor.
The cave they found which stretched the furthest was a crafty one; it looked not deep at all at first glance.
But if you brought some light to look in a deeper alcove–there you found a drop which led into a proper cavern–but it had taken longer than expected to rule the many dead-ends of other, larger caves in the area out.
It was already nearing evening, so Roldy knew he had to get a hustle on despite the unfamiliar environment.
The path widened and retracted again continuously, and the rooms Roldy sped through were full of stalactites and creatures like enlarged, sage-colored mites that seemed to be eating the rock until they themselves burst from their gluttony and hardened into rock in turn.
This is a strange other world, but I suppose this counts as nature too. If he had not been pressed for time he would have stopped to try out [Touch of Chaos] and see if he could not make something more impressive out of the creature’s strange design. I’ll be back for you one of these days, don’t you worry.
He sprinted ahead in the dark that was only interspersed by the occasional light through a hole above and the glowing mushrooms that seemed to spread everywhere in these upper echelons of the underground world.
Until he finally found his way to a small room that had its other end deeply shaded–all he saw was a wide grey flap, covered in gravel, which seemed to go into a huge round boulder blocking the path nearly to the ceiling. I am gonna have to see if I can squeeze through.
But as Harold went to step on the flap and start climbing he felt a connection to the thing and immediately stepped off.
“Hrrahhm. Aaawaaaah. What was that, who goes there?”
It was a giant turtle. And Roldy was staring at its nether end.