We followed the scent trail laid by the explorers. It took us first, on a well-trodden climb up a dark hill, then on a low slope down rough trash littered path.
The two paths were strikingly different. The slow jog down the slope though exciting was also very tough and physically demanding. There were dried leaves that we mostly trod over and sometimes under. It was cold there and the dirt was wet, but only up to a certain degree. Nothing we couldn’t handle.
There were scents all about, all different, all leading to different places: some into the trees, the giant pillars, and others to the layers upon layers of leaf cover, disappearing beneath them. We were surrounded by an unknown number of creatures from all sides. The soldiers marched on defiantly, not losing their composure for a second.
The worker paired with me tapped my head. Would you like some water? She asked. I dropped my antennas, a polite refusal, and got back to watching and sensing my surroundings.
We were walking a loud and brazen march; the sound of our stomping feet was unreserved and announcing.
Most creatures hid upon sensing our identity. I liked it, this show of power, this attitude of aloofness and strength.
The soldiers walked at the front while the five workers —six including me— followed from behind. The explorers had done their job by finding a new hunting place. Now all was in the harvester’s hands to bring back food. That’s the reason why most of the party constituted of soldiers. The workers though good at hauling heavy carcasses weren’t so at the initial process of turning enemies into the said unmoving husks.
I had wanted to be part of the five every since my caretaking days. The city enters a buzz of excitement every time a harvesting party returns home carrying food. That had been enough to make me a devotee.
I was going to finish community labor and join them. That was my plan. It was a route that would have taken me many cycles of days and nights to reach here, and who knows whether I would have survived until then or not! So I was extremely thankful to the princess and the captain for letting me tag along.
The soldiers walked in a tight straight line, the workers following as closely behind them as we could. No matter what, all were very interested in knowing how I had lost my mandible, especially my partner. I could see their antennas pointing our way, something that I hadn’t been able to sense. I had always thought of them as a strict tight group, but they were slowly making me reconsider my evaluation of them.
The princess walked at the front of the progression, besides the captain. She had demanded the position, and the captain had been all too happy to accommodate her. He was also a prince, a fertile male, and though the princess was wingless, it was easy to sense her scent possessing some sway on him, too. And I could sense the changes of her mood from her scent. She liked the attention.
As for me, I was doing fine now, but I had my fair share of problems keeping up with them. It was the pain from the poison. Even though I was past the tremors and the shaking, everyone kept divided attention on me. They didn’t show it, but their scent told me everything. They pitied me. Once I found that out I stopped asking for brakes. I had pride, too.
I had my first encounter with a large, armored beetle pushing a ball of dung up the slope. It was slow, but a daunting creature. To think it would look so big and powerful from up close. When we stopped under a beam of warm sunlight I thought we were going to hunt it, but my partner, the worker stuck with me, told me otherwise.
Nobody would hunt that thing without a valuable cause. Not only does it taste horrendous, but it is also a hassle to carry back. We have rules about hunting creatures like that. Don’t fight a war you can’t win and don‘t hunt a creature you can’t carry — basically be respectful and humble. Then out of the blue, she asked me if I would like to have my back rubbed.
I humbly refused her again, but then I noticed the other pairs rubbing each other — including the princess. Her scent had attained a hint of warmth and eagerness as the captain rubbed her back with his forelegs.
Are you sure you don’t want to do it? The worker asked again. I quickly agreed in a fit. It was better than I expected. I wondered why I had refused her in the first place. My legs that had gone stiff from all the walking started loosening as she rubbed them and moved them between her mandibles. My pores opened wide and air flowed into me. I let out a groan of scented pheromones when she suddenly stopped. Her antennas touched my head in amusement. I looked at her confused and she told me it was my turn. I followed as she ordered. First, I gently patted her back with the clubbed ends of my antennae, followed that with pulling her legs one by one until there was a pop from the joints, and at last rubbed them.
I don’t think I did a proper job, but she happily told me that she enjoyed it. I believed her scent. The princess scent had gotten stronger, too. Our eyes met and she waved an antenna at me. I waved back, causing her to shrug. I realized I had just told her that I could see.
We were walking soon enough. The scents changed at the bottom of the mound. There was almost no vegetation down there. No shade or cover. There was however a substantial funnel that had a very sweet and attractive scent rising from it — too tempting to ignore. I couldn’t help going forward to take a glance. What could be causing such a phenomenon in the middle of nowhere? Could it be something delicious? I hoped so!
It was only when my partner tapped my back and pulled my bottom did I realize that I alone had scurried away from the company, while they were going around the pit. But the scent trail went through the pit! What were they doing? And why was I screaming in my mind? I couldn’t understand! I looked back and found that I was standing at the edge of the pit, sand granules falling and causing small avalanches as they slipped from under my feet. I had almost fallen in there. My mind buzzed at the same time as another one of those colorful patterns emerged to cover my hazy sight.
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You were tempted to die, but you survived. Congratulations! You have acquired Charm resistance.
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[Charm][Tier-1][Lv-1/10][Resistance]
[Have some confidence! You might not look like a handsome long-legged deer, but believe me, that’s a good thing. They are prey, not predator! Are you one, too?]
[Reward: Your Wisdom increases by .1 points with skill gain.]
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It was called a notification — the information that had suddenly popped up in my mind— and its intrusion worried me.
I was still dazed when my partner slapped me with her antenna. Don’t go in there. It’s a trap. I couldn’t understand what she meant. She picked me up and carried me back. I kicked the air in a fit of vain retaliation. She didn’t let me go until we had joined the others. Instantly, I found clarity. She put me down and offered me water. This time I took her offer.
We were at the end of the line so there was no holding anyone back. She brought a droplet of water to her mouth and I drank it. A sense of stability returned to my mind. Turns out, what I thought was the aftereffect of poison was actually dehydration. So she had been right all along. I asked if she could spare more. She brought another larger droplet out and I had my fill.
I thanked her with a touch of antennae. She told me to beware of the pits.
That was the nest of an ant hunter. If you sense anything like that again, just do one thing,
Stay away from it? I asked.
Yes, you can do that, too. She said, antennas shaking. I joined her by shaking my antennas. She was being sarcastic, but I couldn’t stop myself.
There was a time when I believed that life was all about order and compassion, but the reality wasn’t so bland. I enjoyed her company. There were no more interactions between us, and things fell into a routine. We kept a steady pace.
The natural range of my senses, when I wasn’t actively controlling my antennas, was not further than a few heads around me. However, sight allowed me to notice the changes happening in real-time. The grass shade was nice and the openness of the world was another plus, but I liked the warm rays of the sun best. However, the captain was very persistent about staying in the shade.
There was grass, rocks, flowers, scent trails of other insects, dirt, unusually shaped plants, deep burrows, mounds, waste, a lot of smelly waste, long caterpillars, more dung beetles, but my favorites were the fliers, for they could fly.
Of course, every other insect remained a certain distance from us, but the fliers didn’t seem to care and flew freely, sometimes coming close to look and at other times following from a distance. Sensing them was one thing, but seeing, though only a hazy form, of something so large, come so close to us was nerve-wracking. I leaked the scent of panic four times when they flew over us. Three of those four led to nothing, but that one time wind blew in the wrong direction and my scent caused panic in the company. I felt really embarrassed that one time.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
The fliers reminded me that a princess was also supposed to have wings! And realized I hadn’t been sensing her warm, attractive scent ever since the fliers had joined our company and accompanying us in our journey. She had not only retracted her scent —something I didn’t believe was possible— but the captain and she were no longer in conversation.
She is sulking, I thought, and her behavior made sense. It shouldn’t be forgotten that I had been in internal communication with her and shared more than just surface thoughts. I knew her more than anyone else… around.
We pressed on.
The grass forest slowly bled into rocky terrain. Here grew nothing. The mountainous rock was equal in height to our city but encompassed a larger area. We weren’t to go above it, however. The trail led under the rock, into a wet-cold tunnel. I gained another one of those notifications here at the end of our destination, detailing information about something called a Map, but that is not important. The scent here was strong, both of trail and our opponents to be.
Termites! How did I know? I didn’t. A scent wave from the front let us know. This was our destination. To think there were termites in our homeland. Impossible! Someone said. Others followed. But the scent was there. And scent never lies.
The formation was changed to form a diamond head with a long single file tail. Four soldiers and one worker made a tight diamond, with the worker in the middle and the captain at the base. The diamond was to act as a probe and check the tunnel fifty ant lengths deep for signs of activity, and send a scent signal if all was well or sound alarm if they encountered an enemy; the tail was to safely trail behind at a distance.
I learned that it was a formal military tactic, but the idea to replace the ants after a certain number of steps was the captain’s personal touch, done to promote equality and fairness.
When the first group had cycled for the tenth time and sent an okay we were almost three hundred ant lengths deep underground, and in a large chamber with arched ceiling and platforms on the three visible sides. It was empty, but the signs were there of recent activity. You can’t hide the scent.
It was dark inside. The formation was changed once again. The soldiers formed the arc of a crescent, becoming the shield and the spear, while the workers filled the hollow, becoming the backbone. The captain and the princess moved to the back. She was tense I noticed, and so was I.
I touched her antennae. She was spooked and snapped her mandibles shut out of fright at my touch. The snap stimulated the soldiers who collectively curved their abdomens to the front and dropped on their hind legs, getting into firing position.
Princess apologized. Steady, the captain scented a sensory load of information that reached every soldier without neglect.
I wanted to ask her if they had a plan, but then there was a noise from one of the platforms to our right and the captain himself went into motion. He curved his abdomen between his legs, took position balancing on his hind legs, and fired a bullet of 50% poison. The termite looked from the platform at the same time as the bullet reached.
He was hit!
The termite fell from the platform, but it called an alarm right as it hit the ground, not giving the soldiers enough time to quietly finish it off.
INCOMING! Someone shouted something buzzed, and something changed. The scent of termites grew stronger.
The soldiers waited with antennas vibrating and bodies tense, poison oozing to come out of their abdomens.
They came as a hail of large white bodies, up the tunnel under the platform and into the chamber. We were ready. Well, at least the soldiers were. They were ready for the termites — but what came up was anything but termites.
They were shaped like a termite, large like a termite, had broadheads and menacing mandibles like a termite, but they were anything but them. The soldiers couldn’t see so they waited for the order.
But the captain, princess and I were taken aback. They could see much clearer than me, for they had infrared eyes. What I saw was a smidgen of movement in the dark, but it was what I sensed that made me doubt everything.
They arrived three at a time, rushing into the chamber with their mandibles wide open.
Fire! The captain finally ordered. A rain of poisonous bullets sailed across the chamber at the sight of the termites. It didn’t work. The poison didn’t work. The termites, a total of nine, pushed through the hail and entered melee range.
All hell broke loose from there. The soldiers outnumbered the termites almost three to one, but even that advantage seemed wage when the enemies didn’t respond to their biggest weakness.
During this time one termite pushed past the defense line and came at…me?
I was horrified as its visage became clear. It was nothing like a termite. I stuck staring at it as it reached for my head with its mandibles. The princess intertwined. She didn’t have a stinger or poison, but she had mandibles and her large body.
She crushed her mandibles to the side of its chest and flung it up into the air. The termite screamed. That’s when another one clawed its way toward us. It didn’t jump at me or princess but stopped a certain distance from us. I saw it trying something. The burning scent of acid rose from it, not from its abdomen, but its forehead. Scars would have been the least of the princess’s worries had it fired.
There was no time to think. The termite fired the moment I charged toward him. I was doing something stupid again, but I would have no identity without the princess. Would a soldier, a team captain, vouch for me? I didn’t want to take the risk.
There was a sensory alarm as the acid spray saturated the air in front of me. I ducked my face and hid my eyes just in time as the acid splashed on my head. I thought I was mentally prepared, but nothing can prepare one for that pain. My head itched with an intensity that made me want to scratch my exoskeleton off my body. I was burning without fire, my skeleton just about starting to melt. A cold wave cut through me as an ominous-looking glyph -4 broke away from my body and disappeared above my head.
I pulled my mind shut against the pain and forced a trot toward the termite, blind in both sight and sense.
I’ll survive. It was my tenacity speaking. I am going to survive. I psyched myself for the confrontation. There were another spray and this one drenched my head completely. My antennae horribly went out of tune from the acid bath, and I lost even the sense of direction. I didn’t admit defeat. Stopping here meant admitting that I was wrong and the others of the worker union were right. It meant admitting that I should have strived to act normal, and not work harder. It meant that they were right and I should have remained but a worker and died digging to ensure a longer lifespan.
I refused to believe that. I loathed the thought.
My mind buzzed in succession as the colorful geometric patterns, the notifications, buzzed in front of my eyes. One by one they came, each one easing my pain by a sliver, and proving me right.
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What tenacity and Vigor! Are you sure you are an ant?
Skills: Tenacity, Vigor, Acid resistance acquired.
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[Tenacity][Tier-1][Lv-1/10][Passive]
[Everyone can see the starting, but only the tenacious see the ending.]
[Effect: Prevailing through a tough task earns you 1 point in Endurance.]
[Reward: You gain .1 points in Strength every skill level.]
*****
[Vigor][Tier-1][Lv-1/10][Passive]
[To go strong into the face of adversity is not a mentality of someone weak and defeated.]
[Effect: You strength and Agility gains a 10% boost when you feel challenged.]
[Reward: Your Constitution increases by .1 point every skill level.]
*****
[Acid][Tier-1][Lv-1/10][Resistance]
[You could have gained a flowing design to your furbished monochrome skeleton had you let the acid wash you longer. Well, better luck next time.]
[Reward: Your gain .1 points in Constitution every skill level.]
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The pain subsided. My sense remained scrambled, but my sight cleared — somewhat. I saw the termite's hazy form shift behind the acidic fumes covering my eyes. It sprayed a third time. By utter luck, I managed to dodge it this time by sidestepping, and lunged. The termite was taken aback; still, it tried to cover its delay in response by scissoring its mandibles around my head.
I proved to be the one faster. My small stature even seemed to help my lone mandible find rest in the ample softness of its left eye. It shuddered. I panicked. What next! I asked myself and came up with a method. I jerked my head and the mandible tore out from the left side of its head with the motion, leaving a large leaking gash. The termite faltered down to the floor and didn’t get up again. Acid overflowed out of its forehead and onto its face, burning its remaining eyes into sludge.
There was a single notification that appeared at my opponent’s death. It read: You have defeated a Puppet of Gluttony. Experience has been awarded. But its meaning was obscurer than that of its siblings.
When I looked back, the princess, together with other workers had already taken care of her opponent and was in a much better condition than me. She wasn’t injured in the slightest sense, while I was… well, I fell down right as our eyes met for the second time. Another one of those ominous glyphs disappeared above my head.
She was before me in seconds, drawing a drop of water to her mouth. Her antennae mingled with mine and she washed me with courage before saying, did … save … again? I somehow made out of our contact.
You saved me first. I sent back, but I don’t know what she read from the jumble of chemicals that I released. My antennas were in a big need of thorough cleaning and tuning.
…really … know ….to fight, do you?
I am a worker. We don’t usually fight.
That’s … another thing to …care.
I didn’t really understand what she meant and believed she was wrapping up our conversation.
I guess so.
She dropped or contact and a drop of water on my face, washing my burns. The cold was refreshing. The ominous patterns ascending from my head stopped when she washed my face a second time with water.
For some reason, that’s when we both knew I would survive. It wasn’t long before she left me to take care of the soldiers who were hurt more than me. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise but where I had survived or was likely to, there were also casualties among us.