A jab of pain in the neck was the next thing Buck remembered before flashing up onto a sitting position, hyperventilating as he felt his body grow heavier by the second. He could feel his heartbeat faster than ever before, the blood rushing through his veins in a new never seen prior in his life, and his eyes were showing colours not meant to be seen at all. Everything was blurry, focused, and out of frame at the same time. The lights above were changing locations, their colours shifting in hues of grey around the room. He tried to lift his hand to grab one of them but felt his head start to turn towards the hard rock for the second time that day.

‘No, you don’t’ the woman could be heard saying as a flesh tendril worked as Buck’s pillow. Its texture and consistency were exactly as he had expected. It was like a massive snake, soft yet showing resistance the moment one got further in with their finger. With enough speed, the man didn’t doubt he would be able to die from it. The speed at which that tendril had moved was faster than his eyes could see. ‘A certain rock of mine just went through a lot of work to wake you up and I am not going to be forced to- oh? Yes, I am sorry for that. I do understand the dynamic and… yes, you don’t have to say it in that way. If you want this to work, let me do as I was planning, okay?’

Buck was wondering if he could get away with hitting his head again without them noticing. If he did it right, perhaps he would even die and be allowed to leave the forsaken place he lived in. Under his legs, he could feel a warm sensation Guessing from the consistency alone, he surmised it might have once been his lunch. How utterly heartwarming to know. His mind was feeling fresh, though, so he went ahead and opened up his status screen. The cuts on his back had disappeared, though the jacket meant to protect the last remaining spots had gone away as well.

Character Screen

Name:

Buck

Gender:

Male

Level:

12

Class:

Druid

Race:

Elf/Human

Title:

Mad One

Health:

32/110

H-Regen:

0.1/sec

Mana:

21/170

M-Regen:

0.12/sec

Stamina:

6/140

S-Regen:

0.13/sec

Basic Stats

Strength:

11

Wisdom:

16

Vitality:

10

Intelligence:

12

Dex:

13

Willpower:

9

Available points:

1

Everything was low, Stamina especially showing off why Buck was so tired. He felt the need to close his eyes and never open them again with each breath yet he couldn’t do it because of how scared he was that it might come true. His fear of death was keeping him alive, he supposed. How utterly predictable.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The man put his elbow up on the fleshy tendril just as it was retracted and made to join the rest that was floating around the ant’s back. So much mass had just disappeared into the smaller body that the Druid had to question if spatial sizes were still as linear as formerly thought. The man wasn’t able to identify if he was still having visual hallucinations at that point. Maybe it was all just his mind trying to figure stuff out in his last moments. There was no way to know.

‘Human. Look at me,’ the ant said. Buck wanted to call it woman but knew too much for that to be true in any meaningful way now. The fakery of the voice was too real. Yet he looked at the being all the same. ‘Do you fear me?’

“Yes,” Buck bluntly answered, knowing perfectly well that he'd have trembled in every part of his body if he had the energy remaining for such an action. His appendages were too far out in their own worlds for such actions. The only thing he could hope to do was bend his head in the right direction and hope his tongue wasn’t making it too slurred. “I do.”

‘Then you will fear me from this point on as well,’ the ant stated, its tendrils starting to spread out again. How many were there? The Druid could not guess, the swerving state of them making it impossible to keep a headcount. There could have been ten or fifty without the man being too surprised. He just knew that they were slowly coming towards him.

No, they were very quickly coming towards the Druid, to the point where they were within arms reach within a mere second. The man, not proud of any of his actions up to that point but also having long since lost his pride, tried to scramble away yet was forced to rediscover his lack of a finger on his right hand. It threw off his balance and he almost hit his head jaw first on the floor. Only another tendril stopping the head from hitting the ground allowed him to stay within the realm of the living.

‘Make my job harder and I will force you to go through another hour of blind torture,’ the ant sent out as she once again retracted a tendril. The small whimper from the Druid was not consciously done, the body only reacting on its own. It wanted to feel pain just as much as the conscious mind did. ‘I think you understand what I mean perfectly. Sit up straight for once now.’

Buck could feel pops in his back as he did as ordered, putting back up as straight as he could. It wasn’t comfortable but it was better than feeling the overwhelming pressure of everything else. His wounds were… healing? It was a detail only truly felt when forced to focus on his back yet the man could most clearly feel the lesions in his back muscles regrowing. Where was this energy coming from? His [Mana-Sense] could only detect the… oh no.

The exit. Where was it? Looking around, he found it more meters away than he felt comfortable trying it. Those tendrils must have had a max length they could grow to yet Bcuk was unsure it would even matter. The Dungeon had proven itself before it could create walls. Nothing was stopping it from doing the same in the same moment he tried to escape.

‘Are you sure that you want to try?’ the ant in front of Buck questioned as if she could read his mind perfectly. Which… At this point, he was guessing she could do just that. An Ant so powerful at this place in the world was an act of craziness. That it was talking, and able to read minds as well as just the cream of the cake. Anything at all about the current scenario was already enough to be called a lunatic.

“I’ll stay here,” Buck said, looking at the ground as defeat began to settle in. While his health was increasing, Mana was at a standstill. With all the energy around him, the man had expected it to be flowing in yet he felt nothing at all. It was as if the Mana was being forced to evade his grasp. He had never seen anything like it before.

‘Little rock, this might be much easier than I initially imagined,’ the ant said, a few of the tendrils reaching towards the lights at the top. Buck tried to ignore what that comment could have meant as he felt a pressure on his mind yet again. ‘Have you already realized what form of situation you reside in?’

“I can’t run from you,” Buck answered, believing that to explain all of it concisely. When no response came along after a few moments of waiting, though, he continued on. “You can get me from long distances so I have no chance to leave this room. And even if I did, all those ants from before will just get at me again. Even if I get behind all of those as well, and it’s a really big if right there, I have no way of knowing that there isn’t a wall at the entrance stopping me from getting through anyway.”

The Ant in front of Buck did something at that point. He wasn’t sure exactly what it meant, though the shaking of the legs and the chittering in deep tones couldn’t help but worry him. It was almost as if the creature was enjoying the honest answer.

‘You forgot the trees outside that are more than able to sever your head from your body but your statement is otherwise correct. Congratulations weak humanoid. You are smarter than the average that have reached these walls,’ the ant said. ‘You may know me as the Ant Queen, the Mother, or whatever else you want to imagine me in your nightmares to come. It does not matter much to me.’

The nightmares to come… was Buck going to live? Was he going to survive another day as if nothing had happened: Just… what? No, it didn’t make sense. He had been brought to his lowest, had killed his fellows, and what exactly was the Dungeon giving him in exchange?

“What are you going to do to me?” the Druid questioned. Feeling danger looming with how long the Queen, or whatever she wanted to be called, was taking to answer, Buck once again tried to force the Mana in the air to enter through his pores. He needed the energy if he was going to try basically anything. If needed, he could attempt to make the winds push him to the side and grant him speed but he was still not practised in dealing with that skill.

‘Nothing too serious at the current moment. We just needed for you to understand where you were, how little you can do about anything we want to do to you, and how little choice you have in your own life. If you tried, you wouldn’t even be able to kill yourself to free yourself from this place. Isn’t that a fun thought?’

Buck tried to prepare a blast of air to hit the creature in the head but felt his connection snap as soon as it began. The force required for such a thing was… out of this world. What had happened.

‘Again. You are unable to do anything here without my express permission. And… you aren’t able to stop this in any capacity.’

Hearing those final words, Buck tried to make a run for it, not wanting to hear just what he wouldn’t be able to stop. But, as guessed, the tendrils caught him without issue, leaving him exposed to sharp needle-like objects that hit him in the lower spine. It was out in the same moment that it entered yet it had left something inside him. Something that felt like it could kill him at any moment.

‘That is something I’m quite proud of. It’s a timed bomb if you wanted to know. In three days, it will explode and take away most of your inner organs with it. There is no chance of you getting it out yourself. A high-classed priest might be able to do it, however,’ the ant explained, as Buck got up from the round, trying to feel for the incision point. He found none. ‘And… I believe that’s all we wanted with you. You are free to go at your pleasure.

“... Wait, what?” Buck had to say out loud, having needed a few more moments to realise what just had been said. The ant was just walking away? “Just like that?”

The creature wasn’t answering him. The man nearly asked again but stopped himself, instead of looking towards the exit yet again. It looked so pretty. Taking a tentative step, he found no resistance. Nothing shut out to stop him.

That was all that was required before he took off. The healing energy had replenished his stamina and he was not letting any of it be wasted. Buck ran like the dead was catching up. For all his knowledge that might have been the truth, the laughing from behind made him doubt his own sanity.

Nobody met him at the entrance, any traces of Tom having been replaced with an open view to the outside. Buck hardly thought about the aforementioned trees that could kill him as he ran outside, the fresh air hitting his body like a galloping horse. He wanted to fall to the ground and enjoy the grass. Yet no such thing occurred, the Druid refusing to stop. Every second spent in the forest was a second spent in fear.

He had to get back to other people no matter what. He needed to get as far away as he could, no matter the price. He had to survive.