~~~Stanley~~~
You have entered a lair: [The Colony]
The crow on his shoulder squawked and vanished. He’d almost forgotten it was there... Coward.
Light turned to darkness as the tunnels swallowed him up, and Stanley closed his eyes. He didn't need to see for what was coming. He wished he could do the same for his nose... It stank in here. Pungent and acidic.
You have attacked a lair structure. All residents notified.
He didn't bother with the winding tunnels for long and instead started smashing his way through. This lair went deeper than he could reach, and he didn't want to waste time if any tunnels were dead ends.
The labyrinthine mess of tunnels ran in every direction, including some going straight down. It saved him effort when he reached those.
Ants filled every single tunnel. Most were beyond weak, but here and there he ran into one that put up a fight. Well, not that much of a fight. They attacked him—with either magic or their jaws—and he killed them. The strangest part was the variety of magic he ran into.
The vast majority of the ants were basic and identical, but the standouts were very different. Some were tiny, and some were too big to crawl through the entrance up top. All of them died, and none of their magic attacks that landed made it past Walter's suit...
Stanley was already wondering how and why the hell Adrian would go so deep into this shitshow when he noticed the walls getting tougher... It was gradual, and he probably wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't going through them one after the other, but it was there. The ants got stronger too...
He stopped in a large cavern lit up by glowing growth on the walls and filled almost to the brim with eggs. None of that was what stopped him, though. It was the ant laying eggs at one end of the room.
A queen? It only had a handful of guards and wasn't even close to the deepest chamber in the nest... The guards weren't even the stronger magic-using ants. Just more workers.
It was odd, but Stanley let it go and killed them all. He squished them rather than burning them, since he was pretty sure he still needed oxygen and wasn't sure about starting fires in an underground cave system.
Then he focused on his soul and listened.
The faint souls he could hear in every direction turned into a sea of glittering stars... a writhing sea full of streams that funneled toward... There! Souls that were not only human, but a few that felt very familiar.
He changed course slightly and ripped a hole through the cavern wall. Edward was down there... and it felt like Cheesesteak was with him.
Stanley had never seen the bird heal anyone, but if it was a phoenix and Adrian used phoenix fire to heal... it could probably heal, too? Of course, Adrian shouldn't be far from the bird... if he was still alive.
His path of destruction eventually led him directly above where he'd felt the humans, and Stanley got a good idea of why they would go so deep when he found the consecutive pits between tunnels. Pits that went straight up and down. Had the ants dug the ground out from under them?
It was a terrifying prospect... and irrelevant if you could fly. It also sped up his travel time immensely. Until he found the worker ants resealing the holes...
Digging out their own lair made sense since they were ants, and that was kind of their whole deal, but getting another notification for ripping open the partially filled hole was disturbing. He'd never considered that monsters might reshape their lairs so freely... could they just seal up the entrance after someone came inside?
Humans could close off their lairs... What if the ants could close one door and just open another far from where you went in?
Speculation about ant tactics was one thing, but a far more disturbing realization was the level of intelligence on display. Intelligence that wasn't coming from any of the ants he'd met so far. What had Daryl said? They adapt?
Stanley stopped abruptly and looked up. Back toward where he could feel Caffeine in the distance. If the ants were digging the ground out from under people...
He couldn't tell from this distance. Were they still on the surface? It was tempting to retreat and carry the others to safety before delving deeper, but Caffeine was up there. He'd keep them safe. He'd be fine... right?
The obvious solution to a threat like this was simple. You're all going to die down here. Stanley refreshed his anger and kept digging. He also shoved a handful of ant guts into his stomach... The tunnels were getting a lot tougher.
His stomach didn't react negatively to the meal, but his head felt... achy. There was no brain debuff yet, but smashing through increasingly stronger lair walls was adding up. So he ate more ant flesh and started mapping the tunnels between himself and his target.
Stanley didn't find a direct path through but found one that should only require going through a few more walls.
He was really missing Accelerated Thought and was tempted to turn on Still Mind in its place. Anything to help him move faster. There was just the minor worry that he might go a little rogue... and from how far away Caffeine could stop him if that happened. Damn it.
It wasn't worth the risk.
The souls below were getting clearer as he approached, and Edward was definitely there with Cheesesteak. So was Adrian. Stanley didn't know the rest of the souls, but there were a half-dozen more humans down there. They all felt afraid, but muted behind the exhaustion... along with a fresh cacophony of pain.
They were under siege. Right now.
Luckily for them, Stanley was close enough to reach through the earth still between them, and he smashed the swarming ants into piles of gore. Including the ones digging a fresh pit below the humans.
Stanley felt the shift in their souls after his attack, particularly Edward. Not surprising, as he was the one who'd spent the most time with him. He might have even felt Stanley's leaking soul from this distance...
Now that he knew for sure that the healer was still alive and that he could keep him that way, Stanley slowed his reckless pace. He hadn't forgotten the warning about hurting his soul by pushing too hard... and he wasn't about to waste all the progress he'd made in the last week. At least, not without cause.
To make things easier on his brain, he let the ants attacking his person reach his domain before killing them. The extra boost to willpower within the zone made it take far less effort. He even stopped fighting the magic attacks since Walter's suit was surprisingly durable against them, and he could regenerate any physical injuries by eating more ants.
Not that he took any. Or, at least, nothing beyond some bruising. The few magic attacks that threatened his face were easy enough to divert into the suit-covered areas while inside his domain. Fire, acid, and even a few electric attacks, none of which made it past his armor. Walter was a damn genius.
He finally drifted around a corner and saw the light before he'd even opened his eyes. A dead end tunnel full of red-gold fire and littered with dead ants.
Past the wall of fire, he found more dead ants and his targets. Still alive. Mostly.
"Stanley." Edward smiled up at him from where he lay prone on the floor, one hand gripping his giant wrench and the other a nub that was slowly regrowing. His legs ended at the knees, with the lower halves lying a few feet away in a pool of blood.
In fact, the entire floor was a pool of blood...
"Wicked glad to... see... you," Edward said in a weak whisper, then passed out. He wasn't the only one sleeping. In fact, Cheesesteak looked to be the only one left awake. The only one not in multiple pieces...
Adrian sat slumped against the wall, his skin pale and his soul wavering in a way Stanley had never seen before. One of his arms ended at the shoulder, right where a bloody gash went halfway through his chest...
Cheesesteak stood on his shoulder, wings spread wide, with flames flowing from them and feeding the encircling fire around the huddled group of partially dismembered but still living humans.
The phoenix cracked open its eyes. "Ree..." The sound came out so weak, but Cheesesteak's soul didn't waver. He was full of grim determination. Exhaustion as well, and a burst of worry when he glanced down at Adrian, but determination above all. The same determination that would let someone blow themselves up to save their friends...
"You did good, Cheesesteak," Stanley whispered around the lump in his throat. "You did really, really good. I'll take it from..."
The cave rumbled around them, and Stanley felt a twinge of pain echoing from... Caff!
In that same moment, something the size of a baseball, with no soul, punched through the wall of fire at his back and entered his domain at speed.
Stanley slapped the very pointy ant right back the way it had come and then followed it outside the soul-muffling flames. Another pulse of attention on Soul Awareness told him that Caffeine and company were definitely too close to still be outside the lair. The only question was if they'd come in willingly or gotten dragged in against their will.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The pulse also revealed the swarm incoming on his location.
It was time to go.
He picked up everyone and started the retreat, but was only back at the first turn when pieces of the wall abruptly stood up and threw themselves at him. Again, with no whisper from their souls. Not until they died in two pieces.
They were further up the tunnel when Premonition flared out of nowhere, and a blade of light burst out of the wall beside him.
Still Mind activated, and Stanley moved himself aside rather than waste energy on the extremely heavy magic.
The glowing white blade went into the far wall without resistance, leaving a hair thin slice all the way through to the next tunnel, thirty feet away. Then it kept going.
That explained all the dismembered people, but... where did it come from?
Stanley reached in the direction the attack had come and felt the followup blades cutting razor thin slices through his mental touch. It hurt, but they weren't aiming at him.
He moved his cargo out of the way and struck back against their attackers.
Cut
Ants died with screaming souls, and even more flooded in behind them as Stanley continued. They poured in from every direction... an army. All coming to stop him from escaping.
It was simple enough to smash his way through the swarms, but they weren't targeting him alone. He constantly had to waste energy moving his cargo away from attacks that came through the walls with almost no warning.
There was always the option of leaving them behind, but Adrian was definitely a valuable healer. He was worth a little extra effort to keep around.
Edward was the only other strong person increasing the energy costs, but he'd proven himself loyal even if he wasn't that strong. Loyalty was worth some extra effort as well.
All of it was enough that he'd save their allies along with them.
So he fought his way through the swarm and toward the approaching sensation of Caffeine. As he went, little flashes of pain kept coming from the pug's soul, and it was doing weird things to Stanley's mind...
He knew Caffeine was the second strongest creature in this lair, perhaps even the actual strongest, and he should be fine. But those feelings of him hurting... Stanley didn't like it. That annoying feeling helped him come to a new revelation while slaughtering hundreds of ants.
He was doing this wrong.
Stanley knew he was powerful, but he couldn't do this forever. The ants showing up to attack him were only getting stronger with each new wave. The latest wave had an odd but strangely familiar energy around their bodies... In fact, it felt a lot like his own energy.
Psionic energy.
Cut
His mind still carved through their flesh, but the resistance was on another level entirely. Like when he'd been attacking the invader a grade above his own...
They weren't D-grades; he tested it by throwing pieces of their fellows at them. Particularly by throwing the ones with blade-like appendages... That did the trick just fine, which confirmed his theory that they were using some kind of psionic resistance.
It wasn't a deal breaker when he could kill them by throwing shit, but it required more concentration, and he was already at the limit trying to keep the unconscious humans alive amidst the storm of magic coming their way.
He retraced his route back to where he'd come down and found the shortcuts all sealed up... Then he hovered in place for a couple of seconds as he considered his remaining options and killed every ant his mind touched.
The cave walls were tough, but he could go through them if he had to. The problem was that the bugs were coming at him not only from deeper below but also from the sides and above. If he blasted his way out, it was likely to result in a debuff... which may very well damage his soul. A necessary risk if it came down to it, but he had another option.
Rage.
More specifically, wrath. It was a large part of his E-grade evolution and should boost his strength far higher than it currently was. Only he couldn't feel anger. He couldn't feel any emotion while using Still Mind...
The solution was obvious; he turned it off.
Stanley blinked in shock because not only was that the first time he had willingly turned off the skill, but also because emotion once again became a thing. As if on cue, Caffeine's soul flinched in pain, and that was all he needed.
Rage bloomed on the heels of Caffeine's hurt, and Stanley pushed his mind out to its limits in every direction.
die
Die
DIE
He reached further up, stretching his mental touch to its limits and then pushed it further. He kept reaching until he found a little pug zipping through tunnels around a group of humans under siege by swarming ants.
Stanley felt a microscopically narrow blade of magic slice deep into the pug's side... He pushed harder, enraged, and his mind brushed over hundreds of ants surrounding Caffeine.
DIE
They did as commanded.
Then a Premonition and his domain brought him back to himself...
STOP
Everything stopped. His friends. Cheesesteak's fire. And more of those fucking magic blades. A cloud of them hung frozen in the air... some already inside his own and the others' flesh. Even cutting through his suit... One even touched Adrian's temple after having passed through Cheesesteak's leg...
Fucking bastards!
Stanley forced the magic back, dragged it out of frozen flesh and then let go of Cheesesteak. Healing fire swirled into open but unbleeding wounds, and the phoenix flapped his wings to stay upright as he pumped out a fresh wave of his magic flames.
The sight of how close they'd just come to death chilled Stanley's rage.
It didn't smother his anger... only turned it cold. Turned it icy.
Stanley felt something shift as his rage peaked and went cold. Time seemed to slow as he reached out into the surrounding tunnels, which were already rapidly filling with ants, and he felt... calm.
This whole situation felt far too much like the old days, when he'd been weak and on the edge of death every time he stepped into a lair. He wasn't that weakling anymore. He wasn't the one who got hunted. He was no longer the one who got caught up in a swarm of murderous monsters and their magic.
No.
The icy calm grew colder inside him, but outside, he felt a rising... heat. He felt... wrath. He felt... the storm.
The wrath storm. It was his race now. He was only technically human. Otherwise, he was a Wrathstorm. Stanley hadn't understood what that all meant, but he had an inkling now.
Besides, he didn't actually need to know what it was; he only had to unleash it.
Stanley hovered there, everything else falling away from his attention as he became the storm and went looking for something to destroy.
He found what he was looking for.
The storm of his wrath did nothing fancy to the ants he touched. He didn't cut them. He didn't stab them. He didn't even try to crush them. He simply... destroyed them.
His white-hot rage didn't hesitate. It didn't consider. It didn't fear. It only destroyed everything that threatened what he cared about. Everything that threatened what was his.
It was peaceful in the center... an icy contrast to the heat of his anger. Peaceful, silent, and calm at the eye of the storm.
Stanley felt like he should smile when each one of his enemies fell. He wanted to smile as their souls screamed and went silent. He almost smiled as they died.
At some point, nothing more dared to venture into the storm. So he sent the storm to them. He sent it toward all those twinkling lights in the depths.
His enemies died screaming, and Stanley finally smiled. Then he laughed, even when it started to hurt. He laughed along with the storm until a sudden, sharp pain in his hand brought him crashing back to his body.
He found Caffeine at his side, and the pug was licking the bleeding puncture in his hand while whining sorrowfully. Deafeningly.
Stanley pulled the crying pug into his lap while looking around to make sure Caffeine wasn't crying about something else.
Everyone was alive and accounted for. "Good boy, Caff."
Next came his notifications that he'd only barely noticed when they were coming in... while he was the storm.
Class Level Up: Soul Psionic
...
Skill Level Up: Mind Over Matter
...
+1 Willpower
...
Debuff: [Cerebral Fatigue]
There it was.
[Cerebral Fatigue](1:28:16)
You have pushed your mind beyond its limits and will require time to recover.
-50% to All Mind Attributes
Duration and severity may increase with continued mental exertion.
It was short and didn't mention his soul... which was good. Though he had another notification for that.
-1 Twin-Soul
-1 Twin-Soul
At least it wasn't another debuff, and it probably only happened because of the soul wound, which luckily didn't seem to have gotten any worse.
From going off other people's soul attributes, Stanley knew his own soul was far stronger. It should technically be even stronger than his mind...
Thinking back, Stanley was pretty sure the debuff hadn't hit him until he got greedy and reached too far. His effective willpower should have been potentially three times higher than usual. Nothing could resist that power.
All in all, it wasn't the worst outcome. He'd slaughtered so many of the ants that he wasn't even sure if the distant souls far below were more ants or some other subterranean life entirely.
That thought reminded him of the giant worm, and he spent a pleasant moment imagining it here, fighting with the ants. Both sides would suffer in that exchange... which would be oh so perfect.
Daryl finally stopped crying over Adrian and moved on to Adrian's teammates. "I need you to wake up, Ryan," he said to a dismembered man. It seemed unnecessarily cruel to wake the poor bastard up... as evidenced by the weeping that kicked off the moment he did. "Don't worry, I'm going to heal you."
Daryl did just that, scooping up a handful of the much diminished fire from Cheesesteak and funneling it into regrowing the man's missing leg.
Stanley frowned as he looked on. Something seemed off... but he couldn't figure out what. "I can take everyone to Zeke. He'll fix you all..."
"I can handle it!" Daryl spat with far too much venom, his soul bitter again.
An odd reaction, considering everyone was fine. Relatively fine. Adrian still had that weird, fluttery soul, and he was still unconscious. But at least someone had healed his chest wound already. That shit had looked bad before.
Princess didn't share Daryl's mood. Her soul only felt tired as she leaned against her human. And a little sad.
Stanley checked Soul Awareness and had to keep it going longer to get a good read on the deeper souls. They felt like ants. With one soul standing out with intense... anger? Maybe some bitterness as well? Friends of Daryl? Either way, it felt intelligent. Perhaps the actual queen of this shitshow?
He enjoyed feeling its misery. Fuck that bitch! Besides, it wouldn't have to suffer very long. Don't worry, I'll put you out of your misery in about... Well, he'd probably wait for the debuff to end, and since Daryl didn't want to leave just yet, Stanley meditated.