There’s just no end to this, I thought as I busted my way into the twentieth chamber of the enemy hive, scorching all of the pale mold-tender ants. I had assumed that the internal volume of the nest would be similar to the ones that Vaozey and I had found on the surface, but it appeared that the ants in the chasm were far less restrictive in their use of space. I was already almost four meters into the wall and, as I glanced at the stone above me, I began to worry about how much deeper I could dig before the nest became unstable.
“Found it yet!?” Vaozey called out, her voice both echoing in from behind me and seeping through the small connecting tunnels that joined the chambers we were standing in.
“No,” I called back.
“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up,” she gasped, sounding strained. “Can’t you just use that bomb you have?”
“Probably wouldn’t work,” I replied, punching through more rock into another chamber. Unlike the others, my hand didn’t come into contact with air once it passed the sandstone, instead hitting something thicker and more granular. Then, a thousand bites stung my hand at once, and around ten liters of ants poured out of the wall, trying to scramble their way up my arm before I could burn them off. None of them made it past my shoulder, but considering that the ants weren’t stupid, I expected that they might try the tactic again.
“Gah!” Vaozey exclaimed.
“What?” I called out.
“Seytoydh wall was full of them,” Vaozey replied.
“Same thing just happened to me,” I replied. “I think we’re getting closer to the center.”
“They’ve been letting up a bit, if you haven’t noticed,” Vaozey remarked. She was right, I hadn’t been paying much attention to the number of ants trying to jump on me, but now that I was, I found that there were noticeably fewer of them than before. “Really thinking the bomb might be a good choice.”
“Try moving towards me,” I instructed, turning my attention to the wall between us. We had been trying to gain depth into the nest under the presumption that we would find the queen’s chamber, but since that was looking unlikely, I changed my plans a bit. I heard Vaozey hit the wall from the other side, then I struck it myself, breaking into an empty chamber. They’re definitely drawing forces back to protect the queen, I thought. A few seconds later, a mace burst through the stone in front of me and showered me in splinters of stone.
“Okay, now what?” Vaozey asked, ants crawling up her cheeks. The look in her eyes was wild, and she was pulling in deep breaths, with deliberate force, trying to keep herself energized.
“We break the rest of this divider then go back,” I said, smashing out more of the rock. “I have an idea that I think will work, but we’re going to need the ants to help.”
“Great,” Vaozey muttered through gritted teeth. “Let’s just get this over with quick then.”
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When we arrived back at the sameant colony, I didn’t waste any time getting straight to communication with our ally. The first thing I did was ask them to kill all of the enemy drones on Vaozey, telling her to remain still at the same time. As it turned out the ants understood exactly what I wanted them to do, and though Vaozey looked like she was about to lose her mind during the process, afterward she was completely insect-free. A few of our allied drones were crushed in the process, but the sameant colony didn’t seem to care.
[Queen kill ?] they asked once Vaozey was clean.
[No, the nest was too large,] I replied. [I have a plan, but we’ll need your help.]
[Not ant enough push again,] the ants replied. [Battle lose.]
[Can you function if your drones are separated into multiple groups?] I asked.
[?] the ants asked back, though I wasn’t surprised, and I reached down to demonstrate by scooping up a few ants into my hand.
[Can you sense the ants in my hand?] I asked.
[Yes,] the ants replied.
[Would it be possible for you to put ants all over my body?] I asked. [I want to carry them to the enemy nest.] The words, and the idea contained within, seemed to cause the ants to begin churning into a frenzy. It was clearly something they hadn’t thought of, and it was something that hadn’t even occurred to me until I saw the ants trying to cover Vaozey while she was still standing.
[Possible plan ?] the ants asked.
[The plan is to get you over to the nest so that you can scout it, then tell us where to dig,] I replied.
[Scout cannot Vaozey Yuwniht ?] the ants replied.
[We are too large, we can only see from our eyes, and the enemy is more dangerous in their nest,] I tried to explain, drawing on my approximations of what the ant colony’s senses must have been like. [You could scout the nest for us, then we can quickly strike the queen.] The ants stilled and formed a meta-compound eye, looking at me for about ten seconds, then went back to their work.
[How battle cross ?] the ants asked. That’s the only part of this problem I still need to solve, I thought.
[Could you make one final push?] I asked. The response was a series of symbols, then a few words.
[Catastrophe,] the ants said. [Nest only defense remain.]
[But, if we kill the queen, you’ll win,] I countered. [Will you be able to use the tactical advantage from killing the queen to overcome the enemy’s numbers?] The ants, once again, had to think about it.
[Yes no,] they replied. So maybe, I thought. The weight of the grenade in my pocket drew my attention. I really don’t want to use this here, I thought, but we do have enough powder to make another one. At least, we did last time I checked.
“Do we still have the black powder jar?” I asked Vaozey.
“Yeah,” she replied. “Just checked it, are we going to use it?”
“No,” I said, turning back to the mud. [Would an explosion distract the otherant colony?] I asked.
[Explosion ? ---] the ants asked, showing the symbol for an ant disappearing.
[No, with this,] I replied, placing the grenade sown on the mud. They probably learned Uwrish from Rehvites, so maybe they know what the grenade is, I hoped as the insects crawled all over it, trying to figure out what the object was.
[?] the ants asked. So that’s a no on knowing about grenades, I thought.
[This object will explode with the force of several thousand of the exploding ants you showed me,] I explained. Again, the ants crawled over the grenade, this time paying special attention to the areas near the fuse.
[Yes,] the ants confirmed. Can they smell the black powder? I wondered, Maybe they know what it is, but they just didn’t recognize the device itself.
[Will this distract the colony?] I asked.
[Push not far reach otherant queen distraction short,] the ants said.
[And what if I throw it directly into the middle of the swarm?] I asked.
[? ? ?] the ants asked, churning and clicking as they did so.
[If this detonated in the center of the enemy swarm, would that work?] I wrote, smiling a little bit as I did so.
[Yes yes yes yes no yes yes no yes,] the ants replied, all at once in nine separate figures. I’ll take those chances, I thought.
[Prepare some ants for a scouting team while I talk to Vaozey,] I wrote. [Once I give you the signal, we can begin.]
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“Did you really have to tell them to do this?” Vaozey seethed, sounding genuinely angry with me for the first time in many days. A thin layer of ants covered both of our bodies, only breaking around the face, hands, and feet to allow us to breathe and move. They were constantly in motion, just as they were on the ground, and the feeling of their presence was much like being continually rubbed with a brush.
“They’ll protect you on the way over,” I replied. “Cover your ears, this is going to be loud.” Using heat magic, I lit the end of the grenade fuse, then quickly measured how fast it was burning so I could time the impact of my throw with the explosion and minimize the risk that it would be neutralized. Vaozey watched on, looking nervous, as I waited for enough of the fuse to be burned up. Finally, there was about a second left, and I made my throw. The grenade went twenty -five meters, landed exactly in the center of the swarm, then exploded just as planned.
What wasn’t planned was the ants’ reaction to the noise. The ants could hear, obviously, but I assumed that it was the physical force of the shockwave from the explosion that would be doing most of the “stunning” and “distraction”. Instead, both swarms appeared to lose cohesion, and ants began falling off of our bodies almost immediately. There was also a large hole in the enemy formation, maybe ten meters across, but it was slowly filling in.
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“Go, quickly,” I ordered, dashing ahead. Just as planned, the ants didn’t appear to have the ability to organize like before, so instead of forming deep layers around our legs to try to trip us they simply allowed us to trample over them, crossing the entire battlefield in seconds.
“Why’d you just start running?” Vaozey yelled when she arrived at the enemy nest.
“I told you to go, didn’t you hear me?” I replied, walking into the tunnel I had created earlier and placing my hand against the interior of the enemy nest. I had initially thought that the allied ants would react immediately, but they still appeared to be rattled from the explosion, so it took a few seconds for them to realize where they were and what they were supposed to be doing. Beside me, visible through the hole in the wall between us, Vaozey was doing the same thing, though she was actively scraping the ants from her arm and placing them on the wall.
As the deployed ants were invading and scouting the enemy nest, the otherant colony appeared to be recovering from the grenade blast, and the expected rain of jumping insects began. Vaozey and I still had some allied ants on our bodies, however, and they assisted us in keeping the enemy from hitting any of our vulnerable areas while we waited for the others to finish their task. A minute later, a popping noise from Vaozey’s side drew both of our attention to one of the holes in the wall, and we saw multiple allied ants self-detonating to create noise and signal us.
“Allow me,” Vaozey smiled malevolently, smashing the wall with her mace. As I expected, the enemy colony had filled the interior of the chamber with the standard black worker/fighter ants, who poured out to attack the second the mace entered. Vaozey was clearly expecting this, however, because she had already begun to superheat the metal of her mace. Though it wasn’t glowing hot, the air nearby was visibly rippling. Any of the ants that tried to climb onto it were quickly cooked, followed by hundreds more as Vaozey began bludgeoning the volume of insects, cackling with glee.
The queen isn’t in there, I thought, and as soon as I began looking around some ants near another one of the newly-revealed tunnels began popping. Vaozey was doing a good job at keeping the attackers occupied, so I was able to slip around them and approach the marked tunnel. Very small, I thought, seeing that it was barely one centimeter in diameter. I had been trying to mostly break into chambers with large connecting tunnels because of the assumption that most traffic would be directed to and from the queen, but I had no reason to distrust the ants, so after preparing some heat magic around my fist I smashed through the wall.
There was no stinging or biting as I pierced through to the other side, only the pain of my bones setting back into place and the feeling of warm air. The stone around the tunnel was a bit more sturdy than average so it didn’t fall apart, meaning that I only saw the interior of the chamber once I withdrew my hand. Initially, I wasn’t even sure what I was looking at, but then two large compound eyes were picked out of the visual mess by my brain, and everything fell into place. The enemy queen, covered in a thick layer of her drones, glared back at me with what felt like palpable malice. The notion was ridiculous of course, an insect couldn’t form such an expression, and probably didn’t have enough emotional complexity to feel malice like a human might, but still, I felt it.
Five balls of acid popped out of the bundle of ants around the queen, formed in secret under the visual cover, then launched themselves at me with little warning. Unfortunately for the ants, they were still slower than crossbow bolts, and I also had my force magic detectors positioned in front of me. Two balls missed me entirely, and three were caught by magic, halting in midair without rupturing. With a mental flex, I threw them back at the queen, splattering her with her own drones’ acid and digestive juices and making her let out a gurgling scream that seemed to spread outward from her and across the rest of the swarm. A moment later, Vaozey’s mace flew in and crushed her against the black wall of the chamber, splashing her guts across the floor.
“Seytoydh ngoyth,” Vaozey cursed, spitting out a few bugs into the ground. The effect of the queen’s death wasn't immediate, instead spreading out at much the same speed as her scream had. The movement of the ants nearby, who were in perfect coordination just moments ago, began to lose cohesion. Small groups began to form, going against the flow, and these groups quickly expanded until the entire colony was confused as to exactly what it was doing or where it was going, apparently in disagreement with its own body.
The sameant swarm had no such weakness, however, and even from the other end of the chasm I could see their superior coordination allowing them to cut a swath through the now-leaderless groups of enemies, making their way to us with remarkable speed. As they pushed forward, tendrils of ants extended out from the sides of the main force, encircling the enemy ants and separating them from the other groups they were rubbing against. They didn’t appear to be killing most of them, but somehow the enemy was slowly vanishing, as though they were being absorbed.
“So what now?” Vaozey asked.
“Give it a few minutes,” I replied, watching as a path opened for us to walk back into the sameant swarm’s center. “We held up our end of the deal, now they just need to hold up theirs.”
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[Otherant queen is dead,] the ants wrote about ten minutes later as vaozey and I sipped down the last of our water. There wasn’t any mud nearby, so the ants brought some over, building a flat area for me to write on that was notably larger than the ones I had used before. That’s the first time they’ve used an intonation mark, I also noticed.
[We held up our end of the deal,] I replied. [Now, how do we get out of here?]
[Yuwniht understand arrows ?] the ants asked, again with surprisingly good grammar.
[Yes,] I wrote back. The ants formed an arrow along the wall, pointing upwards, and I sat in place, waiting for them to explain what they meant. No explanation came. [We can’t go that way,] I wrote.
[Why ?] the ants asked.
[I told you, both of us are too heavy to climb the wall,] I replied.
“Are they seytoydh serious?” Vaozey blurted angrily. “They thought we were just too stupid to know that we had to go seytoydh upward? I’m going to fry these little-”
“They don’t see the world like us,” I replied, cutting her off. “They’re not trying to be insulting.” I was also stuffing down some frustration to keep it from boiling over, but I knew enough to understand why the ants were suggesting what they were suggesting. Though they couldn’t understand us, the ants appeared to be listening to the tones and volume of our voices.
[Yuwniht Vaozey can use magic without dying,] they wrote. [Use magic to exit chasm.]
“Are they getting better at grammar?” Vaozey asked.
“Yes,” I nodded. “I noticed that too.”
[The dirt is too unstable for us,] I replied. [Besides, Vaozey cannot use force magic like I can, so she would have no way of escaping.]
[Not understand,] the ants replied. [Yuwniht magic make object ---] The final character wasn’t a word, but an animated symbol of a circle moving away from a line, clearly intended to mean “float” or “fly.”
[Magic needs an anchor point,] I explained. [It’s not possible to fly with it, and when climbing, the surface needs to be able to support our weight.] White noise started to come from above us, followed by dripping water, causing the ants to begin changing their structure around.
[If wall is stable, then Yuwniht Vaozey can leave ?] the ants asked.
[If it can be stabilized, yes,] I replied.
[Will make stable,] the ants replied. [Wait until finished.]
[How long?] I asked.
[Unknown,] the ants said.
“Great,” Vaozey muttered, holding out a waterskin to collect some falling droplets.
“It’s not like we have anything else to do,” I shrugged. “Let’s wait and see what happens.”
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As it turned out, the ants needed around fourteen hours to complete the task that they were working on. After sitting around for a while, Vaozey and I found that we were both exhausted enough to sleep, and after making sure the ants would wake us if there was any trouble we drifted off quickly. I had a vague sense that I was dreaming about ants, but thankfully I didn’t remember any of the dreams my brain had subjected me to once I awoke. A few beams of morning light shone down from above, cutting through a thin and humid fog from the rain the night before.
[Done yet?] I wrote in some fresh mud on the wall near a line of ants.
[Done,] the ants confirmed.
“Vaozey,” I called out.
“Wha…?” she grunted, stirring from her slumber.
“The ants are done, apparently,” I said.
“Yeah…” Vaozey grunted, eyes fluttering from fatigue for a few seconds and she pushed herself to her feet. “So you think we’re actually getting out of here?”
“Let’s see,” I shrugged, then I turned back to the wall and began to write on it. [Where can we exit?] I asked.
[Here,] the ants replied, then a rush of hissing came from behind me. Vaozey snapped into full alertness almost instantly, but it turned out that the sound was intended to grab our attention, not indicate any sort of attack. A half-meter wide layer of ants that was extending all the way to the top of the chasm parted, revealing that the mud underneath them had changed color. Are those handholds? I wondered, looking at some irregular indentations as I approached the strip of black along the wall.
“What is that?” Vaozey asked, looking at the black material from behind me. My first guess was some kind of asphalt because of the texture, but when I put my hand against it, I recognized the texture and temperature properties immediately.
“This is… a carbon allotrope of some kind,” I replied, thinking aloud. The black strip wasn’t perfectly secured to the dirt underneath, so I could feel how light it was as it shifted around under my grip. Still, as I tested it by putting more weight on it, the material didn’t stretch or bend much, at least around the contact point. It was more akin to a stiff rope than a ladder, but appeared tough enough to hold my weight.
“Isn’t that what that sword you talked about was made of?” Vaozey asked. “Is this stuff going to cut us?”
“No, well, yes,” I replied, trying to get my thoughts in order. “Carbon can make a bunch of different materials, it’s also the main component in flesh. In this case, I think this is some kind of fibrous allotrope that they’ve bound together along the wall.” [How did you know how to make this?] I asked.
[Otherant,] the ants replied. [Will work ?]
[I think so,] I wrote back as I parsed the meaning of their words. So they were assimilating the enemy colony members, I thought, and because they all function like brain cells for the colony’s mind, that means they also took whatever information their enemy knew and integrated it into themselves. Well, maybe not all of it, but at least some of it. That still didn’t explain how any of the ants learned to make carbon fiber in the first place, but it did help explain a lot about ant behavior and knowledge.
“You go first,” Vaozey prompted.
“Yeah,” I replied absentmindedly, gripping the dark section of the wall and pulling myself off the ground. As expected, it wasn’t exactly a stable climb, but the bumps and contours the ants had added gave me enough handholds to progress at a reasonable speed. At some point, Vaozey had begun to climb along behind me, so when I finally reached the top of the chasm, she was only a few meters down, and soon rolled out onto the grass beside me. The mid-morning light was utterly blinding, and it took us both almost five minutes before we could see anything clearly.
“Gods, I can’t believe that actually seytoydh worked,” Vaozey remarked as we were sitting up. We were both still squinting, but the area around us was finally coming into view. As I stared through the trees, wiping errant tears from my eyes, I spotted the exact location we had dropped through a few days ago just over a hundred meters away. I almost laughed at the sight of it, something about the ridiculousness of the time spent versus the distance we had traveled triggering amusement in my brain.
“The road is that way,” I said, pointing to where we had entered the woods from.
“Is that…?” Vaozey asked, looking in the direction of our entry point to the chasm.
“Yes,” I sighed.
“We were down there for two whole days,” Vaozey began, frustration seeping into her voice.
“Unless you want to be back down there, no heavy footfalls until we’re on the road,” I interrupted. “And please, no jumping either.”