When the itching finally fades away, Crinis peels herself off the walls and regroups back onto my carapace to reveal sothing I didn't expect to see. Protectant, her cover dropped without having to drag her out of the shadows for once, stands right in front of , in the centre of the room. Exposed to my senses, she wears a nervous air, as if the simple fact of been able to be seen makes her uncomfortable.
"Didn't expect to see you, Protectant. What's up?"
Her antennae twitch in surprise.
"The rest of the nest? The surface nest? The surface? About two hundred million tons of rock and soil? I don't understand the question, Eldest."
Sotis I forget the ants aren't up to speed with the lingo.
"I just an to see what's up with you. I an - forget it. Why are you out of cover? I assu you have sothing to say?"
"Where have you been?"
The question is more direct than I expected, but it's pretty much what I thought she'd say.
"Right here," I'm still not going to bow down to these babysitters.
"We couldn't see you."
"I know, that was the point of Operation Blackout."
As I announce the na of my sche I can see her antennae go crazy with barely suppressed excitent. These damn security guards are as bad as the council. They love nothing better than a truly awful plan title.
"Why did you need to hide from us?"
I can almost see her force her intrigue away in order to focus on the point at hand.
"Sotis an Eldest needs a little privacy. You'll just have to deal with it."
"It makes it hard for us to do fulfil our purpose."
"What did you think was going to happen to here in the nest? Forget it, you'll just need to cope. We're heading out to do so grinding deeper in the strata now. I want to make sure you and your team keep levelling and progressing your mutations. You can't protect from anything if you're too weak."
"We'll keep ten on you at all tis," she says sullenly.
They hate the idea of getting stronger for so reason.
"That's fine. The others should probably hunt in teams of five, or ten depending on the level of the opponents. Let's move."
Tiny is the first to move, leaping to his feet from where he sat at the entrance to the chamber, his muscles bunching with excitent as he does his little gorilla boxing shuffle, throwing mini-punches into the air. The ape is pumped up and ready to fight. In fact, even Invidia has allowed his Cheshire cat grin to appear. Seems like the whole crew is ready to rumble.
Who am I to deny them? We speed out of our chamber and race through the nest, taking the fastest route through the mighty gates (still being reinforced) and taking new paths deeper into the strata. It's hard to move too quickly in the second strata, what with poisonous little barbs attached to almost everything we see. By now we've beco far more comfortable traversing the tunnels and we need less breaks to heal Tiny after he stumbles into sothing else that wants to kill him.
In this way, we make solid progress as we descend, clearing out tunnels and stripping them bare of Biomass. The pure black mana pulses from the walls, filling the air like tar. I swear that it's getting thicker. Is there going to be another wave soon? Sohow I get the feeling it'll be harder to deal with this ti, exposed to the second strata, and the third beneath it as we are now. If we can master the technique that Rylleh used to push the Dungeon veins out of their territory, we'll manage to survive it much better, I should ask how we're progressing with that the next ti I get a chance.
For now, I don't need to focus on that. There's only , my pets, my babysitters, and the need to smash as many monsters in as short as possible a ti fra. We need dat sweet, sweet experience! Elental constructs whizzing with mana, I step forward and unleash all the mana I have into our foes as we press forward. Slowly but surely, the levels co.
In the third strata.
"Do you know what we're going up against?" Myrrin asked her friend.
Morrelia frowned and resisted the urge to spit.
"No," she said sourly, "the old man loves his secrets. Aside from the fact we're in the third strata, I don't even know where we are. I don't think anyone does. The commander is keeping his cards close to his chest."
The two remained standing to attention along with their full Legion as they awaited permission to exit the citadel they had arrived in. Even though the Runic Armour shielded them from the elents, the searing heat scalded their skin and the taste of ash filled their mouths. Morrelia had never been in the third strata before, and she wasn't particularly enjoying it now. That was understatent. She'd barely seen any of the place, and she hated it.
The Legion was thoroughly drilled, to the point that when the commander strode back into the hall in which they waited, not a one of them moved. But the tension in the air certainly raised a few notches.
"Finally," Morrelia muttered as she strode forward with her fellow guards.
Her centurion, a grizzled veteran nad Pompeus, shot her a dark look and she sighed internally, knowing that she'd get another grilling. She wished he wouldn't waste his ti, she'd done everything she could think of to get thrown off this duty, but Titus wasn't having it. She had too much respect for the Legion to keep pushing the boundaries and fallen into line, but a few muttered complaints were inevitable in this situation.
"We've got our marching orders," the commander told them, "form up the troops for an address, we move out in an hour."
Imdiately, auxiliaries were sent running to inform the centurions as Morrelia and her comrades fell into line behind the commander. She spotted Myrrin in the crowd and rolled her eyes which caused the younger woman to stifle a laugh behind her visor.
In a matter of monts, things were ready and a thousand heavily armoured, heavily ard mbers of the Abyssal Legion looked to their commander expectantly. Titus wasted no ti.
"Legionnaires. Welco to the first deploynt of our newly ford Legion. We have many old faces from Liria, new recruits from around Pangera and a smattering of veterans from the deep world. I welco you all."
He paused to stare at them for a mont and each soldier t his eye with firm resolve.
"We've not had long to acclimate, only a few weeks. Like most units, the real work of forging us into a cohesive whole will be done in the fires of battle. We have been deployed to the Plains of Lang, directly beneath old Liria. During the last wave, the local kingdoms were annihilated by a monster uprising, though there are several Dungeon communities that still stand."
Morrelia felt her stomach twist when she realised where they were. The ruins of Liria, the horrific army of the beast Garralosh. These were not pleasant mories for her.
"It appears as though the Dungeon hasn't done enough damage here. We've been called in by allies in the Empire of Stone to deal with a local infestation. A colony of ants has taken hold of the area, several months old and from what understand, has evolved in a fairly unique way. We will reach the engagent zone in three days, at which ti we will launch a cooperative assault with our allies. Our goal is the complete and total extermination of the colony. Not a single insect is to survive the purge. Understood?"
A thousand fists crashed into a thousand chest plates. Morrelia followed suit, but felt numb on the inside. The Colony? She was here to kill the Colony?! Anthony?
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