Finn swiped aside the graph and turned his attention back to his prototype weapon. Daniel’s help had been instrumental in creating the sawblade. While Finn had superheated the dark ore, flattened it into a disc, and then held it at temperature, the AI had attached the fragments of the serrated mandible one at a time. The process had been slow, forcing Finn to stop in between each fragment to let his mana regenerate, and the result certainly didn’t look pretty. But it didn’t need to. It just needed to work.
Which Finn now planned to test.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have enough materials to make a second disc. So, he’d only get one shot at testing this thing in action, and he needed to be careful not to destroy the makeshift sawblade.
Finn moved back across the cavern, putting as much distance between himself and the nearby ant corpse as he could while keeping it within his control range. Then he tapped out a short warning message to Julia and Kyyle. His preparations complete, he took a deep breath, and his fingers began moving.
Tendrils of flames soon wrapped the disc, growing more dense as the metal began to heat up. Finn hit heat rank 1 and kept going. He needed to be sure that the metal was held at the optimal temperature. He didn’t want to break his only prototype.
As the icon in the corner of his vision hit heat rank level 2 and the dark metal began to glow an ominous red, Finn’s fingers twitched, urging the disc to rise. It swept up into the air more slowly than its hotter counterpart, but the temperature was still more than enough to lift the dense metal.
Finn eyed the floating, flaming disk critically for a moment. This next part was going to require him to try something different. He centered his left hand while rotating his right around it, flicking his fingers rapidly. In response, the disc began to spin in place, gradually picking up speed. Yet Finn kept going, urging the metal plate to move faster and faster until the serrated ridge was a blur and a harsh whine filled the room.
Once he was ready, Finn called out to Daniel. “Highlight the ant’s weak points.”
“Of course,” Daniel chirped.
An instant later, Finn could see that the ant’s neck and the joints along its legs were now highlighted in a glowing blue. He’d had the AI perform a full body scan and analysis while he was busy, identifying a few additional ridges between the chitin that were possibly less durable. However, the primary target was the ridge just behind the ant’s head. That strike would be a killing blow since it was lined up perfectly with the ant’s brainstem.
For now, Finn just wanted to test the blade’s cutting power, so he picked out one of the larger leg joints that was easily visible at this angle – the limb already jutting up into the air.
Now, let’s see what this thing can do.
Finn directed the disc forward, and the makeshift sawblade hurtled through the air in a streak of orange and red. In less than a second, the blade carved into the ant’s leg… then through the ant’s leg. Yet it had barely slowed, and the blade soon crashed into the wall behind the corpse. Finn wasn’t prepared for the explosion that rocked the cavern as the sawblade struck the stone, blasting out a massive crater and sending shrapnel flying through the room. He dove for cover, the ground trembling below him from the force of the impact.
When he peeked out from behind a nearby boulder a moment later, he could see that a cloud of dust now obscured the ant’s body from sight, and part of the cavern wall had collapsed down onto the corpse.
“Oh shit,” Finn murmured. “That might have been too much…”
“What the hell is going on in here?!” Kyyle shouted from the mouth of a nearby tunnel. Finn spun to see his two companions standing there, glaring at him. “You said you were running an experiment – not bringing down the whole cave!”
Finn’s eyes darted between the ant’s corpse and the pair. “Uh… well, it was supposed to just be a test, but I might have put a little too much juice into it,” he offered feebly, pointing at the impact site.
Julia raised an eyebrow as she paced toward the ant. “You could at least have warned us—” she cut off abruptly, her eyes widened as she took in the damage, holding up the severed limb. The sawblade had carved a straight line through the ant’s leg, the combination of the heat, spin, and jagged mandible easily carving through the chitin. Then her gaze drifted to the nearby wall, her mouth dropping open.
“What the hell did you hit it with?” Kyyle asked in an awestruck voice.
“I built a sawblade,” Finn explained, stepping toward Julia and recasting Imbue Fire. He couldn’t actually see the blade anymore now that it was buried in the wall. Silently cursing himself, Finn whispered a prayer to the Seer that he’d be able to retrieve the blade. He had vastly underestimated the cutting power of the sawblade.
“Geez,” Kyyle muttered, shaking his head as he took in the destruction.
Finn grimaced, eyeing the wall worriedly. He had finished casting his spell, but the blade wasn’t responding, so he decided to ratchet up the heat. Maybe he just couldn’t lift the sawblade from underneath the heavy rubble.
As he hit heat rank 2, Finn urged the disc to return to him – this time much more gently even though the blade shouldn’t be spinning any longer. He let out a sigh of relief as he saw the heated sawblade drift back out of the hole in the wall, a few more rocks tumbling down as the blade jerked free. The weapon soon came to a stop in the air in front of him. The metal was dinged and scraped, but it was still serviceable. It didn’t seem that the impact had affected the mandibles at all – which were apparently almost indestructible.
“Holy shit, that’s cool,” Kyyle said in an awestruck voice as he stared at the hovering sawblade, circling it and inspecting it from each side. “So, you spin it up before attacking, I take it?”
Finn nodded, an excited grin creeping across his face now that he had determined that he hadn’t destroyed the thing he’d just spent hours building.
“I’m not sure you should encourage him,” Julia teased.
“Hey, I found a way to kill these ants!” Finn retorted, pointing at the severed leg. “It cut clean through the ant’s chitin.” He hesitated, eying the ant’s more heavily armored torso. “Although, I guess we’ll have to see how well it fares against portions of their bodies that are covered in that dark metal. It might be a bit trickier when the ant is alive, moving, and coated in flames.”
“Yeah, but it looks promising. Now we just need to figure out a way for Julia to kill some ants,” Kyyle offered.
Finn cocked his head. That was a fair point. He eyed one of the blades sheathed at Julia’s waist. “It won’t be the same as using the mandibles, but I could probably coat a couple of your knives in the dark ore. That won’t really make it any easier to cut through the ants’ armor or chitin while they have their aura active, but it might make the weapons a bit stronger and stop them from breaking in a single hit.”
Julia glanced down at her daggers. “And ruin a few more of my babies…” she muttered before letting out a sigh. “But I suppose that’s better than being completely useless. Here, you can have these,” she offered, handing Finn’s two of her older blades.
“Well, in other positive news, I’ve also completed our renovations!” Kyyle announced, waving at the adjoining tunnels. “I’ve blocked off every entrance with a few yards of rock and dirt. I also installed a tapered entrance and a pit trap in front of each barricade. Any ant that tries to burrow in here will get dropped in a hole, hopefully making it easier to take them out.”
He hesitated, grimacing slightly. “Although, getting out of the Sauna is going to be a real pain in the ass. I might need to take some time and work on making a more human-sized exit into one of the adjoining tunnels.” He rubbed at his chin. “Maybe a vertical shaft with handholds? That could make it harder for the ants to get in.”
Finn ran a hand through his hair, his mind already working through the possibilities. “Not a bad idea. If I inspect the area with my sight, I might be able to tell you where to start digging the shaft. T
here’s probably a tunnel above us that we can connect to. I figure we can use this as a base of operations and explore the tunnels slowly. That’ll give us somewhere to retreat if things get hairy.” This earned him an excited nod from the earth mage.
Julia raised a hand. “Hold up. Before you two launch into yet another project, let’s go over what I’ve been working on.” She gestured at the far wall opposite the lake of lava, where a rectangular opening had been carved in the stone. “I had Kyyle excavate a small room to store stuff – keeping it safe and tucked away.”
“Store stuff?” Finn asked.
Julia looked at him archly. “You know, like the explosives you asked me to mess around with? Or had you forgotten that little homework assignment in your excitement?”
He did vaguely recall asking her to work on the crystals…
His daughter just rolled her eyes at him and led them over to her new storage space. Finn soon saw that Kyyle had actually created an entire room, the area about ten-foot square. He’d also taken the liberty of creating recessed shelving, glowing clusters of red crystals littering their surface, arranged by size and shape.
“I scavenged most of the smaller fire crystals and separated them from the larger chunks before storing them back there. I didn’t want one of us to accidentally step on them… or use them for target practice,” she offered, looking pointedly at Finn.
Julia pointed at the gems. “We could probably create some useful tools with the crystals. Maybe more portable grenades with the smaller chunks.” She then gingerly picked up a cluster about the size of a melon. “And these monsters could be used to make something far more interesting…”
Finn just glanced at Kyyle, slightly unsettled by the gleam in his daughter’s eye.
“She has a crazy plan,” the earth mage murmured.
“It’s not crazy if it works,” Julia retorted, rounding on the pair. “I’m going to have Kyyle help me create a shaped explosive charge. If he can form walls of rock, my guess is that he can build something more intricate. Specifically, we should be able to create a small room or pocket in the walls, shaped to maximize the damage to the adjacent tunnels. Each room could have the crystals below, with a bunch of rocks suspended on a temporary platform. Kyyle could then activate the bombs by dissolving the platform and letting the debris drop on the crystals—”
“—igniting them and caving in a portion of the tunnel or cave,” Finn finished for her, nodding along with her explanation. Frankly, he was impressed. And only slightly terrified. That could offer a way to cave in the tunnels leading back into the Sauna if the ants somehow made it past the pit traps.
He glanced at his daughter. “Since when did you pick up a fascination with explosives?”
Julia shrugged. “I saw how effective those makeshift flashbang grenades you made back in the Mage Guild were, and I’ve been picking up crystals for a while… the thought just came to me. Besides, you wouldn’t believe the stuff you can find on the internet. Did you know there are tutorials on shaping explosives?” She shook her head. “Crazy.”
Finn sighed. “Great. So, your name is definitely on an FBI watchlist.”
“That’s a little insulting,” she shot back, mock glaring at him. “I’m pretty sure I’m on a few of those lists already.” At his worried expression, she raised a placating hand. “Chill, chill. I’m kidding. I made sure to cover my tracks. I’m bouncing my IP across at least a dozen other VPNs.”
Meanwhile, Finn was just rubbing at his eyes tiredly. “Besides, you shouldn’t be worrying about that,” she continued, her grin widening. “If you focus on getting more proficient with shaping that ore, I could probably have you create the casing for something much more compact – like real grenades or mines. Maybe fill them with metal pellets or shrapnel…”
“Okay, now who’s getting ahead of herself,” Kyyle teased.
“Fine, fine, I might have gotten a bit excited,” Julia said, matching his smile.
Meanwhile, Finn was surveying the storeroom and the cavern beside it. It seemed they now had a well-fortified base of operations. They also had a way to take out the ants with his sawblades, and between Kyyle’s traps and Julia’s new explosives, they likely had an easy way to escape if things went sideways – at least as long as they moved cautiously and built traps at regular intervals along the tunnels. They could mark their maps with the yellow waypoint markers to keep track of where they had set the explosives.
Which just left one thing on their to-do list.
They needed to find a way out of this shithole.
“Okay, well, let’s put the projects on hold for a bit. I think we’re ready to go explore and see what we’re really dealing with. What do you say?” Finn asked, eyeing his companions. He was anxious to give his new sawblade a real test run. Plus, if they could take out a few workers, he could harvest more materials – maybe refine his design and ensure he had more than a single prototype.
“Sound good to me,” Julia offered with a shrug.
“Yeah, me too. I wouldn’t mind getting out of this stupidly hot room for a bit,” Kyyle replied, wiping at the sweat dripping down his forehead. Then he eyed an adjacent tunnel. “I guess I just need to dig us a hole out of here.”
“Great,” Finn said quickly, his eyes gleaming as his fire mana surged through his veins. “Then let’s go hunting.”
Chapter 21 - Predatory
Bilel’s Journal – Entry 92
I have been able to replicate my test results time and time again. A limb with a damaged Najima, when exposed to mana of a specific affinity, will take on the physical characteristics of that affinity. Although this process causes some bodily injury, it is usually nothing more than minor burns or scrapes. More intriguing, I believe this result is consistent with my earlier research regarding crystals, and the development of the sight.
As I have previously concluded, some highly specific objects – such as crystals and our Najima – are capable of storing all types of mana. However, mana interacting with substances that hold a particular affinity “transform” them. For example, if a mage channeled fire mana into a crystal, it would hold the flame suspended. In contrast, if a mage channeled fire mana into sand, it would create glass.
I believe a similar process is at work when the Najima in a person’s arm is injured. Foreign mana introduced after the Najima is damaged physically alters the nature of the limb, at least momentarily. Perhaps this indicates that our bodies, absent the Najima, are inherently inert or lack any affinity at all – causing the flesh itself to attempt to absorb the mana. This would be consistent with the way a damaged limb appears almost translucent to my sight.
***
Julia leaned against the tunnel wall, her outline barely visible in the darkened passage. “There’s another worker up ahead. Similar cavern to the one where we set up camp,” she huffed, wiping the sweat from her forehead.
“I think you mean the Sauna,” Kyyle corrected her.
She just rolled her eyes at him. “Still a silly name.”
“I take it that it didn’t sense you?” Finn asked, ignoring their banter.
His daughter shrugged. “I’m guessing the answer is no, or we would be getting attacked right now. I tried to keep my body completely out of line of sight and stand near ambient fire crystals to mask my own heat signature.”
“Assuming they can detect fire mana,” Finn added.
“That seems like the most likely answer,” Kyyle offered. “They don’t have eyes, and during that last fight, the worker still seemed to know we were behind the wall.”
Finn grimaced. It was a sound theory, but he was trying to keep an open mind. So far, the ants had proven to be exceptionally well adapted to their environment. It wasn’t clear that they had discovered all their tricks. Either way, he knew they were quibbling about this issue to avoid the giant flaming ant in the room – the question that none of them really wanted to address.
“Okay, fine. I’ll say it,” Julia finally spoke up. “Ho
w are we going to handle this?”
“Well, we’ve got Finn’s sawblade now. So, we could go in guns blazing,” Kyyle suggested, although his voice didn’t carry any enthusiasm for that plan.
“Assuming it works as well on the live ants as it did on the dead one,” Finn remarked. “We blew up the crystals embedded in its armor last time, and we’ve proven now that the fire aura strengthens the metal coating across the ants’ regular exoskeleton.”
His companions both grimaced.
Running a hand through his hair, Finn glanced back in the direction of the Sauna. They weren’t too far away. Maybe a few dozen yards down an adjoining tunnel. And Kyyle had already walled off the entrance, carving a single narrow entryway about a foot wide. The group had all been forced to turn sideways to edge through the slender crack.
They could retreat to that location if they needed to.
“Okay, let’s do something similar to last time,” Finn began in a quiet voice. “Kyyle, you can dig us a pit – although, don’t worry about walling off the tunnel. If we need to, we can fall back to the Sauna.”
Kyyle gave Julia a mocking grin at the use of his nickname, which earned him a sigh. Then the earth mage set off to start building the pit, his hands weaving through the requisite gestures. Only a few moments later, the stone and dirt along the floor of the tunnel began to ripple and contort, sliding away to create a hole about eight feet wide and ten feet long.
“You want me to be bait?” Julia asked. “I could lead the ant back here.”
Finn shook his head. “No need. It was a close call last time. We can use Daniel instead. That’ll kill two birds anyway – testing our hypothesis regarding the ants’ heat detection while also avoiding unnecessary risk.”
At the mention of his name, the AI flashed into existence nearby, the light from his body pushing back at the darkness. “Yes, sir?” Daniel asked.
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