Finn hesitated near the entrance to the tunnel. “Daniel,” he whispered, and the AI suddenly flashed back into existence.
“Oh, fantastic,” Daniel muttered when he saw the room.
“We need you to—”
“Act as bait once you’re in position. I know the drill by now,” the AI interjected in a weary voice. Finn arched an eyebrow. Clearly, they were all getting tired – surly pubescent AIs included.
“Okay, but keep an eye on the ant with crystals along its back,” Finn urged him. “One wrong move, and we might blow up part of the tunnel. We also don’t have eyes on most of the room since the terrain is uneven. Identify and highlight any new threats.”
“That’s unhelpfully vague,” Daniel retorted.
“Best I can do,” Finn offered with a shrug. “Give us 60 seconds and then make the first pull.”
“Yes, sir,” the AI replied in a resigned voice.
Finn rejoined his teammates behind a new pit that Kyyle had carved in the floor. Tugging a few of the sawblades from his belt, Finn set them on the ground carefully, creating a rough line. He had more in his pack, but he tried to keep at least a handful accessible.
“This is my favorite part,” Julia offered, sarcasm practically dripping from her voice as she leaned casually against a nearby wall. “I get to sit here and do nothing.”
“Assuming everything goes to plan, yeah,” Finn replied. He glanced at her with a grin. “Think of it as free power-leveling.”
That earned him a faintly amused snort.
They all quieted as they felt the first tremor. One ant was bad enough, their heavy bodies cracking the stone floor as they ran. Six, however, were enough to set the entire tunnel trembling, dust cascading away from the walls. Within only an instant, Daniel’s glowing form came rocketing into the tunnel.
“Multiple enemies incoming!” the AI shouted.
That was Finn’s signal to start casting, his fingers darting through the gestures of Imbue Fire. A blade drifted up and into the air, hovering in place as he swiftly turned up the heat. He limited his channel to a single sawblade to conserve mana. This was going to be a long fight.
One of the ants rounded the corner and came into view, its body awash in flame. Finn launched his first sawblade. Daniel had supplied a convenient blue target along the ant’s spine at the base of its head. With a few twitches of his fingers, the sawblade struck its mark. The ant stumbled, and its head dropped to the floor before it neared the pit. Its now-headless body listed into the nearby wall, shaving off chunks of rock.
“One down, a thousand more to go,” Julia muttered from beside him, her fingers lingering at the hilts of her blades but unable to offer any help.
Let’s just hope it stays this easy, Finn thought.
He was already beginning to ignite another sawblade when he heard a harsh rumble and glanced up sharply at the fallen ant.
Something slammed into the corpse with incredible force, plowing the decapitated body forward until it hit the edge of the pit and tumbled over the side. The worker ant’s body soon crashed against the bottom of the chasm, causing debris to jet upward into the air and briefly obscure the tunnel from view. Finn expected a second crash to follow as the next ant barreled over the edge after the corpse.
Yet the sound never came.
Instead, he detected a faint orange glow amid the dust.
“What the hell is—?”
He never got a chance to finish. A massive ball of flame rocketed through the air toward the group, melting the debris that lingered through the tunnel. Julia swiftly shoved Finn to the side, his shoulder smashing into the side of the tunnel as his daughter used the opposing force to shove herself back against the opposite wall.
Her quick thinking barely saved them.
The Fireball rushed past, and the air practically sizzled from the heat before the molten sphere crashed into the ground, creating a swell of flame that seared the dirt and stone black. On its heels was a small shock wave – the combined speed and force of the blast sending out a blast of compressed air that shot dust back down the tunnel and shoved the group into the tunnel walls.
“What the hell was that?” Kyyle shouted, his voice sounding muted with the way that Finn’s ears were ringing. Julia grabbed the earth mage and hauled him to his feet as Finn retook his own.
“New enemy detected,” Daniel reported belatedly.
Finn followed the telltale blue glow, his mouth opening in surprise.
An ant stood on the other side of the pit, waiting calmly on the ledge instead of charging blindly. This creature looked strange – almost deformed. The ant’s head was even larger than a normal worker’s, spanning nearly four feet across and stretching outward into an armored, obsidian semi-circle. Even more strangely, small clusters of fire crystals were embedded at regular intervals around the armored ring.
Fire Ant Soldier – Level ???
Health – Unknown
Mana – Unknown
Equipment – Unknown
Resistances – Unknown
As Finn looked on, the crystals around the soldier’s head began to glow brightly, streamers of flames arcing away from the gems and connecting in the center of the disc. A ball of fire was forming there, growing rapidly in size.
Oh, shit. It can shoot Fireballs.
“Daniel, scan the new ant and then highlight a weak point for me,” Finn shouted. The AI promptly dove forward, circling the ant as it began to analyze its armor.
Meanwhile, Finn’s hands were a blur as he brought a second sawblade online and then ratcheted the temperature up to heat rank level 2. However, he was going to need a few precious seconds to bring both weapons up to speed…
Time that he didn’t have as he saw the ant’s Fireball condensing.
Glancing at Kyyle, Finn saw the earth mage had already anticipated the problem, emerald tendrils of energy winding around his staff. The rock and stone in front of them began to liquefy, a thin wall of earth drifting up into the air. A second, curved barrier then formed along the ground behind it. Julia shoved both mages into this little pocket, forcing them to their knees as they struggled to maintain their spells.
It wasn’t a moment too soon.
A blast of fire exploded against Kyyle’s first makeshift wall, blowing apart the rock in a shower of fragments that cascaded back through the tunnel. Flames soon followed, billowing outward around the rock. The debris and flames struck the second curved barrier, rushing up and over the obstacle instead of breaking it apart. Meanwhile, Julia pressed their heads down, hovering protectively above them.
As the heat receded, Julia yanked Finn back to his feet. He spared a glance at her, but his hands never stopped moving. His daughter’s face was bloody, stone shrapnel having cut a line across her cheek.
But he couldn’t focus on that right now.
“Weak point detected,” Daniel shouted.
Finn glanced back at the soldier and saw a single small blue target outlined behind its massive head. However, there was no way in hell that he was going to be able to angle his blade around the massive shield. The slightest movement on the creature’s part, and it would send the sawblade rebounding off its armor and flying uselessly into the tunnel wall. More blue spots then dotted the insect’s legs, highlighting extremely slender chinks along its joints.
Is this entire fucking ant covered in metal? Finn thought.
Yet he didn’t see many options. A killing blow was out of the question. Finn could try to hit the gems around the soldier’s head, but they were small and moving. He also couldn’t be sure that taking out one or two gems would be enough to stop its ability to cast the Fireballs. He could hit a leg, which seemed like it was better than nothing – already the ant was charging another Fireball…
He needed to do something. Now.
So Finn launched the sawblade.
The world seemed to slow, and Finn’s fingers twitched, tugging the blade under the soldier’s domed head. With its velocity, he didn’t
have time to angle it back up toward the ant’s neck, but that wasn’t his target.
Instead, the blade tore into the joint in the ant’s foreleg, just barely hitting the narrow target. The disc sliced through the limb, but Finn wasn’t done. The blade kept going, and he adjusted its course slightly. It had lost speed, but it would have to be enough.
The sawblade struck the ant’s second leg on the same side. Finn missed the mark slightly this time, but it managed to cut into the reinforced metal. The disc carved through the limb – if only barely – before crashing into the floor with its remaining momentum, now only a mangled hunk of metal.
Damn, this thing’s armor must be thicker, Finn thought.
He held his breath as he watched the soldier. The ant stumbled and then listed to the side, smashing into the wall as it lost its balance. The next Fireball went wide and struck the ground in front of the fire ant soldier, blasting out a sizable crater. That was enough for the ledge to begin to crumble and give way, sloping down into Kyyle’s pit and pulling the soldier with it – the ant’s remaining legs struggling vainly to push itself backward.
Try shooting at us now, asshole.
Although he didn’t have long to celebrate.
Suddenly, the entire tunnel shook violently, an explosive blast of fire, rock, and compressed air detonating just to the side of the pit. Finn and his companions were tossed against the hard-stone wall. Debris and rocks rained from the ceiling, dust billowing outward and creating a dense cloud.
Finn groaned as he began to recover. He was on his knees, his vision obscured by dust, the air so thick with dirt that it was making it difficult to breathe. He tugged his robe up and over his mouth to try to filter the air before glancing at his UI. They were all still alive but badly shaken.
What the hell was that?
With his normal sight limited, Finn squeezed his worthless eyes shut and murmured a single word. “Mashhad.”
The world was suddenly illuminated in varying shades of orange and green, reflecting the ambient rock and heat that now littered the tunnel. Finn followed the orange streamers back to their source – only for his brow to furrow in confusion at what he witnessed.
A massive glowing red-and-orange sphere now rested alongside the tunnel, dramatically widening the narrow passage, and carving a second opening into the nearby cavern. It looked like something had blasted through the cavern wall…
Even as he looked on, a form charged forward through the new makeshift tunnel entrance. It was another ant, but this one glowed with an almost-blinding orange light, jagged columns of heat lancing into the air along its back. Finn had seen that shape before, the other workers piling crystals onto another ant’s back. Had one of those ants caused that explosion?
Daniel confirmed his suspicions a moment later. “New enemy detected.” The AI soon illuminated this creature in a blue outline.
Finn inspected the ant.
Fire Ant Exploder – Level ???
Health – Unknown
Mana – Unknown
Equipment – Unknown
Resistances – Unknown
His thoughts were racing. Maybe the ants weren’t mining the crystals, after all. As the name implied, these ants must intentionally detonate the crystals along their backs. That would likely kill the ant itself – Finn certainly saw no evidence of the first exploder’s remains in the tunnel – but the second ant that was charging them seemed to have little regard for its own wellbeing. It shuffled forward recklessly, the crystals swaying from side to side and nearly colliding with the nearby wall.
To make matters worse, the first explosion had created a second opening into the tunnel, and Finn could make out more of the ants beginning to charge from behind the incoming exploder even as more barreled through the tunnel’s original entrance. He counted at least nine before he gave up…
There was only one option left.
“Retreat!” Finn shouted. He stumbled to his feet, dropping his Mana Sight at the same time. He soon caught sight of Julia and Kyyle farther down the tunnel, Julia half-carrying the earth mage – blood running down from his hairline.
Finn jogged up to them. “Kyyle!” he shouted.
The mage’s eyes were glazed and distant, but his health was still at about 50%. He must still be shell-shocked from the explosion.
Finn smacked him. “Kyyle!”
His eyes suddenly snapped back into focus.
“We need you to detonate the tunnel. Can you do that?”
Kyyle stared at him for a second and then nodded feebly.
“Good. Count to ten, then blow it!”
“Can you run on your own?” Julia asked Finn, eyeing him breathlessly. Finn just nodded. He was in rough shape, but more than capable of getting the hell out of there.
His daughter then shoved the earth mage’s staff back into his hand. Without asking for Kyyle’s permission, she lifted him up and over her shoulder and started jogging down the tunnel, Finn following close behind her.
They moved as fast as they could as the ground trembled below them – signaling that the ants were in hot pursuit. Finn struggled to cast his Magma Armor, soon feeling the warm energy curl up his arms and shoulders. Yet it felt frail against what he knew was coming.
“Get down,” Kyyle croaked, green streamers of energy curling around his hand.
That was the last warning they had before the entire world erupted.
A series of torrential explosions rocked the tunnel behind them – the mines Kyyle had embedded in the walls detonating in sequence as the mage crushed the urns manually. Flames and stone rocketed through the air, and the tunnel lurched as the ceiling finally gave way, hundreds of tons of earth crashing downward with tremendous force. The ants on their heels were soon buried under an avalanche of stone, the rock crushing their bodies and smashing them apart.
The blast wave launched the group further down the tunnel, and Finn felt himself crash into a nearby wall, his molten armor tearing against the stone. Then his head struck a stone outcropping… and the world went dark.
Chapter 23 - Brittle
Bilel’s Journal – Entry 97
Rumors have begun to circulate among the other mages that I have been conducting so-called “dangerous experiments,” which has made it difficult to find new test subjects. I even had an acolyte from the Seer’s temple come to investigate my laboratory today, although Renquist turned her away, rightfully pointing out that the temple has no authority here. Typical religious meddling. I’m not certain why the guild leadership permits such involvement from the temples.
However, I do know how the complaints arose. The damage to the Najima is not always reversible, nor is it painless. Many of my volunteers have either refused to have the obstructing material removed once the procedure was explained or have balked midway through. Yet, of course, I am at fault for their own decisions. I clearly outlined the risks in advance. It seems ambition can sometimes outpace prudence, particularly in those unwilling to accept the cost of progress.
It is no matter. If the other mages will not help me, then I will proceed on my own. I do not need their assistance to study the way my own body processes mana.
***
An hour later, the group stumbled into the Sauna. Weary, blood-drenched, and exhausted, they slumped down on a clump of boulders near the back of the room, putting some space between themselves and the miniature lake of lava.
“I never thought I’d be happy to see this place again,” Kyyle grunted, dropping onto the floor, and facing the ceiling. He idly rubbed at his face, his hand coming away with a mixture of dirt, sweat, and half-dried blood.
“Home sweet hellhole…” Julia murmured.
Finn was only half listening as he rubbed at the lump on the side of his head, mentally replaying their last fight.
It seemed their guess had been largely accurate. The workers appeared to be scouts for the main colony. They were expendable creatures that could be used to explore the Abyss and hunt for deposits of minera
ls and crystals. The soldiers and exploders must then reinforce larger nodes or hub caverns in the network of tunnels and caves. Judging from the way they had seen ants placing the crystals on the back of another, Finn’s guess was that the more dangerous species were actually manufactured variants of the base ant workers.
You toss an absurd number of fire crystals on a worker, and it becomes an exploder.
And you double (or triple?) dip a worker in molten ore like some sort of insect-candle, and it probably came out as one of the soldiers.
Not that this revelation helped them much. They had barely managed to get away with their lives. The only upside was that the cave-in had worked perfectly, dropping a few dozen feet and a couple hundred tons of rock down into that tunnel. The remaining exploders on the other end had tried to break through, but the blasts had been distant and chaotic. Apparently, the ants had difficulty picking up the group’s mana signature through the mixture of rubble and ambient heat from the explosions.
A small blessing.
Either way, that whole encounter was a loss. They had lost materials, sawblades, and, more importantly, time. Finn rubbed at his eyes, feeling a familiar weight sink in his stomach. He glanced at the UI in the corner of his vision. They were moving too slowly. Each second that ticked by likely had their competition that much closer to the vault.
And Finn moving one step further away from Rachael.
“You alright?” Julia asked quietly. When Finn glanced at her, he saw concern shining in her eyes, despite the blood and sweat that still dotted her face.
He barked out a harsh laugh. “No. Not really. We’re trapped down here behind an army of mutant ants who can now apparently launch Fireballs and kamikaze into us while strapped with explosive crystals.”
“You forgot the part where they are all higher levels than us, outnumber us by at least 100 to 1, and I’m pretty much positive we’re sitting in the middle of their colony… oh, and we still haven’t found a path farther up into the Abyss,” Kyyle offered from his prone position on the floor, checking off each point on his fingertips.
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