No_Creative_Name
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AR Chapter 308
🕑 Added 2025-01-24 04:00:08 +0000 UTCThough I easily could have led the swarm in subjugating this next of ants, I left it to Solia and Hala and anyone else that wanted to. Before long, the damned things were flooding out of the hole that the Shandise’s absence uncovered, numbering hundreds of massive angry creatures. With the Wave and Voltaic Wolfstags’ help, though, the hunters flooded and electrified the holes that were revealed by the Shandise’s departure. The acrid smell of burning ant chitin filled my nose and I snorted it away. After the waters receded down into the tunnels, the ants didn’t reappear for a time, so I merely enjoyed the additional avenue for food.
“How do you think they feed themselves?” Asked Took as she watched many of her hunters finish off the last of the half-drowned insects.
“I’m sure that they hunt.” I replied. “We saw evidence of them draggin prey into their home at the other one. I think these ones are just unlucky and stupid.”
Took cocked her head, disagreeing but seemingly unwilling to say as much.
“Speak.”
“If there are so many of them here, and they all need to eat even half as much as a keelish their size, there wouldn’t be anything living around here.” She said, looking at the surrounding forest. Though it wasn’t teeming with life, birds and small mammals flickered through the branches all around. Looking closer, any number of signs of other creatures living nearby filled the forest.
“I think you’re right.” I said before adding, “Looking around, you can see that there’s not much of a trace of them in the trails either. Everything going through here is much taller than them.”
Took clacked her teeth in agreement. “So how do they feed themselves?”
“It has to be something underground, then.” I answered, looking more curiously at the hole where the ants lived. “Something else to discover as we build our homes here, I’m sure.”
Took clacked her teeth again and strode forward, growling a wordless command to one of the hunters. She scrambled to follow Took’s instruction, whatever it was, and I turned away, ready to find the evolution to Keel that still escaped me. The swarm had, by this point, mostly reached the city walls, though half or so remained outside the city’s bounds, relaxing in the long grass. The first of the oxfiends and all the oryxs had made their way to the same fields and grazed contentedly while the axebeaks struggled to clamber up rocks and paths obviously not well suited for their legs.
The hyenas, however, had been brought into the city to see if they would eat the ants. There wasn’t any great place for the herds to enter the city except for the section of wall that had crumbled, the one where the Shandise had left. Thus, with shrieks of disapproval and discomfort, the hyenas had been carried over the wall by Kou’Tal shepherds that somehow calmed the beasts enough to be carried in without making the several mile detour to the far side of the city. Fortunately, the hyenas, either due to appetite, hunger, or preference, happily devoured the ant corpses, their teeth crunching through chitin.
From a more long-term plan, Sybil wanted to use the herbivore herbs insatiable appetites to clear out much of the greenery we didn’t need within the bounds of the city. She was speaking with Ytte about what she could do to allow the beasts through the walls without destroying them, but I didn’t care too much about the how they would do it. Instead, I walked around the city’s ruins, taking in what little I could understand of those who came before me.
The walls that remained were different from those I’d come to expect from “civilized” people, though I supposed they shouldn’t have. A part of me still assumed that people would use the humans’ Speaking to create anything, so walls would consist of nearly whole stone, called from and solidified in the depths of the earth. Instead, these walls were carefully constructed by stacking complimentarily shaped stones on each, and possibly molded to better fit together. There was virtually no space between each rock, and I couldn’t help but marvel at the Keel’s ingenuity and competence.
So many walls still remained from hundreds of years ago, with nothing to protect and restore them, a testament to the legacy I was going to fill. And on that note…
“Nievtala, Administrator, why haven’t I evolved yet? Do I just need to Speak the Words?”
[The Administrator laughs. I suppose that is true, little fang. All that remains for your evolution is for you to Speak the True Iteration of the Words. You have already tried to do so, though, and you have yet to find success. You can try again.]
A part of me wanted to believe that was all I needed to do, but I knew that the Administrator was laughing at least partially at my expense.
“What am I missing?”
[It should be readily apparent to you what is yet missing, what you have learned and gained on your journey thus far and how what is missing fills that vacuum.]
Though I was unsure as to what a vacuum would be, I understood what she was saying. To reinforce the point, Nievtala spoke, my knees trembling at the intent behind her words.
Sacrifice of our lives.
As I held to a nearby wall and tried to keep myself steady, I was struck by how immensely powerful her presence was, greater far than I’d experienced before. Instinctually, I understood that it was because she was speaking her Words of Power. Their inextricable tie to her and her divinity and power made these four words ring around my skull and shake my entire being.
That being said, I’d gained a further understanding of four of the five Phrases of Nievtala’s Words of Power, a broadening of my perspective and thoughts and understanding. The sole Phrase that I hadn’t had an additional experience with understanding was the Second of the Words of Power–”through the tempering of the sacrifice of our lives are we complete”. It had come to me when we were escaping from the High Speakers and I’d offered a prayer to Nievtala in the hopes of escaping and surviving. We’d done both, and I was still grateful to her for that, but what further understanding did I lack?
I wanted to look around and further investigate the city, search for inspiration for me, but before I could, Joral’s voice called out to me, asking for help.
Comments
No_Creative_Name
Me too. Fun fact—it was going to be even longer. I realized that, while I thought what would be added was interesting and fun, it wasn’t the point of the story, so I cut it down.
Captain Nuclear
I didn't mind it at all, but I'm glad the exodus arc is drawing to an end. Hard to build strength, as a ruler, when your people are weak refugees
