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AR Chapter 393
🕑 Added 2025-05-22 03:49:00 +0000 UTC***
As soon as I arrived at the hole where we accessed the ants, I could see the changes. Instead of lethargic and reticent, the ants were more alert, and whenever one of my people came near, they snapped at them. There was no threat of further violence, but the insects were obviously being helped to resist or otherwise becoming immune to the influence of our Kou’Tal shepherds’ magic. I certainly hoped that it was the first, because that was something that I could do something to help with. If it was the second…
“Have you been putting the same amount of effort into calming them as you have before?” I asked as I peered over the edge of the steep hole in the ground.
“No, we’ve increased our efforts.” Joral clacked his teeth for emphasis. “There’s no firm amount that we’ve increased our output, but it’s markedly more for less effect.”
“Nievtala bless us with strength to overcome this all coming together all at once.” I grumbled more than prayed. The damned goddess wasn’t giving me any information on this, and though I could feel a mix of mirth and genuine anger at my irreverence, I couldn’t keep myself from indulging in the treatment. Strangely, I realized that I didn’t feel my “Keel pride,” as I thought of it, towards Nievtala, but I also didn’t feel any special reverence. Somehow, something inside of me saw the goddess as more of an equal than anything else. What that meant precisely, I couldn’t say, but she hadn’t struck me down so far, so I supposed it wasn’t too terrible a turn of events.
Turning my attention away from musing over divinity, I instead looked back down into the pit. The ants were moving, though slowly, and they didn't allow anything to come near the entrance into their lair. We still hadn't been able to find anything particularly meaningful in the few immensely short reconnaissance missions that’d entered their territory, and that wasn’t going to change any time soon, as far as I could tell.
“Has anyone tried to push in?” I asked, watching the Kha and Khatif skirted around the ants. The insects continued observing everyone that approached, though their aggression was muted and more warding than anything else.
“No.” Joral reported after looking at several of his people in confirmation. “It hasn’t seemed wise.”
“Fair enough.” I said as I took a deep breath and forced my scales together into their rigid, protective form. Then, without any further statement than, “Brutus, stay here”, I leapt into the center mass of ants.
They all reacted, a couple violently. Their mandibles were entirely unable to pierce my defences, and I let them bite me just a couple times before shoving them back. Each of the ants seemed to need to take a bite or two before they decided to give up, but they didn’t seem to be working themselves into a frenzy, so I decided to take that as a blessing. I merely rolled my shoulders and then, as the ants got used to me, I strode closer to the hole leading further down.
“Zaaktif!”
“No, you shouldn’t!”
A chorus of shouts rose up from behind and above me, but I paid them no mind. Instead, I merely allowed the weak ants to get their measure of me as I tried to peer into the hole. The same moment that my head appeared over the rim of the hole, a massive stone or hammer smashed into my head. I reeled as the sneak attack threatened my balance. Looking around, I didn’t see anything that could have done it, but as I was looking, I was struck again. This second time, I knew that I hadn’t taken a physical attack, and looked down into the hole again. There, I saw the culprit.
The truly massive ant there had a head unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Its eyes glowed a light blue in the darkness of the tunnel, and instead of the smooth, glossy heads of every other ant that I’d ever seen, its was dun, with a strange circle on top of its head. The circle was almost like a crown, with two points coming from it. Strangest was that it had no mandibles as far as I could see. Instead, it was twice the size of the rest of the ants, maybe three feet tall and twice as long. As I prepared myself to leap down and kill my attacker, a voice, somewhat like that of Nievtala’s, rang in my mind.
Please don’t.
Though the general feel of the voice was similar, as it was in my mind and seemingly without a distinct origin, it lacked the power and impact that Nievtala’s voice carried. Instead, it was almost childlike in comparison. As with Nievtala’s voice, which I only realized with time, it wasn’t a voice or words so much as a presence and influence of an idea.
“Why would I do that?” I asked. “You’ve tried to harm me, and you’re driving the ants nearby to disregard the influences of my people.”
Our people do not need to be guided by you as animals to the slaughter. No, we need to be protected and guided.
“Your people? The ants?”
Yes.
“Why would I do that when they’ve been nothing more than a mindless menace, attacking without communication or attempted outreach?” The hypocrisy burned my tongue as it left it, but even so, I couldn’t just allow the ants to devour my people. Beyond that, our cultivation of crops and herds was only beginning to gain strength, and if we couldn’t rely on this colony of ants to serve as the backbone of our efforts to feed ourselves, we’d lose all the progress we’d made over the spring and beginning of summer.
We are attempting outreach right now.
“You tried to kill me.”
As did you.
I ground my teeth, but it was true. “We need ants to eat to feed ourselves, and we’d been operating under the idea that your people were mindless. Are there some that are mindless that we could hunt on instead, and make a promise to leave this area right here as a location where we won’t hunt and you won’t expand?”
We all have minds.
I nearly leapt down and slew the androgynous voiced ant right that moment, but instead, I slowed myself. “Do you have enemy colonies we can turn against?”
Perhaps.
Their reticence to answer me drew my ire, but, if instead of making an enemy of this entire species, we could create a cooperative relationship of some sort, I would prefer to do that. As such, I inclined my head. Before the strange ant could retreat, though, I had something cross my mind that I wanted to say before I let the opportunity escape from me.
“I am Ashlani Indraymaf, Fahvalo of the Bloodpriestess Ana of the Wilds. I am the Zaaktif of the nation of the New Empire of the Saharliard, and this is our capital. Carry that as an explanation to whoever you must.”
Very well.
The insect seemed unimpressed, but I was impressed as the [System] gave me a notification of my own progress on the establishment of my nation.
[Declare your nation as extant to three foreign nations’ qualified representatives. Progress: 1/3]
