Dan silently cursed himself as he sneaked closer to the collapsed wall that served as the entrance to the ant hive. Nora had said that the ants were big, but he didn’t ask any questions. At some point, he found himself agreeing to strike the first blow against the hive before falling back to where the rest of the party was hiding in a more defensible position. At least the area around the hive was illuminated by bioluminescent lichen. Dan couldn’t even imagine trying to handle this sort of scouting mission in the dark.
He stared angrily at the horse-sized ant as it stood next to the collapsed wall. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting when Nora said that there would be “hundreds to thousands of big ants.” Maybe ants the size of a cat or a golden retriever. Something challenging but manageable. He wasn’t really sure where the girl got her optimism from, but he certainly didn’t share it. God, even its mandibles were as big as his sword.
In his head, Sam mocked him again for his indecision and cowardice. Every time he came upon a situation with risk or pain, he always looked for excuses or worried himself into inaction. The only time he had really leapt into the unknown and taken a risk was when he swallowed the mana crystals, and that had unlocked a whole suite of new possibilities for him.
Sure, that ant could probably dismember him if he wasn’t careful, but it also represented possibilities. Nora seemed convinced that there would be more silver ore in the mine, and the ant was sure to have mana. The mana in Dan’s core bubbled in response to his thoughts. Unbidden, a phantom of the euphoria he felt when absorbing mana rumbled through his body.
He gritted his teeth. That was the plan: focus on the good he would get out of this. The ant hive wasn’t just a danger zone filled with chitin-covered monsters. It was a fountain of mana for him to absorb and grow stronger. Dan licked his lips briefly. He was crouched in an alcove only ten feet from the ant standing guard. Before he could think about what he was doing, he extended his left hand toward the ant and whispered ‘Flame Jet.’
The streamer of red flame reached out and struck the unsuspecting ant in the thorax. Immediately, it began chittering angrily, swinging its mandibled head back and forth, searching for its assailant. Granting its wish, Dan stepped out into the open and unleashed another Flame Jet, blinding the ant temporarily with the burning flash of light. Already, the hollowness brought on by mana deprivation wore on him. Dan ignored it, instead stepping forward and swinging his sword at the ant.
With a clatter and spray of sparks, the ant deflected the blow into the air, leaving little more than a deep scratch on the ant’s armored face. Dan grimaced and sprinted for the fall back position before the ant completely recovered from his spell. The next attempt would have to focus on a joint or other crack in the ant’s armor. It didn’t seem like brute force was going to get through its thick chitin.
Behind him, an incensed chittering echoed along with the rapid clicking of the ant’s legs as they impacted the stone floor of the tunnel. Well, at least Dan’s actions had earned the ant’s attention. Possibly too much attention. He probably should have realized that a large creature with six legs would be able to outpace him fairly rapidly. Firing an unaimed Flame Jet behind him to distract it, Dan was rewarded by a loud thud as the partially-blinded ant crashed into an obstacle of some sort. It was unlikely that the collision severely hurt it, but it served Dan’s purpose and bought him enough time to round the corner where Andrea, Emily, and Nora were hiding.
It rounded the corner after him, only to meet Emily’s greatsword. With a flash, one of the ant’s legs fell twitching to the ground, and it slewed to the side, off-balance with only five legs. Andrea stepped forward and brought her maul down on its thorax. Although the blow didn’t immediately finish the ant, an audible breaking sounded.
He could easily make out a web of cracks on the creature’s back as the force of the blow slammed it into the ground. Almost without thinking, he stepped forward and shoved his hand into the shattered hole in the ant’s chitin and unleashed a Flame Jet. Briefly, their side chamber flashed with light. The ant let out a deep, thrumming wail as the spell boiled its insides.
For a second, everyone held their position with bated breath as they eyed the prone and writhing ant. Then, Dan stumbled backward as the flow of mana from the dead creature washed over him. His eyes fluttered and closed as unrefined pleasure wrapped him in a warm blanket. For a brief moment, he didn’t care about the risks of their raid on the mine or the danger that Earth was. All that existed was the mana flowing freely into him.
The flow of magic cut off, and his eyes opened. Dan shivered in the pervasive chill of the cave as he squinted his eyes against the dark. The rest of the party stood around the felled ant. It didn’t look like any of them had noticed his moment of weakness. Idly, Nora reached out with a booted foot and prodded the creature.
“Could you have found another way, Dan?” she asked unhappily. “You know I have enhanced senses from my class, and now this entire place smells awful.”
“Sorry Ms. Nora,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “I should have put more thought into how to fight the armored death beast that we had temporarily incapacitated. I’m sure it would have stayed in the same spot if we asked nicely while we tried to figure out a way to kill it.”
“There’s no need to get smart.” Nora glared at him while she plugged her nose with her free hand. “This seriously smells like you burnt garbage that someone left out in the sun for a week. Next time, just put a sword through the weak spot on its armor and don’t assault my poor nose.”
“Are we done bickering yet?” Emily interjected as she sheathed her sword. “If we’re going to raid the hive, we’ve eliminated its guard and now is the time to do so. If we’re going to slink away into the night, now is the time to do so as well, before the hive notices its guard is missing. Either way, we need to act quickly, because I don’t think we want to fight more than a handful of these things at once.”
Dan nodded grudgingly. Her point was sound. They had a narrow window to sneak into the hive and try to escape with some silver. Arguing over how bad the half-melted ant smelled wasn’t a productive pursuit, even if it did smell positively rancid to his unenhanced senses.
“Fine, I’ve mostly recovered my mana, anyway,” Dan replied, trying to keep any hint of a sulking tone from his voice.
“Didn’t you just cast that flame spell twice?” Andrea asked, her brow furrowed. “I don’t know what your reserves look like or how much that spell uses, but that seems awfully fast. I mean, I don’t want to sit around here smelling burning armpit any longer than we have to, but I also don’t want us to rush into combat with a mana-depleted mage.”
“I’m not completely back to normal.” Dan shrugged. “But there was a bit of a run here. I’ve always found that physical exertion helps me recover mana. Plus, it’ll be at least a couple minutes before we run into anything new. Plenty of time for me to top off completely.”
In the gloom, he made out all three of the women shooting him startled looks. He winced internally. Shit. Sam had said that his method of awakening had greatly increased his rate of mana regeneration, but he just didn’t have any frame of reference. Apparently, being ready to fight again ten to fifteen minutes after he used magic was a bit attention-grabbing. He’d just been so excited at the prospect of fighting and siphoning mana again that he hadn’t even thought of the repercussions for revealing his abilities. In the future, he’d have to find a way to hide his regeneration or otherwise downplay it.
“Come on, the ants aren’t going to kill themselves!” He exclaimed quickly, a hint of panic in his voice as he began power walking back towards the hive. After a second or two, the rest of the party followed him. Internally, he kept swearing at himself. Nora believed his stories so far, but if he kept showing unbelievable abilities, she was sure to suspect him eventually.
Sneaking into the hive itself was surprisingly easy now that the guard was gone. The ants were big enough that the tunnels they carved easily accommodated even Andrea and Emily. Occasionally, Nora would grab the back of his armor, and they would duck into a side tunnel to avoid working ants. As they searched chamber by chamber, looking for a collection of ore, tension began to build. It was only a matter of time before their luck would run out, but despite that, they just couldn’t find anything of value. Every doorway seemed to lead to nothing more than a room full of eggs, food, or a half-completed passageway.
Then, they turned a corner and found themselves a mere five feet from another ant. Both sides stood in silence for a moment before bursting into action. An arrow bounced off of the ant’s thick chitin as Dan unleashed a Flame Jet into its mandibles in an attempt to buy time for Emily and Andrea to draw their weapons.
Detecting increase in Fire Affinity. Fire Affinity is now 3.
Flame Jet is now 2.
Dan blinked away the notifications. While the increases in efficiency would certainly help, he knew from experience that low-level skills and affinities would grow much quicker than his more developed ones.
Then, the ant clumsily lunged forward and he hopped back to dodge it, having no real faith in his ability to parry the ant’s mandibles with a sword. Unfortunately, Nora was standing right behind him with her bow, and Dan crashed directly into her, bringing both of them to the ground in a tangle of interconnected limbs as her nocked arrow flew off into the dark. Before the ant could capitalize on their misfortune, Andrea stepped past them and took the creature in the side of its head with a horizontal swing. Blinded by the flames from Dan’s spell searing its soft eyes, it didn’t even dodge. The maul cracked the fire-weakened chitin of the ant’s head, staggering it.
Dan tried to stand up, only to run into Nora once again as she had the same idea. He fell backward, and the stone wall behind him knocked the wind out of him through the chain of his armor. He grimaced in sympathy as she took a similar spill, but with armor much less fit to handle the impact.
Andrea swung her maul again, and this time the ant’s head cracked like a melon. Dan bit his lip and hissed in pleasure as the mana poured into him. The pain in his back faded into a distant memory as ripples of euphoria flooded through him. This time, they ended much more quickly. He grunted in dissatisfaction. It was probably because he landed the killing blow last time, rather than distracting it while Andrea finished it off. Mentally, he made a note to try and land the final blow on the next monster. After all, the more mana he absorbed, the closer he was to helping Earth. He shuddered once more as an aftershock from the pleasure washed through him.
Mana influx detected. Recalculating Spirit.
Spirit is now 5.
“I knew you liked me, Dan, but that was a bit much!” Nora exclaimed cheerfully as she pulled herself to her feet. “Usually when I end up in a sweaty pile of limbs with a guy I just met, I make him buy me dinner first.”
He shook his head to dismiss the System notifications, ignoring the slightest hint of vertigo from his earlier concussion. As he opened his mouth to respond, Nora kept speaking.
“I guess that just means you owe me dinner, then!” She nodded authoritatively. “We should also work on your situational awareness. You’re an alright fighter, but it’s pretty clear you’ve never really fought as a team before. It’s one thing for you to run into me, but I really want us to nip this problem in the bud before you accidentally set one of us on fire.”
Dan scowled slightly as Emily and Andrea began nodding empathetically in agreement. He had some control over the Flame Jets now, but ultimately the spell involved accelerating combustible gases through a flame to ignite them. Accuracy was more of a direction he pointed it in than anything pinpoint. In short, they might be right, but that didn’t mean they had to be so enthusiastic about it.
“Fine, once we get back to the surface, I’ll…” his dry response was cut off by the clatter of hundreds of legs rushing towards them from both directions. Deep in his lungs, the angry, low-pitched hum throbbed as soundwaves too low to register pulsed through the air.
“Shit!” Emily spat on the ground. “I think we just woke up the entire hive. I vote that we keep Daniel in front until he runs out of mana. I really don’t want to end up blackened and crispy if I can help it.”
Simultaneously, the rest of the party stepped back, leaving an entire tunnel to him. Dan glared balefully back at them, trying to ignore their good-natured chuckling while he drew his sword. It was time to see how useful an extra point in spirit, fire, and Flame Jet actually were.
