The surrounding crowds, pressed together in the square, recoil with horror as Crinis makes her presence known. The fact that she snatched up the mysterious ants rather than start munching on the helpless crowd isn't enough to completely mollify their fears. Screams and indignant cries rise as they push to create distance from me, while the kid who threw the stupid ball looks on with wide eyes before being dragged away by who I presume is his mother.
Whelp, time for me to get out of here.
"Let's get the heck out of here!" I shout to my siblings before speaking to Beyn over the mental link. [We need to leave this area. Let things calm down a bit before we come back.]
The priest readily agrees, and our convoy makes directly for the nearest wall as the crowd scrambles to make room for us to pass by. A few guards brandish their spears at us, but the ants ignore them, climbing straight up the wall and using their bodies to shove the guards to one side to create space for those behind to head straight over. Each of the ant-robed humans is picked up by a large soldier and carried over whilst clutched in mandibles. You'd think they'd be a little afraid at being gripped in the crushing jaws of powerful monsters, but instead they look almost radiantly happy. These people are just as far gone as the damned priest. There's no hope for them anymore.
I maintain my grip on the still struggling ant as Crinis holds aloft the other nineteen. It makes crawling up the wall rather difficult, the individual ants are relatively small, but holding twenty of them is no joke in terms of weight! Up and over and once more in the clear as the uproar behind us continues. Being surrounded by my fellow insects rather than the panicked citizens of this city is such a relief. Back amongst my own kind!
Those ants who'd taken apart the gates were already on their way out of the city, wasting no time in their quest to return the precious artifacts back to the nest. If we can unlock the secrets of this magic, the future of the Colony will truly know no limits! A solid contingent of soldiers and scouts go with them, guarding the precious cargo. For the rest of the ants present, the work is clear. We may have seized the gates inside the square, but there are no guarantees that there aren't more besides those that we were told of.
"Do you think all of the gates will have that distinctive mana gathering array?" Coolant asks from nearby.
Struggling to contain my wiggling captives, I take a moment to reply.
"I'm not sure," I admit, "since there's no Dungeon veins in here, the mana is much thinner than it is out in the tunnels, so it would make sense they'd need such arrays to power the gates. But we don't know enough to assume that would be the case."
The mage nods her head.
"We'll just have to manually search then."
"Wouldn't hurt to send out the mages to test the mana density around the place anyway. Never know what they might turn up."
The low concentration of mana is almost enough to cause me problems. Only by using my external mana manipulation to pull energy toward myself am I able to maintain my core.
Coolant rushes off to facilitate the search as the majority of ants turn and scurry away into the city. I remain with perhaps a thousand others to watch over the walled square where order is gradually being restored, judging by the diminishing level of noise coming over the parapet. As much I want to run to the fort in support of the Queen, the situation here just isn't stable enough that I can be confident the city defenders won't get feisty again. At the very least, this gives me a little time to interrogate my captives. Gweheheheh.
"So," I address the ant gripped in my mandibles, "I presume you're the little flickers I've been sensing lately?"
At detecting my scent, the prisoner goes limp in my grip. I wait a moment to see what will happen, but to my surprise, she doesn't respond at all.
"Hello?" I say, "are you not going to respond to me?"
Nothing. Every single ant that Crinis holds in her grip has similarly gone slack. I can sense that they are still alive, it appears as though this is their strategy to avoid my interrogation. Foolish! Do they really believe that giving me the silent treatment is going to be enough to dissuade me!?
"Let me just take a guess at something and see how you feel about it, alright?" I watch all of the captives closely as I continue my line of questioning, "let's say that after I was captured by the golgari and vanished from the Colony that the council got together and decided that having me running around doing dangerous stuff was a bit of a pain, but not something that they could control."
The very idea of the council trying to tell me what to do. Laughable! I trained them from the time they were grubs!
"So instead, they thought to themselves, 'since we can't prevent the Eldest from doing whatever they want, instead we'll try to make sure they stay safe. Why not provide some guards?' or something along those lines. Only they immediately realise that I would say no. I do not need or want a group of guards following me around, I would more likely have to protect them as opposed to them protecting me. Not to mention the appalling waste of resources that would be."
My mandibles grip the still limp ant a little tighter.
"Instead of dropping the idea there and then, like sensible ants, they thought they'd go a step further. 'If the Eldest doesn't want to be protected, but at the same time needs to be protected, why not guard them in secret!? We'll make special guards to watch over the Eldest without even letting them know!'."
Each of the twenty figures exudes a sense of martyrdom now, as if they know the jig is up.
"So, the council put into a motion a plan, probably with a stupid name like Operation Silent Shield."
Twitch.
"Really? Holy moly. So, Operation Silent Shield commences, they recruit twenty promising young hatchlings, ones who are dedicated to a fault, willing to serve in any way and give them the best training, full core evolutions and full mutations. Maybe even special evolutions?"
Twitch.
"Right. And for your last evolution, you're probably tier four, I would guess? Yes, judging by your mana, tier four. For your last evolution, you all chose some sort of advanced gland that masks your presence, from all sources. Or does it work on perception? Perhaps the Vestibule was working correctly the whole time and I filtered it out without realising? Maybe my Will stat was too high… Well? Which is it?"
I prod my captive, but she stubbornly refuses to say anything.
"Well, I suppose it doesn't matter. Even if you hadn't leapt out when you did, I would have tracked you down eventually."
I can't help but sigh. I shouldn't be surprised that the council would pull a move like this. I can't even be mad, not really. These twenty young ants represent the council worrying about me, attempting to look after my safety without letting me know. They basically used up a second council worth of resources, special cores and everything, just to look after me. I wish I could be more confident in saying it was a waste of effort, but I can't deny the run of trouble I've been getting myself into.
[Crinis, let them go please.]
[Are you sure, Master?] she huffs.
She sounds irritated that these ants were attempting to do her job.
[Yes, let them go.]
She uncoils her limbs and each of the nineteen insects she'd captured sprints away into the shadows where they disappear. It's uncanny how fast it happens. Despite not moving, I can tell that the remaining ant in my mandibles is feeling distinctly hopeful. She seems to be hanging in a more optimistic way. I just need one thing before I let her go.
"Name."
…
I give her a shake.
"Name. I'll let you go, once I get your name. They did name you, right?"
A pause.
"… Protectant."
Really?! Not that I can judge I suppose.
"Thanks for looking out for me, Protectant. I'll be having a chat with Advant later, and then with you and your sisters. Right now, we need to get back to work."
With that, I let her drop and she dashes away to join her team out of sight. As satisfying as it is to drag this little group out into the light, I have other things to worry about. As the seconds drag by, I keep thinking about the Legion fort and beyond that, what the future is going to look like for this city. The trick is, we can't leave them alone, not anymore. We know that they can build gates, what's to stop them doing it again?
A consideration for another time… and probably one that I punt to the council, let them work it out. Maybe the humans from the village can help, I don't know. Having to manage some sort of subservient city state under the control of an ant colony feels a little odd. Ah well, maybe I'll let Beyn at them, he seems to be able to sell just about anyone on the concept of ant messiahs.