After everyone had calmed down again, Mark and the others began explaining everything they had learned so far to the new arrivals. It took some time, but once they were all caught up, everyone began planning out what they needed to do.
It was Alima who spoke up first, "I want to train my core density. My talent will be very useful in the battle ahead, but I don't have enough mana to use it freely."
"Can we ask about your talent?" Ruby asked, her interest peaked when it was mentioned to be useful in battle.
"Sure, it's called Debuff. I can apply a broad range of debuffs on my targets. Along with that, my subclass is Trapper and it gave me a skill called Attractor. I can use mana to make a trap that attracts monsters." Alima slowly explained as she scrolled through her system interface.
"Wow, you weren't kidding! That's incredibly useful..." Mark said, a surprised look lingering on his face as he added her abilities into his plans.
"What about you Mark? You should have one too, right?" Alima asked, clearly interested in the talents of others as she had a sparkle in her eye.
"My ability isn't directly useful in combat, and I can't use it as freely as you, but it is pretty cool." Mark stated as he puffed his chest a bit.
"It's called Life Bestow. It lets me bring inanimate objects to life. Ah, my subclass is warrior." After he finished, the new arrivals were all silent, simply leaving their mouths agape as they stared at him.
"B...bring things to life?"
"Like what?"
"Can they think?"
"Is it permanent?"
...
Soon Mark was berated with a plethora of questions as he tried his best to answer each. Rick found it quite the amusing show as he simply stood to the side laughing, while Ruby tried to help Mark break up the crowd.
After some time, everyone returned to their seats and calmed down, leaving Mark sitting there with a strange expression as he looked at everyone. "I know it's a cool ability, but dang guys, you really went crazy for a bit..."
"Do you not know how amazing that is?! You gave life to a sword. It can think, fight, grow... It's unbelievable." Rich, one of the new human arrivals began.
"I mean my talent just lets me control flames on my fists. Your ability is in a whole different class." Rich sighed, as he flicked a flame around in his hands.
"I don't like to think like that. I go with the motto of it's how you use it. I mean just some ideas off the top of my head are training your flames to be hotter, or maybe being able to control the shape of them at some point, or have you tested if your body has more resistance to fire now?" Mark began trying to soothe the hurt ego of his new ally as he quickly came up with a few ideas.
It seemed to work as Rich perked up and smiled, looking at Mark with appreciation. "You know what, you're right! It's how you use it. Thanks man."
Mark nodded, and looked to everyone present, before speaking up once again. "I think for the next couple days, I'll be working with Jor to lay out webs along the floors around base. Her talent makes her webs drain the health, mana, and stamina of enemies and feeds it to allies. Rick, do you think you can find a way to use the iron ore from the dungeon as a sort of blockade while we do that? I can't think of anything else that we could use."
"I don't know kid, they'll probably just try crawling over the piles, right?" Rick questioned Mark's reasoning as he thought of the ant's behavior.
"That might have worked before, but the ore piles will be unstable without support and their bodies are much larger now. Hopefully when they try that, the piles will collapse and crush some of them."
"Alima, how long do your traps last after you make them?" Mark questioned as Alima lifted her head confidently, replying clearly.
"They last about a day, if they aren't triggered. I can set them up before the fight happens if we have a scout keeping watch on their movements." She said after thinking for a moment.
"Great idea, can one of the combat teams handle keeping an eye out then? We don't need you getting close and alerting them so it should be relatively safe." Mark asked as he looked out to the team captains present.
"We'll do it." Max, the incubus team leader said as he gave a thumbs up.
"Alright, thank you. Everyone else, sorry, but we'll need a lot of dungeon runs to get all the ores needed for the piles. Logistics team members, I want you guys heading out to get absolutely anything that can be used for a blockade. Chairs, desks, corpses, leave nothing behind." Mark gave out his final bit of orders as Ruby looked at him confused.
"Corpses? They won't do much good for blocking the ants with the amount we can get."
"They aren't for blocking anything. It's bait in case Alima runs out of mana, or something happens to her." Mark stated flatly as everyone looked at Alima.
"Pretty blatant, but he isn't wrong. It's good to have backup plans." Alima shrugged, as she silently changed her opinion on Mark a little bit. After all, he was around the same age as her, and yet, had such an air of authority when things got serious that it took her by surprise.
"Alright, I'm off to work. You guys should finish up and head out too; we're on a time crunch." Mark stood up, collected Jor, and headed out to begin laying his plans.
"That guy really does have a different personality when matters get serious. Feels a little off putting, but I don't hate it." Jack, the elf with a sword said as he watched Mark's back.
"You get used to it pretty fast. He was raised by a military father alone, so that side comes out of him when he's serious." Rick laughed, reminiscing about his first days with Mark as he gave a nod and headed out.
Ruby spoke up next. "Follow me, I'll show you to the mana crystals and explain how to use them. It's pretty easy, but it took a bit of trial and error to find out how. Definitely easier to be taught."
...
As everyone at base was preparing for the upcoming battle, deep underground, beneath the airport, a large cavern was being formed. Thousands of ants were crawling around, carrying out their duties. Bodies of monsters being stored or broken apart, eggs being cared for, tunnels being dug.
As she watched all of her workers, the ant queen sat on her throne and released pheromones to order her colony. Ever since she had gained intelligence the queen began wishing for more.
Once upon a time, her only goal was to keep the colony alive, but now she wished to thrive. She had cleared all of the threats her children could handle on the surface. Now she planned to conquer the strange building that sat upon it.
When she succeeded she would begin to spread out and claim the areas around her domain as well. Grand plans of an ant utopia surfaced in her mind as she clinked her mandibles in pleasure.
An all you could eat buffet awaited her colony on the surface, and she planned to take every last bite.