"Be honest with me, Mio. Do you think this tunnel is also sloping downward?"
Ackster stopped and stared down the tunnel with a contemplative and frustrated expression. After killing the ant queen and eating his fill, Ackster had started exploring the tunnels. He had started in the direction he remembered entering from. He even found a tunnel that looked familiar. But it didn't lead to the surface.
Like the other tunnels, it split up into innumerable pathways that Ackster didn't have enough bodies to explore in one lifetime.
So, instead of going down a tunnel that he couldn't be sure would lead him back to the surface, Ackster returned to the queen's room and started looking for tunnels that led upward. The surface was up. Thus, tunnels sloping upward would lead him to it. There was no need to look for the tunnel that brought him to the queen.
Besides, that tunnel appeared after the ants dug a trap for him and Karandiel, so there wasn't even any guarantee it would bring him to the land above ground again.
However, for some reason, regardless of what tunnel he entered, it always began with a downward slope.
It was like the ant nest of labyrinthine, winding, endlessly dividing tunnels was designed to keep him trapped for the rest of time. Ackster was beginning to feel hopeless.
He was stuck in an ant nest too expansive for him to explore by himself. It was darker than night everywhere except for the queen's chamber, where the stones in the ceiling gave Ackster enough light not to lose his mind. But since they were etched into the ceiling, Ackster couldn't pry any of the luminescent stones off and use them as hand-held lights.
His only sources of comfort were Mio and the unnerving sounds of the braindead ants, which had started growing on him—the sounds, not the ants. The sounds told him that he wasn't alone, which Mio also did. But they also reminded him that he had come too far to go back. There was no giving up now.
The corpses also helped him keep track of where he had been and how to find his way back to the queen's chamber. He could find his way around if he simply kept his left hand on the wall the entire time since he would just have to rub his stump against the wall on the way back.
But that became a lot more work when the tunnels split up since he could only follow the left-most tunnel. If he wanted to go to the next tunnel over, he would either have to remember where he diverged or go to the end of the first tunnel. And so far, despite resolving to do so several times, Ackster had yet to see a tunnel stop.
Usually, Ackster gave up on following a single tunnel for too long since all of them just went deeper and deeper into the ground, which he couldn't understand. Why were none of them maintaining a level altitude or leading upward?
It didn't make sense. Ackster refused to entertain the thought of the ants rebuilding the nest each and every time they went out for a hunt. The ant queen was too smart to undertake such momentous extra work each time she needed to feed.
But Ackster had no answer as to why there weren't any tunnels leading to the surface, even if he got his hands on the Stone of Wisdom, the apparent source of the ant queen's intelligence and her control over her ants. He had even checked the general's corpse to see if it had anything as well since it was clearly intelligent.
Maybe two Stones, as unlikely as it was that there would be two of them, would help Ackster figure out a solution or answer. But it seemed that the only thing the stone did, even when he was carrying it, was to make him more aware of his shortcomings.
However, that could have also been his sinking self-esteem.
And the ant general didn't have any Stones of Wisdom anywhere in its body. So, its source of intelligence was most likely inherited either from the queen or the nutrients she used to create the general.
That attempt left Ackster back at square one, and he continued exploring the tunnels with heavy steps.
But he didn't find anything or any clues that could lead him to the surface. Ready to give up, Ackster decided that he might as well just brute force his way to the surface by punching and digging through the walls with his hand and the ants' body parts. He used their mandibles and legs as pickaxes and shovels to try and dig through the hard stone.
But maybe too much time had passed, and the existential power dwelling in the ants and giving them the strength they needed to build their tunnels had faded. It didn't work well, especially when Ackster only had one hand to hold his makeshift tools with. It took ages just to get through a meter of stone.
After deciding he probably didn't have the time, patience, or food for that, Ackster packed his things. He used some sinewy things he found within the ant queen's legs that he used to make a bag after drying them.
Aclster put the box with Nold's secret technique and his Nominus card there, along with the Stone of Wisdom, and he carried the sword on his hip.
Since he couldn't go up, Ackster was going to see what was at the bottom of the nest. There had to be something there that would explain why the entire nest and all the tunnels pointed there.
Maybe if he could find it, Ackster could also find a way out. It was unlikely, but it was Ackster's best bet at the moment.
Once again resolved to follow the tunnel to the end, Ackster picked the tunnel with the sharpest downward slope and entered it, Mio still perched on his head, occasionally giving him reassuring and comforting scalp massages.