Royal Road
SomethingOtherThanRain
Re: Dragonize (LitRPG) by Kuiper
Chapter 20: Relentless
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The ground was covered with the remnants of around twenty defeated fire ants. Their crimson segmented bodies lay in tatters, splayed out and baking under the light of the morning sun. It was a sight that filled me with a sense of triumph, but that triumph was eclipsed by another feeling: hunger. Having started my day with a desperate fight for survival, and having won the privilege of living another day, I had certainly earned this meal. I began gobbling up the ants' remains, starting with the nearest ones.
I had eaten armored ants before, and I had defeated fire ants the previous day, but this morning had been my first actual face-to-face confrontation with fire ants, and thus my first chance to taste them. Well, the "taste" wasn't much to remark on: they tasted mildly acidic — while I wouldn't exactly describe the flavor as "citrusy," the closest thing I could think to compare them to was a milder lemon: sharp, tangy, and a little bit sour. Their insides were soft and chewy, and it occurred to me that whatever venom it was that made their bites sting (and inflict the "impaired" and "enfeebled" status conditions) might still be present in their body, but I didn't see any notification about negative status conditions as I continued to indulge my appetite. Whatever it was that made their bites sting, my digestive tract was apparently equipped to handle it. That came as little surprise: my digestive tract was probably filled with acidic digestive enzymes of its own built for breaking down just about anything— I was a "carrion feeder," after all, to the point where raw and rotting meat was always on the menu. Clearly, having an ants venom or acid in my stomach was a different experience than having it injected into my softer and more sensitive tissue.
The fire ants, being smaller than their armored counterparts, weren't nearly as filling, and as I lapped up the last of the ants, I could see that my [satiety] meter had risen to 40%. It somehow made the ants seem even smaller and more insignificant: an ant army of this size wasn't even enough to provide a full day's worth of calories.
That said, defeating an ant army did come with other benefits: I was now sitting at [90% progress toward next level]. If anything, this morning's events had taught me the importance of a good defense. I wasn't sure how many skill points I would need to deposit into [scales] before I gained imperviousness to ant bites, but it seemed the only reasonable thing for me to do at this point. I had won this morning's battle by an uncomfortably narrow margin. Hopefully, the fire ants had learned their lesson, or at the very least, hopefully I had thinned their ranks enough that I would have time to train before the next assault. If they could climb up onto the plateau and attack me in my sleep once, they could do it again.
Now, more than ever, I was struck by an urgent desire to become stronger. When the biggest threats to my existence had been hyenas, I at least had the plateau as a 'safe zone' where I could escape to sleep and give myself time to plan. It seemed there was no escaping from the ants. Building some kind of defensive structure to protect myself didn't seem to be an option; sadly I had not been blessed with the ability to build defensive walls or traps or anything else that might serve as protection against invaders. I had only my own scales.
Perhaps this was the curse of "power." It wasn't without its upsides: my innate defensive abilities seemed like the kind of thing no one could ever take away from me, whereas if I invested resources in building up castles or fortresses or armor or weapons, those were the kind of thing that might conceivably be stolen away if I was ever overpowered. But being limited by my own biology seemed like a pretty big handicap compared to what I was used to. Humans might not possess much in the way of innate strength, but they nonetheless managed to construct tools that could literally move mountains.
But maybe that was a little fatalistic. I scanned the area around me. True, I didn't have the ability to construct a grand castle, but this plateau was a decent bulwark of sorts: it did well enough at protecting me from most of the predators I had encountered; it was only today that I had encountered a foe that was able to (and willing to) scale the sheer sides of it to attack me where I rested. It wasn't as if the entire concept of constructing shelter was a thing that humans had a monopoly on: plenty of birds built nests, bees built hives, beavers build dams and lodges, and within this valley, there was a spider who possessed a fortress of sorts, which consisted of nothing more than a hole in the ground and their own sticky webs. Thinking of that just made me envious: a web was exactly the sort of thing that might have come in handy this morning. But while I didn't have the ability to spin webs, and I didn't have a human's dexterous hands, it would be wrong to say that I had no capacity for tool use: mere days ago I had speculated about how the rocks on this plateau might be put to practical use. The rocks were too small in size and number for me to construct a fortress out of them, but they were at least something.
Still, it seemed that at this particular moment, the best investment I could make was in myself. I was in the market for harder scales, which meant I was in the market for more skill points, and that would require more exp. But I had only [2/14] SP to get me through the rest of the day, and from the shape and direction of the shadows the sun was casting, it wasn't even noon yet. I had a desperate desire to hunt, yet at the same time, yet I also felt the importance of being frugal with the resources that were currently available to me. Given that, what was I to do? If I wanted to find out, I was probably better off exploring, rather than looking for an answer to the question inside my own head.
After licking up the last of the fire ant remains atop the plateau, I peered out over the edge, looking for any hint of moment that might indicate a creature that could serve as possible prey. My gaze started at the horizon, then I shifted my view downward, looking at the ground closer to my vantage point. I saw the movement first as the shifting of colors against rock, not even sure what I was seeing until I continued the movement across the desert floor as it approached my perch. It was a line — a thin line, but a solid line, of red. I felt my breath catch. Another wave of red ants was approaching. I couldn't even make out their individual shapes; all I had to go by was the shape and volume of their formation, but it was clearly bigger than the last group of fire ants. Scores, at the least. Maybe more than a hundred. The ants that had escaped the first time had apparently called for backup, come to finish the job, and the nearest of them were already at the base of the plateau.
I spun around, my head swiveling, spotting the rocks that I had set aside days earlier for experimentation. I dashed over to the nearest one — it was nearly the size of a bowling ball — and pushed it frantically toward the edge, sending it over. It bounced against the wall of the plateau several times on the way down, landing harmlessly between two ants. I wheeled around, looking for another rock. This one was heavier, and it took me more time — more precious seconds — to push it into place. I sent it over the edge, and it too bounced off the side of the plateau, completely missing the ants that were on their way up, and hitting the ground below, shattering into tiny fragments, which the ants seemed to ignore. In one desperate third attempt, I found a smaller rock, sent it over the edge, and it too hit the ground without hitting any of its targets. Somehow, my projectiles couldn't hit even when I was firing them in the direction of a crowd with dozens of targets. But they were small targets, and what I was doing was akin to bowling on a bumpy lane where all of the pins were half a meter apart.
My tools had failed me. Fighting wasn't an option; I could barely win a fair fight against thirty ants, and not only was this group of ants at least three times larger, I was already running low on both HP and SP from the earlier encounter. I did the only thing I could think of: flee.
I climbed down the plateau on the side opposite where the ants were climbing up. Actually, to say "climbed" down was giving me too much credit: I slid down, tail first, sliding down so fast that I was surprised not to take damage from friction burns as I slid. I needed a place to hide, somewhere safe from ants. Could they see me? Would they be able to follow me? I had no idea what the sensory capability of these ants was, but given that they had managed to find me in my sleep last night, it seemed unlikely that they were solely dependent on sight to locate me. Was it smell? Was there some place I could go that would mask my scent? My mind was awash in questions as I hurried away, moving my legs with a deliberate urgency, willing myself not to trip even as I rushed. Did they even use smell to track their prey?
My mind stopped on the word "prey." How ironic that I, a dragon — albeit a baby dragon — was now being relentlessly pursued by an army of ants, the smallest creatures that I had encountered during my time here. If living a "life of power" meant being a dragon, I could have probably picked a better life for myself. Why couldn't I have been born a hyena, with a pack to raise me and cooperate with me? Even ants had the powers of cooperation on their side, to the point where they could collectively win a fight to the death against larger creatures. Any individual ant might risk being cannon fodder, but whatever the survival rate was for ants, it seemed better than 0%, which was what my own chance of survival seemed to be rapidly approaching. Even if I had to live a life of solitude, why couldn't I have been been born a tortoise? Perhaps I could have lived that life, or something akin to it, if only I'd invested more points into [scales]. Maybe I had only myself to blame. Maybe the four days I had spent living here had all been a test that I had managed to fail.
The fire ants hadn't launched their all-out assault on me until today, the morning after I'd fumigated several of their dens — maybe I'd unknowingly committed some grave misstep by putting myself on their radar as posing an unacceptable level of danger. I was the monster from their nightmares, a predator that had invaded their home with poisonous gas, and in so doing, perhaps I had established myself as an existential threat that had to be wiped out at all costs, even if it meant sacrificing dozens of ant lives to stop me. And now it was too late for me to negotiate and try a way out.
As I continued skedaddling, I took a moment to glance behind me, and I saw that the ants were continuing their pursuit, now marching down the plateau. And they were outpacing me. Even if they weren't, even if my sprinting ability were enough to keep ahead of them, eventually I would get tired and they would catch up to me. They had inevitability on their side.
There was a thought lingering on the edge of my brain. Something about escape, or hiding, something that had passed through my mind around the time that I had started feeling sorry for myself and lamenting the fate of being born a dragon, as opposed to any of the other species I might have been born as. I'd had a thought about smell — a place where my scent might be covered up. I remembered the smell of rotting meat from before, the first time that I had found a rabbit corpse in an underground cave filled with putrid fumes. It had been a spider's den. That's what I needed right now: the ability to spin webs. Create traps. Put some kind of ensnaring barrier between the ants.
But of course. I didn't need to spin that web. It already existed. I knew where that spider's underground lair was, and if I could get past the entrance, the webs that were a mere hinderance to me might prove to be effective at completely halting the advance of any ants. Previously, I had fled the cave, fearing what lay within. But right now, it seemed like my only option, and it just might be the thing to save me.
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Royal Road
SomethingOtherThanRain
Re: Dragonize (LitRPG) by Kuiper
Chapter 21: Into the Maw
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I turned in the direction of the spider's den, ants still trailing behind me. Yesterday, I had fled the spider's den, fearing the unknown. I wasn't sure what lay within, but maybe I was better off dealing with the devil I didn't know than the devil I did, because the devil I did know consisted of a hundred angry fire ants ready to bite me to death. At least, I assumed they were angry. But maybe I was just projecting: the ants could be acting from a position of reasoned and rational self-interest. Either way, I didn't see any way of negotiating with them, so I kept scurrying away. Unfortunately, the ants behind seemed to be gaining on me, and I reluctantly began sprinting to stay ahead of them, putting me down to [1 SP] in the process.
As I arrived at the mouth to the spider's cave, I flattened myself against the ground and wriggled through the low entrance.
Once I was within the cave, I listened for movement. I presumed that the echo of the cave would give away the sound of any movement within, but as I flattened my body against the floor, the only thing I could hear was the rhythmic thumping of my own pulse. I crawled forward until I could feel the tug of cobwebs on my front claws, and reared back for a moment before leaping forward, trying to jump as deep into the mess of webs as I could. The only way this would work was if I was able to put cobwebs between me and the ants, and this seemed like the best way to do it. I landed in a thick mess of webs, and took a few slow steps forward. I moved slowly, checking over my shoulder to make sure that I wasn't destroying the webs behind me, but the webs were sticky enough that I probably couldn't have moved any faster even if I tried.
Seconds later, the ants came streaming through the cave entrance, their shapes silhouetted against the beam of light that shone through the cave's low entrance. Several of them stopped, standing hesitantly at the edge of the web, before the nearest one stepped into the web, immediately getting caught. It struggled, first attempting to go forward, then back, and with each movement it became more ensnared in the webbing, until it was completely covered, unable to do anything but flail, trapped in a section of the web.
A second ant tentatively tugged at the web in a different place and, finding its leg stuck, attempted to free itself, only to find another leg caught in the webbing. It skittered backward, futilely attempting to escape, each movement trapping it more in the webbing, until it too was completely trapped, web stuck to every part of its body.
A dozen or so remaining ants paced back-and-forth across the width of the cave, presumably looking for a spot where there might be a break in the web, but luckily the spider that called this cave "home" had done a thorough job. I noted with no small amount of relief that even the walls and ceiling of the cave were webbed up.
The group of fire ants, finding no way forward, and apparently unwilling to risk a third ant life to 'test the waters,' exited the cave the same way they had come. I was almost ready to begin reveling in victory when I saw the shadow at the cave's entrance, which still bore the shadow of several ants who remained, apparently standing watch at the cave's entrance.
So, not a victory, then, but a stalemate. They weren't pursuing me into the cave, but they were standing wait at the entrance, watching for the moment I emerged.
I waited. What could I do besides wait? Clearly, the time when the fire ants would be at their most vigilant and most ready to strike would be immediately after they had chased me here. The longer I waited, the greater the chance that their ranks would thin as more wandered off to do things more productive than stand vigilantly waiting for the moment that I emerged. Admittedly, that was a bit of an assumption on my part — there was no guarantee that ants wandering away wouldn't come back with even greater numbers to help them, as they had already showed me earlier today. But their numbers were already at the point where I was sure that I couldn't win in a fair fight: even if the hundred ants left and came back as a group of two hundred ants, I was fairly certain that I was dead either way. The only problem was that with each passing second, I grew closer to death by starvation. But at the rate I was burning calories, it would be nightfall before I reached the point of starvation. I could afford to wait a few minutes — or even a few hours — to see if things would change. Things could change. Maybe the ants were diurnal and would allow a window for escape after they all went to sleep. The only way to find out was to wait.
I moved to reorient myself to observe the entrance without having to twist my neck. The thick webbing certainly made my movement slow and difficult, but I was able to turn 180 degrees in place, and I was fairly certain that if I had to leave this tunnel, I could do it without too much effort. I wasn't trapped here, unlike the two ants who had followed me into the webbing. The privileges of greater muscle mass, I supposed. This web probably hadn't been spun by a spider who expected to ensnare dragon-sized prey. It was an unfortunate outcome for the two ants, but I wasn't about to start feeling sorry for them, not when dozens of their compatriots were waiting outside the cave to bite me to death the moment that I stepped out. If it was them or me, I certainly wasn't going to take their side.
Admittedly, I had been the one to make it an issue of "them or me." For days, I had peacefully coexisted with the fire ants — or, perhaps "coexist" was the wrong word: we had been mutually oblivious to each other's presence. It was only after I had begun fumigating their underground nests with my [poison breath] attacks and started exterminating them en masse to farm exp that things had turned ugly. If there were a way to negotiate or parley for peace, I'd certainly take it, but I didn't have the first idea about how to begin negotiations with an ant colony. Open my mouth and talk to them? On a whim, I tested the idea by opening my mouth and emitting a squawk, the closest thing I could manage to a "hello." That squawk might serve to announce "I'm here," but it probably wasn't capable of articulating the terms of a peace treaty. And of course, all of that was moot if the ants couldn't be reasoned with; they certainly didn't seem open to reason.
Then again, maybe that was my anti-ant bias talking. These ants certainly seemed capable of some level of reason: they had identified an existential threat, and coordinated a strategy for launching a strike to eliminate me before I could continue wreaking havoc on their community. Then again, a high level of cooperation didn't necessarily imply a capacity for logic or reason: ants back on earth were plenty capable of cooperating on large projects like "skeletonizing a dead animal" or "carrying the remnants of a discarded cookie back home" and somehow managed it all without much capacity for actual thought. I vaguely remembered an AP biology lecture from a teacher who had mentioned that ants had a certain number of neurons — I couldn't recall the figure, but it was in the thousands, a pittance compared to mammals — even the smallest of rodents boasted brains with billions of neurons. Ants probably couldn't even feel emotions like fear — even less reason to feel sorry for them. I was entirely open to the possibility that this might be the sort of world inhabited by sapient bugs (if they could exist in the mind of a Pixar scriptwriter, then surely sapient insects weren't beyond the imagination of a world-building goddess), but so far, the ants hadn't offered much indication of sapience.
I reflected back on my conversation with Athena, the last moments of my pre-dragon existence. I couldn't help but feel like she hadn't properly calibrated my expectations of this world based on what little she had shown me. Admittedly, it was hard to complain that I had been sold a false bill of goods — she had made no specific promises. Still, she had shown me a world where a group of people had cooperated to take down a giant monster. I had assumed that, at the very least, I would encounter fellow adventurers who might help me get a start in this world. Now, here I was, having no friends, no potential parties to strike alliances with, and not even a voice that I might use to begin a conversation even if I did manage to encounter another sapient creature. I certainly hadn't expected my life in this world to end after less than a week, trapped in a cave, waiting for the moment when I'd have to choose between starving to death and fighting an overwhelming number of critters who were ready to bite me to death.
Or, maybe this was exactly the world that Athena had promised me. She had shown me a world where a group of weaker creatures had, through coordinated effort, managed to slay a giant monster. In this scenario, I was the giant monster who had threatened the ants with extermination, and these ants were the plucky underdogs who, through cooperation and their heroic willingness to sacrifice themselves for the good of the group, seemed destined to triumph over the monster who had invaded their world, the villain of their story. Maybe the moral of the story was that it was best to be an underdog, and by choosing power, I had fallen for some kind of trap. My [kin sensitive] trait gave no indication of any other creatures of my kind in the vicinity. I was, it seemed, alone it the world. Was I destined to make an enemy of every creature I encountered? Maybe that was the mark of a true villain.
Well, if I was destined to be the villain of this story, I would do everything in my power to make it a story where the villain won.
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Royal Road
SomethingOtherThanRain
Re: Dragonize (LitRPG) by Kuiper
Chapter 22: Nightmares
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I waited for nightfall, watching the shadows of the ants standing vigilant watch at the cave's entrance. The ants, it seemed, had a rotating guard, based on the movement that I could see. Because I was facing the cave's entrance (and only source of light), it wasn't until the shadows began to grow long and then disappeared entirely that my eyes truly adjusted to the darkness.
I wasn't sure if darkness gave me any advantages, but I knew that night was when rabbits came out to play, and any attempt to leave the cave with the ants still present was risky. If I was going to take the chance, I wanted to maximize the payoff for success, and the chance to hunt rabbits seemed like a good one, considering that rabbits were by far the most appealing prey that I had encountered so far. Not only was their flesh subjectively the most delicious, but they were rich with calories. I could kill a rabbit with a single claw strike if I managed to ambush, an appealing option considering how low I was running on stamina. And, of course, rabbits didn't fight back. The ratio of payoff to risk made stalking bunnies among the most profitable past-times I could engage in.
I moved toward the entrance so slowly that the ants seemed completely oblivious to my movement. I hadn't been intending for it to be a sneak attack, exactly, but the web clinging to my belly and appendages slowed my movement enough that "slow" was the only way out of the cave, and once I realized that slow movement would leave the ants undisturbed, I maintained that pace, even after pulling myself free from the last of the cobwebs. I could make out the shape of four ants silhouetted against the moonlight that beamed through the cave's entrance, and I struck at two of them, spearing both with the same double-claw approach I had perfected that day.
Fire ant defeated! Earned 3% experience toward next level.
Fire ant defeated! Earned 3% experience toward next level.
The other two ants immediately skittered away, and I followed them out of the cave, following along more slowly as I needed to flatten myself and crawl with my belly scraping along the ground to clear the low entrance. By the time I emerged, the ants were gone. That was a good thing: I had waited for this moment in hopes of evading the scores of ants that had set upon me earlier in the day. I wasn't sure how long it would be until the two escaping ants rallied their friends to the cause of pursuing me, but I intended to make the most of this reprieve. First order of business: food in my belly. I was starting to grow dangerously hungry.
I headed toward the place I had previously encountered rabbits — perhaps it was time to start thinking of that as my "hunting grounds" — and found a small tuft of grass that seemed like an opportune place to lie in wait. I scanned the territory, looking for any sign of movement, and within a minute, spotted two rabbits, the nearest of which was perhaps 30 feet away. That was well outside my striking distance, even with an aggressive lunge, so I waited for it to get closer. I concentrated on its movements, as if being more attentive could somehow compel the rabbit to move in my direction, but the rabbit seemed completely unperturbed by my stare. That was, of course, a good thing — I wanted that rabbit to be oblivious to my presence up until the moment that I struck it dead — but it was a reminder of just how much of being an ambush predator involved lying in wait. It certainly wasn't the ideal method of hunting for someone who had lots of pent-up nervous energy, and at the moment, I had an absolute abundance of it. I had already spent most of the day waiting inside a cave.
For a moment, the rabbit seemed like it was about to start hopping in my direction, but then it stopped. Did it see me? For a moment, I had the impression that it was looking straight at me, but that wasn't exactly right: rabbits, being prey animals with a need for wide-reaching peripheral vision, had eyes on the sides of their head, which meant that if it was facing me directly, I might very well be within its blind spot. Then, it swiveled its head, and for a moment it seemed as though it was staring directly at me with one eye. I tensed up, making myself completely motionless, but the rabbit apparently didn't like what it saw, because it began hopping away in the opposite direction.
Was it actually making a retreat? Had it actually seen me, or was its movement completely random? As I debated whether to stay in place or find a new waiting spot, I felt a pincer-like grip on my tail, and I spun around to see dozens of fire ants.
I swiveled around, smacking my tail against the ground to knock the ant loose, and began fleeing. My moment of flailing had sent the one ant flying, and the ants behind it seemed to pause at the sight, which bought me precious moments to start running before they started gaining on me. Somehow, while playing ambush predator, I had been the one to get ambushed. As I ran, I remembered having a similar experience with hyenas the last time I had gone out to hunt rabbits after dark.
The ants were too numerous to fight, and this was about the worst time to fight them, as I was running low on health and stamina, and even apart from what my stat meters told me, I was growing tired. It was later than I was used to being awake, and I was tired. My alertness was clearly not at its best. Even the simple act of moving across the desert ground, carrying my weight without tripping, required effort. Still, once the ants started gaining on me, I found it in me to use the last point of SP to sprint away, staying just far ahead enough that I managed to make it back to the cave without another bite on my tail. I hoped that, once nestled safely in the cave again, I would at least find temporary reprieve, and an opportunity to sleep.
SP: 0/14
I entered the cave, arriving slightly before the horde of ants, and in the precious seconds before they descended upon me, I quickly devoured the two ants that I had killed on my way out of the cave, then as I waded through the cobwebs with some effort, I gobbled up the two ants that had gotten caught in the webs trying to pursue me. It was hardly a filling meal, but it would at least keep me from starving to death.
I situated myself in the mess of webs, facing the cave entrance so that I could see the ants as they came in and respond if they tried anything unexpected, but they didn't even bother following me past the cave entrance. I could still see the shadows of the movement outside, but they made no effort to enter my new home. That seemed as good a reason as any to finally lay my head down. There was nothing left for me to do but shut my eyes, and wait for tomorrow.
——
I was awakened by a pinch on my nose, feeling the sting of a bite right on the sensitive part near my nostril. I exhaled through my nostril, trying to blow whatever it was away, but even in my groggy state, I knew what was responsible. The fire ants wouldn't leave me alone. I opened my eyes, but the ant I had felt on my face was still there, and this time I blinked just in time to feel it attack my eyelid — a fraction of a second earlier, and it could have attacked my eye directly. I shook my head, but my movement was constrained by the sticky web — I had laid my head down on the floor of the cave, and the webs made every movement slow and difficult. Feeling yet another bite, this time on my ear, I began rolling, hoping the ant would let go, or at least get caught up in the web. A second later, the biting sensation ended.
HP: 8/27
I did my best to lift my head from the cobwebs. I struggled in helpless desperation — here I was, in the one place where I had thought I was safe from the fire ants, and somehow they had managed to pursue me. The webs that were supposed to protect me were now preventing me from even lifting my own head to see what was going on. I struggled and heaved and pushed myself off the floor with all my might until I could finally see what was going on. A foot away from me, I could see the ant that had attacked my face struggling, until it finally stopped moving.
One ant. I was now sitting at [8 HP], because of one measly fire ant. This was the second time in a row that the ants had interrupted my slumber. Would I ever have a chance to rest and recover my HP, my SP, and perhaps most importantly, my wits?
With my head finally free of the cobwebs, I could see what lay in front of me. The cave was still carpeted with cobwebs. But between me and the cave entrance, there was something on top of the webbing. It took a moment for me to realize what it was and why it looked so strange. There were slabs of rock, laid across the mess of cobwebs. While I was sleeping, the ants had somehow built a bridge, a path that allowed them to cross the sea of cobwebs without being ensnared, a bridge long enough that an ant — perhaps sent on a suicide mission — had managed to reach me and attack me.
I waited with grim anticipation, ready for the next ant to attempt to cross the rock bridge. I lifted one of my foreclaws, tearing it free from the cobwebs, and swinging with it, ready to strike any ant that stepped onto the stone in front of me. But no ant came.
I waited for several seconds. A minute. Several minutes. But no ant came.
Then, I saw movement near the cave entrance, illuminated in what little moonlight there was. Evidently, the ants were here. But, for whatever reason, they weren't striking.
Why had they bothered to create a bridge if they weren't going to pursue me? I absently bent my head down, snatching the sacrificial ant from where it lay and swallowing it, bumping my satiety up to 8%. Dangerously low. Luckily, my metabolism slowed when I was sleeping. I wouldn't starve to death during the night. And now more than ever, I desperately needed sleep. If my HP and SP had been low before, now I was completely tapped. If the ants were just going to abandon their bridge, I had no intention of leaving it standing.
I took each of the stepping stones that they had placed on top of the webbing, and flung it deep into the cave, far out of their reach. When I was done, I noticed that the stones formed a nice pile that seemed like a more comfortable perch than a bed of sticky webs, so I climbed onto the rock pile I had created, closed my eyes, and for the second time that night, allowed myself to drift off to sleep.
—-
I was awakened by a bite on my eyelid. A feeling of rage overwhelmed any sense of drowsiness I might have felt, and I swung my head. That apparently did nothing to get rid of the ant that was clinging to my face, so I placed my head in the cobwebs and rolled into the bed of cobwebs, ensuring that any ants that had been clinging to my body were now ensnared in the web.
Having freed myself, I took stock of the situation. Yet again, the ants had formed a rock bridge to reach me. And yet again, a single ant had ventured out on its own to attack me. The idea seemed ridiculous. I doubted very much that a single ant had built this bridge: for them to bring so many rocks here so quickly, it must have been a group effort, so why did only one ant attack me?
I found the ant that had been the latest to embark on a solo dragon slaying mission, and gobbled it up, bumping my satiety up to 6%. Disappointing that there was only one ant. I would have liked a larger meal.
I froze. I was now closer to starving than I had been the last time I was attacked. Maybe this was the plan. Send in ants to attack, one at a time while I slept, spending as few lives as possible with each sacrificial strike, and ensuring that I couldn't ever get a square meal out of their remains. But why pursue me? Why not wait outside for me to emerge the following morning? As soon as I asked myself that question, the answer hit me: if I got a full night's sleep, I would wake up with renewed health and stamina. But so far, I had yet to get anything close to a full night's sleep. Despite the briefest of respites, I had awoken with 0 SP. I knew from experience that less sleep resulted in less health and stamina recovery. Tonight, I might recover no HP or SP, if the ants kept their assault up like this. And what did it cost them? Nothing more than the effort of moving a few rocks, and the life of a single ant.
This was a war of attrition, and I was on the losing side of it. I was at the end of my rope. Leaving the cave wasn't an option — I would be outnumbered there, and without SP to use breath attacks, I lacked my best defensive (and offensive) tools.. And now, lying and waiting inside of this cave wasn't an option: these ants would sacrifice their own lives in an effort to bite me to death in my sleep before they allowed me to get a full night's rest. What other option did I have?
I turned around. This cave went deeper, and I had the distinct feeling that it belonged to a predator. A predator who surely outclassed me in experience and threat level. But what else could I do? Until now, I hadn't ventured very far past the cave's entrance, fearing what might lie deeper within. But right now, whatever lay within the cave at least might be less threatening than what awaited me outside of it.
Planting a claw in the cobwebs, I took a step forward. It was difficult, slow movement, as the webs grew thicker the deeper into the cave I went. My only hope was that this might be a tunnel, and with enough effort, I might see the light at the other end of it.
Class: Baby Dragon
Level: 6
Progress toward next level: 96%