Gar stepped back and sat down. It was still raining and he was soaked, until he had dealt with the ants he couldn’t let his guard down. He had the badgers watching the edge, each time an ant would pop up one of them would charge it and knock it off, and it was working and the ants coming up slowed down. Gar didn’t think the same tactic would work if another solider ant showed up unfortunately. Taking the few minutes this brought him Gar inspected were the acid hit him, the area around his waist and left hip was painful and had come up in a dark blue colour, Gar tried some movements and stretches finding he could still move despite it hurting like hell, fortunately it seemed the movement didn’t make anything worse. The rain had long since washed it clean from where he was rubbing it on the ground and any remaining acid. He was as good as he could be so turned his mind to what he would do next, for the moment the ants were more interested in his waste pile with only a few climbing up to his ledge, what would happen once they had dug through the whole pile? He did not know would they turn all there force in his direction? It was obvious he needed a solution before then.
Gar looked around to assess what he had to use. The badgers were still near the edge knocking off the occasional ant, then he noticed his barrels particularly the one full of slumbering vine sap, he also still had about half the rotten meat. The pieces where coming together in Gars mind for a plan, he needed to work quickly before another solider showed up. He grabbed his cup rushed to the barrel, slid the lid aside and scooped out some sap, then pulled a piece of meat off the rack. With cup and meat in hand he stood five meters from the edge and commanded the badgers to allow the next ant to come up. Gar allowed the ant worker to fully pull itself onto the plateau, dipping the meat in the cup of sap being careful to not get any on his fingers. Gar then threw the meat so that it landed just in front of the ant. The ants’ reaction to the meat was immediate, it moved forwards picked up the piece of meat and started eating it, Gar hadn’t known how effective the sap would be or even if it would work at all. He needn’t have worried, before the ant had even finished the piece of meat it slumped to the ground and remained still.
This was just in time as Gar saw B3 slam into the next ant pulling itself over the edge only this time instead of knocking the ant off B3 bounced back as the large solider ant pulled itself up. To make it worse before B3 could regain its footing a flick of the large ants leg sent B3 hurtling over the edge to crash down onto the ground below. Gar wanted to scream, wanted to rush down and check on B3, he couldn’t he held it in, he left Bodger watching for more ants and had B1 and B2 come to assist him with the solider ant. The problem was Gar had forgotten he wasn’t holding his spear that had been left on the ground where he sat down, in his hand instead was the cup of slumbering vine sap. From the way its antennae waggled and it turned towards him Gar was pretty sure the solider ant could smell the sap. The ant charged at him, he had B1 and B2 try to get its attention, the ant just continued on. B1 latched onto a leg while B2 was knocked away the ant didn’t take any notice of either of them it just continued on at Gar. That was not how the ants had previously acted; the seconds it took Gar to work out what was causing the change almost cost him dearly.
The Cup of sap in his hand that was what the ant was fixated on, at the last moment as the mandibles hit him Gar threw the sap cup and all into the ants face. The ant ignored Gar lying on the floor and started trying to get at the sweet smelling sap that was all over its face. Gar just lay there frozen he’d had B1 and B2 back off not wanting to distract the ant from the sap, slowly Gar dragged himself back he was sore all over from the hit and the fall. Once far enough away he got to his feet continuing to back up until he could pick up his spear, then he just stood and watched the solider ant. It took a couple of minutes, during which Gar sent B1 to go help Bodger knock off any workers, before the solider had managed to get enough sap in its mouth before it too slumped over still, much like the worker. With B2 by his side Gar slowly approached the ant, he had B2 nudge the sleeping ant he got no response then standing to the side and back a bit he had B2 bite on one of its legs, still no response. Satisfied the ant was out, Gar approached, he couldn’t leave it like this he had no idea how long it would be out, having not received experience it definitely wasn’t dead. Lining his spear up he brought it back then brought it down hard at the back of the ants head, it cut in but not that deep, and it took three more swings before he got the message.
“You have killed a level 5 Mega-ra ant solider 13 experience awarded”
Then still one more swing to sever the head completely, he had B2 finish off the first sleeping worker.
“You have killed a level 2 mega-ra ant worker 3 experience awarded”
Gar left the bodies where they laid moving over to the edge to look down; no more soldiers appeared to be climbing so he had a bit of time. Looking around he saw where B3 lay unmoving, while there was still a connection it wasn’t the same as normal it was weak and Gar couldn’t give any orders through it. He wanted to go check on it see if he could help out, but before he could do that he needed to deal with the ants, if he was to go down there he would simply be overwhelmed by the number of ants. He took some time to set himself up. Bodger, B1 and B2 took care of the workers climbing up while Gar gathered the rotten meat in a pile at the top of the cliff above his waste pile then set a bucket of slumbering vine sap on the ground next to it. This time he also made sure his spear was right next to him just in case.
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Gar took the first couple of pieces of rotting meat dipped them in the sap then chucked them over the edge such that they landed near the edge of the cluster of ants on the waste pile. Ants froze then turned practically as one towards the bits of meat then they all moved, not giving them a chance to look for where it came from Gar started dropping coated meat all around the ants. Gar saw for the first time the ants descend into a chaotic mess, soldiers where bullying smaller workers out of the way to be first to get to the pieces of meat, he even saw ants grabbing meat out of slumbering ants mandibles. He kept the meat spread out so no one ant got it all or was able to hoard it for itself, he made sure to drop several bits near the base of the cliff getting some ants that had started to climb to turn around. He was getting through the meat he had fast, fortunately the ants didn’t seem to need much to be knocked out and other ants seemed happy to take any they hadn’t finished. The last few pieces where practically thrown directly at the ants that weren’t asleep or at a few of the injured ants that had been knocked down since Gar had started throwing the coated meat. Gar mopped up the last of the sap he had in the bucket with the last of the meat, there were no more moving ants he could see so he threw it as far along the path where he had seen the ants coming and going.
Gar watched for a few minutes to make sure there were no more ants coming he would have much preferred to wait longer to check, however he was unsure of B3’s condition and he had no idea how long the ants would be out, time was not on his side. He gathered the badgers and a new bucket of sap, taking the time to carry it all down the ladder. Setting off with bucket in one hand spear in the other the badgers spread out around him. Making his way round the base of his platform towards the Cenote walls where the ants and his waste pile were, the couple of minutes it took that the ants where out of site worried Gar. What if the ants were all waking up just as they got there? He needn’t have worried the first ant they came to was one of the ones knocked down and injured, so was further out than the others, it was still out cold. Gar kept moving leaving a badger to finish it off then catch up; this repeated itself several more times as they continuously made their way to the main collection of ants. He saw them all laid out in front of him asleep and unmoving, even so they were not his focus, he lost all caution and ran to B3, the badger skeleton lay where it fell obviously having landed on its feet as all four legs where broken with a couple more cracks in its hips and ribs, Gar had the other badgers spread out around Gar as he inspected B3.
B3 (Skeletal puppet badger)
The skeleton of a badger animated by Gar through the use of the basic death magic spell skeletal puppet, improved by the self-taught arcana achievement, slightly smarter and tougher than normal.
Uses: Puppet
Quality: Great
Rarity: Common
Durability: 58/200
That fall had taken nearly three quarters of its durability it was useful information but didn’t tell him what he could do about it. He activated mana site then tried casting skeletal puppet on B3 to no effect there was a flicker of movement in his mana then nothing, looking over B3 the mana stream connecting them seemed thinner than normal defiantly thinner than the ones to the others. Gar knew the skeletal puppets weren’t living they didn’t think or feel, it didn’t matter to him though as they were all he had they were his life line, his hope, losing one so soon after getting them would crush him they were all that were keeping him going at this point as much as he had tried to avoid that he would be lying to himself to say otherwise. B3 seemed stable and unlikely to deteriorate, right there was not the time or place to treat it with the ants where still asleep close by. Carefully B3 was loaded into Gars backpack.
Moving on Gar considered just going back up onto his platform he had B3 back and could just leave the ant to wake up. He hardened his mind-set if he let them wake up the ants would just go straight back to attacking him, they were a threat, while he had the perfect opportunity to minimise that threat he may not be bloodthirsty but he could not afford to be stupid. B1 and B2 where sent off to start eliminating the unconscious worker ants while Gar kept Bodger at his side. Before going to deal with ants Gar walked a bit along the path the ants had been taken, not far and still within easy site of the unconscious ants, then placed his sap bucket down, he hoped this would deal with any more ants that showed up. Then he started moving among the unconscious ants, he left the workers to the badgers, the soldiers where his, the badgers didn’t have the equipment to get through the solider ants tough carapace. So Gar dealt with them, the most efficient method he found was shoving his spear into one of their eyes then leaning on it to drive it deeper until the creature died. While effective it was messy the ant’s ichor/blood splashed everywhere when the spear was pulled out. His spear was slick with it coating a good section of the shaft and running down while he himself was covered in splatter. He killed eight soldiers while not bothering to count how many worker death messages he received particularly once he levelled up.
“Level up you are now level 4”
“As a gargoyle you gain 1 point to constitution, 1 point to strength and 1 point to perception along with 3 free attribute points per level up. You may also choose a skill to advance a level.”
