Gar pulled the spear off his back and started walking, Gar’s dark vision let him see perfectly well, he had the still sap covered Bodger walking a little ways in front of him the tunnel was uneven, hard for Gar to walk on he managed though and they kept going. The tunnel went deeper into the cliff than Gar had expected, after a couple of minutes of walking the tunnel had narrowed. Gar also started noticing small tunnels about the size of a worker ants branching off every now and then. At each tunnel they would stop and Bodger would be sent down them just to make sure no ants ended up behind them. They needn’t have worried for each tunnel had been empty, all of them dead ending not far in. So Gar and Bodger kept going down the main central tunnel, Gar flinching at each water droplet or small sound.
After several minutes of cautious walking Gars dark vision stopped working everything around him showed up fine, even looking back he could see along the tunnel as usual before it faded to black, in front though was a pitch black darkness that just got closer and closer with each step. Taking one more step forwards Gar stared, the darkness in front of him seemed to writhe and ripple, it was creepy. Gar sent Bodger forwards to continue on despite the creepy darkness; Gar was going to see this through. Bodger walked forwards stepped right up to the wall of black, took the final step and bounce off. Bodger scurried back as the writhing intensified shaking the very ground Gar stood on. Gar knew he had messed up he tried to turn and run, tried to back up tried to get away in any shape or form. He couldn’t it was all he could do to remain on his feet. The shaking stopped as the ant before him, for that is what it was; stopped moving and a head came into view.
“Mega-ra ant queen level 14”
The ant was huge blocking the entire tunnel; the blackness he had been staring at had been her backside. The colossal creature was level 14 the highest thing he had ever seen. Despite him levelling up a few times recently it was still nearly four times his level, who knew how many ways it had to kill him. Gar stared into the ants face just as it stared straight back at him, the lack of light not bothering either of them. Gar stared wondering what the ant queen was thinking, those alien compound eyes and unmoving face gave nothing away it was impossible to tell.
He stood still knowing attacking was futile and fearing running would start it chasing, so instead he stood and they stared at each other. As he stared he noticed things about this ant, its mandibles where much smaller than the soldiers or the guards, despite its larger body the mandibles where similar size to a workers. The head sat at equal head height as himself, Gar suspected it was holding it at that height on purpose. With a rigid carapace the face sat perfectly still even the eyes couldn’t move compound eyes had no need to. The only movement the ant queen was making was little adjustments of its antenna back and forth up and down. The time dragged on as gar and the ant just stared at each other, at some point Gar had let the spear drop so it wasn’t held threateningly pointed at the ant, it was just loosely held in one hand.
Just when Gar was wondering if running might be worth a try, the ant started moving, it was a strange slow undulation, the ant wriggled and squirmed slowly starting to move backwards. Gar had no idea what was going on, the ant did not seem to be attacking so he just stood and waited. The ant’s wiggles and undulations kept going and it kept moving backwards, soon there was enough room to see past it. The ant had used its body to block the entrance to a large cavern, the ant kept backing up so Gar took a few hesitant steps forwards into the entrance of the larger cave. This must have been the ants home it was open with what looked like the base of stalactites cut off near the floor, near the centre of the room was a hole that looked newly dug with a view of rushing water below. To one side not far from the queen was a pile of something they looked dirty and mouldy an off white colour, it then hit Gar what they were a pile of about a dozen eggs, that all seemed to have failed.
Then there was the queen, there was finally enough room to see her completely. Her undulating wriggling movement finally made sense, she had no legs her abdomen was so large there was no way the legs would be able to lift her let alone walk even if she did have any. Gar realised she was nothing but a breeding machine she would need other ants to do everything for her; moving her, cleaning her, feeding her, hunt for her she could do none of it. Looking again Gar realised she wouldn’t even be able to fit out of the entrance to this room, realising this Gar wondered where the rest of the colony was he was in the egg chambers with the queen ant, there should be ants everywhere he started to look more closely at everything looking for signs of the ants. The ants he had killed couldn’t have been all of them could they? That was far too few for an ant colony; perhaps monster ants had smaller colonies? Gar didn’t know but for some reason he doubted it.
It didn’t matter what the reason had been it seemed this queen was the last of her colony and without the colony to support her she would die. Gar looked at the giant ant and could no longer see her as a threat. She was going to die soon no matter what he did. Gar thought he would feel happiness or relief in knowing the threat to his life was taken care of, he didn’t he felt remorse and regret in his actions of killing this colony he suspected that this colony was dyeing anyway, it had far too few members, that didn’t change the fact that he was the cause of its end.
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Gar took a few moments to examine his emotions, while he felt remorse; remorse for his actions, remorse for the colony’s death. The colony had been a threat to him, one that had been actively attacking him. While he would not seek violence he would defend himself he had taken the best course of action available to him, he would just have to live with the consequences. The queen ant seemed to no longer be paying him any attention, the ant was laying stretched out the only movement its antenna and an almost rhythmic pulsing in its abdomen. Gar waited and watched, at some point Gar sat to wait. Underground in that cave Gar had no way to tell how much time passed, after fighting and the stress of the day Gar didn’t mind sitting and waiting he didn’t even know if he was waiting for something in particular or if anything was actually going to happen at all.
The first Gar noticed of something having happened was that the queen had gone still the pulsing in the abdomen had stopped, but not only that even the queen’s antennae had gone still. Gar was unsure what to do, had the queen fallen asleep was that it was the queen ignoring him, maybe he was giving the queen too much credit maybe she wasn’t smart enough to think. For whatever reason Gar didn’t think that was true, ever so slowly Gar started to approach the queen he got closer and closer, still there was no movement not so much as a twitch of the antenna. This was starting to freak Gar out a little, nothing should be that still even in sleep there should be some little movement, there was nothing. Gar was still hesitant to get right up close so spinning his spear around he gently prodded the queen with the butt of the shaft before jumping back, still no movement from the queen. Moving forwards Gar prodded again only this time harder, as Gar jumped back there was movement from the queen, her whole body seemed to slump her head dropping to the floor her body rolling slightly to the side. The queen had died. Gar was so confused the queen was dead, how? Why? It made no sense she had been alive not long ago and seemed healthy and lively. Gar didn’t think a creature could just spontaneously die. It was as he stepped back taking the scene in as a whole that he noticed it, that something had changed. There was a white ball at the back of the queen. It took him a moment to put the pieces together; the queen had given her life to lay one more egg. Realising it was a living thing Gar activated observe.
“Mega-ra egg level N/A”
He just stared at the newly laid egg wondered why the ant queen had done this, in front of him as well. Gar thought about just leaving the queen and all the ants where dead his job was finished he didn’t need to do anything else he could just go back his day was done. The egg would die no more ants all is good or would it die could it hatch then restart the colony then he would be back where he started with a dangerous threat on his doorstep. So he should kill it, he had just been feeling sorry for the part he had played in ending the colony and with its last breath of a chance he is supposed to just snuff it out. Kill an unborn, unhatched, baby he wasn’t sure that he could do that, Gar let out an exasperated scream.
“Aaaaaaahh” he screamed until he ran out of breath, Gars guilt, anger, fear, sadness, loneliness where all churning inside of him. He didn’t have answers to questions like this he was barely keeping himself alive this was just one more thing on his plate, one more decision to make it was too much, he had thought he had been doing okay thought he had it under control this had just shown how fragile he was. He just wanted to be safe to be surrounded by friends and family to enjoy his life. He had just wanted a bit of adventure to get away from the drudgery of his daily life something new something different he hadn’t expected, hadn’t wanted, this. Gar felt stupid, was this really something to be breaking down over, he supposed it didn’t matter it was happening he couldn’t stop it. He fell to his knees in front of the egg tears streaming down his face as he just let go of his emotions stopped trying to be strong stopped trying to hold it in. Gar knelt and just let it all out he cried and sobbed and screamed he did it until there was nothing left to come out. Then he just knelt and stared at the egg that had started all this and had hardly anything to do with it. Gar reached forward and touched the egg.
He just had time to register how soft it felt before the brightest fanciest message popped up in his vision, it felt like it was shining in his face, it had fancy scroll work borders in blue white and gold
“You have found a being who’s soul resonates with your own would you like to form a familial bond”
“Yes or No”
Here he went again his emotions thrown for another loop; he had nothing left in him to give so he just held still hand still on the egg. He could almost feel the creature inside being asked the same question this was a bond of equals it could not be forced on either side. Gar did feel when the creature accepted it almost felt like someone had twanged a string drawn taught between them. It was enough to drive Gar back into action, he did not have the energy or the thought to reason out a response he just went purely on what he felt and hit yes.
Gar had expected, lights, noise, messages, there was none of that, there was just another deep twanging of the cord between them that Gar could feel in a place that felt like both his centre and the all-encompassing whole. Then it was done Gar just knew he and this little egg where bonded, not just for life but for whatever was after that as well. Gar spent a bit of time just exploring the bond, it wasn’t something he could really see or feel whilst at the same time he could always tell it was there. Gar got to his feet, it was time to leave gently he picked up the egg cradling it in one arm with his spear in the other, walking out with Bodger following at his heels.
