The chamber was empty, save for an antenna ant standing by the exit he'd yet to scout. The creature's soul structure revealed that it was calling out to other ants. Flickering Soul-sense, Caen shot it in the head twice.

  He could hear chittering further down that passageway, but Zeris and Guinevere had taken the first one he'd scouted. Zeris's rifle rang out a few times.

  Quickly, Caen put his sword between his teeth, then grabbed a blanket from the ground. He took out a vial from his belt bag. Uncorking it, he slathered the compound on the blanket, even as he ran toward Zeris and Guinevere.

  He fished out a wheel lighter from another pouch and set one corner of the blanket ablaze. He put his sword to the flame, heating it.

  Up ahead, the ants were swarming Guinevere and Zeris from both sides. Some were running along the walls. Guinevere's black sword was dancing with lightning. Zeris, backing her, was flicking concussive fireballs while shooting ants off the walls with her rifle. They were doing their best to keep the creatures off.

  Caen flung the blanket to the side, and the whole thing went up in startling flames, filling the air with the sharp tang of a chymical solution.

  Some ants turned away from Guinevere and began chittering vehemently. They flung themselves towards Caen. He activated the spell he'd precast earlier and met the ants with his sword. Connecting and disconnecting so quickly from each one that he disrupted their empowered bodies just long enough for his weapon to cleave through. He moved more viciously than he ever had with the ants, holding nothing back. The Body-enhancement spell made him faster for a short period.

  A new and smaller swarm came up from behind him. He dodged, slashed, hacked, got cut in turn, and was sprayed with their caustic acid. An ant jumped on him from high on the wall. Caen disrupted its enhancement and cut through its abdomen.

  He pushed his way towards Guinevere. She would let out a blast of lightning occasionally to strike at ants crawling on the wall towards Zeris. She was swift, sharp, and deadly, but also injured and favoring her right leg.

  Caen took out his gun again and shot at an antenna ant down the passageway just by the entrance to the chamber they'd been in. He hit it in the head, but it scuttled back into the chamber.

  He met up with the others, and they finished off the last of the ants together. Zeris leaned on her rifle, panting. There were cuts all over her arms and face. She was covered in green caustic glob, just like they all were, though Caen had his armor and helmet. The roots above had started to writhe.

  “No more splitting the group,” Zeris said between pants.

  Caen glanced behind him, catching his breath too. “There's one of those ants back there that calls out to other ones.”

  Guinevere was eyeing the surrounding roots. "Let's move."

  They went back to the chamber together, killing a couple of ants that rushed out at them. The antenna ant was in the middle of the chamber, and several ants were moving past it. Caen let Guinevere move in to handle them and shot the antenna ant twice in the head.

  “We need to move,” he said, once Guinevere had finished off the others. They went down a different passageway, knowing the roots would already be feeding on corpses.

  They walked for hours, killing ants and moving as they did, because of the roots. Caen took out vials containing a solution with a very acrid odor and kept breaking them behind the group, hoping it would deter whatever was tracking them. Those antenna ants had proven to have very sharp senses, and while he couldn’t tell whether it was related to smell, this was as good a precaution as any.

  He'd needed to cast the sleep abeyance spell on all of them. Twice on himself, though.

  They'd stopped at all three chambers they passed long enough for Zeris to check the root-portals. None had been active so far. Guinevere seemed quiet and very withdrawn, which made sense to Caen. This entire ordeal was bleak. He'd told them about his conversation with Hshnol. But knowing that people were out there looking for them didn't do much to change their current situation.

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  They stopped to rest at the fourth chamber they found. Caen marked the ground here, too.

  * * *

  They ate rations with much less moderation than they had so far, while also refilling their mana reserves.

  Caen had healed as much as he could without using up too much of his mana. Most of the burns remained on their skins, but he'd needed to prioritize. Deep wounds and gashes had been taken care of, along with his abdomen, specifically the site of his former bullet wound, which was hurting something fierce. Caen had tried to avoid excessive injuries: his lack of passive augmentations would get him killed if he weren't careful enough.

  A very dim lamp wrapped in cloth to further dim its light sat by the root-portal.

  “I have a bloodline,” Guinevere said.

  Caen watched her as he ate. He'd noticed her Dream-guarding affinity earlier and had even recently Mimicked it a couple of times. After that ant ambush, he'd noticed her Dream-guarding affinity growing prominent in her soul structure very often. “Is it a Dream-guarding bloodline?”

  Guinevere blinked. “How do you…”

  Caen shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

  “That doesn't—” Guinevere shook her head. “To answer your question, yes. It's a Dream-guarding bloodline. I usually don't share this with just anyone, but I think we need it.”

  “Am I the only one not understanding what she's talking about?” Zeris asked Caen around a mouthful of dried meat.

  “I can share my bloodline,” she said. “But you're going to have to…” she winced, “accept it.”

  She had Caen's full attention immediately. But instead of explaining, she closed her eyes.

  Caen felt a pressure on his… mind. Something moved in his soul structure. And he felt the sensation of… not quite a connection.

  [Hello, it's me. Guinevere.] She waved at them.

  “Ancestors' bits!” Zeris swore.

  If Caen's eyes had been open, he'd have blinked in shock. “By the Eye!”

  [Think words at me,] Guinevere sent.

  [I want your spatial artifact really, really bad.]

  Caen looked at Zeris, smiling. Oh, so this was one of those. [How does it work?] he sent. [We share our thoughts with each other, as a group?] Vai had had a phase last year where he'd allowed everyone who visited his mansion to participate in a general telepathic link. It quickly grew into a mess, but Caen had enjoyed every moment of it.

  [Yes, something like that,] Guinevere said. [It's just the three of us, though. And it takes some getting used to. It's always general; whatever you think towards this link is heard by all of us. It's always active.]

  [What's the range like?] Caen asked.

  [Uh… I think we'll be fine on that front.]

  Caen was even more impressed.

  * * *

  They didn't get to rest nearly long enough before another antenna ant found them. They killed a small swarm, cut through another blocking their path in the passageway, and settled in yet another rounded chamber. Guinevere's bloodline made it so much easier for them to coordinate. Then it was more of the same: kill ants, leave the vicinity because of roots, rinse and repeat. The next few hours saw them moving around a lot.

  They stopped at passageways a few times for Caen to heal them and cast sleep abeyance. Every moment they weren't fighting was spent finding yet another rounded chamber to rest in while Caen Mimicked the trees via their roots. Besides inspecting the root-portals with her spatial acuity, Zeris had taken to sketching a map of their route so far. Long, winding passageways opening into rounded chambers or low-ceilinged cuboid ones.

  They kept looking out for signs of a tunnel exit that led above ground, but found none. It reminded Caen of how there'd been very few holes in the ground when he'd escorted that Delver team with Sh'kteiro.

  The ants didn't seem to have any need for the holes besides coming out to protect the awakened trees. But where had the holes come from? Had the ants… burrowed out onto the surface? He hadn't initially considered the possibility that there might be tunnel systems in the Plane without any holes.

  This had caused him to try casting a modifier-assisted paralysis spell on a tree's branches. He was dozens of feet below ground level, and just couldn't bridge that distance with anything he had. He didn't even know of any Blood-healing spells that could account for that much distance.

  None of this boded well for them escaping or being found by Sh'kteiro and the others.