Jangin couldn’t help but notice that the Prober who’d projected the alert was further away from the leading edge of the bore than he was. Despite the Resonance being accessible to every able seedfolk, the Probers had mastered its nuances to an exceptionally higher degree. Their methods were beyond his understanding.

The worm handlers beat their batons against the stone wall, alerting the well-trained pestle worm of its master’s demand for attention.

Not that he could tell, but the worm gazed at them with numerous tiny eyes positioned along its flank and rear, completely indistinguishable from the crystalline blue exoskeleton that its posterior was comprised of.

Now observing them, it received the visual command conveyed by their practiced waving, and promptly stopped its burrowing, awaiting further cues.

Jangin stood where he was because he knew he would receive his orders soon enough. The Prober who’d made the discovery ran out from the long bore and returned with more of his kind after fifteen minutes. They immediately set to work spatially mapping any concealed tunnels they had yet to tap into.

Following them at a more casual pace was a mage and one of the commanders of the operation; a friendly old Impeller.

The Impeller said simply, “Everyone besides the Probers and worm handlers, come with me. It’s nearly time.”

Departing alongside the builders, engineers, rakers, and his fellow drafted soldiers, Jangin noticed that the mage and two of his magically trained peers stayed behind, presumably to protect the remaining workers in their stead.

After a grueling ten-minute march, or disorderly sprint through the muck, if he was being completely honest, they arrived back at the outpost.

Arrayed around the entrance of the tunnel was a loose formation of every healthy soldier from the Inside. Around four hundred and fifty after the losses already suffered.

Even Finnikin was present, which told Jangin that the draft had included everyone available to fight. It seems they weren’t taking any risks; so far, the imposter’s handler had proven to be more cunning than they’d expected.

He aimlessly joined his friend in the group. Organization wasn’t expected of them yet.

“So, Finn, I guess you’ll be joining us after all?”

“Not by choice, everyone has been called here. Why, they’ve even invested many of the dedicated laborers. What astounds me is that they’ve done this before we have a beachhead in the imposter. They’re nervous, and that has me scared.”

“What’re we doing out here and not inside the bore, anyway?”

“For starters, the Probers have to finish mapping out the chamber they’d discovered. After that, they’ll redirect their heading to properly intersect it if it isn’t already aligned. This is also assuming they won’t just continue on their way. Though I think that’s unlikely. The engineers say we’re very near to the heart as is. Besides, if we keep wasting our time, the attrition will only accumulate.”

“So, if we’re not ready to breach the imposter’s territory yet, why have we already been recalled,” Jangin asked Finn.

“That, I could not tell you. I wondered the same thing.”

Just as Jangin was about to ask his friend another question, another one of the commanders whom he was less familiar with projected to the crowd and said, “Attention!” Everyone stood up straight but made no effort to establish a real formation. “The invasion will begin shortly! Depending on factors beyond our control, we will breach its territory somewhere between ten minutes to an hour from now. Due to this uncertainty, you are to remain on guard, its hordes could spill out at any time!”

Just as he was preparing to step down from the already rotting stump of a tower-cap which had been felled a little over a week ago, he added, “Fighting the imposter’s beasts within the confines of the tunnel would be foolish. We will wait for them to come out and meet us. Archers will draw upon my command but fire at individual targets and the Impellers will take point according to their section head’s orders. As for everyone else, remain attentive, but stay behind the line unless openings form.

Jangin really wanted to comfort his nervous friend, but he had to remain quiet as only ‘important’ speech was permitted right now.

--------------------

The worm patiently watched its masters.

Seemingly finished with their work, the Probers all exited the bore, occasionally passing by bricked up barriers obscuring the infested tunnels they’d crossed along the way.

The worm waited.

A messenger arrived and spoke to the mage and the worm handlers.

The worm’s masters garnered its attention with a staccato round of hits to the tunnel’s wall with their green-painted iron batons. Without waiting, they launched into a flurry of signaling which it could comprehend.

The worm knew what to do.

Every last seedfolk evacuated the bore, leaving only the worm behind with its orders.

After waiting a few moments, it extended its bristled nubs, though it had no intention of exiting the tunnel. Without slurry rakers to help extract its tailings, progress would be significantly slower, not that it cared. The pestle worm happily anticipated the feeling that was soon to come.

As it’d done countless times in its life, it sprayed eight concentric pressurized jets of mana infused water at the marred stone wall before its camouflaged grey head. Immediately after, it lanced out with its four reinforced mandible-clubs to bludgeon the stone surface, priming the poorly understood arcana which facilitated its digging ability.

Next, the worm extended its shard-encrusted radula and abraded the forward tunnel face, casting aside viscous gobs of mana-charged slurry with quick flicks of its erosive tongue. Without rakers present to push it into the water stream still pouring onto the worm’s back straight from the hastily constructed wooden aqueduct, the tailings accumulated at the side of its body.

Once the narrow gap between the worm’s great girth and the tunnels outer edge became so packed that it could no longer proceed forward, it began to undulate its bristles.

The ripples conveyed the thickened slurry along its body, where it was deposited behind the worm. Driven forward by the counteracting force, the worm progressed in the direction it’d been pointed towards.

To the worm, very little was as soothing as the feeling of substrate passing by its body while it burrowed. It would’ve felt even better if it’d been limestone instead of this distasteful decalcified igneous rock, but the worm didn’t bother to consider such things.

Progressing much slower than usual thanks to the extra effort it had to expend in order to force the growing mass of waste backward, the worm pressed onwards. If it’d been up to it, the worm would’ve backed out long ago to clear the debris from its burrow.

The worm knew better, though, for it was smart. It had its orders.

…

The aqueduct had long-since been crushed by the pressure of the worm’s tailings which hadn’t been cleared from the tunnel as they had been before.

The worm was starting to get dehydrated.

It took comfort in the knowledge that its masters would attend to its needs, so it loyally continued.

…

The pestle worm blindly pressed on; it had no way of detecting hollow cavities in the stone as that was an ability which served no use to its kind. Many species burrowed through the crust in search of food or other resources, but this was not the case for a pestle worm. Their survival strategy revolved around excavating a hidden burrow from which to ambush prey passing by high-traffic chokepoints.

Pestle worms were not exploratory miners.

Eventually, the wall in front of its head gave out, exposing the titanic semi-mineraloid being to a foggy room dominated by cyan vegetation, with colorful flowers and fruiting bodies abounding from every available surface.

The worm was instructed to kill ‘anything that moves’ upon its entry, but all was still.

Not knowing what to do, it settled down and waited for its masters.

Unfortunately, it’d be receiving no further instructions. Without warning, a large boulder was dislodged from the ceiling and plummeted downwards, straight onto the stationary worm’s camouflaged stone-like head.

With a loud crunch that overshadowed the sounds of the wildlife who called the room home, the beast’s head was shattered to pieces. Its body did not madly flail as one would have expected, for its motor processing was neatly confined to its cranial ‘brain,’ if such a comparison could be made.

Transparent ‘blood’ gushed from the mangled head and seeped out of the pestle worm’s sheared neck. Different colors of ‘blood’ originating from separate capillaries formed a blanket of microcrystalline ‘snow’ wherever it landed.

Though no one was present to hear it, a generic voice reverberated through the distant mind of an excited being.

--------------------

They waited for an hour, yet no beasts came out from the new opening.

Not keen on waiting any longer, the command to march in was relayed to everyone.

The Impellers took the lead, forming two ranks of men. The ones facing the front carried each a sword and shield, and were further fitted with a hodgepodge of bronze and iron scale armor. Behind them, the second rank of impellers wore similar scale armor but lacked shields. Instead, they wielded long two-handed halberds which extended far enough to reach between the shields of the men in front of them.

Seedfolk were primarily spear users. Even the Impellers were more used to them. The front line had been equipped with swords due to the swarming nature of their current foes, which was a departure from the norm. Normally, a seedfolk would find itself most at risk from large beasts, therefore, spears and halberds alone were good for keeping them at a distance. The giant ants were too small to make this strategy effective; coming in at sizes anywhere between that of a tarantula or a rabbit.

Jangin was towards the rear, along with Finnikin. They each held a spear, as that was the only large weapon of war they knew how to effectively wield, to say nothing of the fact that there were no other weapon types left to go around. Every Feeder, Jangin and Finnikin included, owned a layered leather tunic, to protect them from indirect attacks of claw and tooth. Many other Feeders also carried wood and iron crossbows of foreign make, along with quivers of bolts, imported primarily from the Varnassi Hegemony.

Every other non-combat individual was protected by them. Their purpose was to port supplies, mostly food, in woven baskets strapped to their backs. They also employed what few equonapsids they had at their disposal. They were large, fat herbivorous lizard-like creatures with tiny heads, stocky legs held vertically underneath their bodies to support their weight, and barrel-like bodies. The horse-sized grey-scaled beasts were incredibly docile and capable of bearing very heavy burdens. They carried packages of yet more food atop their backs.

Jangin knew what the food was for but still found it interesting that they needed so much. He had been told this invasion would last no longer than a few days once launched, so it wasn’t just to feed the troops.

The seedfolk had brought along every last non-essential magicite crystal in their community to provide the mana necessary for their mages devastating spells. Even so, the commanders were worried about the margins.

In case there wasn’t enough stored mana for the upcoming attack, certain mages and other seedfolk with minor training would focus on recharging the magicite crystals with their personal mana stores. These stores, of course, would become depleted in the process. Therefore, they would have to gorge themselves on food to recover their spent mana and refill the crystals for their fighting peers.

Jangin was unsure if that was desirable or not. On the one hand, the mages in question would get to stay away from the front line and would be heavily protected, all while they feasted. On the other, they’d be eating so much that they’d have no choice but to frequently…evacuate the contents of their stomachs.

It didn’t matter, he had his job; protect the laborers.