Potential nest entry point sent to city defense headquarters. . .

Hundreds of ants are exiting out the nest every minute and moving to the left, deeper into the Pike, likely drawn by the bait set up by the defenders. So how the fuck do I get in?

Since none of the ants appear to be able to see, hear or smell me from this distance, I drop all mana, including my construct armor. I am almost certainly going to need all my mana no matter what I do to get in there. A preliminary op plan is forming in my mind but I’ll need to conduct a test first. I work my way back to where I met the warrior ant and search around for the correct circumstances. Another few minutes later after bypassing larger groups of ants, I find a smaller gathering and hide behind the stone wall of a restaurant called Margaretta’s Pizza, Pasta and Subs. I swap out my armor for my favorite, Covert Infiltrator set, lean around the side, line up a shot with my rifle and strike one of the ants in the antenna. Jo informed me that was determined to be a weakness of these workers. Immediately after firing, I [Inventory] the rifle and merge with the building’s shadow flat on the ground.

The ant I struck stumbles, screeches and all three begin firing projectiles towards my location. None of them target the shadow I am hiding in; test one complete. Remaining in the shadows, I slide forward along the wall of the building, moving from the shadow of a window eave to an awning over the entrance and stop there, about halfway to the ants. None of the ants change their targets to my shadow. I continue my way forward, melding from shadow to shadow until I am right above them, in the shadow of the large model of a triangular pizza slice. None of the ants notice; test two complete. I follow another two shadows and eventually merge with one of the flaming ants’s shadows. They still don’t notice me. Test three complete.

Alright, last one. I return to the pizza slice shadow, because pizza, and drop a darkness field so all three are surrounded with 10 meters to spare. The ants stop firing their needles and [Mana Sight] tells me they begin to wander aimlessly. One even bumps into a wall but just keeps moving as if it doesn’t notice. If the orcs freak the fuck out in darkness, these ants are the opposite and become passive and lethargic. Wait a minute. The black fire isn’t showing in my mana sight any more. Well that is unexpected. I keep watching and see no change. Releasing the darkness field I am blown away by what I see after it finally clears. Thanks to darkness sludge, it takes twice as long to clear as before I received my subclass. The flaming spikes on the ants are gone. These look like normal dark brown infused ants.

[Shitballs on a dragon. Are you seeing this, Jo?]

That is quite an unexpected and fascinating side effect. I have no idea how that could-

Suddenly the ants start shuddering and shaking. They then screech and black spikes begin exiting from their bodies. After a moment the spikes are back to the normal size and burst into black flames.

[Well. . . that just happened.]

I see. Ants communicate through airborne pheromones, sounds and touch. It is possible the darkness temporarily disabled a corrupting signal and when that disruption ended they became corrupted again. . .

I excitedly think, [Jo, this is a huge opportunity!]

I use [Mana Sight] and see exactly what I expect based on previous observations: the brown earth of the ants with black spikes and flames absorbing all the nearby mana particles. Similar to the possessed troll king’s green flames, but to a much lesser degree. Keeping [Mana Sight] active, I drop another darkness field and watch for change. Over the period of between four and five seconds, the flames dim and the spikes fade away, likely to ash although I cannot see for sure in [Mana Sight]. The ants show no further sign of corruption, showing only their confused glowing brown forms. I release the darkness field and watch closely. The moment the suppression of the darkness fades, a small black cloud forms as a swirl near its head fades into view and spreads to its middle thorax and then to the rest of it, legs included. Only its antennae appear uncorrupted. Shortly the black spikes grow and black flames reappear. What is interesting is the black cloud inside of the ant I am examining is gone. All I see is the absorption of mana into the black flames.

[You seeing this?]

Affirmative. . .

[Can we detect it through that cloud of corruption or perhaps the mana absorption? And where does the mana go?]

Unknown at this time. But it could be a possible manner in which to identify corrupted individuals, which I imagine was your goal from the beginning of this exercise. . .

I nod and decide to conduct the experiment again. This time when the darkness fades I keep an eye on the mana particles around an ant, which I name Bob. I pick Bob for no particular reason other than he is the closest. When he isn’t a flaming death monster, I think he’s kinda cute in a goofy run into buildings sort of way.

Anyway, as soon as the darkness cloud dissipates I watch closely for how the cloud forms and what happens to it. Something completely new and unexpected happens this time though. When the ants are shuddering and screeching the cloud seems to flicker and the ants screen a little louder. Then the cloud flashes and all three ants burst apart, ant flesh and pieces of carapace flying everywhere. Yuck.

There appears to be a maximum the worker ant body can withstand this corruption. . .

[What gave you that idea?]

I let out a sigh, exit the shadow and wander around finding another group.

***

40 minutes later, I think I may have figured it out.

[So let’s review. The worker ants can tolerate it no more than four times, most only three. The corruption, which I see as a swirl of black - not particles but an actual cloud - melds with the brown mana of the ant and creates external paths for the mana to be absorbed, thus the spikes. About 15% of the mana is absorbed back into the ant, enhancing its earth affinity, while the other 85% gets absorbed into the fire and vanishes into who knows where - probably back to the multi-vocal “masters” from our lovely troll king. Ants communicate through three senses which are disabled by darkness and when those are disabled the corruption can no longer function meaning it requires constant reinforcement to stay active. Did I miss anything?]

That is an excellent summary. Shall I pass the report to Shield?. . .

[Absolutely. This was only workers though. We don’t know if the same would be true for the warrior ants or anything besides ants.]

Sent. Try not to get killed figuring it out. . .

I begin a silent jog towards the nest entry tunnel.

[You know I was about to say I haven’t died yet, but I suppose that technically isn’t true. So yeah, keep reminding me not to die. Ummm. . . again.] I hear a deep sigh.