Chapter 920: Clean Up

There was a time when some considered the Mother Tree to perhaps be an offshoot of Lerrewyn, the Grasping Tree itself. The only plant-type ancient, Lerrewyn is a creature of immense power and age who tormented the swamplands of the west during the Rending. There aren’t any precise descriptions of her that survive that I can determine. In fact what accounts I do have are almost contradictory in nature. Some describe it as a ghostly tree of nightmare, a spirit that extends its roots into the dreams of its victims, draining their life force away as they sleep. Others describe it as less a tree than a mass of innumerable roots, each as thick as a man, that crawls across the landscape, pulling in and devouring everything that it finds.

Despite the obvious similarities of the two monsters, sharing the same base type, there is no other supporting evidence to suggest they are affiliated in any way. Indeed, the path and direction the Mother Tree has taken is the greatest proof anyone could ask for. In choosing to create and succour her own race of children, she has effectively cut herself off from descending any further into the Dungeon, ensuring that she is of no use to those elder monsters. Despite this, should she turn, the damage she could unleash on Pangera would be immense.

· Excerpt from ‘The nature of the Tree’ by Loremaster Alberton of the Legion.

After Vibrant are her crew sprint off down the tunnels the rest of us are left with the unenviable task of cleaning up the mess. And what a mess. I’m standing on a heap of Biomass three or four termites deep and it sure isn’t going to eat itself. What’s more, when I throw on my mana sight it becomes clear that quite a few of these termites have cores. Now, they aren’t anything like fully developed cores, not even close. In fact, they don’t come close to the cores my siblings in the Colony have, despite most of them being a long way from maxed.

Scanning the battlefield, I would guess that roughly half of the termites have cores, which explains why, despite their relatively high tier, they are close to matching up to us one on one. No, it seems that the kaarmodo have decided to embrace the swarm strategy at its most pure. Not a bad idea, since they have the natural advantage of being born deeper in the Dungeon, with more advanced body parts that we have, they don’t need strong evolutions to be dangerous. It’s also possible that their soul devouring organ provides the extra juice they need, giving them experience or empowering their evolution in some way? It bears more investigation.

“Report back to the wall! We need a casualty check and debrief! Move! Move! Move!”

Man… I can remember the good ol’ days when we just tucked straight into the food. Things are bit more organised now, what with the accounting the generals do to keep track of wounded and make sure the post battle scene doesn’t degenerate into chaos.

“Better get moving, Eldest. I know you’re fine, but there’s probably others I need to see to,” the healer strapped to the underside of my carapace tells me.

“Oh, right. Of course.”

I file back into line along with the others and we climb back to the top of the wall where the generals check over every single member of the ten thousand strong expeditionary force and lay out the plan to clear the battlefield so the work crews can get back to the more important task of fortifying our position. It’s impossible to walk away from this sort of conflict with no casualties, and every loss stings my spirit, but the numbers are remarkably low considering how many we defeated.

We were lucky this time, the termites, and by extension, the kaarmodo, were stupid. They threw numbers at the problem hoping it would go away, a sign of impatience or overconfidence. If they’d taken the time to prepare a diversionary tunnel, or strike in more than one place, or any number of tactics they didn’t try, we would have been in a much more difficult position. As it was, we held them up with not even a tenth of the earthworks completed, let alone the full fortification project.

I’m not sure if this is a good sign.

“Hey,” I approach a nearby general, “what am I supposed to be doing? I didn’t get an assignment.”

All my siblings have already scuttled off, throwing themselves headlong into their next tasks, despite the crushing fatigue of having just fought a battle no doubt dragging them down. Heck, I’m tired and I have an organ that replenishes my energy!

The general in question wriggles a bit and runs an antenna over the slate she has in front of her.

“Ah, you aren’t mentioned in the report, Eldest. I suppose that you’re supposed to do your own thing.”

I stare.

“I just wander off and do whatever? That doesn’t seem right!”

“Doesn’t it?” she shrugs. “You’re the Eldest.”

“I mean… I suppose so.”

Tiny reaches out and pokes my carapace. I turn and look to find him giving me the most disturbing set of puppy dog eyes I’ve ever seen. Come on, Tiny! You’re an enormous gorilla monster over ten metres tall! Have a little dignity, man!

Sigh.

[Yes, alright. Let’s go eat. May as well start packing it away.]

I swear, the way the Colony has been treating me has been weird since… a long time ago. The statues I could put up with, barely, the engravings and carvings, almost tolerable, but this feeling of being… ‘other’ amongst my own family stings a little more than I expected it too. It’s nice to be respected and all that, but not to the point that I no longer feel like a proper member of the Colony. I’ll have to think on this another time, the gains from the battle aren’t insignificant and I’ll have to consider a big mutation session when this is all said and done.

By the time I climb back down off the wall, Tiny has already begun stuffing his face, great fistfuls of Biomass being shovelled into his face hole. Despite his abundant appetite, when it comes to my comrades, he’s probably the slowest eater. Nearby, Invidia has unveiled his ghoulish grin, the hovering mouth comically larger than his miniscule hovering form. He leans forward and with an almighty CRUNCH he takes a huge bite from the sea of Biomass on display before him. Unfortunately, not even he can compete with the true glutton of the group. I can hear her at work now, though I can’t see her. Probably for the best.

A creature of the shadows has she become. She doesn’t even need to show herself in order to eat, instead merging herself with the darkness that lies in the gaps beneath us. Three separate, horrific gnashing sounds can be heard echoing up from below and I for one am pleased it remains hidden from view.

I suppose I better get to it if I’m going to get my share.. It won’t be long before the Colony starts to haul all of this away and ten thousand ants can work up quite an appetite, let me tell you.