Beers and Beards

Chapter 31: Stoneants (2)

I shook my head, which was still ringing after the giant stoneant had bounced me off the floor. I didn’t think I was dead? My body was no longer made of stone and I could still feel Lillyweather wrapped in my arms. The afterlife had better not just be a string of Pete ending up in the body of different Petes throughout the multiverse…

The soldier stoneant had thrown us aside after someone, Balin I think, yelled at it. Balin! I sat bolt upright. Lillyweather slumped over, but I caught her before she hit the floor. Something wet splattered against my pants. A quick glance revealed her left leg was completely mangled.

I hadn’t been able to cover her completely, but at least she was still breathing.

“Copperpot, Grim! I need you!” I screamed, then looked wildly for Balin. He’d distracted that monster; a moment later and I would have died! What had happened to him?

“Fer Crack and Annie!” came his answer, and I goggled as a dwarf clad in shining golden plate armor smashed an axe into another giant soldier ant at the front lines. The ant was carved nearly in half, and the golden dwarf continued to take on the biggest stoneants in turn. Balin? The guards had adjusted their formation to support him, and the stoneants were being driven back.

“Pete!” A hand was shaking my shoulder. “We need ta move to that tunnel! Guard Captain, we’re retreating!” Grim lifted Lillyweather onto his shoulder while Copperpot examined her leg. “NOW!”

“Aye Sir. Everyone, orderly retreat!”

Copperpot grabbed my arm and pulled as the party began to fall back up the mine tunnel. The timer on myquest still read over nine minutes until help arrived. I couldn’t fully parse what was happening. It’s one thing to watch distant specks blast apart stick figure monsters at the dungeon, but it was another to have a swarm of giant fantasy ants trying to eat you. I was just Pete from Canada! I wasn’t ready for this! How the hell did fantasy transmigration protagonists just… jump right into things? Is that why they’re always teenagers? I was way too set in my ways to suddenly become an action hero, even if my stats were way higher than earth Pete’s!

As we ran, I grabbed a discarded minepick and held it in one shaking hand. Having a weapon helped calm my monkey nerves, and my breathing evened out. The others quickly outpaced the three of us as Grim was still carrying the gently bleeding Lillyweather, and Copperpot and I weren’t going to leave him behind.

After about a hundred meters, the guards called out to us. “Ants incomin!”

I glanced back to see about four more worker stoneants heading in our direction. Two headed towards Grim, and two jumped at Copperpot, who was the smaller target. Dumb choice.

“Hmph, [Arc-Welder].” A scintillating torch of energy erupted from one of his fingers and sheared through the two ants. Their corpses hissed and spit as the ichor in their bodies evaporated from the intense heat. While that was fascinating to watch, I still had two insectile problems to deal with as I stepped in front of Grim. I pulled my pick back as the first one launched at me, and I batted it out of the air like a baseball. It flew across the tunnel and smashed into a wall.

Then the second stoneant was on me, and I barely held it back with the haft of my pickaxe. I fell onto my butt as it snapped its pincers at my face and its spiked legs scrabbled, tearing at my suit. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw the first stoneant groggily pick itself up and stumble back towards me.

“Yer just a bug, so.. get… squished!” With a grunt of effort, I shoved the ant off me and onto its concussed kin. The two of them fell over in a tangle of limbs and took a moment to get back up. A moment was all I needed.

“[Power Pick] Muthafuckas!” I cried. My pick gained a faint glow and I brought it down on the pair of them. They practically exploded and I was showered in goo.

“Can’t you cast some spells or somethin’?” I asked Copperpot, as we turned and continued running.

“No, I don’t know how.” Copperpot explained between gasping breaths. “I have a limited form of [Manasight] that allows me to work mana into my engineering projects. I’m a bit too old to be learning everything required for shaping mana into spells.”

“What use is [Manasight] if you can’t cast magic!”

“Since when is anything good in life that easy? Most mages receive Archis’s Blessing because they put in the years of study necessary to use Mana, not the other way around. Now shut up and run!”

We passed the first tunnel, and we could see the grad students up ahead turn into the dive tunnel we had selected. We caught up to Grim and flanked him until we also reached the tunnel and jumped in.

“Everyone here?” Copperpot asked as he looked around.

As far as I could see, all the grad students as well as the support crew were sitting in the carved-out cavern and Grim was laying an unconscious Lillyweather against the back wall. The cave was about five meters by five meters, and only had the one small entrance tunnel that was about four meters long. A dwarf could barely fit into it, which meant the ants could only really attack in pairs.

“I think that’s everyone.” I walked through the entrance and glanced back down the tunnel. “Ugh, another bunch of worker stoneants are headed our way.” In the distance I could barely make out a gleaming form smash into the wave of ants in order to buy time for the guards to retreat. Damn Balin, what happened to you?!

The oncoming ants approached the entrance to the tunnel and Copperpot leaned out. “We can’t have their bodies blocking the entrance until the guards get here. I’m going to incapacitate them. Can you kill them, Pete?”

“Uh”

“We’re out of time, I’ll take that as a yes.” Copperpot held out his hand, “[Lubricate]!”

Instantly, the ants began to slip and slide, their feet unable to find purchase. They wildly flailed their limbs and two of them were even impaled by their fellows.

“Fer Crack!” I yelled, psyching myself up. I ran forward to the first of the ants, which was on its own and struggling to stand. I plunged my pickaxe into its head, it twitched several times and fell over dead. I wrenched the pickaxe free then killed another and another.

As I turned to the tangled pile of struggling stoneants I felt an intense burning sensation in my leg. I looked down and realized with horror that one of the stoneants I had thought was dead had clamped some pincers onto my thigh. Then it began to bite down, and I screamed in agony. My vision got dark with pain and shock as my leg collapsed out from under me. I brought my pickaxe down onto the monster’s head over and over again.

“You Netherspawned thing! Get off me!” The ant finally loosened its grip and died, but my injured leg was pinned beneath it. Beside me, a few ants had crawled clear of the tangle and were skating over to get a bite in edgewise. Blood was pooling around my leg and sweat poured down my face.

*Bing*

You have gained the [Bleeding] condition!

I was going to die.

Then the ants were dead, and a sprinting guard grabbed me as they all ran by.

“Good job boyo!”

“Yer buddy is one heck of a fighter!”

“Ach, his leg is all cut up, someone tell tha boss!”

“Make sure tha [Knight] can get free. No dwarf left behind!”

All I could do was whimper in pain and relief. Then I passed out, again.

---

“Pete, how are you doing?”

I blearily opened my eyes. “Copperpot?”

The sound of combat came from right nearby, so I couldn’t have been out long.

“I applied pressure to your leg until [Regeneration] knit the flesh shut. You probably would have died of blood-loss without it. Praise Barck.”

Argh. Please tell me I didn’t owe my life to Barck now. I’d prefer to have died to the stoneants.

“What’s happening?”

“The guards are taking turns fighting at the entrance and your friend Balin has finally come down from his [Heroic Moment]. Lucky timing on that! He checked on you and then collapsed over there.” Copperpot pointed to a golden figure sprawled on the floor a little way over to the side.

I checked my quests.

Survive

You have disturbed a monstrous brood! Can you survive long enough for help to arrive?

This is a timed quest. Time remaining: 3 minutes.

Slay

You are encountering monsters for the first time! Show off your otherworldly prowess and slay them!

Slain: 5/10 Monsters

Only three minutes left. We could do this!

“How’s Lillyweather?”

“Not good. We applied a tourniquet to her leg, but she’s still unconscious, and she doesn’t have [Regeneration]; her only Blessing is from Lunara.”

I felt a cold pit in my stomach. “Is she going to die?”

Dark silence was my only answer.

“Gods.”

A few more minutes passed. I checked my quest every few seconds, willing time to go just a little bit faster. The guards continued to slaughter ants at the entrance to the dive. The constant sound of crunching carapace matched the rhythmic beating of my heart.

Time remaining: 2 minutes.

Time remaining: 1 minute.

“Big one incomin’! I think it’s a brood guard!” The soldier at the front called. “Tiara’s teats, it’s huge! Everyone back from the wall!”

The guards ran back down the tunnel and formed a shield wall at the entry to the cavern. A swarm of ants followed and they were beaten back by axes, boots, and expletives. Their bodies soon formed a pile of the dead that blocked the entryway. There was a moment of blessed peace as the corpses stopped any further attacks.

“We might have a reprieve…” I whispered into the deathly silence.

Copperpot groaned. “Never say things like that! They’re called stoneants for a reason!”

A crack formed above the tunnel, then another as shards of stone began to fall from the ceiling.

The guards stepped into formation and the captain raised his hand. “Here it comes!”

An enormous pincer ripped through the ceiling of the cavern, and I had a moment to contemplate my existence as I stared up at an elephant sized ant with dripping mandibles. It must have taken up every square inch of the main tunnel to get up here. It roared and purple fluid sprayed over the party.

“[Aegis]!” The guard captain cried out, and a shield similar to Copperpot’s sprang up, though it was much wider and only faced one direction. The fluid sprayed against the shield and fell to the floor where it hissed and spat on the stone. “Watch out for its venom! Concentrated fire! Ready…. and THROW!”

The enormous brood guard opened its mouth to blast us again. At the exact moment that it prepared to fire, it was struck in the face by four throwing hammers. It reared back and screeched in pain. In that instant, a multitude of workers crawled into the hole it had made and attacked.

The next few moments were chaos as ants began assaulting everyone. I started swinging my pick, though I could barely summon any strength. I killed one ant with a lucky hit as Balin got shakily to his feet and picked up his axe. He and I stood back-to-back and swung with adrenaline fueled fury as we killed ant after ant.

“[Power Pick]!”

“[Challenge]!”

The rafter crew grabbed their tools and jumped into the fray. The guards all pulled out another set of hammers and got ready to throw. The brood guard loomed back through the hole in the ceiling and opened its mouth to attack.

There was an odd whistling sound, like a car whipping past, then a roar as bright light and fire filled the entire main tunnel. The brood guard screamed and spasmed as its body was cooked alive.

Time remaining: 0 seconds.

Quest Complete: Survive. You’re alive!

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