The wait felt endless. We might have waited for minutes, hours, or days. I just had no way of knowing, due to the sheer presence in front of me pulsing out its aura from beyond the mushroom.

  Deciding that losing my mind over the fight I no longer wanted to partake in, or better said, was told by Mark not to partake in, was probably not the best way I could be spending my time, I decided to check up on my teammates once again.

  Party

  Shrimpie: How are you two doing? Status?

  Talisha: There’s four of us…

  Shrimpie: You know what I meant.

  Dusk: Me and Timmie ended up being near the black plains in the end. We are near the location at which we got teleported away. Needed to slay a few more Clobbers, but there were not many. The night is approaching, so we are doing our best to stay hidden as much as possible. We’ll stay a bit further out, to avoid the Mushrooms spotting us.

  Crudia: Oh, hey there you two! I’m… not doing that well. I got teleported straight into a giant spider nest, if you could believe it! I fought them, of course, and hit level 24! I’m max level now! Now only to find my way out of this cavern…

  Talisha: Crudia is too afraid to ask, but we need your help. Are you two close? We’re inside the Clobber’s dungeon, judging by the number of them in here. Probably right next to the place we got teleported from. We are probably near the boss already, but we decided to hide and wait.

  Crudia: Just so you know, I don’t need help, okay? I totally got it! I already killed about a hundred of those gremlins here!

  Talisha: That’s true. The hundred dead Clobbers, that is. She didn’t mention that she’s also down to her last Health potion, though.

  Dusk: I’m on my way to where we were teleported. I’ll try to find you. Shrimpie?

  Shit. I was happy that at least Dusk was somewhere nearby. I still had no clue as to how far away I was, but judging by the fact that the two of them were in a fairly similar radius, it gave me some hope. But I still couldn't do anything to help Crudia for a while, as much as it frustrated me.

  Shrimpie: I’m in a dungeon myself. Not sure where. There are big rocky ants here, and they are introducing me to their Queen, since I introduced myself as a King as well. I’m not sure I’ll be able to help in any way. Sorry.

  Talisha: What the hell do you mean you introduced yourself as a King?

  Mark: The ants talk.

  Talisha: You’re kidding….. Actually, why not.

  Mark: No, he’s not kidding. Shrimpie also had a chance to be escorted to the surface by them, but he wanted to fight the boss himself.

  Crudia: Uhh, Shrimpie, are you sure? A big ant sounds a bit scary.

  Shrimpie: I’ll try having a discussion. The ants have been fairly friendly, so I hope that applies to the queen, too. I’ll try to be done with it quickly. See you in a bit.

  Talisha: Do that. Don’t forget our objective. It was to gain the respect of the townpeople. They didn’t talk about any ants. You will possibly die for nothing if you fight with the boss.

  Mark: We got it. Don’t worry.

  Talisha: Good. We’ll see what we can do on our side, but we’ll retreat if we’re not looking good when Dusk arrives.

  Shrimpie: Understood.

  I closed the chat, seeing Anthony scurry back to me, clearly excited judging by the way that he moved. It was as if his whole body was animated, his body and thorax bobbing up and down in a rhythm.

  “You can meet her Majesty now, sire! Come along!” Two of his front feet motioned in the air, as if I didn’t understand the concept of ‘forward’.

  Sighing, I followed the small guy, letting him lead me into the small opening he entered a while ago.

  The smell of mushrooms hit me in full once I walked through, the fragrance earthy and calming. The inside of the mushroom was gorgeous. It was pure white, with ridges at the walls in most places. There were pillars made of mushrooms as well, and those looked… weird. Was something carved into them?

  A memory surfaced, Xila laughing at me how I didn’t even notice the hints to the next floor’s secrets. How they were hidden in plain sight in the boss room. Not letting this chance slip by, I quickly texted Mark, who was still hovering in the entrance.

  Shrimpie: Can you see the carvings at the mushroom pillars? Remember what Xila told us?

  Mark: Already on it.

  And at the center of it all sat the queen.

  She was everything that the other ants were, just… more of it. Huge, about three times tall as I was, peering down at me from up top. Her mandibles were extremely sharp, longer than my arms and dangerous, lethal at a glance. Her giant, segmented eyes looked right at me, or at least I felt like that was the case. It was hard discerning what exactly they were looking at, since her entire eyes were just black.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Hundreds of ants walked about, doing one menial task or another, completely ignoring the new presence that walked into their nest. Some were carrying the larvae, other were communicating; both talking and rubbing their antennae were used as a way of talking. There were a lot of them just carrying stuff as well. Anthony led the way still, coming even closer to the queen, and I took that as an invitation to do the same.

  The Queen’s voice was different than I expected it to be. While still loud enough to reflect her huge size, it was very feminine and soft, the words coming with a hint of friendliness and something more… motherly. “Welcome, player. I have been waiting for one of your kind to step into my abode. You are royalty, I’ve been told?”

  I seriously had to stop getting surprised at being called a player by these things. “Yes, your majesty. A king of players, that is! I will win Exercia, as is my birthright.” I smiled at that. Oh, I was loving this already. Surely she could already see my greatness!

  “So you are not a king now?” Curiosity in her tone, mixed with something else. Amusement perhaps? “A king of players, was it? Amusing.”

  “I will be a king, so that would make me a prince, I suppose.”

  The ant queen just looked at me for a second, and then she… chuckled? Ants could chuckle? What the hell was the science behind that? Though it wasn’t the same chuckle Mark had. No, it sounded weird, more clicky, somewhat alien perhaps.

  “Leave us be, my dear kin. I wish to speak with this… prince, on my own.”

  Anthony immediately went to protest. “B-but, your majesty!”

  “No but-s. Leave.” Her voice was still cordial, but there was no space for refusal in the way she spoke. No space for questions from her soldiers and workers.

  The ants seemed confused, but started leaving the mushroom in a straight line, their pace so fast that we were left alone in about a minute. The opening of the mushroom was closed, and only the queen and I remained in the room. And Mark, but he continued looking at the pillars, so he didn’t count.

  “Finally. I have been looking for one of you to get here.” She said, her tone completely different than before - more relaxed, as if the slight edge and regalness disappeared. “I know this floor is large, but it seriously took too long for one of your kind to reach this place. I was beginning to worry that nobody would come here during this tournament, like they didn’t come last time. Good idea on telling my soldiers that you were a king, by the way. They are sometimes a bit too… simple, to not take things at face value.”

  Hold up. What the hell did she just say? “You… know about the tournament?” I knew that they named us players, but the humans in the city didn’t seem to know anything about their world or their place in it. This implied something else.

  “I do. Some of us, especially those with a higher level of intelligence, cannot be completely obliterated. You’ll meet more like me on the higher floors, should you get there. The biomass of me and my brethren gets re-used, but some inklings of what I was before, of what I knew… they remain still. I know what you are, and I know that there’s an inhabitant of your home planet here somewhere, one that I cannot see. But that is not important.”

  What did she mean, NOT IMPORTANT? “This whole conversation seems kind of important to me!”

  “It is, but I cannot tell you more without the gods striking me down, I’m afraid. Or, more likely, they’d make me brainless and kill you.”

  What a wonderful prospect. Getting rid of the witnesses seemed like a sound strategy, though.

  “So? What’s the point of this whole discussion? Is there anything you can tell me at all?”

  She looked at me, considering. “I have been looking for someone who has what it takes to end this. This loop I’ve been trapped in has been going on for much too long. Do you have what it takes?”

  Who did she think she was talking to? “I have what it takes to win this tournament, if that’s what you’re asking! I’ll win and rule the world!”

  “No.” She said, moving her head from one side to the other. “I don’t ask that you win. I ask that you end it. End this tournament already.” Her voice didn’t offer much space for an argument. The demand in it was almost irrefutable, but I wouldn’t get screwed over like this.

  “End it? But what about my reward? What about Mark’s?”

  “If you manage to survive long enough and play your cards right, the reward that has been promised to you will seem paltry to the one you’ll receive. I, sadly, cannot expand on that more.

  What was that? "Paltry?"

  "Small."

  "So the reward will be bigger if I do what you want?"

  "Greater than you can possibly imagine. Now, I will tell you what to do next, and then I’ll probably be forced to engage you in a duel. My defeat will bring you many boons for the weeks ahead, items that will let you stay ahead. I put all of my hopes into you now, in hopes that this incarnation of me is the last. Are you ready?”

  Oh boy, I was living for this. This whole situation was literally what I’ve been waiting for since getting here - a situation that would push me forward, possibly get me more ahead. “I acc-”

  “Shrimpie, what about us getting Crudia and Dusk to help you? Wasn’t that the plan?” Mark cut in, finally done with his wall inspection. If he had something to share, it wasn’t urgent enough for him to say so off the gate.

  Oh yeah! I wanted to bring my team to help here if I was to fight! I went to say so, but the ant queen did not wait for me to accept her proposal. She must have taken my silence for approval, or just decided not to waste more time. She continued, her voice more urgent now than before. “You must unite at the 8th floor. Do not let the gods goad you. You will be offered a choice. There will be hints to what’s possible, just look closely. Listen to Ob-”

  Her voice cut off, got guttural, and then lost all humanity that could be found in it. I still had no clue how the gods did, well, anything. Half of the stuff this queen said went over my head, but I did make a promise. I’d try to listen to her advice, remember it as long as I lived.

  The queen’s eyes lost their black sheen, replaced by red that contrasted her blue carapace, the opposites somehow looking even more menacing than I thought they would. She swayed on her legs, the front legs coming to clutch her head in a very human expression of pain. A high pitched screech pierced the room, forcing me to cover my ears, the sound more painful and terrible than anything I’ve ever heard. Still holding my ears, I watched with a mix of awe and… not fear, but definitely something close. I also felt pity. I couldn’t even imagine something like this happening to me.

  The walls squeezed, hardening, the things that Mark studied no longer visible. The floor was suddenly wet with whatever was inside the mushroom walls, the liquid squeezed out of them, though it mostly looked like water.

  It was just then that I realized that I hadn’t used [Analyze] yet.