With the soldiers done Gar looked towards the queen’s guard it was the last ant to butcher, he would deal with that next. However first his mana pool was full it was time to test his new spell. He already had a target in mind; the pile of innards from cleaning out the ants it was quite large after the workers and the soldiers. He kept the numbers for his mana pool in view and cast the spell for the first time. It was rather simple no hand movements no words just think about the target and activate. He saw his mana go down by five the spell had activated. At first there was no sign of anything happening in the pile of offal, then after about thirty seconds or so it started to smell something awful and collapsed in on itself. Gar cast the spell again this time there was visible rot on the pile, he kept casting the spell every thirty seconds or so. After about ten casts the rather large pile of ant innards was reduced to a small mound of basically dirt, it was all picked up in less than a shovel full and flung off into the woods. He would have to wait and see how the spell did in battle, as far as Gar was concerned though that didn’t matter it dealt with one of his major problems, dealing with waste in a permanent and safe way without requiring lots of work to haul it away. With his mana reduced it was time to stop playing with his new spell and get back to work.
The queens guard ant came apart differently to the other ants, instead of body sections being one piece the much larger queens guard was segmented up into carapace plates that overlapped across its body creating a much thicker armour. Each of the segments required his small knife slipping between the plates and run all the way round before they could be peeled off. The whole process took nearly as long as butchering all the soldiers put together.
“Butchery levelled up butchery level 4”
Once done he used rot on the waste until it was gone before turning to his pile of loot.
Mega-ra ant queens guard acid gland
A gland that produces a highly concentrated formic acid.
Uses: alchemy, cooking, weapon
Value: ????
Quality: fine
Rarity: uncommon
Durability: 25/25
Mega-ra ant queens guard eye
The eye of a mega-ra ant queens guard.
Uses: alchemy, witchcraft
Value: ????
Quality: fine
Rarity: uncommon
Durability: 10/10
Mega-ra ant queens guard’s carapace
The exoskeleton of a mega-ra ant queens guard; denser than that of a solider it can stand up to strong strikes. Has interesting property’s when heated.
Uses: smithing, alchemy, crafting
Value: ????
Quality: fine
Rarity: uncommon
Durability: 250/250
Mega-ra ant queens guard mandibles
For many ants the mandibles are a hand and tools for the queen’s guard they are only one thing a weapon
Uses: weapon, smithing, crafting
Value: ????
Quality: fine
Rarity: uncommon
Durability: 250/250
He also received another earthen mana core which produced the same inspection results despite being bigger again than the soldier’s ones. The final thing that Gar collected was the hairs of the antenna, he had very nearly missed them but a hair came off as he was handling the antenna and as he had been with everything that came out of the ant he cast inspect on it on reflex not really expecting any results.
Mega-ra ant queens guard antenna hair
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Very sensitive hairs that receive and relay many sources of information.
Uses: alchemy, crafting, thaumaturgy
Value: ????
Quality: fine
Rarity: unusual
Durability: 3/3
They were an unusual item that he had absolutely no idea how to use or even what to use them for, all he did know is they had the highest rarity of anything he had found so hoped they had some value, he scrapped them off and used one of the worker abdomen carapace sections as a bowl to hold them in.
With the ants remains finally dealt with Gar sat in his shelter and ate, while he planned. He needed to focus on getting out of this place the water level was rising and it was still raining he had been taking it at a relaxed pace, no more. He needed to focus. He realised there were three possibilities to getting out. One to climb, though simple sounding it was still a huge risk. Two explore the caves try to find a route up to the surface. Three explore the cenote he was in, it was so large he hadn’t even seen half of it despite living there for over a month. The part of Gar that wanted adventure that wanted excitement, the part that had lead him to accepting the invitation to come here in the first place wanted to take option two or three he was curious and wanted to find out what was out there. A part of him that had grown in recent weeks from the pain, the fear, the loneliness just wanted to take the simple direct route option one. Climbing out had one huge advantage if he could make the climb he was out, exploring he could do everything perfectly and he could still be trapped there might not be another way out.
Gar lost the rest of the day in thought it started with his way out which led his mind into the jumbled mess that was his emotions. He knew he was messed up, he was scared all the time, he was making decisions that didn’t seem like they came from him, he was pushing things down and squishing them just to keep moving. Unconsciously he found himself cradling the ant egg just taking time to unpack everything to feel his emotions and let them go. He was still a mess, still a jumble of things he didn’t understand a single afternoon of thought was not going to fix everything it barely fixed anything. What it was though was a start the beginning of a long road he didn’t feel better per-say by the end, what he did feel was more like himself more like he knew who that was. With the egg on his chest he just lay back on his bed staring up at the celling and listened to the sound of the rain, as he fell asleep.
When he got up before having any breakfast Gar started in on something he had tried to set as a routine before, climbing practice. The night before he hadn’t really decided what he was going to do he had to be practical and climbing out would be his most guaranteed way out so he would continue to work towards that. However he would not just run away, not let fear rule him he wanted adventure. He might never come back to this place so he would make time to explore it while he could, not too long and it wouldn’t be his focus but he wasn’t going to miss out on this opportunity. The climbing was hard the rain had soaked the walls making grips slipperier and everything harder, fortunately Gars strength and endurance where much higher than when he arrived there. These would most likely be similar condition in the actual climb so it was best to practice in them, he kept at it until he got the awaited message.
“Climb levelled up climb level 4”
He wouldn’t be able to level it every day so while it was in the low numbers he would make the most of it. He kept climbing until he could feel the burn in his arms and legs and his stamina was low.
With the climbing done he grabbed a breakfast of nuts and berries as he started working on his rope. He had the initial stages of the fibres twisted together into one long strand for the next step he folded it over and found the middle, which took long enough in itself due to the length of it. Then once at the middle he started twisting the two sides together he kept twisting from the middle until the rope kinked over. Then he kept going keeping everything twisted and tight, it was slow progress but well worth it as each twist greatly thickened the rope making it much stronger. Gar kept twisting all day he had intended to stop for some lunch then do something different, but found stopping wasn’t really an option as the rope would unravel. He needed to finish it so he could tie off the ends so that is what he did he kept going grabbing berries or nuts when he had a hand free and was hungry.
When the length was starting to become too much Gar had Bodger take the end in its mouth and carefully looping the rope between its teeth then close its jaws so the rope couldn’t come off. Then he had Bodger move away to pull the rope tight. When Bodger ran out of room to pull the rope in a straight line Gar used B1 as a post to pass the rope round to change the direction, then again round a tree at the other end of his platform. After a couple of times round like that Gar had to be the one moving as he twisted more rope together to rap it round B1 and the tree to keep it tight. Gars fingers where sore from the constant twisting of the rough fibres, even so he still kept going late into the night. The moon was high in the sky by the time he was finally done. He knotted both ends then he was finally able to stop. He inspected his new rope for it was finally thick enough to actually be called a rope and not just a string, it looked good. He held a section and gave it a pull, it was strong probably strong enough to hold his weight he felt the slight give in it though and wasn’t happy with it. If he was going to trust his life to it probably wasn’t good enough, he would twist it again one more time just to make sure. He unwound the rope from B1 and the tree coiling it as he went bringing it into his shelter out of the rain. That night he slept trying to forget about the ache in his fingers.
Gar got up and again before breakfast started climbing, trying to build it in to a new routine. He went at it hard trying to move faster and perform harder moves all in an attempt to push his skill up a level faster. Instead all he got was bruising from the falls. He was sore and breathing heavy by the time he called it quits for the day, without a skill level up. He had known he wouldn’t be able to keep getting a level each time he climbed; it just disappointed him because he had hoped to get a few more before it took multiple days. He was tempted to spend the day trying to raise his climb skill level as much as he could. He got on with breakfast he was already tired from climbing and knew himself well enough to know he would get frustrated with the slow progress and would push himself into riskier and riskier situations as he got more and more tired until he got himself seriously injured or killed, and out here in the wilds they were basically the same thing.
He was planning out what he would need for the day as he ate some breakfast. As he had spent the entire previous day rope making he would spend the day exploring. Given the rain still pouring outside his shelter and his desire to not spend another entire day soaking wet Gar was going to explore the caves a bit more. With the badgers by his side he was more confident to press further into the caves, he wouldn’t be alone and the badgers could still fight effectively even in the tight confines of the caves. He would need his spear for the larger caverns, as well as a knife in case he had to fight in tighter spaces and his backpack to carry what he needed and anything he found, finally some rope he wasn’t sure what for yet he just felt that when exploring caves rope was appropriate. Wrapping up his meal he gathered what he would need, again commiserating his lack of a sheaf for the knife as he tucked it into his waist band.
