The Belly of the Mountains (Chimera Ants)

[Vi]

All was not quiet in the Queen's tunnels today. The skittering of her children was all but deafening in her ears. The sound of crashing rubble, the squeals of information, she could hear it all.

And it worried her.

With each passing day, she gave birth to even more of her children, and the hive was beginning to get crowded. Her workers were working double-time, their efforts proving fruitful, but it just might not be enough. Soon, her pheromones would not be enough to keep the hive in check, and she would give birth to a Queen, and she was well aware of the ramifications of that. After all, it was hard-coded into her DNA.

She had recently sent two of her twelve royal guards on a scouting mission in the hopes of finding fertile land for her impending move, and they had only now returned, the two standing before her now.
"Hive?" She said, looking upon the two expectantly. Both nodded in the affirmative, the one to the left beginning to speak.
"Hive. Close. Same." It said. The one to the rights squeaked as well.
"Hive. Far. Soft. Good." It said.

She turned to the one on her left.
"Close?" It said, wondering just how close was "close". It replied with
"Very close." It nodded, then turning to the one on the left.
"Far?" She asked.
"Very far." She nodded, waving them both off to their duties, them doing so without a moment's pause.

Now she would need to contemplate... if she stayed too close to this hive, she would anger the new Queen. But would she be able to make her way to this new place?

(In case you were wondering, the one saying "Very close" was talking about the space simply to the west of their current location at the eastern edge of their territory, the one saying "very far" meaning the little smidge of desert near the Obsidian Field.)

[Vi]

Time continued to pass in the Queen's tunnels, and her food intake continued to increase, from 2 to 3 times her body weight in minerals, her numbers have sky-rocketed into a whopping 7 times her body weight, and yet she layed the same number of eggs as always. It was clear that a Queen was going to be born in the coming months. It was a painstaking process that took many months for her to lay a Queen egg, and took many weeks more than the Workers for her to be born. She would lower her diet, temporarily halting egg production, taking half of her Ants with her to a new location, the others staying with the new Queen, along with two of her Royal Guards.

But she still didn't know where to go...




Elsewhere in the tunnels was a nasty cave-in, crushing a fresh brood of eggs, killing four workers and 30 new-born/eggs.

(On that note, any suggestions from you guys as to where they could end up?)

[Vi]

It was almost time. Her egg sac had grown even larger, showing clear signs of the new Queen inside, the distinctive coloring of the egg could be seen through the membrane of the sack, a dark gray egg, instead of the usual white that the workers have, or the dark red coloring of a Royal Guard.

She had decided not to take any risks, moving to the West, perhaps a bit further than her first scout had shown. She had sent another of her guards to search further, to see if anything was habitable a bit further than that. She was in luck, her guard notifying her of a mountain range much the same as this one. Relieved, she had sent a quarter of her ants to begin excavation of the necessary chambers, and all was going well so far.
(Oi, has it been a round yet?)

[demonking]

Winter

Illuspor came to the mountains to look at the ants, coming to a royal guard, he spoke in a booming voice. "Take me to your leader."

[Vi]

The guard looked at the foreign creature before it with what would amount to suspicion.
"No." It squeaked, in no uncertain term.
"Maybe danger. You leave." It said, looking at the spectral creature before it with its beady eyes. It wasn't sure how it had managed to evade the other guards without raising a single alarm, but it couldn't allow something like that to get anywhere near their Queen. It would simply be too risky.

A few stray sparks flitted across its out-stretched claws, prepared for battle if need be.

[Vi]

It had been many months since the first Queen had migrated to the west, and she has been working full-force to make up the lost numbers, just as she was sure her counterpart was. Things were very quiet lately, despite all of the work that was being made. At one point, some sort of large lizard-like creature was spotted near a cave entrance, but that was about all that could be of note. Two workers were lost taking it down.

[demonking]

"I wish to give you gifts. Items to allow for great things." Said Illuspor as he took a step back. "You don't want to be the one to stop these getting these to the queen."
"I may even give you one of the gifts, to better defend your queen."

[Vi]

It looked at the spectral form before him in a new light, beginning to wonder if its motives were really as evil as it had imagined.

"... What gift? Help Queen? Talk." It said, the crackling of electricity lowering to its usual low hum as all Royal Guards make, sometimes the only way to identify them in the darkness of the tunnels. But as good as his motives may seem, its mind was positively hard-wired to protect the Queen, even to the point of ignoring its own desires.

[demonking]

Illuspor showed his hand to the royal guard, on it was an illusion of a small decorated stick. "This can make the queen immune to death."

[Vi]

If it had eyelids, its eyes would probably widen in shock and surprise.
"She no die!?" It said, incredulous, a spark flickering across its carapace, taking a few steps closer, towards the amazing stick.

[demonking]

"Yes exactly. Now take me to the queen." Said Illuspor closing his fist with a smile on his face.

[Vi]

It gave one final fretting tick of electricity, before turning around, giving a loud squeak, which presumably meant something along the lines of "follow me". And after much skittering and crawling, made his way to the Throne room, where the Queen was hard at work. He explained the situation, and the Queen looked at Illuspor with a measure of interest.

[demonking]

Illuspor had followed the ant thinking as he did so. "great queen would you mind if we talked in private, you may not want your servants to hear."

[Vi]

She shook her head in the negative.
"No. Royal Guards stay." She replied, in a no-nonsense tone. Regardless of what he may bear, she could not risk meeting an untimely end by this creature's hands.

[demonking]

"Well you heard what the royal guard said. Do you want me to use the gift to make you immortal?" Said Illuspor.