Modern Age Online

“At this point, you’re a certifiable idiot.” Abby muttered as she led the way deeper into the nest.

“It’s not my fault!” Kaleb grumbled from his spot at the back of the line.

“Dude,” Two Gun spoke up. “We were going into a dark cave system beneath the ground. Why would you not bring a flashlight or something?!”

Kaleb threw up his hands, causing them to collide with the low ceiling of the man-made tunnel. Abby and Varlin had assured them that the tunnels got larger the deeper they went, but for now it was a just enough from them to walk single file. After brushing the dust off his hands, he continued.

“I didn’t think about it, okay?! I was thinking about other things. So I forgot.”

“Also with the three of us, plus Mass, it’s kinda moot.” Claire added helpfully as she hunched uncomfortably in the tunnel. “We have enough light for all of us.”

“Plus, if it gets too bad, I can just summon some light.” Varlin said.

“And you’re not doing that right now, because…” Kaleb asked.

Varlin shook his head. “Well, for one, the proximity would blind us all. For another, it would drain my Mana. So for right now, we have the clip-on flashlights.”

Kaleb wasn’t sure where they had all gotten the fancy flashlights that clipped onto their shirts. But he had a clear memory of his own flashlight on top of his workbench back at the hangar. It was almost immediately apparent they would need one once they entered the nest proper. As he grumbled nonsensically to himself, something occurred to him.

“Hey, why hasn’t the Ainsley family lit this place up? I would think they would get a generator and a couple of lights and string them along the tunnel or something.”

Varlin scoffed before he explained. “They were talking about it, but like everything by committee, it was taking a while. The major concern was that it would lead the ants into Sorcerer created tunnels.”

“Ants don’t follow lights.” Two Gun said with an odd certainty.

“No, but they explore their tunnel systems occasionally, and an unknown tunnel in their home would probably make them curious.” Claire argued.

“Oh, come on!” Two Gun groused. “They’re insects! They don’t get curious!”

“I wouldn’t discount anything in this game,” Kaleb said.

He saw Abby nod her head in agreement. “Yeah,” she said. “Plus, these ants were enlarged by magic, so I figure everything is on the table as far as I’m concerned.”

Two Gun grumbled noncommittally as they continued down the tunnel. After a short while of walking, they found the tunnel growing bigger and eventually Claire could stand upright. But as they continued, the ground shook. Remembering the time ants attacked the hangar, Kaleb drew his guns and studied the walls in the dark.

“It’s fine. It’s probably just Mass.” Abby said as she glanced back at him.

Kaleb simply nodded, but kept his weapons at the ready.

It was only a few more minutes before she was proven right. The ground shaking got a little more frequent and a low voice could barely be heard. Kaleb thought there was an odd cadence to the voice. Then he thought about who Mass could be talking to down here in the first place. As they got closer, the voice grew clearer, and it sounded like…

“Is he singing?” Claire asked as she chuckled behind her hand.

“Yes, love. I believe he is.” Two Gun answered smiling widely.

“~ I’m crushing a lovely bunch of ant-y guts,

here they are all piled in a bunch,

giant ones, big ones, all bigger than my head,

give them a blap and watch them go splat,

just like the magic man said ~”

As their tunnel got wider, Kaleb could see a flashlight dancing around the wide room. As Mass danced and sang, the whole dirt cavern shook slightly. Kaleb and the others had to stifle laughter as the giant mass of muscles continued to pile ant carcasses into one side of the room. Abby was the first one to get a hold of herself and she waved a hand in the air.

“Hey, Mass! Having fun?”

Mass’s head spun, his flashlight nearly blinding them. “Hey, Shadow-lady! The ants came back, but I squashed them good.”

“I see that,” Abby said.

“I even put them over there like the magic man said.”

Abby approached and patted the big man’s arm as she continued to chuckle. “Hehe. Yes, Mass Chuckfist, you did very good. But our friends are here now and we were gonna go explore the nest. Did you wanna come with us?”

Kaleb could barely see the big guy’s face in the darkness of the cave, but the flashlight pinned to his chest shook back and forth.

“No. I can’t play anymore. I gotta go to work.”

Abby’s exaggeratedly forlorn face gave Kaleb the creeps in the dark tunnel. “Awww, that sucks. Do you think our idiot professor can borrow your flashlight before you logout then?”

Kaleb watched Mass head sink down, so it was right next to Abby’s. In a voice which was probably meant to be a whisper, but still resounded in the cave, Mass asked.

“Is idiot professor afraid of the dark?”

Kaleb was stunned into silences as the guffaws of laughter from the others echoed through the tunnel. Abby glanced back at Kaleb and answered.

“Yeah, probably. What do you say we help him out?”

“Ok, sure.”

The ground beneath his feet shook as Mass approached him and, with a hand the size of Kaleb’s face, the giant pinched the flashlight off of his chest. The sound of a shirt ripping echoed for a second, and the next thing Kaleb knew, he was holding a flashlight and bits of Mass’s sweaty shirt. Kaleb quickly attached the light to his lab coat and looked up at the big alien.

“Bye-bye, scared idiot professor.” Mass waved as he disappeared in motes of light.

Kaleb sighed as he turned to look at a still grinning Abby. “If that nickname sticks, I am going to build self-destruct switches in all the gear I make you.”

Abby continued to chuckle. “Hahaha! That’s fine. But you can’t blame me. You know how Mass is.”

“Sure, sure.” Kaleb muttered as he dropped the bits of a sweaty shirt in his hand. “But now we are down to one powerhouse, three ranged DPS, and a snarky mutant who can live to tell the tale.”

“I will remember to tell your story.” Abby joked. “But, seriously, after a day of Supes in here clearing things out, we should be good. At least for a little while.”

“So, where do we even start?” Two Gun asked.

“This place has got to be a maze.” Kaleb added.

Varlin shook his head. “Actually, not so much. Ants are pretty efficient builders. Once we closed up things with the Ward, they dug a few new tunnels to try to get out, but they quickly gave up.”

“Why?” Two Gun asked

Varlin turned his gaze to the tunnel they were standing in. “Because once we got our own Earth Mages in here and they started messing about, the ants had other things to worry about. We had them build a bunch of false tunnels and other things, but mostly we had them funnel things right to our exit. That way, we could farm more efficiently.”

Kaleb glanced around. It made sense now that he thought about it. Ants wouldn’t need human-sized tunnels. So the mages probably came in and expanded several tunnels while collapsing others. He briefly wondered how berserk the ants went at that, but he figured it couldn’t have been too bad.

“So where are we going then?” Claire asked, cracking her knuckles.

Abby shrugged. “I figured we could keep to the tunnels on the outskirts so we don’t upset the nest. The queen is gonna be busy making new babies. So she’ll keep her soldiers close and we’ll have free run of the outer tunnels.”

Kaleb shrugged. “It’s as good a plan as any. Lead on.”

The others nodded their agreement, and they continued on down the tunnel. Now that Mass wasn’t bouncing around, the dirt in the tunnel was now slowly shifting down the walls and settling to the floor. Kaleb momentarily thought about the tunnel collapsing, but he shunted that thought to the side. He was already nervous enough in the dark cave full of giant killer ants.

Their group trudged slowly through the dark tunnels with only their flashlights lighting up the dense dirt-packed walls. Abby lead them past several other tunnels which Varlin assured them were false tunnels leading to dead-ends. Both Abby and Varlin didn’t believe that it was worth it to search the Mage-made tunnels, though. The Ant tunnels were deeper and more likely to house whatever was that was messing with the Ward.

“While I agree,” Two Gun started. “I still think we should check them. At least on our way out.”

“Agreed.” Kaleb nodded along with the old cowboy.

Abby just shrugged as Varlin looked at them, annoyed. “Come on, what exactly are you expecting to find? They are dead-end tunnels.”

Kaleb raised his eyebrows. “Who knows what we could find? Which is kind of the point of looking. Don’t you think?”

Varlin just threw up his hands in annoyance and continued to follow their diminutive mutant friend. Claire kept her eyes straight ahead, but Kaleb saw her place a hand on her husband’s shoulder as they marched slowly forward. Kaleb assumed the giant woman was silently expressing agreement with her husband and he more than agreed. They were already down here. Why not search everywhere they could?

They marched along for a while and Kaleb was beginning to think that Mass had killed every ant in the colony. There hadn’t even been a sound of the ants moving in the tunnels. Although Abby had kept them on a relatively straight path, Kaleb had expected to at least see a few worker ants milling about. He was about to mention the lack of any adversaries when a wave of some kind of magical force assaulted his senses.

Looking around, he noticed that whatever it had been had also hit the others as well. Claire and Two Gun had their arms out to steady themselves as Varlin and Abby readied attacks. Her with her shadow blades and he with a fireball. Kaleb drew his Cybar and cast his flashlight around the tunnel, but all he could see was dirt.

“What the hell was that?” He asked, still searching.

Varlin shook his head as he glared down the tunnel. “I don’t know. It felt like some kind of influx of magical energy. But it also had physical weight to it.”

“No kidding,” Claire said as she steadied herself. “And that doesn’t normally happen down here?”

Both Abby and Varlin shook their heads as things seemed to settle down. Kaleb felt the earpiece in his ear crackle to life. He had almost forgotten about the thing. Farrah had been adamant about taking the field comms, although they would be out of her range. Jar-lock had agreed and their group had all worn them.

“Did y'all feel that?” Jar-lock voice asked over the comms.

“Yeah, although I’m surprised you did,” Abby said, holding a hand up to her ear.

“The Ward shuddered and almost flickered completely off up here. So it was hard to miss. Even without the massive wave of energy.”

“Any idea what that was all about?” Kaleb asked.

Jar-lock’s reply was pensive. “We don’t know. The Ward is reacting like something is sapping power from it. But the House of Ainsley check it daily and there have been no signs of tampering.”

Kaleb and the others looked at each other. Save for Varlin, who didn’t have a comm unit and was just standing there looking between them. Kaleb sighed before he asked.

“Can we find where the leak, or whatever it is, is?”

“Varlin should be able to pinpoint the location if his magical senses are up to it. Hell, you could do it if you bothered to hone your own.”

“Not the time to admonish my lack of training, Jar.” Kaleb groused as he saw Abby relaying their conversation to Varlin.

The Sorcerer closed his eyes and placed a hand over his Foci. He went as still as a statue as Kaleb felt a wave of magic wash over him. It was much more gentle than the first one and was coming from Varlin. He was obviously trying to sense where the magical pulse had come from. Kaleb tried to focus on his own magic and see if he could manage some kind of sense, but he was almost bowled over as another massive wave pulsed again. He heard Varlin gasp before the lanky sorcerer almost collapsed to the ground.

“Oh, shit!” Abby shouted as she went to check on him.

Claire moved to the front of the line to stand guard as Abby checked on Varlin and Two Gun pointed his pistols down the opposite end of the tunnel. Kaleb tried to get some kind of magical hold on where the pulse had come from, but he couldn’t really manage it. Didn’t help that he did not know what he was doing.

“OWWWWWWWW!” Varlin complained as he leaned up against the wall of the tunnel. “THAT FUCKING SUCKED!”

“Care to explain for those of us of the non-magical persuasion?” Two Gun asked, still looking down the tunnel.

Varlin shook his head a few times before he took Abby’s hand and stood up. “I JUST SHOUTED INTO THE VOID AND THE ECHO NEARLY BURST MY EARDRUMS!”

“Not nearly.” Abby said, pointing at Varlin’s ears.

There were two small trails of blood leaking out of his ears. The sorcerer put a hand to his ear and pulled it away after feeling the blood. After checking his hand, he swore and dug into his robes. He pulled a small round vial out of a pocket and immediately downed the red liquid. Abby glanced at Kaleb before they both looked at Varlin again.

Varlin wiped the blood from below each ear as the Health Potion did its thing. “That’s better. Yeah, that was no fun at all.”

“We seriously need to talk about getting some of those.” Kaleb said, pointing toward the now empty container in Varlin’s hand.

“Subtle, Prof.” Abby muttered.

Kaleb just shot the diminutive mutant a look as Varlin glanced at the bottle in his hand and then back to the others. The lanky sorcerer got a pleased look on his face and started to say something. He was quickly cut off by Kaleb.

“Don’t be a dick,” Kaleb said. “We could use some health potions and you obviously have a source. Just give us a hand.”

Varlin deflated a bit. “You have no mercantile soul. The back-and-forth dance of negotiating is half the fun.”

Kaleb shook his head. “It’s not a dance. It’s an annoying waste of time. You have the thing, I want the thing. I will give you money if you give me the thing. If no one’s an ass about it, we can be over and done with the whole thing fast and everyone can be happy.”

“Kind of a simplistic view,” said Two Gun “Although I can’t say I wouldn’t prefer if more people thought that way.”

“I’ll talk to the House Alchemists. But I don’t expect they’ll part with anything too good. If anything, they’ll sell you the lower tier stuff.”

Kaleb turned a smug smile on Abby. “See? Piece of cake. Now we have someone to go to for Health Potions.”

“Low tier Health Potions.” Abby complained.

“It’s fine. As long as we have some to study, I bet my chemistry skill will let me figure out how to make or improve them.” Kaleb answered.

After confirming that Varlin now had a heading, they let the Sorcerer take the lead as they continued down the tunnel. Abby and Kaleb arguing over the differences between Alchemy and Chemistry. Two Gun and Claire took up the rear of the line and watched their back as they descended deeper into the ant’s nest.