Chapter 764 - While you were sleeping
The wave ground on as Tiny and Crinis continued their evolution, the ants of the Colony working industriously as they always did. The never ending sp.a.w.ns of monsters were a blessing and curse, disrupting all usual business, but flooding the nests with Bioma.s.s and cores that were in turn used to fuel the further expansion and growth of the Colony. Queens toiled, eating and laying eggs that were taken by the brood tenders and nursed in their protected chambers. Once hatched, each larvae was cared for as if they were royalty. Fed and groomed near constantly, played with and tickled on an hourly basis. Each grub was tended by the same ant from the moment it hatched until the happy day they graduated the academy. This allowed them to maximise the utility and bonuses gained from their mentoring Skills.
It was a well-oiled machine, but one that was constantly in the process of being reinvented. The world of Pangera was ever changing and it was up to the Colony to adapt to stay ahead of it, lest they fall and become extinct. And it was exactly this worry that kept the two brood tender council members on their claws.
Theresant and Florence worked tirelessly to ensure that the next generation of the Colony were reared in the best way that they knew how, and when that knowledge changed, so too must their methods. Nothing but the most effective, most efficient methods would be acceptable for such an important task, but even these tried and true practices weren"t always up to the task. Sometimes, they were forced to think outside the box, because, as strange as it might sound, not every larva, or pupa, or hatchling, was the same.
Particularly this one.
"Where has she gone this time?!" an unusually fl.u.s.tered Florence groaned when Theresant gave her the bad news.
"If I knew that, I wouldn"t have come to you," her fellow council member grumbled to her, clearly suffering from a lack of rest.
"This is the third time she"s escaped today! If I hadn"t seen it for myself, I wouldn"t have even believed a grub could move that fast! What did her caretakers say?"
"They"re bordering on hysterical. The idea of a larva going missing is unheard of. The whole group are bordering on panic! They think they"ve failed in their duty to the next generation!"
The two dipped their antennae, such a feeling was beyond pain to the tenders. This could not be borne!
"Make sure they are comforted, they have not failed the Colony, but rather this grub is beyond anything I"ve seen before. What possible reason would a larva have to abandon the brood chambers?! And how the heck could they even do it!?"
"Calm yourself, sister," Theresant said, "we must take this situation in hand. No grub will be lost on our watch, no matter what."
"You"re right, of course. Thank you Theresant," Florence collected herself and found her calm. "Do you have any thoughts as to where we should look first?"
"There must be tracks, it"s a grub after all. Let"s gather a team of tenders and see if we can requisition some scouts. We"ll have that larva back in our care before they know it."
Having thus firmed their resolve, the two ants moved quickly. In a matter of minutes a search party was gathered, a pa.s.sing group of scouts press-ganged into service. It made a strange sight, one rarely seen in the nest, when the brood tenders sallied forth from their chambers in search of a wayward larva. What they expected to be a quick search, soon took a turn for the worse as the scent they followed ranged high and low through the tunnels.
Much business was thrown into disorder as the increasingly desperate party of brood tenders raced from place to place, bursting into the blacksmith"s forges and turning them upside down before turning and racing out again. Many an antennae was set to wiggling anxiously when they raided the resting chambers, disturbing the torpor of many workers and unknowingly throwing the Unnamed One"s into despair by throwing their counts off. But there was nothing to be done about it, there was not a single ant in the Colony who would stand before the brood tenders and impede their work. There was no hierarchy amongst the castes, no pecking order or chain of command, but all knew that the work of caring for the young was the most important work of all. When the tenders burst into their workplaces, all the ants could do was get out of the way until they were gone.
So it was that Theresant and Florence grew increasingly frantic as they followed the trail of this impossible grub all through the nest until finally the scent led outside the nest itself.
"HOW?!" Florence burst out, "it can"t possibly be this quick! It doesn"t have legs!"
Theresant pondered for a moment.
"Do you think it might have latched onto other ants using its mandibles? That might explain the quick pace and the lack of tracks."
Florence stared at her.
"You don"t think they"d notice?" she asked.
"It"s a larva! They are small and light. If it latched onto a leg, or underneath the carapace…"
"Dammit!" Florence swore. "That means it could drop off anywhere in the tunnels and crawl off. We need to move quickly! What if a monster sp.a.w.ns next to it!"
"We won"t let it happen," Theresant promised her sister before turning to the search party behind them. "Bring your sisters," she ordered them, "we need more antennae for the search."
Five minutes later, the single largest gathering of brood tenders outside their chambers ever witnessed descended on the Bioma.s.s farms like a storm, scattering all before them in their hunt for the grub. Chaos reigned wherever they went as more and more ants were forced to join the hunt until thousands upon thousands of ants flooded the tunnels, searching high and low, tracing the faint scent of a single grub that seemed to criss-cross everywhere throughout the territory until none could be sure where the trail began or where it ended.
As the tenders grew more distressed, more ants abandoned their work to a.s.sist them, which quickly grew out of control and all industry in the Colony ground to a halt. Even soldiers were dragged into the mess, pulling the generals with them. Before she had even realised what was happening, Sloan found herself organising the central command post for the search, directing no less than fifty different search parties as they tore the territory apart in search of the grub.
Advant herself lead a charge to the very edge of the Colony defences, following a faint trace that led right to the outer wall before doubling back, somehow toward the farms. Eventually the pattern began to emerge as Sloan pieced together the movement of the grub and organised the searchers into a wide net, cast out to surround and constrict the territory in which the elusive larva could move. With hearts pounding in chests, the ants slowly converged, turning over every rock and leaf so as not to let their prey slip past. Creeping step by step they advanced, drawing close the strings around the target and blocking off escape routes.
Emergency walls were constructed, an army of carvers working without pause, walled off tunnels and built emergency watch stations. Every ant pa.s.sing in and out was inspected head to toe, lest they unknowingly smuggle the grub through a check point.
Florence and Theresant felt joy surging in their hearts as the web drew ever more taut. They would not lose the larva and their sisters would know joy when this lost lamb had been returned to the fold. They placed themselves at the forefront of the search and none were more diligent than they. The two siblings checked every rock, every fold in the stone and left no shadow seaweed uninspected as they advanced.
Eventually, the mult.i.tude of search parties gathered around a single point, an intersection of tunnels close to the edge of the Colony"s territory. Hearts were in mouths all around as the thousands of ants gathered within sight of each other. Somewhere ahead, in this innocuous looking patch of rock, the grub was hiding, they had made sure of it. All trails led to this point, escape was impossible!
"Ahh! What a nap! I"m feeling good! Oh. Ah. h.e.l.lo everyone?"
At that moment, the Eldest stood up, right in the middle of the mult.i.tude of spectators, stretching after a period of torpor.
"Eldest? What are you doing here?" Theresant asked.
The giant ant turned to cast their eyes over the tense antennae of the gathered crowd.
"I was resting here. What the heck has been going on while I was resting? Actually. Don"t worry, I think I have it."
The brood tender tilted her head, unsure as to what the Eldest meant when they moved forward, ducked down and seemingly from nowhere plucked a grub from the ground with their mandibles, holding it up for all to see.
"This what you"re after?"
There was perfect stillness for a moment, then, the gathered throng burst into wild applause, clacking their mandibles as waves of pheromones rolled through the tunnels. The brood tenders were almost overcome with emotion as the long search finally came to an end. Theresant and Florence walked forward on shaking legs to approach the Eldest and inspect the larva for themselves.
"Finally we"ve found her!" they cried. "We can take her back to the chambers and tend to her needs properly."
The little grub wriggled viciously in the Eldest"s grip but the mighty ant had no problem maintaining their grip without hurting the little one.
"I"m not sure that"s a good idea," the Eldest shocked the two of them, "this one reminds me of Vibrant. She"s the only other grub I"ve seen with this much energy. If you take her back, she"s only going to escape again. You might as well leave her with me. I"ll bring her up personally."
The two tenders felt a chill run down their carapace.
"You? T-teach her personally? A-are you s-sure that"s… safe?" Florence stammered.
The Eldest eyed the two of them, an aura of irritation rising from them.
"What are you implying?"
So quickly they almost missed it, the hovering demon guardian of the Eldest appeared, a giant mouth splitting the air beneath it and opening wide. Quick as a flash, the Eldest turned and flung the grub straight into the waiting maw, which quickly closed and vanished from sight.
"ELDEST!?" Theresant shrieked.
"Calm down," the Eldest groused. "He"s not going to eat her. If she"s going to be a pain and send the entire Colony into a tizzy, she can have a little time-out. In this case, time-out means being held in a demon"s inter-dimensional mouth."
Then they laughed. Oh how they laughed.
Scarred and frightened, the two tenders retreated back to the brood chambers, to rea.s.sure their sisters and comfort each other from memories they would rather forget. An hour later, the Colony was back to its normal industrious self, as if nothing had ever happened.