He was about to look up when a rock came whizzing past his head he had to get moving. He shifted the badgers onto his shoulders so he had his hands free to pull out his map as he ran. He could already hear sounds of scrabbling that could only be Norkers climbing down to follow him. He was just glad that the passage was too narrow for any Ogre slugs to follow him. Not that he could count them out as anything that lived in these tunnels was sure to know its way around and his map did not show enough to be certain that there weren’t other connecting routes.
Gar kept running trying not to think about it, the one thing he knew was he had to lose his pursuers before he could head anywhere near his base. Gar started running taking every turning he had mapped out, he knew in the maze of tunnels if he could break the Norkers line of sight on him for long enough then the maze of tunnels would do the rest and he would lose them. He just had to make sure he didn’t get lost himself in the process. Gar was getting desperate no matter what he did he wasn’t fast enough he couldn’t lose them, twice he had thought he was finally rid of them only to be going down a longer straight tunnel and find them behind him. He wasn’t fast enough, he considered whether he was going to have to leave behind another or both of the badgers to slow the Norkers down and let him run a bit faster.
Except he didn’t think he could run away faster even if he did lose the weight and he wasn’t sure he could go back to being alone again. He wanted another way, any way it was an emergency. The word emergency flashed in Gars mind he had been saving for an emergency, his free attribute points. In what though? His endurance and strength where high enough but in games it was usually agility that governed running speed. Not overthinking it Gar placed 2 of his free attribute points into agility. Gar couldn’t tell anything immediately, it was only later he realised he had opened the gap up on his chasers, he was gaining space if he could keep going.
Gar slowly got away he was hearing and seeing less and less of the Norkers behind him last time he caught a glimpse he had only seen one before Gar had turned another corner. It was time to do his plan. He had been skirting a really dense area of connecting and twisting tunnels, with some space gained he could go there and he was certain he would lose anyone following from that far away. So he did, the plan worked he took a dozen turns and new tunnels in as many minutes. Gar left that area and kept going, an hour later and he had seen no sign of any pursuers for all that time. He allowed himself to slow down slightly, he had been running for hours and was no longer at his fastest pace but even so slowing down was a relief.
Gar was so glad he had taken the time to make and fill out his map or else he would have never gotten away without it, captured or worse at the first dead end he came to. Still not quite ready to believe he had got away Gar kept moving even if it was much more slowly. He had lost any food or water he had with him when he chucked his bag out the hole. With a bit of luck it would be waiting for him outside. He was thirsty and hungry the run had taken a lot out of him. Being overly cautious Gar started on a route that would take him wide round where he last saw the Norkers and back towards his camp. It wasn’t the most direct route but even in his tired state Gar was not going to take the risk they found him again.
Gar crawled out of the cave hours later it was dark he was tired and still he didn’t stop, not yet. He started piling stones as big as he could get and blocked the cave entrance he built the pile up to twice as large as normal he did not want anything getting through. Then went to commanded B1 to guard the entrance only to remember he couldn’t. Quickly he had B2 do it instead before crawling into his shelter. He saw the ant egg on the corner of his bed where he had left it, he wanted to punt it, to pick it up and lob it, instead he lay on his bed cradled the egg to his chest curled up into a ball and cried.
“New stats added to status: +1 endurance”
Gar opened his eyes he was lying in his bed with a weight on his chest. Tilting his head so he could see it was the ant egg or was it? It was larger and heavier than it had been the previous night. As much as this puzzled Gar he couldn’t bring himself to care. He had thought he had a way out and it was gone it had already cost him two badgers he wasn’t going to let it cost him more. He eventually rolled out of bed replacing the ant egg in it. Once out of his shelter he was climbing the rock before he really even thought about it. He didn’t see much point in it as he no longer had a route out. He kept at it anyway he reasoned that he enjoyed doing it and the exercise was good for him. It was a good climbing session in the end and only slightly shorter than he normally did. After his climb his mood had lifted a bit things might seem bad but he could make them work. As he ate some breakfast he sat and thought over what he was going to do, the only thing he came up with was he had to go get the stuff he had dropped out the hole.
He stood to go do exactly that, and then sat back down. One of the things that had been dropped out the hole was his spear he had no weapon. It had been necessary at the time. He wouldn’t have been able to juggle the badgers, the map and his spear all while moving, and dropping it out the hole was better than just leaving it in the cave, at least this way he could get it back. Gar considered his options he could use one of his other tools as a weapon until he got his spear back or he could make another spear, he had his knife and could find a stick. He liked the idea of making another spear except not with another knife he got up and found the mega-ra ant queens’ guard mandibles giving them an inspect as he checked them out.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Mega-ra ant queens’ guard mandibles
For most ants the mandibles are a hand and a tool for the queens’ guard they are only one thing, a weapon.
Uses: weapon, smithing, crafting
Value: ????
Quality: Fine
Rarity: uncommon
Durability: 250/250
Each mandible was at least a meter long and at its thinnest as thick as his wrist, they curved inwards and ended in large razor sharp blades that would come together when they were closed. They had large needle sharp spikes up their length all pointing inwards. Gar could feel that they were denser than other carapace slightly heavier in his hands. If he could shape them like the rest of the carapace he could make a truly deadly weapon. So Gar started a fire and got to work.
“Fire starting levelled up fire starting level 5”
Smoothing the spikes back into the main body of the piece and straightening out the curve he quickly realised there would be enough material in a single mandible to create his spear. He smoothed most of the material into a rod stretching it to add length and thin the rod that would become the spears shaft to a comfortable size to hold. The blade at the end was moved up and reshaped to become the blade of the spear, a fairly thin leaf shaped blade with cutting edges on both sides and a point on the tip. The other end he shaped down to form a point. He picked up his spear and tested it, it was very light he wanted a bit more weight to it particularly in the point. He found a stone, almost spherical and worked it into the shaft just above where the point started to form. It left a spherical bulge in the shaft completely covered the stone and sealing it in. a few swings and the weight felt off, unbalanced, so Gar put a couple of small stones in the shaft at the other end behind the blade, he smoothed it over so you couldn’t tell they were there. The balance of the weapon felt good, he was still awkward with it as it was new to him and different to his old one but it was a lot tougher and a lot sharper, a much more deadly weapon. The finished product was two meters long with a lethal blade on one end and an armour piercing spike on the other. It was light weight and solid.
His new weapon in hand Gar went and collected his gear, it didn’t take long as it was a quiet trip following the cliff round. He checked over his gear and it all seemed to have survived the fall a few scuffs and scrapes otherwise nothing damaged. He stared up the cliff looking to see if he could find the hole he had dropped his stuff from, while he thought he might have spotted it he couldn’t really tell it was to high up and he was much too close to the base to see it.
He returned to camp surprisingly much happier than when he left. He both had his gear back and one of his big fears hadn’t happened, there was no sign that any Norkers or Ogre slugs had come out the hole and into the crater he was trapped in. Once back at camp Gar checked the rock pile hadn’t been moved and set B2 to guarding it again. While he sat and worked out what his new plan would be, he had put in a lot of effort towards climbing out and with his daily climb he had realised that an over a kilometre climb was beyond him even the five hundred meters from the hole was going to be a push for him. Not to mention he didn’t have enough rope or safety wedges for the full climb.
Then Gar started thinking why couldn’t he do his plan maybe with a few tweaks? The Norkers and the Ogre slugs made things difficult but would they really be there waiting for him. Obviously his mining had drawn their attention before and then he had gone to their home but the hole wasn’t at their home in fact it was a bit of a journey from it. It would be highly unlikely all of them would be waiting at the hole in fact why would any be waiting there they were more likely to be searching the tunnels for him and that’s if they actually cared at all.
If he was to do it he would need everything prepared and set up he would need to be able to minimise the time he spent in that cave and not draw any attention to it. The more he thought about it the more it made sense. He started listing out what he needed to do. He needed his equipment packed into bundles to be pulled up after. He needed to resupply his food especially nuts as they would last and travelled well, he wasn’t going to be able to take everything so he needed to decide what got left behind. It was all going to take time but that was fine with Gar it was just more time for the Ogre slugs and Norkers to forget about him. Gar started to work out how to bring his stuff up the cliff with him most efficiently. He couldn’t carry it so it was going to have to come up after, and there was far too much to do it in one load. So how could he do it so he could attach new loads without having to climb up and down every time? Even with a rope above after the first time that would not be and easy climb he did not want to do it multiple times. The easy answer was to have someone else at the bottom to attach it to the rope, only he was alone. Except he wasn’t not quite.
