Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Seven

Chapter One-Hundred Fifty-Seven

Another day, another set of delvers. Todays set is starting early and they dont look much like my typical delvers. Most of them come in with some variety of armor, or at least a wizards robes, but not these ones. These ones come with what looks to me like forge gear, heavy leather aprons and gloves and such. The half-dozen or so at least have picks and hammers that they probably know how to swing, but I seriously doubt they can handle my deeper stuff.

That doubt turns to certainty as I probe them with a few encounters on the surface. One of them gets a nasty bite from one of my vipers, and he hobbles back towards the gates to recover, giving me some defeat delver mana. The rest of the group decide to turn back when they meet a widow in the tunnels, and Im just glad they understand what they cant handle.

The next group actually tries their luck against the widow, and she leaves them nice and wrapped up for my ratlings to haul to the gates on the surface.

On the one hand, Im enjoying the mana for victories. On the other hand, Im starting to think I should have been more careful about the fantasy metals. While smiths theoretically could be after gold, I seriously doubt it. These guys look like they make adventuring gear, not jewelry.

Im sure theyll learn. It doesnt look like it even will take them long to do so. The more experienced miners show up around noon, a bit late in the day for them, but it looks like they were spending their time organizing a big group. I wonder if its even technically a raid party. Thatd be kinda cool, even if itd really show how much I underestimated how desirable those fantasy metal nodes are.

Usually, mining groups going to the caverns are about 3:1 miners to adventurers, but this group is looking almost 1:1. They all consult with a map and check their route, and Im much less concerned for this group than the others. Id bet they heard about my friendly disposition and the valuable ores, and thought theyd be able to run in and get some quickly. These guys have been in the caverns and know I can bring some heat if I want, so theyve prepared accordingly. Im actually a bit proud of these guys.

I make sure I have some healing slimes down in the lava tubes anyway. They probably have some fire protection, but I dont know exactly how dangerous my wyrms actually are. Theyve been having an easy buffet of the fire elementals, but thats thanks to the ambushes. I dont want my wyrms to just swallow limbs and dive back into the rock. Hopefully itll be good training for my weird little dragons, to actually have to fight, instead of relying on surprise tactics.

I might upgrade the ants again, though. I like the crucible ants, but theyre still not going to make me an enclave. I think I have at least one more tier of ants before I reach the max ones. My mana is still doing fine, especially after defeating those earlier miners, so its not a difficult decision to upgrade to the next tier.

Wow, thats a big and ugly ant. Its called a tunnelbore ant, which makes the ugliness make a bit more sense. And the size. Theyre easily going to be my biggest denizens at around four feet tall and around ten feet long. Theyre kinda squat and thick ants, with a huge head like a major might have. Instead of the big mandibles a major would have, though, it has a big flat ugly lumpy spiky face. It reminds me of the head of a big tunnel boring drill, but organic instead of metal.

Im glad it doesnt look like it can just rotate its face like one, though. Thatd be some nightmare fuel there. It does like to dig, at least, and I watch as it starts. It just rubs its face against the wall in a circular motion, looking like it wants to wax on, or maybe wax off. Probably off, because the wall of the tunnel is easily being dug away. Once it gets to put its entire face against the newly-flattened part of the wall, the ant crawls around in circles, like a breakdancer spinning on his head. But with more limbs. And on the wall.

maybe not so much like a breakdancer, then. Whatever the correct metaphor, its making good progress into the wall, and I spend a bit of mana to give it some direction. I'd usually have Coda do this, but hes busy with the cinder blocks and cement. I tell the ant to make a bunch of side chambers along the tunnel for now, and am glad to see the next tunnelbore ant start to work on a new one. Im sure theyll congregate a bit once they can start opening the boreholes into proper chambers.

Im really happy with my new tunnelbore ants, and watch them work as the miners reach the tunnels. It looks like the adventurers have some form of fire protection, which is great for my wyrms. Not letting them ambush is one thing, but how can I expect them to attack if a touch would make third-degree burns? First degree?

Really bad burns! The wyrms keep them on their toes, opting to start with making very obvious and slow magma holes before leaping out, forcing the delvers to dodge or otherwise deal with the simple momentum of the attack. The delvers strategy is simple, but effective. The adventurers will lock down the mandibles of a wyrm in various ways, and the miners will come in with hammers and picks to get at the more vulnerable sides. Its not especially fast work, but its effective and pretty safe. Burns and wounds still happen, but they have some healing on hand for that.

I absently nod to myself about that, glad I wont need to babysit the delvers as I watch the ants dig. Thats part of the fun of an ant farm, after all.