When the itching finally fades away, Crinis peels herself off the walls and regroups back onto my carapace to reveal something I didn't expect to see. Protectant, her cover dropped without me having to drag her out of the shadows for once, stands right in front of me, in the centre of the room. Exposed to my senses, she wears a nervous air, as if the simple fact of been able to be seen makes her uncomfortable.
"Didn't expect to see you, Protectant. What's up?"
Her antennae twitch in surprise.
"The rest of the nest? The surface nest? The surface? About two hundred million tons of rock and soil? I don't understand the question, Eldest."
Sometimes I forget the ants aren't up to speed with the lingo.
"I just mean to see what's up with you. I mean - forget it. Why are you out of cover? I assume you have something to say?"
"Where have you been?"
The question is more direct than I expected, but it's pretty much what I thought she'd say.
"Right here," I'm still not going to bow down to these babysitters.
"We couldn't see you."
"I know, that was the point of Operation Blackout."
announce the name of my scheme I can see her antennae go crazy with barely suppressed excitement. These damn security guards are as bad as the council.
did you need to hide
her intrigue away
Eldest needs a little privacy.
us to do fulfil
here in the nest? Forget it, you'll just need to cope. We're heading out to do some grinding deeper in the strata
ten on you at all
the idea of getting
hunt in teams of five,
muscles bunching with excitement as he does his little gorilla boxing shuffle, throwing mini-punches into the air. The ape is pumped up and ready to fight. In fact, even Invidia has allowed his Cheshire cat grin to appear. Seems like the whole crew is
to move too quickly in the second strata, what with poisonous little barbs attached to almost everything we see. By now we've become far more comfortable traversing the tunnels and we need less breaks to heal Tiny after he stumbles into something else that
I get the feeling it'll be harder to deal with this time, exposed to the second strata, and the third beneath it
in as short as possible a time frame. We need dat sweet, sweet experience! Elemental constructs whizzing with mana, I step forward and unleash all the mana
In the third strata.
what we're going up
frowned and resisted
she said sourly, "the old man loves his secrets. Aside from the fact we're in the third strata, I don't even know where we are. I don't think anyone does. The commander is keeping his cards close to
full Legion as they awaited permission to exit the citadel they had arrived in. Even though the Runic Armour shielded them from the elements, the searing heat scalded their skin and the taste
the hall in which they waited, not a one of them
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