What to do? Do I tell them I can’t remember the plan? Would that impact my dignity as the Eldest? Maybe I’ll just play along and hope for the best. What’s the worst that could go wrong?
“Do we all understand?”
“Of course.”
“No problem.”
“Simple.”
….
“It’s straightforward, I like it,” I declare with every scrap of confidence I can muster. “I’ll leave it to you to coordinate with the generals at the front.”
“I understand.”
Solant is all business, solemn and serious as she goes about plying her particular trade. When we arrive, she goes straight to the generals and begins an in-depth conversation about what she wants to do that I immediately lose track of, but they seem to follow okay.
Following that, she moves around the resting troops, ensuring they understand what to do, drawing little diagrams and even running a few drills until she’s happy that they’ll move the way she wants them to.
The entire time, all I hear in my mind is static. This is a problem.
do, I run out of time. Standing on the front line as the soldiers, scouts, mages
could go poorly. My
you’ll lead
“O-of course!”
way literally, as in, move forward at the head of the troops? Or do we start with an acid barrage? She talked about
a few more. The troops behind me begin to
bit more.
I’m worried that I’m moving
I just keep scuttling forward until the ants fighting ahead of me turn and retreat, rushing
NOW WHAT?
Do I strike?
that ruin the plan? I don’t want to unravel the strategy! The whole point of this exercise is to train Solant and let her
Maybe I should unleash some gravity magic, slow the enemy
that? DAMMIT! This is giving me a headache. The
make a move, I do the only thing I can think of: I tuck my legs under my body, bury my head in the rock and accept my fate. If I can’t decide
monsters begin to batter at my carapace. Claws scratch, teeth scrape, blows rain down on me ceaselessly. Protected by my absurdly tough, compressed diamond carapace, reinforced by the plating beneath and
instantly annihilated at least. I can feel the ants engaging the
has acid tough enough to eat through my carapace, I’d love to meet them. In fact,
the gnawing feeling that I’m doing something wrong continues to eat away at me, and every second, I question whether or not I should stick
OOF!
earth elemental just clobbered me with one of its
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