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Chapter 1630 - Medicine
🕑 Added 2025-07-07 01:10:13 +0000 UTCSolant watched as the last of the Krath resistance was swept from the field. They’d lasted longer than she’d expected, a testament to how tenacious they were as enemies. She had a respect for the slug tribes. As enemies, they were everything the little general could ask for: cunning, vicious, willing to sacrifice in order to achieve victory, canny in the ways they utilised their advantages.
Their defeat in this campaign was simply a matter of planning. Solant had prepared for this outcome from the very beginning. With the power of initiative, the Krath had been forced to react, always on the back foot. So long as they hadn’t succeeded in cracking the fortress, then the Colony was assured of victory.
It came close, closer than she’d thought it would, but thanks to the heroics of the battalions, the sacrifice of many of her siblings, and the unrelenting will of the Eldest, they had held firm. Now it was time to reap the reward.
“I suppose you think the work is done,” Mendant snapped as she walked up to the general. “Did you forget we still need to heal this massive thing?”
“Of course not,” Solant replied calmly, patting the irascible healer on the carapace with her antenna. “I’m well aware of the work that still needs to be done, have no fear. You will be given all the time and support you need.”
Mendant huffed, not appeased in the slightest.
“Oh? You’re going to give us more time, are you? I expect you’ll shut down the mana flowing down from above, then. Wouldn’t want the heart to fill up too quickly now.”
Solant clacked her mandibles with regret.
“Sadly, I do not believe we are able to shut off the flow once it has begun. Needless to say, the faster we can fill the heart and have it start to spread our concentrated, cleansed mana, the better.”
The healer shook her head, disgusted.
“Typical,” she said before walking away, muttering to herself. When she reached a group of healers busy working on a section of wall, Solant could see them discuss amongst themselves for a moment before the entire group turned to stare at her.
“You should be careful not to get injured any time soon,” Leonidant advised her.
“I think you might be right,” Solant agreed.
Of course, they could shut off the flow from above, but she wasn’t wrong in saying it was important to fill the heart as fast as possible. If they let the cleansed mana trickle in and slowly dissipate, it would be eaten up by the fifth in no time at all. Only by pumping out highly concentrated energy would they be able to achieve their aim: a full conversion of this entire section of Dungeon.
Which meant the healers would need to make sure the entire heart didn’t fall apart over the next hour or so—a daunting task, to say the least.
“They’ve been doing a good job so far,” Leonidant pointed out. “Look at the floor.”
Indeed, the lower reaches of the heart had been fully healed already. Where once it had been a yellow-grey, slime-covered mass of pallid flesh, now it was a hale and hearty red, beating stronger than before.
Of course, there were still the holes that the Mother Tree had punctured through the walls that needed to be closed over, but hopefully they wouldn’t pose too much of a problem. Solant put the healers from her mind and turned her attention to another issue.
The whirlpool down below was still there, the cleansed liquid mana reacting violently to the sludge left behind by Theorazzn. She hadn’t expected it to succumb quickly, but it was lasting much longer than expected, which meant it was consuming more mana than she’d allowed for.
At least it was finally starting to go down. It would take a few hours, she guessed, but eventually the pool would be eradicated entirely, no longer able to corrupt the heart from within.
“We’ll have to add that to calculations for the next one,” Solant noted aloud.
Leonidant followed her gaze and nodded.
“Hard to imagine what sort of creature could create such a thing, or have it last so long.”
“I don’t think we will have to imagine for too long,” Solant said.
Leonidant looked to her sister, expecting her to elaborate, but Solant said nothing, instead looking up to the roof of the upper chamber. It was up there that the Krath had made their homes, and it was still quite contaminated.
“Let’s take a look,” she said, and began to climb.
“Should we be going up there?” the scout questioned, ever cautious.
“We have protection against the mana.”
“But what if there are still Krath up there?”
“There aren’t,” Solant replied confidently. “Have no fear and come.”
For a slug to remain in the face of imminent death would be antithetical to every behavior they had displayed so far. If any Krath had refused to go down to the battle, then they were long gone by now. As the two ants climbed, shielded from contamination by Smithant's works, Solant’s confidence was proven to be well founded.
Despite the large size of the settlement, with hundreds and hundreds of dwellings, along with large feeding pits and mould farms, they found not a single soul.
“There is a great deal we need to improve for our next assault,” Solant mused. “Knowing how the slugs form their settlements within the heart is important knowledge. If we can start to fill from the top, we could avoid having to fight altogether.”
“Are you assuming that every heart-settlement is the same? We have no evidence of that,” Leonidant cautioned.
“A valid point,” Solant conceded. “However, I think the strategy still has merit. Something to think about after scouting and construction plans have been laid out.”
As the two ants moved through the eerily empty settlement, Solant continued to muse and expound upon her strategy going forward. There was a great deal to do, so much that Leonidant's head was spinning. Indeed, the tunnels needed to be mapped, the borders of this new safe-zone marked, scouting done into the surrounding territories, defences built, mana intakes and channels constructed, wuffers to be bred, new targets to be designated.
It was clear that Solant had been considering the next steps for a long time, possibly from the very beginning.
The two found their way into a particularly elaborate chamber, right in the heart of the structures. As they moved inside on a whim, Leonidant noticed a distant pool, built low to the ground. When they drew closer, she saw it was filled with pearls, glistening beneath the surface of the shallow liquid. Originally grimy and yellowish, already the pearls had become flecked with motes of shimmering blue.
“Looks like we need to contact the Brood Tenders,” Solant said, clacking her mandibles. “They’ll be pleased, I think.”
Comments
Pockman
Two things of serious note: Solant believes the Ancients will rise. Solant tells hard lies (UN ant like) for the purpose of victory.
Meir Banon
Tftc
alt31415
They have tier '6.5' wuffers, and we know they reached Max Wuffage a while back; since then they've been using cores for other purposes, and since it costs a tier 6.5 energy to make more wuffers, they've instead been stockpiling the energy.
taukid
I wonder how many wuffers they have at this point and how high a tier they have any wuffer
Brian Pierce
You'd think the cololony would've been attacked by a tier 10 monster in the fifth strata. Considering there were tier 8 demons in the 3rd strata. I don't think they were ever attacked by a tier 9 wich feels wierd.
DerHochi
Chozth wasn’t really confirmed dead, right? Just that she was hit by a drop of blue mana and “collapsed in an instant”
Brian Pierce
You know it was never stated zluth died, while the other named krathe were stated to die.
Brian Schwab
I had originally imagined it did, and would just convert an entire section of the 5ths sphere, but I guess that could be wrong.
Gonvas
Wait for Anthony and his guard to deal with Theorazzn’s corruption first xD
KopiCAT
At this point, we NEED to see the reaction of the other factions and races. Especially that of the Legion!
Runaway_Cactuar
The Singing Must Continue~
Scott Faulkner
I always read it as more of a "We are the only ants that have our work regularly destroyed" kind of thing. Like the actually care deeply and go to great lengths to heal their siblings but the same ones keep getting hurt....DAMNIT LERROY
guvvuf
Ah, good, more Chal! Their species should be able to propagate!
Pacnether
I don’t understand this running trope about cranky healers. If it’s supposed to be funny, the joke went stale many chapters ago. It’s uncharacteristically shortsighted and seemingly selfish that you have ants fighting with their lives on the line only to have healers who would rather have them risk failing the campaign and setting back progress Am I missing something?
Hayden Leech
Have we ever actually seen Rino describe an ant dying or falling in combat? (Immortals don’t count)I’m not sure. Hmm. Im trying to think of a time we saw.. idk a fireball spell slam into a rank of ants or something. It’s always the other way around.
Hayden Leech
So… weird request. I would love a death toll. When the Legion/golgari invaded the colony it sounded like the legion had nearly zero losses while the golgari suffered…more? losses… idk. They seemed more bothered than the legion leaving that war. The colony lost many ants but apparently new ants were spawned at a rate that the total population kept growing throughout the siege. We didn’t get that for the termites. I would love to know what this assault on the fifth actually cost the colony…. Because the early chapters make it sound like not a single ant was capture/slain in this whole event. There’s no way right? The colony put such an emphasis on protecting every single member because one ant loss meant the Krath could make a corrupted queen and eventually a rival Colony. Did solant really pull this off without a single ant death? Cuz that’s fucking hardcore.
DrDankness
Bro got washed lol
Alex Shinall
Wait...wasn't Zluth still there watching Solant when she first arrived 😬.
Ashrothe
It'll be a tune up.
Caleb Herring
For the choir!!
Anthony Romanov
Yep need to kidnap alot of Kath's children and clean them up to be respectful Chals!
Rahsheem Reid
Nice more Chal!
taukid
I wonder how deep into the stratum this heart reaches? I can't imagine we'll hit the 6th but will it get halfway? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Buck
Goid chapter. The following chapters should be even better! Bring them on!
No_Creative_Name
THE SINGING CANNOT STOP
shawn B
More for the choir!
