It smelled of rot and death around. I was in a bad place: the worst place. I was in the trash heap, the pit where everything useless was thrown into.
I was not condescending. I could smell mellow dirt, rotten food, dead bodies, and everything else of that order. It was not a good place to be.
Still, I got to my feet and stretched. Had to do it; my blood had become paste from the night out. The sun's warmth was doing an excellent job of turning it fluid, but it also needed open vessels to flow.
There was also the existential question beaming inside my head for attention, but I ignored it for the time being. Other things took priority.
I rubbed some saliva at my smooth forepaws —it was heartbreaking to notice what had become of my once perfect mandibles— and polished my antennae. You can’t expect an ant to function properly with dirty antennae. They are our sensory organs. We sense the world, mostly scents, with them. But that’s what an ant’s world mostly consists of — scents. It was our answer to habitual blindness: Living underground comes with its set of difficulties; blindness is simply one of the many problems that plague ants.
So, I stretched and polished my antennae and finally put my attention to these colorful, geometric scribbles, naively —or should I say pompously— hovering right in front of my face, blocking nothing, because —I’ll just say it for the sake of putting the point through— I was blind.
*You have absorbed the essence of Greed. Greed has awakened in you.
*A neural Link has been created between you and the all-encompassing system.
Note: Reach level 1 to establish a connection with the system.
[Greed][Tier-0][Essence]
[????]
[Effects: ]
Pros: Infinite skill affinity.
????
????
Cons: Skills won’t gain experience.
You have acquired Thermal resistance after being tormented by a harsh cold for a whole night.
What use is eyes that can’t see or a mind that can’t understand me? You have acquired Sight and Universal Tongue.
[Thermal Resistance][Lv-1][Tier-1][Passive]
[It slows down the rate at which your body gains or losses heat due to temperature change.]
[Effect: Keeps your metabolism active normally for at least 10secs after your body reaches critical temperatures.]
[Reward: Endurance increases by .1 points every level.]
***
[Sight][Lv-1/10][Tier-1][Passive]
[It gives you a hazy sense of visual perception That improves with the skill.]
[Reward: Intelligence & Wisdom increases by .05 Points every level.]
***
[Universal ear][Special]
[It is the knowledge of languages.]
I was blind, but the shining persistent thing decided that in order for me to fulfill whatever design it had in mind for me I needed to see. Therefore, I saw. There were colors, shapes, structures, up close that distorted into blurred motions further from me. It was my first time actually seeing something, and I was horrified for my sight was filled with bodies of my kin.
I was also thankful, because down there in the trash heap —It was actually a pit, but it was supposed to fill up and become a heap, so— it was impossible to make out any kind of scent signals. You fell in the pit, you died. It was a giant chemical furnace, continuously blasting strong sense disabling scents up and out. It was also one of the biggest reasons why no young ones liked community labor; other than being worked half to death, day and night.
But I could determine the top of the pit from the shape I saw, so I managed to climb out of it. The colony was just a distance away. There was a time when the gravel dug out was left out wherever, but when you are excavating in tons, even dirt becomes a problem if simply left out. Then some wise queen years ago had suggested using the excavated gravel to construct a surface city, and nothing had been the same since.
The tower standing tall was a proud marvel of ant-engineering. It was almost thirty stories (3 feet) up the surface, and strong enough to handle the elements. The latter was of most importance. This was the first time I was seeing it, still just a hazy outline in a grey fog of acute blindness, but when you see such a megastructure of your own creation, your home, you do end up forgetting about everything else for a time. I similarly felt senseless.
It wasn’t long after when a patrolling soldier noticed me. We all have a scent. She must have thought me odd or hurt because she came to help me, or so I thought. Opposite to my belief, her antennas stood straight when she got in range of determining my identity. Then, instead of escorting me back to the colony, she blasted pheromones of alarm in a spreading ring of scent, agitated and vigilant.
I was surprised too, for she was just as quick to point her bottom at me as she was in raising the alarm. The minuscule amount of our proud burning poison oozing from the tip of her bottom was mortifying. There were dinner talks of its deadliness and crazy fast action time. It was said to be painful starting from 10 percent poison in the mixture and deadly at a surprisingly low 40 percent mixture. Friendly fires had traumatized many soldiers.
At least, this particular soldier was asking my identity instead of haphazardly storming at me. Someone older than one hundred days would have fired first and asked later.
With the scent came another one of those shimmering colorful geometric phantoms. It was up and gone as quick as it had appeared, but was terrifying either way. More horrifying was my understanding of them, because for some unknown reason, I knew what they were.
I pushed the issue of my skills —that’s what those colorful geometric patterns were: my skills— to the back of my mind. The soldier was agitated and, quite scared. For her, I was an enemy, and in an ants world, an enemy never comes alone. When there’s one there are always more.
The only thing I could think that might have led me in this situation was, either I was at the wrong place or I didn’t carry any passport pheromones on me. The latter was true in this case.
Oh, no!
The workers had scrubbed off my passport before dumping me outside in the pit, which a sky or a predator would have taken if left on. So not only had I lost my mandible, but also my identity? The knowledge gave me an indefinable shook.
Passport pheromones are something like an identity card for not only ants but all insects. Every colony and specie has a different passport unique to them; and anything moving in occupied territory without one was a threat. It was ant rule number one: Don’t let anyone steal your passport. You are dead without it. I had heard many tales of soldiers surviving a sudden shower only to be denied entry over missing passport pheromone. I never believed in the tales and considered them rumors spread to scare young workers and soldiers. Turned out they were true all along.
I tried explaining to the soldier that I belonged, that we were of the same colony and I was not an enemy, but she fired. Her poison splashed behind me. I was lucky her aim was off, but not so lucky when she raised the alarm in all its strength and made an intruder out of me.
I was just trying to get home.
The only thing left for me to do from there was to flee. There was no point butting heads with her. She had made up her mind. I had to make my mind too.
The situation was too unfavorable. I was uncomfortable and scared. I didn’t want to die.
Then I sensed the others coming. There were at least twenty of them stalking the area around to catch me, even though they didn’t know exactly where I was.
I could have been interviewing for a job as a harvester or at least a scavenger, but there I was fleeing from my own family. It was infuriating. I had given so much for them, my time, and work… my life. And they were ignoring all of that simply because I didn’t have some stupid pheromones on me. It was anger speaking, but I needed to vent it or it would have consumed me.
The soldier followed my scent, rapping the ground with her many legs.
Everything has a scent, be it a rock or a leaf, a tree, or a flower. The scent of some things remains consistent, while others change with temperature and humidity among other things. The variable controlling my scent was my emotions. And they were all over the place.
I was leaking a strong and widening trail, inviting even those faraway sentries who weren’t interested at first. The soldier chasing me directly was fast. I was just a worker while she was a fully-fledged soldier, longer, taller, and stronger than me. I couldn’t run forever. It must not be forgotten that I hadn’t eaten anything since last night and I was low on water.
My reserves had diminished from digging, further reduced by the night out. Now they were almost completely empty. The only way for me to survive the chase was to somehow learn to get control over my emotions (which was impossible in such a short time) or jump back into the pit to through off my chasers. And what a brilliant idea it was. There was just a small, aggressive problem.
It took great courage for me to turn back, but I made up my mind and did.
I rushed back in a frenzy, actively releasing all kinds of misleading chemicals to throw the soldier in a daze. The plan worked, the soldier entered something the colorful geometric patterns called a confused mental state, which made her spray the poison all around her. I don’t know how I did it, but I somehow managed to successfully get away from her, without a single blemish. The unknown patterns flashed by my eyes, saying I had acquired a new skill? Something related to what I had done.
By performing a certain action you have acquired an active skill: Confusion.
[Confusion][Lv-1/10][Tier-1][Active]
[There is a 50% chance of your enemy entering the state of confusion when subjected to a large dose of mixed pheromones.]
[Effect:]
[Every usage consumes an amount of the maximum calories stored in the body.]
[The chance of confusing target increases by 5% per lv.]
[Calorie consumption decreases with skill level.]
Success made me believe I could maybe get inside the colony, but I once again noticed my missing mandible while flaring them in glee. That knowledge quickly squashed the hint of rebellion forming inside me. The fact that most guards were strategically placed in some way from the colony helped my cause, but only up till a fixed point. I made it back to the pit just in time to see more solders and sentries rushing out of the city. They spread around to cover a wider area, blocking my path to the city. The trail left by the patrolling soldier was found and followed. She was also soon found hunkered down on her feet, completely exhausted. Some questioned her, while others found the trail that I had left behind.
I watched mortified as many soldiers, large and small, young and old, with armor pristine and battle marked, circled the pit. I was caged. Stupid, so stupid! I should have run for someplace else. Even though they didn’t enter the pit, I had no place to go.
Left with no choice, I spent a large portion of my time trying to find a corpse that might have some lingering trace of its passport pheromones. Corpses there were aplenty, but all useless. The only way around my situation was to somehow meet the queen because only she could provide me a new passport. However, that was suicidal. I didn’t have the chance of making it to the city entrance, much less making it to twenty floors below the city, into her bunkered chambers and past queen’s royal guards.
That was when I sensed a familiar sweet scent in the air, cutting through the all powering rot and disease like a bullet of acid through the skin of a petal. The wingless princess was around. She was at the entrance. Not alone. There was just no way around that. She was a princess and deserved all the attention, even though she would never get to have a flight of rebirth.
She was in a heated conversation with the captain of a harvesting party 50 heads strong. They were leaving the city on a mission. I wanted to be with them: to roam the outside world and enjoy merry adventures. They were workers among them like me but allowed to go outside, far from the colony, and into the world. That was my dream job, not community labor or subterfuge.
She can help me. If it’s her… she’ll remember me for saving her, and, and,
Well, there were a lot of possibilities. She could take me to the queen herself as a favor for saving her or, at least help me out of my situation. Only a princess could demand a meeting with the queen at any time of the day. That was her birthright, winged or wingless.
Then, while I was still dreaming and counting my lucky stars, a soldier, one of the bulkier, battle-hardened ones trotted up to the princess and requested something off her to which she readily agreed. I could only watch as she stopped at the lip of the pit, her infrared eyes at me —the ones only those of the royal line had— and pointed me out from the corpses. My morale took a dip right there.
The soldier’s, almost a whole battalion of them, circled the pit after the revelation. They looked ready to jump into the pit and search me out from the piles upon piles of empty carcasses and rotting dead bodies and stones if they had to.
Her nonchalance angered me. Maybe she didn’t remember or couldn’t determine my identity, and it made me furious! Another one of those colorful phantoms passed before my eyes.
Your anger has reached a boiling point. Skill: Anger acquired.
[Anger][Lv-1/10][Tier-1][Active]
[The skill activates automatically when your anger reaches a certain point.]
[Effect: ]
[Pos: Increases your endurance and strength, and makes you resistant to pain.]
[Con: You become prone to making mistakes as your intelligence decreases the longer your anger lasts.
It increases calorie consumption by twice the skill level.
Something moved inside me. It was like all my warmth and energy were assembling and congealing to give me a burst of strength. For just a second I became immune to her sweet invigorating enticement, but also stupid. I decided if she didn’t remember me, I would show her who I was.
I rushed up the pit before she could go back out of the danger zone before the soldiers could start drowning the pit in a torrent of concentrated burning poison. They were about ready to act. I was only about halfway up the rising slope when they started. A few shots missed me, but I was hit three seconds in. I didn’t feel pain. I felt, unlike a worker, unlike an ant really. I understood deep down that I wouldn’t survive if I was hit even once more, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I rushed. Up. Up. Up.
I was out of the pit three seconds later, at her feet, and somehow not poisoned a second time. Then the pain hit me out of the blue. I was exhausted… empty. I rocked and the world swung with me. I fell, the burning properties of the poison digging into my exoskeleton, to get inside me.
You are poisoned. You have acquired Poison resistance.
You are exhausted but haven’t admitted defeat. Skill: Toughness acquired
[Poison resistance][Lv-1/10][Tier-1][Passive]
[It increases your body’s ability to consume poison.]
[Reward: Your endurance increases by .1 points every level.]
***
[Toughness][Lv-1][Tier-1][Passive]
[Helps you push past your physical limits.]
[Reward: Your endurance increases by .1 points every level.]
For whatever reason, maybe because of rot or other chemicals I had picked up from the pit, the soldiers didn’t realize I was out. Even I wouldn’t have realized there was anyone standing in front of me if it wasn’t for my newly found sight. It was a thankful addition to my repertoire.
The princess was right there, frozen still, her antennas down and stiff. Not even a whole day had passed since she was last attacked. Even I would have felt scared from repeated assassination attempts. Our sights met. This whole situation reminded me of how I had died. That crazy worker had also been trying to reach the princess; maybe her intentions weren’t as cruel as I had, as we all had decided for ourselves? But I knew deep down in my mind, that worker had mean intentions. She had managed to kill, just not the target she was going for.
The scent of alarm and panic rose from the soldiers. Their antennas buzzed as the information reached their minds. They stopped firing and started raising alarm instead. The frenzy woke the princess and she tried to getaway.
It took me all the courage, and madness that I had been holding inside me since being outcaste by the worker union to get back on my feet. From there it was an even harder fight against emotions and pain. The poison wouldn’t kill me, I knew. I told myself so. I would have already died if it could. Maybe the soldiers had thought of capturing me alive. No matter the case, I had to make the princess recognize me, even if it meant forcing her to make an internal connection.
She tried to get away, but I jumped on her back. From there was the difficult part because I had never performed an I.C with anyone before, much less a fertile female. The thought scared and excited me at the same time. I forcefully wound my antennas around her antennas, matching my segments from the first at the base to the eleventh at the top to her segments as closely as I could. For a moment nothing happened. Then our chemicals intermixed and the hormonal exchange started.
Our thoughts mingled. Her fear mixed with mine. Her loneliness and sense of failure surged, overtaking my plea for recognition. I reassured her of my identity and reason, she worried still. Our memories mingled — Mine more than hers. She had control even in this, while I couldn’t control what I wanted to show and what I didn’t. She read all my thoughts: From my dream of adventuring the outside world to my thoughts on the laziness of the community laborers. She saw me in life and saw me in death and beyond, along with the favor she owed me for saving her.
From her, I read emotions, loneliness, weariness, and a sense of something that was profoundly similar to mine. I sensed her want for adventure and reorganization. And then the connection was forcibly broken as a soldier pulled me off her.
The soldiers spread my limbs and pinned me flat to the ground. A cold sharp pair of mandible pressed at my neck. I hurriedly released scents of reason, of brotherhood, of familiarity and recognition and of alarm. The princess finally helped. She tapped the back of the soldier ready to cut my head and the mandible receded.
The soldiers scented wrong and demanded the reason. The wingless princess ignored them and touched my face with her antennae where the mandible was broken. Are you truly the little guy who had saved me from the worker?
Yes. Yes! I answered in a concentrated mix of scents. They were strong enough to make the soldiers cringe away from me. Scents when too powerful can hurt, a voice in the back of my mind iterated.
Calm down. How are you alive? You were dead.
I’m alive. I’m alive. Save me, I saved you. I managed to say as clearly as I could while suffering from a head-splitting ache. No one told me a forcibly broken I.C could cause pain! It was brutal.
The soldiers were getting restless. In the end, the princess spoke for me.
He’s family. She let the soldiers know so they could stop raising alarm and passed me a hint of her pheromones, enough to give me access to the warmth of the city tunnels, just not enough to allow me to roam freely. They weren’t passport pheromones, but they were something. At least the soldiers wouldn’t try to hurt me at sight. Queen alone could issue someone a new passport. She went a step further and applied her medicinal saliva to heal my poison burns. A nearby soldier picked from her and shared some water and food with me. I put my antennae down and received all that she shared. That filled my body with energy once again.
Take me to the queen? Help. I asked her.
She was troubled. Can’t, go right now. Have to go harvesting.
Can I come? I blurted out unintentionally. It was the result of having the pressure of death being released from my back. It was my dream to become a harvester. Perhaps, if my mandible wasn’t broken I would have achieved it too, but all was for naught. This was my final chance, if it was a chance at all, to live as a harvester for one day. So maybe it was desperation that made me so brazen, even though I was still suffering from the poison.
It was a mistake I shouldn’t have made.
But the princess listened. She had read my mind, my thoughts… me. She knew my true desire, why I had suffered through community labor even as an outcast, and why I had saved her. And because she shared my love for adventure, she didn’t outright deny my request, rather asked the harvester’s captain if I could come. The captain shrugged his antennas, saying one more worker was just another hand to share the burden. He was doing the princess a favor, but in reality, he was doing me a favor. One I wouldn’t forget forever.
Okay, but don’t wander. It can be dangerous. The princess told me. I agreed. And surprisingly, so close to death, I was getting to live a day as an adventurer, to see the world from a harvester's eyes. I couldn’t understand whether to be happy or confused. For all I knew, I had gone mad.
