The way forward was to find good ways of testing the ground before people put too much weight on it, the group decided after a few minutes of hurried discussion.

  The conversation was hurried, because the collapse of a small part of the tunnel system seemed to have stirred something up underground. The golden ants began coming up out of the soil, now, not exactly attacking, but probing.

  Ants poked out of various holes in the ground, far away from the intruders at first, then moving closer.

  There was a pattern of a golden head peeking over the top of a pit, looking out at what was going on, and then quickly withdrawing. Then another ant would pop out of a different hole, somewhere closer. After only a couple of instances of this, it was obvious that the army was investigating the newcomers.

  And it intensified after that.

  Sometimes two or three ants would spy on the group at once, then up to four.

  Adon was almost certain that there were more than those four ants participating in this, though. The new observers would reach a hole closer to the party faster than it was possible for the recently withdrawn ant to move. Plus, as he explained to the group, he detected at least seven or eight presences below the ground nearby at any given time, though it was hard to be certain of the numbers, since the creatures all felt somewhat similar, and they were always moving around.

  “Well, what do we do?” asked one knight impatiently.

  We try to cross the ground quickly but without pissing them off, Adon replied, his limited diplomatic skills failing him in his haste to convey the simple idea. Ants are very territorial. Trust me. I grew up with them, though they weren’t this big. Whatever you do, don’t start something with them. We really don’t want to end up fighting the whole damn colony if we don’t have to!

  The knight—one of the lower nobility types who had lived his whole life in service to the Dessian duchy, rather than one of the self-made knights—looked offended at the slight vulgarity of the butterfly’s phrasing.

  But Rosslyn had his back.

  “Hurry up and begin advancing, everyone,” she called brusquely. “With a bit more caution, this time, please! Adon and I are the only ones here who can use Telekinesis, and anyone who falls creates both a significant delay and a mental strain on the two of us. If more than one person were to fall at once, at least one of those members of our group would be irrecoverable. This is the most dangerous place we have been thus far in the dungeon, so above all, do not let your guards down.”

  She looked at Adon through the corners of her eyes.

  I assume you will continue to be our early warning? Rosslyn thought.

  Yes, Adon sent instantly.

  She nodded.

  And the group began to muddle forward.

  Using the shields that they had intended to employ for defense as sort of makeshift snowshoes, the knights armed with those devices were able to distribute their weight across a larger area when passing over soil that looked like it could be untrustworthy. One of the knights equipped with the shield would advance a little, then allow the next person who did not have their own shield to use theirs.

  The buddy system was essential here, since it seemed around half of the knights had not brought shields with them. The team had come equipped with a fairly diverse set of weapons and armor.

  The group set the far wall as their heading, under the assumption that the passage to the next level would be a tunnel in one of the walls of this massive chamber—since each tunnel to a subsequent level thus far had been a hole in a wall. Given the lack of leads, one wall was as good as any other.

  There was a general mood of discouragement at the sheer number of places they would have to check, although Samson brought up a positive thought.

  I think maybe the fact that the dungeon is designed this way, even though we’re not really that deep, means that the dungeon actually doesn’t extend that much farther, he transmitted telepathically—first to the young lords, Rosslyn, Goldie, and Adon, and then, with their permission, to the rest of the group. It’s resorting to cheap tricks to keep us away from the core. This might be the second to last level or something.

  As Samson finished that thought, there was a collective feeling of limited relief that Adon sensed from the rest of the group. They were not quite confident that they were out of the woods, but the spider’s hypothesis made sense. And the idea that the dungeon core was afraid of them was naturally comforting.

  Then there was a loud noise of stone crunching, and as one, the group turned around. On the opposite side of the level from their heading, there was a collapse from within one of the tunnels near the bottom of that wall.

  The gray stone of the facade crumbled in that low place, and then everything above it suddenly cascaded down, a rockslide that affected an area around twenty meters across. A bunch of ants raced out of one of the mid-level tunnels, trying to escape the collapse, but they fell right into the area of the rockslide and were buried beneath the falling rocks.

  When the wall had settled—now with a twenty meter long gash in its face—Adon guessed that two dozen tunnels had been completely caved in.

  Well, I guess that we don’t have to check those tunnels! Samson quickly sent to the group. Those stupid monsters are solving some of the problem for us!

  Adon had considered transmitting a similar message, but he had hesitated. Part of it was his general uncertainty in social situations, especially when things did not seem immediately urgent. But the main reason for his hesitancy was a simple question—a simple one, but one which spawned more and more disturbing follow-ups: What if one of the tunnels that collapsed was the right tunnel? Can the dungeon simply cave in our only route to the next level? What if it does the same thing to our tunnel out? How long would we survive trapped here with thousands of giant ants, and nothing to eat except ant flesh? Would we ever manage to escape? For that matter, what if the entire level collapses like this? Is that what the ants are trying to accomplish?

  He tried to suppress the dark thoughts. That way lay madness.

  But it was hard to avoid the feeling that this entire level was some sort of trap.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The group turned back to advancing again, but Adon, sitting on Rosslyn’s upper arm, continued to face toward the other side, where the wall had fallen.

  What was wrong with the image that played itself out before his eyes?

  It was hard to put his finger on it, but something felt off.

  The wall itself didn’t look strange, nor did the landscape, particularly. There was still the same flat, gray-brown soil, devoid of significant plant life, pitted with holes, many of which were large enough to swallow a man easily. There were the same valleys.

  Wait, that’s it, isn’t it? he thought. Where is the valley we climbed out of?

  He looked, but their point of origin seemed difficult to distinguish.

  After a few seconds, Adon thought he had identified the space where it was, and he did see an open space where there appeared to be a depression in the ground. He couldn’t see the depth from where he was, of course.

  But it seemed a little too far away.

  Have we really walked that far already?

  The butterfly turned to look back over at the wall they were using as their heading. It did not seem closer than he would have expected.

  There was a feeling of wrongness—but then he made himself relax.

  Quit freaking out over nothing, Adon told himself. You have a job to do for the group, and it’s not looking out to make sure the path of retreat is still there. What are you, some kind of coward?

  He shook himself slightly and faced toward the heading again.

  The group was making slow but steady forward progress moving the same way that Adon had observed before. Rosslyn was doing something slightly different. Adon had not heard the exact words she had spoken—distracted as he had been with something that was probably nothing—but she had invoked the power of light again, as she had done before but with a different application this time.

  Now a glow of light surrounded her feet, and Adon could feel from the way her body moved that she had become lighter somehow.

  That’s a neat trick, he thought. A part of him wished she had taught him that instead of the admittedly very powerful fire affinity. Rosslyn’s light magic just seemed to have an application for every situation.

  His attention was pulled back to the physical world as he sensed a gang of ants coming up to the surface again. This time, it was not one or two rising up to spy on the party. The number was more like a dozen, and they were all gathered together as if they were some sort of hunting party.

  Or maybe that’s just my read of the situation, Adon reminded himself. Goddess, I’m on edge today…

  He sent a quick telepathic alert to everyone that a group of ants was about to surface near them, along with an admonition not to start a fight with them unless it was absolutely necessary.

  Remember, even if we kill all of them, ants can hold a grudge as a group, he sent. If you’re near an ant that dies, it will spray you with a chemical that makes other ants seek you out and attack you. There must be thousands of ants on this level. Individually, they’re weak, but as a group…

  Adon was making a lot of inferences based on his experiences with the ants in the garden, but it seemed like a fair set of assumptions to go into this level with, given that he had no reason to assume these dog-sized ants were really different from the normal ants he was used to.

  Hopefully they don’t explode, he thought to himself. Suicide-bombing ants of this size would really suck.

  The gang of golden ants began to surface around fifteen feet away from the group. At least they were not too close.

  Then Adon sensed a shift in the air nearby them.

  He swiveled to face the sudden, electrically charged aura beside the group.

  “Adon, do you have any reason to think these things can mark us at a distance?” William asked. “With that chemical stuff you mentioned?”

  The young lord had cloaked himself in a rapidly intensifying aura of lightning mana. The idea he had in mind, Adon could tell through both his words and Telepathy, was to shoot down some of the ants from a distance and perhaps scare the group away. He was worried that a few ants would only draw more, if they let those ants hang around.

  And despite his other issues with William, Adon could see no real problems with his reasoning.

  None that I am aware of, Adon sent. I don’t know how these giant ants are different from normal ones, but if you think you can kill them from a distance, I say go for it!

  William nodded and smiled. The butterfly could feel that the Dessian was in his element now.

  Give me a problem I can shoot with lightning any day, William thought.

  The lightning mana around his body built further for a few more seconds, then reached a crescendo. Then it concentrated around both William’s hands, and he unleashed two forked bolts of lightning. There were so many smaller lightning bolts forked off from this initial barrage that Adon could tell it was intended to kill as many of the ants off as possible.

  The lightning bolts struck every ant, and it made a brilliant light show as the electricity collided with their golden exoskeletons.

  But as the energy hit, it seemed to behave strangely. Rather than penetrating through, as it had done to the tough-shelled monsters on the previous level, it hit the gold and then flowed over and around it. Then the electricity appeared to be drawn down the ants’ feet and into the ground.

  The monsters were visibly stunned for a moment, turning stock still as the electricity washed over them. But a few seconds later, they were moving again, and they appeared excited.

  The creatures looked back and forth at each other, the area around them, the space where the humans were, the opposite wall. They didn’t seem to have any understanding of what happened, but they were looking for the origin of the lightning bolts.

  William allowed the wild energy coating his body to calm down.

  “Shit,” he said under his breath.

  That is an understatement, Adon thought. Does that armor deflect all magic?

  “Let me try my hand,” Rosslyn said.

  The mana around her own body flared up. She had clearly been preparing to ignite it while they watched William make his attempt, and the energy sizzled quickly, as if eager to burn through the creatures unwise enough to face the Princess on this level.

  Adon was beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of attacking the ants at all—they had not initiated this conflict, after all—but he felt as if some fighting on this level was inevitable, so there was really no good reason for him to urge Rosslyn to stop. If she had to pause her attack to listen to him and then charge her mana back up again, he would just diminish her efficiency.

  So he just sat back and hoped this would work.

  Rosslyn’s mana caught fire, and she surrounded one arm with flames.

  Experimentally, she threw a single fireball at the lead ant—the one closest to their group.

  The fireball smacked that ant directly in the center of its head and glanced off as if it had struck a metal surface.

  Damn, Adon thought. This could be a real problem. It also probably meant that his mana ball, which acted like fire in most respects, would almost certainly be completely useless here.

  The stricken ant shook its head, and its body took on what Adon could only consider an irritated posture. It released a slightly acrid smell, and then it charged toward the group of knights.

  After only a moment, the rest of the ants in the gang charged with it.