77 - Killer Queen

The queen fire ant was not sapient, but she was not a purely instinctual beast anymore either. She was on the cusp of reaching 3 star, at which point true intelligence would become a possibility, and she was beginning to show signs. It made sense, as there wasn’t much else to do in her chambers but think.

As the queen, she was a non-combatant. Her job was to lay eggs and give commands, and that is what she did, never leaving the room she had been born in. However, she still was able to experience the outside world, to an extent. Her worker drone children brought back regular reports from the outside, telling her of the status of the nest, food supply, egg health, and more.

Just a few days prior, the entire nest had been in a panic. An intruder had somehow gotten in and wreaked havoc within the tunnels of their home. Thousands of ants were dead, and dozens of tunnels had collapsed. The lost drones were a non-issue, and the tunnels had been cleared within hours after the intruder had left, but even so, the queen felt a tinge of… annoyance.

She did not know that was what that emotion was. All she knew was that it was unpleasant, and she didn’t want to feel it again. She gave orders for her strongest warriors to shift their defensive positions to the location where the intruder had disappeared. The intruder would never make it back alive.

Or so the queen thought. Unfortunately, the intruder had returned, and was once again decimating large swaths of drones. She received regular panicked reports from her children about where the intruder went, and in response, she sent ants to try to catch it. None of them succeeded. Most never found the intruder, and the ones that did never reported back.

The strange feeling of annoyance resurfaced in the queen fire ant as her children continuously failed to stop the intruder. This was her nest. Even if none of the damage was permanent she still didn’t like it at all.

She continued to send her best warriors in greater and greater numbers, but that only accelerated the rate at which they died. As this went on, the queen experienced another new emotion: confusion. Her children were dying off much more easily than the last time. Was it a different intruder? Or had the intruder gotten stronger? Whatever the case, the solution was clearly more ants, so she commanded her children from all around to swarm in on the intruder’s location.

Even this wasn’t enough, and the intruder fought deeper and deeper into the nest, getting closer and closer to the queen’s chambers. At this, the queen felt yet another new emotion: fear. Was the intruder targeting her? What would happen to the nest without her? This wouldn’t do at all.

Panicked, she commanded her entire hoard to collapse inward, but that only drove the intruder further down and ever-closer. It wasn’t long before the intruder made it into the queen’s chamber, having easily slain the queen’s royal guards on the way. They were alone in the queen’s chambers, and for a few seconds, they just stared at each other. 

The feelings of both confusion and fear intensified. Confusion because the queen did not understand the invader. Its cultivation was clearly lower than that of the royal guards, and even that of some of many of the drones. It looked small and soft, to the point that it was wielding an external claw. It was much smaller than the queen and her guards. And yet despite all this, when the queen looked into the invader’s eyes, she knew without a doubt that she was about to die. 

“Shit, wrong way.”

The invader made sounds that the queen did not understand. Perhaps a hungry growl, or a threatening snarl. Whatever it was, it made the queen shudder. The sound was soft, yet carried great power. There was no doubt that the queen was about to die. She would just have to do her best to take the invader with her.

A second later, the invader ran forward, likely fearing the sounds of countless other ants approaching from behind. The queen braced herself for the attack. She was a non-combatant, but she was not completely defenseless. She was still a fire ant, and one at the peak of 2 star. As the invader approached, she blew a massive stream of fire at it, hoping that with its guard down, the queen might be able to handle the matter.

When the fire reached the invader, the queen felt a fourth new emotion: despair. Not only did the fire not damage it, the invader somehow managed to steal the fire. The flames were swirling in a tall tornado around the invader as it leapt into the air, raising its external claw. The fire coiled like a snake and followed the claw downward right at the queen’s head. 

The queen had a very hard exoskeleton, but she already knew it would not be enough to save her. So, as she felt her fifth and final emotion, conviction, she made a choice she hadn’t even been aware was a possibility until that moment. She self-destructed.

The oum within her gathered all at once in her enormous core, condensed to the size of a grain of sand, and right as the invader brought its claw down on her head, it expanded rapidly, blowing the queen apart from the inside. As she perished, she watched as the invader’s face twisted oddly, and then, just before either the attack or the wave of destruction hit their targets, the invader vanished.

The fire from the invader’s attack decimated the queen’s head just as the internal explosion broke through the exoskeleton and expanded to the rest of the chambers. The walls and ceilings were fortunately sturdy enough to withstand the force, but they also acted as a funnel for the power, sending it shooting into the offshoot tunnels. Countless ants were incinerated as the enormous power of the queen’s death knell rocketed through the bottom sector of the nest. 

Had the queen still been alive when the fire dissipated and the ashes settled, she likely would have felt a sixth emotion, anger, because a minute later, the invader reappeared right where she had vanished, unscathed. She fell to the ground, landing lightly on the pile of ash that had once been the queen fire ant, then brushed off her clothes and started walking back up the tunnel.

***

I am really glad that I took the Quest to slay the queen fire ant before I left the city. I hope that what I did counts. Sam had to have been watching, right? Even if he wasn’t, my attack probably hit before the self-destruction had killed the queen ant. Whatever the case, if it counts as completion, I’ve just earned myself 250,000 Tower Credits, as soon as I get back to the Quest Hall. I didn’t plan on it, but it’s a nice bonus.

Now, I just need to find my way back to the Legacy of the Phoenix. Hopefully it’s easier with the queen ant dead. 

I retrace my steps back through the tunnels until I reach the place where I entered. There are still ants running around, but unlike before, they aren’t gathering to try to hunt me. They’re all running around almost at random, clearly panicking. Yeah, this should be much easier.

As a cultivator, my memory is very good. Not quite perfect, but it’s more than sufficient to remember the route I took up from the Legacy before, as long and tortuous as it was. The only reason I failed to make it back was the ants. There were so many of them that it was hard to see what tunnels I was entering, and there were times that they were simply too densely packed for me to make it through where I needed to go. I tried to take alternate routes, keeping my target direction in mind, but obviously, that didn’t work, and I ended up in the queen’s chambers instead.

Well, at least it wasn’t a complete waste of eight hours, as annoying as it was. Now that the queen is dead progress should be faster.

And it is. Without ants chasing me en masse, I’m able to pick my way through the tunnels more carefully, reversing the turns I made on my way out until I end up back in the natural cave. As I move, I notice a few places where I took the long way, and I mark them with my sword before moving on to make sure I don’t waste as much time on the way back up.

The chamber hosting the entrance to the Legacy is exactly as I remember it, with the statue of the Phoenix standing above the door. However, now that I’ve interacted extensively with the construct, it’s become clear that the Phoenix modeled by the statue and the Phoenix I’m familiar with are not the same. The statue looks to be older, and her expression is much harsher. Maybe I’ll meet this Phoenix in the next two challenges.

I walk up to the door and as I reach out to open it, the door opens on its own, revealing Sam waiting inside.

“Welcome back!” he says. “The door wouldn’t have opened for you on its own, so I’m here to let you in. Once you’re back inside though, there won’t be any problems.”

“Alright,” I say, following him inside.

He opens the door at the end of the hallway for me as well, letting me into the antechamber as well. It’s almost exactly as I left it, except in place of the powerful central mushroom that I took for the Starter Quest, there’s a new, smaller mushroom growing. It shouldn’t have had time to get this big in the few days I’ve been away, so I can only assume that the giant mushroom is a feature of the room, rather than something naturally occurring.

“You won’t be able to get a second one,” says Sam.

“What?”

He points to the central mushroom. “It will stop growing while you’re here. It’s supposed to regrow to the level you found it between challengers, but I’ve put that on hold since you’re re-entering. I’ve had to make quite a few changes to allow for this, actually. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Well, I did promise to do it,” he says. “Anyway, did you need anything else before I go?”

“...Yes, actually.”

“What is it?”

Now that I’m not on a time limit, I have no reason not to indulge my curiosity now that I have an eager Floor Lord at my beck and call.

“I have some questions about the Tower,” I say.

“I can answer questions about the Tower.”

“Why are all the challenges and events here so deadly?”

“That’s just the way it is,” he says with a shrug. “Your planet was in for a bit of a rude awakening when you entered, but for the rest of us, it’s a known factor. Everyone knows that entering the Inner Tower means risking your life, and that reaching the top means defying death countless times.”

“But why?”

“Why are elf ears pointy? That’s just the way it is.”

“You’re the Floor Lord though. Don’t you make the challenges on this Floor at least? Why make the Starter Quest that way? And why afterwards did you punish those who worked within the rules you set?”

“Floor Lords have a duty to uphold the Tower’s will, and the Tower’s will is thus. I can choose the delivery method, but the lesson gets given all the same. And as for why I exposed the ones who abused the rules? Well, that was a personal touch of mine. There are infinitely many ways to climb the Tower, but each comes with benefits and drawbacks. They chose paths of blood, and if they wish to continue walking those paths, they will have to deal with the consequences.”

“I see,” I say. “But when you say ‘the Tower’s will’ do you mean that the Tower is alive?”

“In a way. I don’t understand it fully either. It does not speak, but it enforces its will regardless.”

“And what is its will, beyond making the Climb as dangerous as possible?”

“That I cannot answer. If you’re curious, you will need to reach the top.”

“Damn…”

Those are some annoyingly dissatisfying answers. And I doubt that the insight is unique to the Floor Lords. This sounds like information I could have asked of anyone who lives in the Tower. That’s a shame. And there’s not really anything else I want to know that he can tell me, since all my other big questions are still related to the Phoenix.

“Well, that’s all I had,” I say. 

“A pleasure as always,” he says with a smile and a bow before vanishing.

With him gone, I immediately look to the door leading back to the challenge room. I’m pretty tired, and I was originally planning on sleeping once I got here, but I should at least check out the challenge right? What’s the worst that could happen? I get stuck in a 24 hour trial of focus and fail out?

…Yeah, I shouldn’t be reckless. Sleep first, then challenge.