106 Waste Not, Want No (1/2)

Pops of suppressed gunfire echoed down the corridor and James looked up with narrowed eyes. ”Top, what's the situation?” He radioed using his communicator.

”Fucking bugs!” Top replied, ”We got some giant ants here.”

”Need support? Over,” James asked, as he held his weapon ready, watching the doorway, where sounds of gunfire drifted out.

”Negative,” Top replied over the radio, ”It's over. Come on in, it's cleared.”

James stood up from his crouching position and waved from everyone to follow, ”Top says it's cleared, let's see what's inside.” He told his team.

As they entered the room, Kristine and Irisval both coughed, as the thick cloud of gunsmoke lingered inside the room. Thorn raised his hand and form a simple spell, and a small breeze dispersed the smoke in the room.

Over twenty plus bodies of ants the size of large dog laid curled up in death. The remaining honey slimes appeared to have been frightened off and had disappeared somewhere. The ground was wet with leaking hemolymph from the dead ants as Kristine went up next to a dead ant to snap a photo with her camera.

Thorn bend over a dead ant a poked around, ”The mana stones are normally around the forehead or the thyroid part of the ants.” He deftly used a dagger and sawed at the hard exoskeleton of the ant's head, before digging into it and pulling a slimy yellowish mana stone out.

”Here,” Thorn tossed the finger-sized stone over to Pike who rubbed the slime off the stone before examining it in the light of the moss. ”Nice,” He turned to the rest and said, ”Well, what are you waiting for? Grab the stones from the bodies!”

Pike asked Thorn next, ”What else is usable from these creatures?”

”Well, the silk from their rear abdomen could be harvested to make cloth,” Thorn said, ”Also, the carapace when treated, works better than leather and steel armor.”

”Some artisans use the eyes of the ants to make jewelry while the eye cases can be used as clear bowls,” Thorn listed out a few of the usages he knew off. ”The mandibles can be used as saw blades too.”

”Damn, that's a lot of usages for them,” Pike replied, watching the team cut up the ants for mana stones. ”Is it edible?”

”Oh yes,” Thorn nodded, ”I never tried it before but I heard that people do eat them and apparently it tastes pretty good.”

”Alright, Ok guys, stop what you doing,” Pike called out, ”The way you guys try to harvest the stones is making my eyes bled. Mistress Irisval, can you command your golems to transport the bodies of the ants out to the main door? Give it to the people outside the dungeon and let them do the proper job of harvesting, while we focus on exploring the area.”

Irisval nodded and started to direct her golems to collect and transport the ants out. ”Bring along those bundles of silk of honey slimes, waste not, want not,” Pike added.

The golems have a large wicker basket secured to its back, and one of the golems gently dropped the dead ants into the basket of the other and once all were collected, they lumbered off back to the exit of the dungeon.

While that was going on, Kristine looked around the room, finding more drawings and carvings along the walls which she recorded down. She did a quick measure and found the room to be roughly 20 meters by 32 meters.

”So which tunnel we go first?” James asked Pike as they prepared to move out again.

Pike pointed to the second tunnel from the right and stated, ”The ants used that tunnel, most likely it leads to their hive.” He walked up to the hive and took out a piece of chalk and drew a large ant-like symbol next to the opening with an arrow point to it.

”Let's split up here,” Pike said, ”My team takes the rightmost tunnel, while your team takes the leftmost. Mistress Irisval, I will like your golems to hold this room when they return, is it alright?”

Irisval nodded. ”James, once the golems returned,” Pike said next, ”Explore the leftmost tunnel, clear?” Pike started to mark the stone floor with his piece of chalk, indicating which direction and which tunnel they entered including the time.

”Alright, Team One, let's go!” And Team One followed Pike into the rightmost tunnel, their lamps lighting up the way while Team One under James waited for the golems to return.

As Pike's team entered the tunnel which turned and bent here and there, they entered more ants and honey slimes. After fighting their way through the ants, they found a fork in the tunnel and took the right turn, marking the walls with arrows and soon found a huge cavern filled with sand.

”Look, is that a chest?” Hitsu asked, his light beam shining at a distant object. ”Holy spirits! I never expected to find a treasure here!” He started to approach the chest.

”Halt!” Pike yelled, stopping Hitsu's advance. ”There might be a trap here.” Pike kneeled down and grabbed a handful fine sand, letting them run off his gloved fingers. ”It's just too quiet here.”

The men on alert following Pike's words looked around cautiously, checking every hook and crook in the cavern ask they slowly approached the chest at the end of the seemingly empty cave. ”Squad One check it out, the rest wait here,” Pike ordered.

Young and Altied nodded and advanced cautiously from both sides, they made their steps as light as possible as the approached the chest. Young looked at Altied and nodded, using his M2 barrel to flip the squarish wooden chest open. Both of them leaped back, on the guard, in case of some traps but nothing happened. Hitsu sighed happily and straightened up, when suddenly the ground under him exploded upwards, sending him flying head over heels over a couple of meters away.

Spitting sand out of his mouth, Hitsu scrambled for his weapon, just a massive reddish shaped appeared out of the sand. As the sand slowly washed off the dark red carapace of a giant scorpion, Thorn yelled ”Sand scorpion! Watch out for its poisonous twin stingers!”