Elder Cultivator

They waited for everyone to arrive at the ship, then made their way to the second colony. Crossed Antennae thought things were going well. Obviously they’d only found one, but it had been fairly simple. They’d survived even after the planet was taken over, as they were focused on hiding instead of doing something stupid like fighting. Revealing themselves would be terrible.

The area was a bit too sandy for Crossed Antennae’s liking, but that was the fault of human cultivators. The void ants didn’t get to pick where the humans wanted to go. It took some better engineering to make a nest in subpar materials, but the void ants could do it.

Crossed Antennae found the nest in perfect condition, except that it was empty. Well, not quite empty. The inhabitants had clearly left in a hurry, as they left behind all of their food. And quite tellingly, other materials as well. Careless. It wouldn’t look like a regular ant nest, especially not with the construction.

“We’ll do a thorough inspection,” she said. “If there’s really nobody here, take everything and head back to the ship after dismantling it.” Their reinforcements would be a dead giveaway that something was up if humans found the nest, and it would last for years without any maintenance. Not that void ants let anything go nearly at long somewhere they actually lived.

After assigning workers to that task, Crossed Antennae thought it would be trivial to track down the nest. After all, they could just follow the various trails that led out from the nest. She sent out a few thousand individuals to explore down various paths to determine which ones were oldest.

Half an hour later they reported back. Most of the trails were older, obviously, but the group that found a newer trail was concerned. They couldn't really explain it.

“The trail… ends.”

“What, did they get crushed? Exploded?” Crossed Antennae asked. “Maybe they got picked up.” She hoped it was not that last one.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

“You should smell for yourself.”

So she did, going about a hundred meters from the nest before, quite suddenly, the massive pheromone trails just… stopped. There wasn’t even a danger warning.

That was fine. She should still be able to pick out… hmm…

She should have been able to pick out something. Void ants left a scent even if they weren’t intentionally creating a pheromone trail. It wouldn’t be strong, but the whole colony had been moving together.

Yet there was nothing. Erasure? Except, the only way she could think of was the sort of thing cultivators would do, and that would leave traces of energy. It wasn’t so long ago that lingering energy fluctuations would have settled beyond her notice.

Then she found it. A tiny spot. And around it, she saw disturbed grains. The void ants had continued in this direction, but somehow erased their minimal scent. How would they? It would be quite an advanced technique no matter the method. She could only speculate.

Still, there were imperfections. “Gather the others,” Crossed Antennae ordered. “We will split up to try to follow this trail. Reports will be delivered to superior officers up the chain. Stay alert for humans.”

Speaking of which, she was going to go investigate the humans. A quick bit of flying saw that the cultivators weren’t even trying to capture the area, but were instead patrolling around. Descending towards one group, she listened in on their speech as she tasted their energy. A bit spectral, if her palate didn’t deceive her.

“I don’t see why we’ve got to do this. We already wiped out the sect.”

“It’s not just about the Wandering Heart Sect’s resources,” replied one of the pair. “The sect head heard that there was someone who awakened a Great Anima Nature.”

“Then why haven’t the hounds found anything?” the first one said, gesturing towards rather large canines- with three nostrils. “They can smell anything.”

At that moment, one of them looked up at Crossed Antennae. It just barely began to growl. What a rude mutt.

“What is it?” the second handler asked.

Crossed Antennae glared at the hound. It whimpered and covered its head. Good. She wouldn’t let herself be compromised so easily.

But if she was so easily scented at a distance, she could understand why the nest would have to erase their traces. How was a matter she’d be interested in, but later. She had to warn the others, though they would generally be avoiding humans regardless.

Before anything else, Crossed Antennae stopped to look for Misi and Juli, but they’d already noticed the searchers. She took the risk of messaging them- a risk because even low power communications could potentially be noticed.

“We’re alright,” came Misi’s reply. “But we don’t want to rely on continuous stealth systems against active searches like that. Let us know when and where you want to be picked up.”

When she got back to her searching group, Fire had actually found a pattern in movement, and they had settled on a trail. Leave it to the tiny poisoners to pick out individual grains out of place. Even Crossed Antennae wasn’t so perceptive in most ways.

They still moved slowly, occasionally having to spread out to catch the trail again. Humans with the great hounds nearly stumbled upon them a few times, but the void ants could sense them coming. As for their trail, rather than erasing it Fire and Bullet dealt with that. They spread some overpoweringly strong powders around, so that an hound that got close wouldn’t be able to smell anything else. Not right on the trail, of course, and Crossed Antennae flew around to place spots much further so they didn’t get suspicious of their hounds’ behavior. Or at least so they wouldn’t get anything useful out of it soon enough to matter.

It still took several days to track down their quarry to a cave, if it could even be called that. It was more like a depression in some sandstone. It did a good job of concealing what was inside, though, and the thing inside was a human-shaped mass of void ants.

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No, wait. They were just crawling over the human. Well, that was a good way to fully negate their presence. Crossed Antennae picked out the larger queen among the group.

“Good, I found you,” she signed. “What is this?”

“A human.”

“Why a human?”

The queen nervously fidgeted for a while. “I know we’re not supposed to reveal ourselves to them… but the bad humans wanted this human, so… we thought it would be better that they not get it?”

“How did you communicate with her?”

“We really… didn’t,” she replied, indicating the human’s meditative posture. “It has been too afraid to move. We cleaned up after its trail, and then sort of just… covered It. We thought it wouldn’t mind.”

“You’re terrible at understanding humans. She’s probably terrified. Alright, let me handle this.” Crossed Antennae had spoken to Chidi. It was difficult, chewing on energy to produce sounds, but she could vaguely accomplish it. “Human.” The woman twitched. “Do not be afraid. You are safe. Remain as you are until help can arrive.”

That would have to be it, since the woman didn’t seem to be interested in speaking. Maybe she was worried the void ants would get inside her mouth? But they already could have gone in her nose and ears. Were they…?

Crossed Antennae approached closely. No, they made proper structures over the various parts of her face, leaving room for airflow. Good, it would have been embarrassing to be related to these people otherwise.

Crossed Antennae informed Misi and Juli of a nearby landmark they could use to navigate- a proper beacon might be too much. It didn’t take long for the ship to arrive.

“Human. There is a nearby vessel that we will lead you to. I suggest you come with us, unless you wish to be captured by those cultivators from the…” Crossed Antennae considered the distant scent of their energy. “Soul Piercers.”

The human woman nodded slowly.

“Good.” Crossed Antennae then ordered through the other queen the ants over her eyelids to withdraw, and the ones who would be beneath her feet. She could have directly given the order, but maintaining the chain of command was best outside of emergencies. And she wanted to see how the queen did. “You can open your eyes. We are shielding your energy from searchers. Please step carefully.”

The woman opened her eyes. She looked around. “Wh-” she began to speak before suddenly stopping, no doubt realizing the rest of her was still covered. But the distributed weight of void ants wasn’t much.

Crossed Antennae flew into her vision. This woman already knew about void ants, so they either had to silence her or accept it. They could do either later. Though if they were going to silence her, it would have been best to do so before allied humans knew about it. Not that Crossed Antennae would have killed an ally if there were other options.

The ship wasn’t far, and the void ants slowly disentangled themselves from her once they were sealed inside. They looked even more exhausted than the woman. She had just been sitting for a few days- not difficult for a cultivator. The void ants had been actively holding positions.

The woman looked down at herself, then at Misi and Juli who were waiting. “Which of you spoke to me?”

“That would be me,” Crossed Antennae said, both with sign and by manipulating energy. “From now on, they will translate.”

“Oh. Um, thank you,” the woman bowed her head. “I am Bryndis, of the Wandering Heart Sect. You two… I know of you. The great loremasters Misi and Juli. And the name of… this other one?” she asked, her voice creaking

“We’ll get you some water,” Misi said. “That’s Crossed Antennae, by the way.”

“Is she some kind of, um… sapient ant?”

“I’m a void ant. Obviously,” Crossed Antennae signed. Misi picked it out and translated.

“O-oh. I thought maybe… I hadn’t heard great things about void ants.”

“I’d never want one as an enemy,” Misi confirmed. “Come. Let’s get you something to eat.”

Their ship didn’t have much room for extras, specifically humans. Bryndis took more space than they expected from several colonies of void ants. They could fit a few extras, but the ship wasn’t that big. Though cultivators could cram themselves into smaller spaces if necessary- and use less food at least for a while. At least if they hadn’t already been starved for days.

“So,” Misi said. “The Soul Piercers. I thought the planet fell rather quickly. Was it Korin?”

Bryndis seemed much calmer, so even with a difficult topic being brought up she answered calmly. “No, I don’t believe so. At the very least, I didn’t sense anyone of her power.”

“Korin is the sect head of the Soul Piercers? She was looking for you.” Crossed Antennae mentioned, being translated for her own ease. And maybe Bryndis would take the chance to try to learn void ant sign.

“She was?”

“Her subordinates. But she had told them to look for you.”

“Is that why-”

Juli interrupted. “They would have probably come here anyway. This wasn’t just their sect, after all. Do we know why she would have…?”

“Well…” Bryndis hesitated.

Crossed Antennae explained, “She recently developed a Great Anima Nature.”

“Congratulations,” Misi and Juli said together.

Misi continued alone. “I’ve heard that’s a difficult feat to achieve.”

“You’ve heard of it?” Bryndis asked. “Oh, right. Loremasters.”

Juli grinned. “We like to know everything. But that would certainly explain why she wanted you. If you were de-souled she could-”

Misi held a hand over his sister’s mouth. “She likely doesn’t need to hear any details. Needless to say, Korin is not known for being respectful of any bodies, including her original one.”

“Right,” Bryndis said. “So… why are you here? Since I don’t think it was to save me, was it?” She looked over at Crossed Antennae.

“I’m here for my people,” Crossed Antennae confirmed. “I hoped they would go unnoticed. As they had been when they lived among you.”

“Lived among us…?”

“Why do you think there were void ants around during the attack?” Crossed Antennae said. “My daughter was here to make certain that no cultivation knowledge was abused.”

“Oh. That,” Bryndis grimaced. “I thought it was-”

“Relax,” Misi said. “Information would not have been shared with your sect originally if it was not meant to be used. And you’ve clearly not shared with outsiders. So if you could just keep one more secret?”

“What- oh.” She stared at Crossed Antennae some more. “I certainly wouldn’t want to cause trouble for my saviors.”

Even if she thought they were a bit terrifying. She’d convinced herself they weren’t void ants over the last few days on account of not being devoured whole. She was still sort of shocked to find out she’d been right with her first judgment. If she’d been able to respond before she’d been covered the encounter might have been significantly more violent. Others would likely lean towards that sort of response.