Spiteful Healer

Chapter 144: Questionable Cartography

A dozen or so meters away from the hive entrance laid the corpse of a recently slain Fisher. Aegis and his party had taken it out, then dragged the body close to the entrance of the hive and left it there. Aegis, Rakkan, Snowflake, Lina and Darkshot all hung far back under the cover of the Reltrak Forest mushrooms. Pyri, however, was nowhere to be seen.

They waited patiently and quietly, staring at the corpse of the fisher. Sure enough after about 5 minutes of waiting, a curious drone wandered out of the hive and sniffed out the fisher corpse. As it began sniffing the body, Pyri - with greater invisibility active, stood as still as possible next to it. Knowing that the Mosmir could detect vibrations, being invisible wasn’t enough to trick it. She needed to be completely quiet and still.

The curious drone continued to sniff around the body of the fisher, getting a sense for how big it was by making a full loop around it and walking overtop of it. Eventually it walked right by Pyri. She slowly and carefully reached out towards one of the spiny legs of the drone and ripped off one of the hairy barbs on its legs as gently as she could.

The Mosmir Drone reacted to this by shaking its leg, as if it had a sudden itch, but otherwise paid no mind to what she had done. After a few more moments of investigating, it scurried back into the hive. Once it was gone, Pyri rushed back over to the others and dropped her invisibility.

“Got it.” She held the barb out to the others and Aegis quickly dropped to his knees. They’d cleared out a large section of the ground of moss, and Aegis had loosened the Soilrock in the surrounding area to make it easy to work with.

“Ok, cast it quickly.” Aegis nodded as the others all dropped to their knees in a circle as well, looking towards Pyri.

“Scry.” Pyri cast a spell, clutching the Mosmir Drone’s leg barb in her hand. A second afterwards, magical runes circled around it, then a large floating window appeared in the air above the ground in the middle of their circle. The window was flat and two dimensional, but faced towards whoever was looking at it, regardless of the angle they looked at it from. The outside edges of the window transitioned from nothing, to cloudy blue smoke, to a small viewing window that gave vision of the Mosmir Drone that Pyri had taken the leg barb from.

Despite the drone traversing through dark tunnels, they could faintly see around it as it navigated through them into the hive.

“Everyone can see it?” Pyri asked, confirming that the whole party was able to see her scrying window. She got a few nods back. “It’s pretty dark... And mana costly, but I can channel it for awhile. Once it skills up a bit it should get easier to hold it longer.” Pyri explained.

“We’ve got no reference point to start from, though. Hopefully he gives us a landmark.” Aegis said as he took out several stonecutting and crafting tools and set them out on the loose soil in front of him. They continued to watch the drone wander through a maze of tunnels until it eventually arrived at a large chamber filled with other drones, and food.

The drone let out some screeching, chittering sounds to get the attention of other drones, and following that, it turned around and made its way back from where it had come.

Sure enough, after a few moments they saw both through the scrying spell, and at the entrance of the hive nearby, that the drone had re-emerged. This time, it had a group of drones with it to help it carry the fisher body back into the hive.

“Perfect, we can map its path from the entrance.” Aegis said excitedly. He held his hands at the ready and waited for the drone and its buddies to break apart the fisher and begin carrying it as smaller pieces back into the hive.

The moment the drone picked a tunnel to enter the hive from, Aegis got to work. He began using the hardened soilrock with his tools to quickly craft and recreate a three dimensional map of the hive. It was hard to do it as quickly as he needed to, but his crafting skills were high level now and helping him out.

Lina, Darkshot and Rakkan looked on in awe as he slowly formed the path of the tunnel from the hive entrance using his miniature model.

It wasn’t long before the drone had reached a food chamber. Aegis watched it through the scrying as it put down the fisher meat alongside other decaying foods in the stockpile chamber before it turned around and made its way back out of the hive to grab more. This time, it’d taken a different path to get out. Once it grabbed more meat, it took a different path to go back in.

This continued for the next 30 minutes until the Fisher’s body had all been taken away and the drones stopped traveling in and out.

From there, once its job had finished, the drone they were scrying on continued to wander about amongst its peers, traversing various other tunnels in the hive. Aegis did his best to keep himself oriented on which directions the drone was going, until eventually the drone reached a large round chamber with dozens of entrances and exits. In Aegis’ speedy attempt to recreate the chamber in soilrock, he lost his orientation and sighed.

“Ok, I’m out.” Aegis leaned back to take a break. Pyri gave a nod and canceled the scrying spell as the others looked carefully at Aegis’ 3d model of the hive.

“Damn. That’s pretty good, but we're missing a lot.” Darkshot said as he closely inspected the map.

“Yeah. I was hoping the drone would take the food to the queen or something, but, no such luck.” Aegis replied as he scratched his chin, accidentally rubbing soilrock over himself.

“You guys gonna be okay in here for now? I gotta hop out and eat with my parents.” Rakkan said as he looked over the group.

“Yeah. Everyone can take a break, I'll stay with Snowflake and Darkwing. This’ll take awhile.” Aegis replied.

“Okay, cool, cause I’m starving.” Darkshot nodded.

“I should also eat.” Lina shrugged.

“No problem, see you guys in a bit.” Aegis replied. Within a few moments, they had all waved and logged out save for Pyri and Aegis.

“Are you hungry?” Aegis asked her.

“No… actually, I really want to find this Queen.” Pyri smirked with determination.

“Me too.” Aegis grinned back at her excitedly. “I’m thinking that the drones that get the food from outside aren’t the same ones that bring the food to the Queen, though.”

“I could use this map to get to the food chamber, then grab a leg hair from the ones in there, bring them back, and we scry on that.” Pyri suggested.

“You sure?” Aegis asked as Darkwing moved to sit on top of Snowflake's saddle who was sleeping beside them. “That sounds pretty risky.”

“Here, take my Ironwood staff in case I die. I think I’ll be fine, though.” Pyri shrugged as she handed her expensive items over to Aegis from her inventory.

“Ok… but,” Aegis hesitated as he remembered her scared expression from the battle.

“What?” Pyri asked as she saw his hesitation.

“Are you sure everything is okay? Are you having fun? You looked really scared during the fight.” Aegis asked her after quickly muting his stream. Pyri looked up at the muted icon above his head, then back to Aegis.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” She smiled as she gently ruffled his hair. “Thanks for worrying about me, but it was nothing.”

“You know, we don’t have to play so much if you don’t want to. And if you don’t like these adventures, you know, it's okay if you don’t tag along. I don’t want to force you. I never really asked, I just assumed you’d want to come along with us.” Aegis explained worriedly. “I know everyone else, I asked them to come with me and get strong with me, but I didn’t even ask you if you wanted to play the game like this.” He added.

“Aegis.” She shook her head at her worrying son. “I live for this stuff.” A giant grin appeared across her face. “I think you don’t realize, but you take after me a lot more than you know. I want to be here, it’s fun, don’t worry.” Pyri replied.

“Okay…” Aegis eyed his mom carefully. In the end, he could do nothing but trust her words. “Just be careful, then. I can’t heal you or see what's happening in the hive, so you’ll be on your own.” Aegis said and she gave him a thumbs up as she got up off her knees.

“I’ll be fine. Greater Invisibility.” She cast on herself, and in an instant she disappeared. Aegis could faintly see her footsteps on the moss as she walked away from his 3d map and headed towards the hive.

“Wait! Are you sure you know the way? You want me to make a little map for you to carry?” Aegis whispered out towards her.

“I’m okay, I’ve got a good memory.” She replied as her footsteps continued to trail off. Pyri walked onwards towards one of the hive tunnel entrances that they’d seen the drone use and paused in front of it, waving off the dungeon entry notification.

“Get it together.” She slapped herself on the cheek in frustration. “I’m standing out now for something even worse.” She grumbled. After a moment, she took a deep breath and collected herself before heading into the hive.

Alone, and with nothing to do, Aegis leaned his head back against the comfortable fur of Snowflake. Each time the sleeping Snowflake inhaled, Aegis' body was pushed forward, and when he exhaled Aegis fell back. The deep breaths and warm fur were soothing, and Aegis found himself starting to doze off.

He tried his best to stay awake, but having not slept in quite some time, it was difficult. He kept checking their surroundings to make sure no enemies were nearby, but from his knowledge of the forest, apart from the drones, most of the dangerous enemies were stationary. Eventually, his sleepiness won, and he passed out.

When he came too, he found that Pyri had fallen asleep beside him, leaning up against Snowflake to use him as a pillow as well. He groggily opened his eyes to the sound of a crackling campfire and saw that Lina had logged back in, cleared the moss out in front of them and started a fire to keep them warm. He rubbed his eyes and leaned forward away from Snowflake and saw that Rakkan, too, was logged back in and practicing with his echoes off in the distance.

“How long was I out?” Aegis asked Lina as she turned to look at him, momentarily surprised to see him awake.

“Mm… couple hours.” Lina shrugged.

“Did you see when Pyri got back?”

“Nope.” Lina shrugged, her voice was barely audible over a suddenly loud snoring sound that came from the opposite side of Snowflake. Aegis stood up to look over the saddle of the sleeping gryphon and saw Darkshot had fallen asleep on the opposite side. “He said he was tired and wanted to test out the dreamstate.” Lina smirked as Darkshot let out another snore.

“Why is he snoring in the simulation? That doesn’t seem like something that oughta be simulated.” Aegis rolled his eyes.

“It’s a random effect. There’s a chance for it to happen to anyone, anytime you sleep in the game.” Lina explained.

“Oh…” Aegis thought on this weird mechanic. “Did I snore?” Aegis asked her, and he saw Lina suddenly break eye contact and look at the fire while fidgeting with her daggers. “Nope, not this time.” She shrugged.

“What do you mean, not this time?” Aegis stared at her.

“Nothing.” She giggled. “Just, you didn’t snore this time.” She added. Her words were followed by another loud snore. Aegis gave up on the question and stretched his arms up to the cavern roof.

“I really am missing the sun…” He mumbled as he looked around and spotted a large bundle of Mosmir barbs. “Looks like we’re going to be doing a lot of scrying when Pyri wakes up.” He said as he spotted it.

Aegis used the time that Pyri was sleeping to gather some herbs and chop down some of the plain mushrooms to have some mushroom logs in his inventory, just to add some variety to his crafts in the future. Snowflake woke up long before her and Darkshot but kindly stayed put, willingly letting his body being used as a pillow by the others. Eventually, though, both Pyri and Darkshot woke up with yawns and stretches.

“Good morning.” Aegis smiled as he was in the middle of using some cooking utensils over the fire to make a meal. He was experimenting with the herbs and left over Fisher meat to try and make something edible. At the very least, it smelled really good. “Here, Fisher Kebabs.” Aegis said once he’d finished it. He skewed small chunks of cooked, seasoned meat onto small sticks alongside other cooked mushrooms and edible plants he’d rounded up from the surrounding forest.

He handed one stick out to each of his party members, then tossed a raw piece of Fisher meat over to Snowflake to happily gulp down.

“I’m not sure how good it’ll be, but I’ve been leveling cooking and, you know, studied cooking. Based on the properties of these items, it should be a lot better than steaks.” Aegis declared as he watched everyone take the kebabs and bite into them.

“Mmm… mmm! Damn, this is nice!” Darkshot said with a mouthful of food, quickly going in for another bite.

“Really tasty.” Lina nodded.

“Why can’t you cook like this in the real world?” Pyri said with wide, impressed eyes.

“Check out the stamina its granting us… boosting recovery by 20 per 5 seconds. And it lasts for 15 minutes. That’s huge! Food like this would sell for 1000 gold a piece, easily.” Rakkan said as he munched on it, but as he did, Darkshot stopped biting it.

“That seems like a waste to eat now…” Darkshot paused.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to cook a bunch so we have plenty.” Aegis replied, causing Darkshot to nod and go back to eating it.

“Thank god, no more steaks.”

“What’s wrong with my steaks?” Aegis glared at Darkshot.

“Nothing… just… you know… too much of a good thing…” Darkshot avoided eye contact with him, similar to how Lina had.

“Right.” Aegis huffed at him. “So, these are all barbs from drones in their stockpile room?” Aegis confirmed with Pyri as he motioned to the stack of barbs.

“Yup.” Pyri said as she finished eating her kebab and wiped her mouth. “Ready to start map making?” She asked, and Aegis nodded. They all walked back over to Aegis’ dirt model of the hive and dropped to their knees.

Pyri took the stack of barbs with her, placed them beside her, then singled one out and began channeling the scrying spell.

It took a moment for Aegis to acquaint himself with what he was looking at, but he recognized the room as the same room the first drone had brought the fisher meat towards, and from there he prepared his crafting tools to continue molding the soilrock map.

It took awhile for the drone to do anything, it spent the first few minutes sorting through the food and moving it about the stockpile room amongst the other drones.

“We’re going to have to clear through all of that? There’s so many of those damn Mosmir down there.” Darkshot commented as he viewed it alongside them.

“Well, we’ve got quests for them. If we get those Plashrim guard emblems we’ll have a lot of experience waiting for us back in Pakro’Vielle. Not to mention the crafting quests." Aegis replied.

“So you’re thinking we should grind in here?” Rakkan asked as he took the last bites of his kebab.

“The enemies were sort of easy to deal with, so it might be a good idea.” Aegis shrugged. “First priority is mapping the place out though, so we don’t get lost. Ah, there we go, he’s on the move.” Aegis said excitedly as the drone finally picked up some food and headed down some tunnels they hadn’t seen before.

Aegis immediately got to work. Over the next few hours, the process repeated itself. Pyri would pick a barb, scry on it, and Aegis would add any tunnels that the drone traversed into the map. It was an easy, safe way to map out the tunnels without expending energy themselves and getting lost.

Thanks to the movement of the drones, Aegis was able to learn quite a few things about the layout for the hive.

Firstly, there wasn’t just one stockpile room, but three, located in a triangle shape from one another. The stockpiles were very far apart, and each one contained vastly different stores of food that the Mosmir had gathered. The closest to them contained mushrooms, Mosstrappers, snails and Reltrak Fisher bodies. One to the north contained bodies of strange,red lizard-like creatures with scales that Aegis didn’t recognize. And the stockpile to the west was filled with the bodies of reapers, bats, and strange blob-like meaty creatures.

It led Aegis to believe that the Mosmir hive had multiple entrances and tunnels that led to vastly different sections of the Underrealm with completely different ecosystems from that of the Reltrak Forest.

Secondly, he located the communal chambers of the soldiers, drones, and voidreavers. The drones occasionally traveled between these chambers to feed the other Mosmir. There were multiple drone and soldier chambers, packed full of enemies to fight - in the hundreds. The Voidreaver chamber only had a about twenty of them, but they were all elite. Occasionally he’d seen soldiers and Voidreavers patrolling the tunnels alongside the drones, but mainly only saw them in their chambers.

Lastly, and most importantly, were the Royal Mosmir. Aegis never once got to see the drones deliver food to the Queen or her lair, but rather the drones would deliver food to the Royal Mosmir, who then took the food from them at various, seemingly random points in the tunnels throughout the hive. It took awhile to map it all out, but after some patience and problem solving, Aegis got a general idea of where the Queen’s Lair likely was, based on where the Royal Mosmir kept intercepting the drones.

He couldn’t get a good view of the Royal Mosmir with the scrying spell, though, only that their armor was deep pure black, as if staring into the void itself when looking at them.

Once Pyri and Aegis had exhausted the last barb, she canceled her spell and tossed it aside.

“Ok, that’s it, that’s all we’re going to get from the drones.” Aegis said as he leaned back to look at his map creation. It was huge, a giant craft made of carved, molded soilrock. It looked like a tangled mess of tiny pathways and tunnels interwoven with one another.

“We’re supposed to navigate that?” Darkshot said in disbelief as he eyed it.

“It’s not like we’re going to go down every tunnel.” Aegis shrugged.

“Do you know where the Queen’s Lair is?” Rakkan asked as he looked at it curiously.

“Yeah, sort of. I’ve got an idea of where it is. The stockpiles are all in a triangle formation around the hive, and the drones drop off the food at various points in the middle of the triangle. Therefore, logic dictates the Queen’s Lair is definitely somewhere there,” He motioned to the central area between the three stockpiles.

“So that’s where we’re headed?” Pyri asked as she stood up and dusted off her knees.

“Yup. We’ll take this tunnel into the hive, follow it around here to circumvent the first stockpile chamber, then make our way into this soldier chamber first.” Aegis said as he motioned along his model with his finger.

“Why the soldier chamber, isn’t it loaded with Soldiers? Shouldn’t we avoid that?” Darkshot asked.

“The dungeon said that its level 100. That means the Queen and Royal Mosmir will likely be around that level. In addition, these guys like to swarm. First we’ll determine if this is a dungeon where enemies respawn or not.” Aegis explained as he tapped the soldier chamber. “Using choke points to our advantage will likely be pointless, because these creatures can just tunnel around and flank us. The best course of action would be to wipe them out, so we don’t need to worry about reinforcements. Either way, respawn or not - we’ll get decent experience. The only concern I have is…” Aegis turned to look at Snowflake and Darkwing who sat perched on Darkshot’s shoulder.

“It’s still pretty dangerous down there, I don’t know if it's safe to bring them with us. We respawn, but they won't.” Aegis explained. Hearing this, though, Snowflake let out an angry squawk and nudged his head into his stomach. “You sure? Tunnels are no place for a gryphon.” Aegis replied, and got another defiant squawk from Snowflake.

“It’s not like we’re planning on dying, right? Worst case, I’ll portal them out to safety.” Pyri smiled as she watched the two interact.

“Yeah, I need Darkwing around to awaken his skill. We’ve gotta keep leveling them up.” Darkshot smiled.

“Okay.” Aegis shrugged. “Then, let’s pack up our things and make our final preparations. It’s time to go hive-delving.” Aegis stood up from his map and dusted his knees off.

“I said it before and I’ll say it again. You always take me to the nicest places.” Darkshot replied with an eyeroll.