Chapter One-Hundred Sixty-Nine

Honey and her small swarm move in to examine the thing as the stag repeats his question.

“Does your Lord Thediem know what it is?”

Oh, right.  Uh…

“Other than something bad, nothing specific.  He has a few ideas for what it could be, I think, but I get the feeling that, even if he could put a name to it, there wouldn’t be much advice for actually fighting them.”  Teemo looks over the weird thing, and Honey is trying to get my attention.

I peer through her eyes at her notes so far, and I’m not a big fan of what I’m seeing.  The more I look at it, the more I’m starting to think it’s something specifically built to kill.  I don’t mean like a tiger or a lion or something, either.  Yeah, they’re good at killing, but they also do things like eat, make babies, and breathe.  Honey is having trouble finding any orifices, which would kinda make babies, breathing, and eating a bit difficult.

She gets Leo to help with a bit of dissection, and I think the White Stag is turning a bit green.  “Is that… necessary?”

Teemo shrugs.  “If we want more information on it, yeah.  Doesn’t mean the two of us need to watch, though.  We can leave them to it.”

The Stag nods and makes for the exit, Teemo still atop his head.  Out in the fresh air, the Stag seems to be regaining his composure.

“Not quite what you expected when asking for help, eh?”

The Stag sighs.  “Indeed.  My Lord prefers to quickly reclaim the bodies and the mana, but kept this one as proof.  To see some bees swarming a corpse like a field of flowers…” the Stag shudders, and Teemo snorts with a smirk.

“That’s Honey.  I think she hungers more for knowledge than she does pollen.  The Boss will probably get a lot more than either of us will really want to know about that invader, but he should get a better idea for how to fight the things.  Which reminds me: he’s going to be sending tundra wolves, now that I’ve blazed a proper trail.  Probably a pack or two a day, depending on how it goes.  Honey and Leo are going to be sticking around to help with the fighting, too.”

The Stag bows to Teemo as well as he can with my Voice still sitting on his head.  “My Lord is grateful for the timely aid.  The snows beyond my Lord’s borders greatly hinders these disturbing invaders, so being able to engage them in such terrain would be a great boon.”

Teemo nods at that.  “That’s basically his reasoning for sending them: they won’t be hindered by the cold.  If we still haven’t dealt with this problem come spring, he’ll probably send some widows or twinsnakes, or both.  Or maybe just stronger wolves.”  Teemo shrugs while the Stag gives him a curious look.

“He has stronger wolves than tundra?  Why not send them immediately?”

My Voice shakes his head.  “He doesn’t have them yet, but they’ll be one of many options by then.  The Boss grows pretty quickly.”

The Stag nods at that.  “I imagine his location helps greatly with that.  My Lord enjoys his quiet and peace.  I think a city would ill suit him.  There are dangers among so many delvers, more competition from other dungeons, but there are opportunities as well.”

“Yeah, that’s true, but at least he has the other dungeons kinda sorted now.”

The Stag eyes him with curiosity.  “Oh?  The last my Lord had heard, Hullbreak was content to stagnate.  Unless you count that as being sorted?”

Teemo somehow manages to exchange a glance with me, and I approximate a nod in return.  “Hullbreak was starving, and one of his dwellers managed to ask the Dungeoneers for help.  The Dungeoneers asked the Boss.  It ended up being a bit more of a thing than expected, and the Boss Vassalized Hullbreak.”

“A Vassal?  Not simply subsumed?”

My Voice shakes his head.  “Nah, the Boss doesn’t want to just eat dungeons and take over.  Neverrest had it coming, but Hullbreak just needs help.  It’s slow going, but the Boss at least has him making enough mana to keep himself healthy, and has a few projects in mind to help him really take off.  He also has his Protege to guide, too, so his metaphorical hands are a bit full.”

The Stag looks shocked at that news.  “And a Protege?!”

“Oh yeah, she’s still real young, so she hasn’t needed too much yet, but he gives her little guiding nudges every so often.”

The Stag shakes his head.  “What sort of ally has my Lord gotten involved with,” he mutters to himself, and Teemo grins.

“The one that you annoyed, and who expects at least some kind of payment for his help.”

The Stag’s ear twitches and he tenses.  “I don’t believe my Lord should pledge fealty to yours,” he says with measured tone and cadence, clearly upset at the idea, but also desperately trying to not let it show.

Teemo lets him stew in it for a few moments before smiling and waving the idea off.  “He has enough dungeons to watch for, he doesn’t need another one to be responsible for, heh.  He would like to get a look at your herbalism and lumber nodes, though.  The Boss is always in the market for new resources to tempt delvers with.”

The Stag deflates a bit in relief at that and nods.  “Yes, I believe my Lord would be more than happy to assist with that.  I believe his expeditions have secured many seeds that would simply not be worth the mana to grow, thanks to the climate.  Your Lord Thedeim may find he can make better use of them.”

I let Teemo negotiate with the Stag over what seeds and stuff to get from the Southwood.  I’ll still help him even if the seeds are useless to me, but Teemo’s not wrong to get at least something for the rudeness earlier.  Stopping whatever these invaders are will be good for the both of us.  Speaking of the invaders, I check how Honey and Leo are handling their project.

…Yeah, probably a good thing the Stag left when he did.  Honey isn’t quite going Frankenstein on this thing yet, but I think that’s only because she doesn’t have lightning affinity.  This thing’s insides don’t paint a pretty picture, and not just because insides make unpleasant art in general.  While I’m still not a biologist, I can probably name most of the various organs, at least that a mammal has.  You need a brain, a heart, some kind of lungs or gills, something to filter out nasty things in the various fluids, something to digest, usually a couple somethings to make that digestion easier, and something to get rid of the food once you’re done with it.

I’m counting a lot fewer organs than I’d expect, and I poke Honey to check her notes and get me caught up on what’s she discovered so far.  So far… the inside is looking a lot like the outside: designed for killing, and not much else.  The basic interior looks vaguely like what should be in something with an exoskeleton.  The layout is mostly open concept, no real veins or arteries and such, with the bits more or less floating in the goo.

Honey and Leo finally found orifices, but they all seem to be for air.  The invader has little holes along the sides to draw it in, and presumably push it out, too.  I have no idea how the lungs actually work, but they take up a pretty good chunk of this thing’s insides.  The lungs do look like they’re segmented, though, so one good shot to them will only disable that section, not the whole thing.

And that’s the only intended way in or out of this thing.  No stomach or anything like that, though that brings us to the other large organ.  It appears to be a big sack full of some kind of fluid, and Honey says it’s sweet.  She even has it in her notes as ‘invader honey’.  I just hope she doesn’t eat too much of it.  That’s just… ew.  Still, that explains the thing’s energy: it’s born with some kind of energy sack, I guess.  However, ‘born’ might be the wrong word, as Honey and Leo haven’t been able to find anything like reproductive organs.  It could be something really weird, but I’m going to trust Honey to know what bug naughty bits should look like.

There’s a few other organs that do organy things, including what seems to be a brain of sorts encased in whatever the exoskeleton is actually made of, along where the spine would be.  I think this one basically died from a concussion, as Honey’s notes show certain parts to be a bit mushier than others, with no apparent reason.  The thing probably got thrown against a tree or something.

Whatever caused its death, what caused its life was very streamlined.  No reproduction and no eating, which cuts down on the number of needed organs a lot, I imagine.  But with no reproductive organs, how did this thing even happen?  I probably can’t discount magic, even though everything else I've seen seems to be anatomically correct.  It also could be what amounts to a drone or something, relegated to only fighting.

But that doesn’t quite feel right.  Even specialized fighters in a hive can do more than fight.  Even when surrounded by hostiles, fighting can only take up so much time, so a warrior cast insect needs to be able to pull its weight even when not actively engaging threats.  I might just be lacking in imagination, but I can’t picture this thing doing anything besides fighting.  All the bits are too sharp for doing things like moving brood or building.  It might be able to dig, but it's not moving dirt very far with just those blades.  If it’s that specialized, I get the feeling it’s specifically made for fighting, made to be a disposable warrior.

Because if you’re going to make an autonomous weapon, it kinda needs to be disposable.  Umbrella and other fictional weapons corporations are always making their zombie viruses, or genetically engineered dinosaurs, or whatever, but never make an off switch for them.  Even if we assume their zombies are better than just giving trained soldiers guns, they’ll still need to deal with a bunch of zombies after hostilities die down.  And if the zombies won, they have kinda proven they’re better than soldiers and guns, so what’s their plan to actually use the area they’ve conquered?

This is why Umbrella went bankrupt in the games.  I think.  But back to the actual point: if these things are deliberately made like I’m thinking they are, the onboard honey sack is the off switch.  Once it runs out of fuel, the thing stops moving, and the boss can waltz in like they own the place, because who’s going to argue?  Not all those corpses, that’s for sure.

But if they are engineered, why is the type hidden?  It could be something to do with someone peeking back home, which would be bad.  Or it could be someone deliberately hiding it, either on their own, or with the actual help of the system here.  I’m not sure which would be worse.