HC:Pacifist | Ch. 150 - Scorched Clearing

“I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have, martyr. By all means,” spoke the Lord of the Woods.

Roth had to tread carefully here. The caterpillar was most likely eavesdropping on this conversation. He couldn’t give any clues of what he wanted to do. He cleared his mind from all anxiety, careful not to let any of his restlessness into his mental waves, and started asking the questions he had carefully prepared.

He started his inquiry with an unrelated question. “Oli has asked me to go to the Table.”

The wind around him stopped flowing for a few seconds as if the Lord had a mental hiccup, and then it resumed. “This is a great honor, human. The Table is very mindful of who it invites.”

“I was wondering if you knew where the Table is.”

“Rumor has it that it changes every time. I’m afraid that only Oli, the cat, can provide information on their next meeting place.”

Roth sighed. There were no shortcuts for this quest, either. He would have to get his compass out and follow it. His friends had gotten back to him and explained that the new moon would be in a couple of days. He would hate to miss the quest. Oli had been very serious about him making it. This brought Roth to his next question.

“I’ve heard that Antioch has a teleportation device. Can I use it?”

The wind became sharper. “I’m afraid you can’t, human.”

“Why not?”

“Only ants are allowed into the teleportation tree. The system is fragile and has been programmed so that only we can use it.”

“What about another exit? One that will take me outside the confines of this shield. A secret tunnel or something?”

“That we can help you with. There are many ways out of Antioch. Our colony is connected to every tree of the Green Woods. A service hatch lets you leave Antioch in any of them.”

Roth paused. That meant that he could just run away whenever he liked! He wasn’t expecting it to be so easy.

“Sadly, many powerful humans are roaming the woods right now, and our shield has been under attack. For now, Antioch is on lockdown. Once they leave, you can use those hatches at will.”

He knew it! There had to be a catch. How was he supposed to run away or make it to the Table meeting with Loki’s goons barring his way out? He tried the other question he had thought of before. “I remember that you mentioned you had heard from Solomon. That means that you have a communication system.”

“We do have a telepathic relay. Yes.”

“Is it OK if I use it?”

A moment of hesitation. Roth’s thinking was simple. It had been the snakes that had helped him unlock subterfuge. Additionally, Solomon knew telepathy. They had already spoken using it. He couldn’t think of a better race to give him clues as to how this caterpillar could lie mentally.

“I’m afraid we can’t.” There was some hesitation in the voice. He wondered if the caterpillar was exercising its influence here, not letting him communicate with the outside. He tried to mask his intentions by quickly asking something unrelated to this topic.

“I’ve noticed that some objects grow or shrink with the user. Does your food and armor do that? Or do they always stay the same size?”

“Our items are made for ants, human. Why would we require them to grow? The technology required for that is costly. Making something shrink is simple. But enlarging something that was originally small isn’t so.”

Roth smiled. So, there was technology that allowed for it. And it could be used, albeit at a certain cost. “Oh, by the way,” Roth said as if he had just thought of this, “Has the flock been bothering you? That mental static on your brain must be a nuisance, right?” Roth clenched his fists, trying not to let his anxiety leak into his telepathy. He wasn’t lying, so it should be OK.

“The flock just sticks to their mental connection. We want no lazy mental singing interfering with all the work we have to do. We just leave the flock to themselves. Don’t forget that you can’t leave them here forever.”

Good to know. So that meant that the Lord wasn’t constantly hearing what the sheep said between themselves. “Leave it up to me. I thank you, my Lord. You are wise. Well, this was all helpful. I won’t rob you of your precious time. I have to get to work. Cities and kingdoms don’t just build themselves, right?”

The Lord of the Woods is pleased to see your resolve to work.

+1 reputation with the treeants.

Treeants were a tough cookie to crack. Gaining a reputation with them took a lot of work. Roth ran out of the queen's chamber toward Antioch's exit. Getting a hold of Solomon had always been a long shot. Even if he could talk to the senator, he would think twice before doing so. He feared the caterpillar could eavesdrop on his conversation with the old snake. But that wasn’t the only NPC that could teach him about telepathy and give him clues on how to unmask the infiltrator.

After half an hour of traveling, Roth finally arrived outside. It was the middle of the night, so there wasn’t much of a difference between the darkness of Antioch and the gloom of night. Surrounded by blades of grass that looked as big as trees, Roth located his [Miniaturize] buff icon and prepared to toggle it off. He hesitated.

Truth be told, he wasn’t sure if the [Miniaturizing Honeydew] would enable him to return to his ant size. Logic dictated that it would. After all, players that visited Antioch had to have a way of coming back, right? [Miniaturizing Potions] were priceless resources in the game, and [Miniaturize] was an epic skill. To have both simultaneously had to be a rare occurrence. It wouldn’t make much sense for the developers to require every player to have this combo.

What made more sense to Roth was that an item like [Miniaturizing Honeydew] be made available at a more reasonable price so that more and more players could come visit the city. Even if this didn’t work, he could always wait for Bucky to come this way and then pay him to go get [Miniaturizing Potions] for him. That, or he could ask the Lord to send a telepathic message to King Ratatouille and have a potion delivered to him.

In the end, he toggled off the [Miniaturized] buff. His figure quickly grew to its standard size, and what before had looked impossibly big was again shrunk back to its normal size. As he got used to the new perspective, he took in the scene around him.

Instead of the beautiful, peaceful clearing surrounded by beautiful trees, the sight that greeted him was much bleaker. The earth was baked black and scorched. The trees all around the palatial clearing were either burned down or shredded. Dozens of players unleashed mighty blows and skills as they faced each other. He quickly found Xerxes as fists made from rock and mud came off the ground, swatting the enemy forces away.

He had expected some guilds to be lured here, but he hadn’t imagined the battle to access Antioch would be this fierce. Roth’s muscles tensed. It was one thing to see humans fight animals, but another entirely to see humans fighting other humans. He held on to his sanity and fought the urge to run off the shield, jump into the fray, and stop the battle.

He forced his attention away from the battle and focused on the group of sheep huddled together to find comfort from the chill of the night. He gently nudged them aside and walked right into their middle.

As he closed his eyes and focused, he started hearing a beat, accompanied soon by strings and flutes. Then, he felt one voice, then another, and then another. Finally, all the voices combined into one. He was in sync with the flock.

“Hello, friends.”

“Martyr. The green. The humans have turned the green to black.”

“I know. I know. I have a question for you. But before I ask it, can the Lord of the Woods hear us?”

“It can, but it won’t. He wants the it to remain apart from the us. We tried to sing to it, but it won’t listen.”

Roth grinned. The flock’s annoyance had irritated even the combined patience of millions of ants. That was wonderful. He didn’t want the caterpillar to listen to the conversation that he was about to have.

“Good. Let’s keep it that way. My question for you is: Is it possible to lie telepathically?”

“No.” Came the combined answer.

“No?”

“No. Impossible. There’s only truth in the song.”

Roth bit his lip. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. You saved the us. The us will always be grateful to the you.”

Roth broke the connection. He had hoped to learn some dark secret about telepathic illusions and how to break them, but the sheep had been useless. He sighed and sat on the grass. One of the sheep was grazing contentedly on the green grass that had been spared the destruction of warfare outside the shield. Bringing them here had been a lot of work, but he was glad he did. Although, now that he thought about it, if he hadn’t done that quest, that sheep thief would never have appeared, and he wouldn’t be stuck here now.

As he kept admiring the sheep and reminiscing about the trip here, he jolted upright. When he had escorted the sheep, there had been one thing that had weakened their telepathic link. Something that broke the connection. Static in the radio. It muddied the waters and impeded the flow of thought from one sheep to the next. Roth grinned. He might have a way to unmask the caterpillar, after all.

Roth had been in his miniaturized form for a full day, and the skill was off cooldown. He crossed the distance between the flock and the tree in a few large steps. It was time now to test how the food of Antioch worked. He took one of the [Miniaturizing Honeydew] blobs he had bought from the honeypot ant.

To his normal size, the blob was barely visible. He didn’t take his eyes off of it for a second for fear that he would lose track of where it was. It was as small as a single mustard seed. He gently brought the finger to his mouth and licked the blob. Nothing happened. He felt a knot in his stomach. It didn’t work. The food of Antioch did nothing for regular-size players. Was he wrong?

There was still hope, though. He activated his epic skill.

Miniaturize!

Roth’s figure shrank, and he tried again, grabbing a [Miniaturize Honeydew] from his inventory. In his miniaturized hand, it was now as big as an olive. The texture was similar to Jell-O. As he brought it up to his mouth, he felt the urge to gag.

For some reason, it was harder to eat this now that it was bigger and more visible than when it was something almost invisible. He closed his eyes and tried to chant the names of all the fermented foods and drinks he knew.

“You have eaten plenty of pre-digested food before, Roth. Sauerkraut, yogurt, kombucha, pickles, miso, sourdough bread, ginger beer.” He covered his nose and brought the honeydew up to his mouth. It tasted sweet, like honey. As he felt how delicious the honeydew was, his muscles relaxed, and he managed to gulp it down.

His figure shrank even further until he was small enough to reenter the colony. Thank goodness, it had worked. He followed the trail of ants back into Antioch.

Ch. 149 - Illusion

INDEX

Ch. 151 - Goodwin's Log