Loose Threads: the tree still untouched, the hatchery burned (?)
Participants: Shirkad, Bruzmal, Draco, Russ'Ruk, Xander Marshall
Locations: Giant Ant Nest
Short summary:
The group gathered in the early morning and left towards reported location of the nest, where they arrived in the same day.
On the surface, they encountered a small patrol, which they promptly dissassembled, using their insides for camouflage, and proceeded to follow workers into the nest. There, they found a food storage chamber.
Following another group of ants, this time carrying Ant Goo, they arrived, getting attacked on their way there by spiders, in the hatchery.
The group backed up into the tunnels. Moving in the opposite direction from ants, they eventually found heavily guarded tree.
From there the party split:
- Main force moved into the tree chamber and hid from the ants;
- Leon moved back into the hatchery, where it attempted to use the fuse to light the eggs on fire.
Diversion was halfway succesful:
The main guard force of the ants reacted quickly, leaving tree with lighter defenses, Leon however was unable to rejoin rest of the group and retreated.
At that moment, t main party engaged the remaining ants and weird ant-spider hybrids, trying to reach the tree, the hybrids however proved too powerful and forced them to retreat as well, leaving the tree untouched.
Full report: Shirkad
"Oye, yer writing that? I ain't repeating mesself."
"Yes, yes, I am, go ahead."
Shirkad, still bloody and filthy, went back to report their attempt at pest control. It wasn't successful, but at least they learned something. Now he was dictating the report to Guild's scribe.
"Aight, we sstarted yessterday, went where the nessst is, ye? There we found a group of inssects - few small ones and couple big ones. Those ssuckers are as large as a horse, ain't nobody mentioning that in the reports, are they?
Big can bite, but ssmall ignored us. Used the gutss of the large oness to blend in and followed small into the nesst. Blind they are, ain’t even light in the face alertin’ them.
Followed ‘em into food sstorage. Pile of meat from their huntss. There more ants be carrying ssome goo - followed ‘em further in, but were ambusshed by sspiders. Ain’t much of a threat, but them beastss can heal crazy fasst - barely cut into ‘em and I ssaw their gutss rebuilding. Collected ssome goo from them.
More antss with this glowy goo came by - if yer follow where they go, ye’re gonna find eggss. Guarded they are, but if ye’re sstill covered in goo they ignore ye. Went back the other way, where goo-carrierss come from - found the damned tree, in a huge cavern, with lotss and lotss of antss, both big and ssmall, and ssome weird, vile thingss. Cursed thing looked like if sspider and ant had a baby.
Had an idea to burn the eggss, sso we did. Made… what’s the damn thing called… fuse, from me net and ropess. Had the cat light it up while resst of uss wait, but ssomething musst have gone wrong. But the diversion worked! Them large antss sscattered, left only the mass of ssmall oness to deal with, and those… thingss. Basstardss could bite a boat in half! Could not get closse to the tree, left ussing them Recallers quickly.
After that Shirkad, annoyed left, leaving the scribe with other members of the party sent to deal with ants, who filled in any gaps left by their companion.
Pest Control report #4
The group made up of Bruzmal, Draco, Russ'Ruk, Shirkad and Xander Marshall left early in the morning, and reached the destination when the sun was still high. Above ground they searched for ants that they could ambush and kill, in order to obtain materials recommended by previous parties as camouflage. They found a group of worker ants dissecting a deer carcass, guarded by two soldier ants.
It appears that workers are to ignore danger, and leave protecting them to soldiers - even bashing steel and chitin over their heads does not faze them, so it should prove beneficial to leave them alive and follow them inside once you’re properly camouflaged.
Once inside the nest is lit only by naturally bioluminescent fungus. With addition of additional ants, following the ants carrying prey without proper light source or other way to track specific ants can prove difficult.
The group followed carrier ants into a food storage chamber, where ants gather prey presumably for future consumption. From there they followed a different group of ants, this time carrying glowing gel-like substance - most likely previously reported and tested Ant Goo.
On their way there, they stumbled across a small, vertical chamber, where they were ambushed by spiders. They appear to be connected to nest’s hive mind, possibly through the Goo, which also seems to be granting them improved regeneration.
Once spiders were dealt with, the group collected some Goo for testing, while the next team of carrier ants came through. They followed them and found their way into a hatchery. Chamber was filled with eggs. The hatchery is guarded, but if camouflage was successful, party should be ignored, unless they attack ants or eggs.
Following the path that the carrier ants took led the team to a large chamber, where the tree is growing. Inside this cavern they found also large amounts of worker ants, some soldier ants and few spider-ant hybrids, who seem to be stronger than regular soldiers.
Team decided on a plan to divert the ants’ attention using the hatchery they found earlier. With that they prepared a makeshift fuse made of rope and net to attempt to spread the fire over the eggs giving them time to reach the main chamber.
Goo proved flammable enough to help rope and net catch fire, but it was far from a proper fuse.
With that the party split into two - main party, consisting of Bruzmal, Russ’ruk, Shirkad and Xander moved into the main chamber and hid from the ants in a place that ants wouldn’t spot if they decided to move out of the chamber.
At the same time last member, Unknown Leon, was a lone participant of the second part of the plan. It approached the hatchery and laid out previously mentioned net and rope over the eggs. Fuse proved too weak, so the ants soon trampled the flame. In order for it to work, Leon had to coil the rope and take more time lighting and maintaining the flame before it properly lit the eggs. As soon as that happened, Leon was attacked by guarding ants and retreated using Recaller.
At the same time, the rest of the group found themselves with now greatly reduced enemy forces - presumably all soldier ants left to deal with Leon, leaving “only” massive force of worker ants and hybrids to deal with.
The group attempted to attack the tree, but was immediately cut off by hybrids, who proved too difficult of a challenge to deal with - powerful bite and spider venom was enough to almost knock out members in a single attack, forcing the group to retreat using Recallers.
Mission: FAILED