Siege (2/2)
… And the Queen's concerns are entirely well founded. Within only a few days, she starts seeing steel swords battling to get out of the fortress. Sure, the Queen has all 5 basement entrances plugged with her children in their own Ant formations, so her toiling children down below at least have some breathing room to keep working.
What about the dragon slayer and his dragon spirit? Obviously, her children can't stop them.
The only thing the Queen can do is disguise herself as one of her soldiers and wait at a random basement exit every day – hoping she can catch one of them by accident.
After the Queen nearly catches them a few times, they stop coming out so recklessly. Instead, they start sending smaller forces out to try baiting the Queen out, but she knows full well that the second she shows her face, the one of the big headaches will fly out of the basement from another exit and get a lot of free kills from her children.
Luckily, with the Slayer and the dragon spirit not coming out anymore, the Queen notices that her pendent is showing some great numbers for her. Sure, she's not earning 200 mana every second anymore, but what's important isn't how powerful she's getting, but how powerful she is compared to the human.
Before, their numbers were about 20:1, but now, it's about 40:1. With this, the gap between herself and the Slayer is getting bigger now! How exciting! Moving out of the Maze was the right call!
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After several weeks spent playing this guessing game, perhaps the dragon slayer realizes that he's doing no good sending his Wills out fruitlessly.
Indeed, one day, they stop coming out altogether.
Of course, after this happens, the Queen's pendent tells her that both hers and the Slayer's energy has stopped growing.
Realizing her children can finish their fortifications in peace, she finally relaxes… though she's still sure to stay by the basement entrances… just in case.
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Over the years, the Slayer sometimes sends his Wills out to keep the Ants on their toes and look for weaknesses.
Still, regardless of this constant headache, the Ants manage to fill in the bottom of the cavern. The Queen is also sure to have the Ants raise the ground just high enough to nearly reach the flat bottom of the floating fortress.
This way, she's creating an artificial floor beneath the castle itself… except instead of halls with winding passageways, the Ants have a giant, flat plain. With all this open space, they'll be able to use their bigger numbers more effectively.
What's more, is that because fortress's bottom is acting as a ceiling, the steel spirits won't be able to swoop in from above and assail them from the skies.
As a final measure, the Queen has her children cling upside down on the bottom of the fortress, so that the fortress cannons won't be able to fire on them.
After that is done, the Queen has her children dig a large and complex network of tunnels. Under and around the mountain. She wants as many secret places as possible; even more, she wants a terrain available to her that only she truly understands.
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While the Queen is busy entrenching herself in her position, Haalfrin looks out one of the cannon holes at the Ants below.
"What are you going to do, Haalfrin?" Freyya asks. "She's got you surrounded. Are you going to run out of the maze? Since she can only guard one entrance at a time, you've got a 4 in 5 chance of running away unhindered."
"No," he shakes his head. "Where would I go?"
"But… you're not just going to sit here!?"
"That's precisely what I'm going to do," Haalfrin frowns. "Rather… this is a good opportunity to try advancing one of my Names."
He knows full well that he'll steadily lose the war at this rate; in order to gain another advantage, he's just going to have to get stronger.
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-Many years later-
"It's a good thing the fighting isn't as intense," Fisco jokingly says through their soul link. "The emperor seems to have noticed that a lot of steel was disappearing into my territory; he was beginning to suspect I was illegally hoarding weapons."
"Ugh…," Haalfrin groans while looking at one of the rooms, which had been decorated with comfortable furnishings. "You don't have to send so much common furniture. This is starting to remind me of my time in the Pit."
The Death Reapers back then had also sent him a lot of things to decorate his prison floor. These empty Threshold halls were already similar enough to the tomb-like Floor B33…
"Bah!" Fisco barks dismissively. "Don't let the small things distract you. Get back to training."
Indeed, just like his time in the Pit, Haalfrin spends his days mediating and attempting to comprehend his Names even further, while his Wills occasionally send themselves on missions.
In almost every way, Haalfrin's life has become exactly the same as the time he was a prisoner… for in a sense, he's a captive once again.
Well, the only difference to his life compared to back then is that his wife is here with him, and she's here to stay.
Sure, he's trapped. Sure, his life consists of hard work. Sure, he doesn't get to see the sun anymore… but at least with Freyya here, his spirit isn't growing tired. Every day, when he wakes up to see her beside him, he suddenly feels motivated to try again for another day.
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While Haalfrin is busy training, most of the Wills actually spend their time fortifying the basement maze even further; they want this place to be an absolute safe zone for their commander!
…What's kind of annoying though is that those evil Ants have the same idea. As the Wills are losing more and more of their members whenever they try to invade the bugs' hideout, they realize that it's becoming more and more futile to try assailing the bugs in their own stronghold.
So, as their raids become increasingly useless, they eventually stop going out altogether, except for a few small scouting parties to keep an eye on the Ant's movements.
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As the Queen starts to realize that even the occasional steel spirit attacks have stopped, she realizes this actually presents another problem for her.
With so many mouths to feed, her children will slowly starve to death, and their deaths will contribute to the enemy's strength.
Luckily, the Queen's Yiir Name directly prevents this. One of her innate powers is that she's able to essentially freeze time for her children – allowing them to enter a comatose state where they stop aging and hungering altogether. Even better, her children are able to passively regenerate mana while in this state.
This way, so long as the Queen doesn't use more mana than her children currently have stocked up (while avoiding using her stockpile stored in the blood underground), then she won't actually lose any mana.
The only problem with this is that her children are unable move or think while in this state; if the enemy attacks them like this, then they'll be helplessly slaughtered.
So, the Queen sends MOST of her children to sleep like this. while she posts a few guards spattered around. Just so that the enemy doesn't catch onto this, she makes sure her children go into their frozen state while standing up.
Realzing that she has plenty of time now to think and ponder, the Queen sits down, gets comfortable, and starts studying her own soul Gates – hoping she can gain another power and break the siege with some newfound advantage.
With the previous clamor from the Ants gone, the cavern has entered an eerie, cold silence – reminiscent of a tomb, like a crypt housing a slumbering abomination.
…And the historians would one day call this point in the war "the long siege".