100 – Sudden Death
Assuming the hive queen had a significant measure of control over the swarm, the only question was the reason behind her decision to let them enter the dungeon instead of just killing them before they could get in. A mischievous spirit made her want to prod and poke the bug-woman, to try extracting something, anything that would help lead her towards an answer, but she maintained self-control.
There would be plenty of time for questioning once she had the queen at gunpoint.
But then… Why would the Mantis risk her own life just to taunt them and lead them to the dungeon entrance? This question did indeed cross her lips, but before she could ask it, her answer manifested itself. Upon turning a corner, they were met not with more cave, but with a wall of solid chitin, its pitted surface split down the middle by a barely-visible seam. The Mantis ran her finger along the seam, exhaling what was doubtlessly a breath full of pheromones.
Scutting echoed from the other side of the wall, and it began to scrape against the inside of the cave as it moved inward. Bit by bit the chitin wall retreated leaving chitinous shavings in its wake. It eventually turned on its vertical axis and split in half, exposing itself as an overgrown, malformed locust.
Where human arms must have once been, there were now huge growths of chitin that attached directly to either half of the tunnel barrier, the joints reinforced with a great many overlapping plates. The sheer amount of plating on its arms contrasted with the rest of its body, which though massive, only had a thin exoskeleton. It had four gangly, long arms sprouting from its back, alongside several hollow tubes.
It let out a long breath, yet no air came from the tiny, recessed thing that was its head. At first she thought the tubes were a novel manner of respiration, but… Her instincts told her it wasn’t air that came out, that it had after all been a mistake to humor the Red Mantis.
Strol’s and Zef’s eyes lost focus, their legs became uncertain, and they crumpled to the floor like straw dolls. Zelsys felt herself losing focus as well, and though she instinctively took a breath, the invigoration of Fog only served to drag this moment out even longer. As she clutched for her cleaver her eyes hunted for the Mantis, but she was nowhere to be seen. The next moment, the Inquisitor fell to the ground, a stinger embedded in her back.
“How bothersome, it’s still awake…” lamented the Mantis. The last thing Zelsys felt was a stinger in her back, and the last thing she heard was a whispered taunt.
“I’ll stop your rotted heart right here and now,” the Mantis seethed into her ear as she felt her heartbeat stopping, her vision fading. “Consider it a mercy, you wretched thing. A mercy your friends won’t receive.”
Floating in cold, dark nothingness. Unable to feel, unable to think.
Then came a twitch, a surging spark that roused the heart and woke the senses to the wrenching pain of the stinger still wedged in her beating heart. Her muscles stiff, her mind hazy, Zelsys felt the clawed fingers of locust drones wrapped around her wrists and ankles. The familiar weight of her weaponry was gone - the Lightning Butcher and its holster, her arm-cannon and its harness, even the ammo belt.
She dared not open her eyes or even move a muscle, she dared not even breathe any more than was absolutely necessary. The stench of locusts suddenly faded, the air became inexplicably fresh, and the gait of the drones carrying her evened out before they came to a sudden stop - they’d reached the Fog Gate chamber. A weak light seeped through her eyelids as the gate came alive.
The Mantis began barking orders in Pateirian, and though Zelsys couldn’t understand the words being spoken, she instinctively knew the intended fates were worse than death. While the red one’s attention was clearly not directed towards her, Zelsys filled her lungs to their fullest, letting slip self-control in favor of vengeful murderlust.
The woman known as Red Mantis barked orders to her drones, using the words as no more than mnemonic mechanisms to release the correct pheromones. It wasn’t as if the drones could understand speech, and there wasn’t much else to do whilst they waited for the emperor-damned Dungeon Core to stop resisting and open the Fog Gate. Even when it obeyed the queen, it would only open a connection between the core chamber and the surface.
They needed an opposing force to traverse the dungeon and open up Fog transit, all she had to do was ensure they could be disposed of once they’d fulfilled their purpose. A small, bright-red trilobite-like insect - a pheromone-triggered killswitch clamped to the back of the neck. Everything had gone surprisingly smoothly, thanks to her liberal use of social pheromones.
Sure, just a single exposure to both them and the Doorman’s knockout gas was enough to build up a near-immunity level of resistance, but it wasn’t as if it mattered. Just this once was more than enough.
A shift in the air, a stir of movement from the dead homunculus. The lines of its skin flashed, pulsing light and electric arcs flaring out from its heart to the rhythm of frantic heartbeat. The drones that held it let go, forced by the current to throw themselves against the walls.
It landed on its hands and, with a pivot of its torso, used the wedge-shaped armor on its legs to bisect six of the nine drones in the chamber. Its foot just barely caught the seventh, smashing its head to pulp. Even the Mantis herself would’ve met this fate, were she not fast enough to step out of the way.
She lashed out with her arm-scythes thinking the homunculus must be vulnerable in such an awkward position, only for the creature to pivot downward and transition her spinning momentum into a wide sweeping kick.