"I know it's early, "said Fever to the crowd around him at the hall, "but I think we should plan an event."
The group was anxious to get involved in a decent sized raid, and they eventually agreed on storming the Ant Nest this coming weekend.
Word went out across the taverns and towns that Fever was rallying troops for a raid on the Ant Nest. Word of the meeting place and time
was spread to insure a decent sized raiding party.
Come the weekend, warriors, healers, and mages of all types gathered at Gludin's East Gate to be assigned a group for the raid. It was
impressively smooth and lacked much of the chaos seen in most loosely-formed and spur-of-the-moment missions. A group would fill and head out.
Next group would fill and head out, and so on until an even and continuous flow of people made their way into the wastelands and through
to the Ant Nest.
I was under the lead of Severus, a Dark Elf who seemed to have things under control. Our team was primarily humans and light elves, and
most seemed significantly more seasoned at combat than I. One of the Elves, Harmony, had the most beautiful armor - it almost seemed a dress
inasmuch as it was just as ornate and frilly as it was protective. ArkonThrall was a walking wall, shelled in a case of steel with a massive kite
to cover him. I would think that his opponents saw little more than a shield and a waving blade when face-to-face with him.
Down we went into what seemed a rather spiraling maze of mossied walls and crystaline stalagmites. The initial ants were very easily dispatched
as they were few in numbers and rather weak. In some rooms, larvae crawled about helplessly beside the quickly slain soldiers.
The first half of the descent was painless, and not a single casualty was had in our groups or any other that I spoke with. We fought our way
to a large room where we took a bit of a breather before the heading lower into the nest. We were warned that it was about to get rougher, and
there was a certain sense of danger I was feeling that I hadn't felt in quite some time. The rush was exhilarating and I was ready to roll!
A few more minutes were killed and then the command was given to move out.
"If you're a full group," yelled Pvp, "start moving!"
"Let's Gooooooooooo!" he yelled as the army plowed forward into the corridor, annihilating every ant in its path.
It was carnage. It was beautiful! The ants were moved down quickly, even with the swarms of our enemies getting
more dense and more challenging as we proceeded. The healers had tremendous command of their ability, and kept people
healthy and safe throughout the march to the Queen's room.
Once there, it was chaos. Complete and utter chaos. A troop of ants hit us from behind, while a troop of them rushed us from
the sides of the Queen. Our leaders barked the orders clearly - take the guards, kill the Queen, mages sleep the nurses. However, even
with our numbers, good leaders, solid tanks, and fast-acting healers, we were over-run. The swarms kept coming and bit by bit our numbers
dwindled. The command went out to fall back and regroup, but those words I heard as a spirit, as the Queen and I had a slight disagreement
about whether I should have been shooting arrows at her or not.
Somewhere at the feet of the Queen is a nice sized package of about 1600 arrows, since they didn't feel like returning to Gludio with me.
I know not the efforts of the regroup attempt as I went black shortly after arriving at town, but I hope they either did well or had fun or both.
It was a great experience and a great war... and I do plan on returning to collect from that Queen. As far as I am concerned, she now owes me, but that
is a mission for a much later day.
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