Chapter Two-Hundred Ninety-One

Olander meets with Coda at the manor porch, but they don’t have all that much to talk about.  My nerd bat isn’t exactly a powerhouse in a fight, and I think the elf is still a bit distracted thinking over what Tiny had to say.  Coda isn’t bothered too much, though.  He’s been taking trips down to the ant enclave ever since they started organizing like a college, interacting with the engineer caste of antkin.  Olander goes ahead and cuts his delve short for today, freeing Coda to go hang out with his fellow nerds, and giving me a chance to take a closer look at how they’re all doing.

Their progress bars are moving once again, which is great to see.  They all are happy about it, and now they’re progressing again, I’m able to see them going through more physical changes.  Much like a normal anthill will have castes like worker, major, etc, my antkin are literally growing into their chosen specialties.

The undecided make me think of worker ants, a bit smaller than most of the other castes, but versatile to do whatever needs doing.  Their hands are bulkier than most of the other antkin now, but I think that’s more because several of the other castes focus more on very fine manipulation than grip strength, where the worker antkin are jacks-of-all-trades.

The other easy comparison to make to normal ants are the rancher caste.  They’re a lot like majors, significantly bigger and bulkier than the other ants so they can handle whatever critters that need it.  They also have one large hand and one normal one, reminding me more of crabs than ants in that respect.  The large hand still has fingers, though they are definitely specialized more for gripping than manipulation.

Interestingly, their right hands are the larger ones, making the ranchers what I would consider to be left handed.  They’re not going to be writing with their rights, that’s for sure.  They definitely look strange right now, but I’m expecting they’ll get better as the changes solidify.  Teens are often awkward, and my growing antkin are no different.

The medical ants are probably closer in look to teens, in that lanky, stretched-out way they sometimes are.  They’re also changing the color of their carapaces, which is interesting to me.  While they’re all looking less like they’re made of magma these days, the medical ants are growing more and more pale, and I think they’re soon going to shift from looking washed out to looking actively white.  Probably to make it easier for them to tell if they need to scrub up better.

Their lankiness is also aimed toward their medical profession, with the thinness extending to their hands as well.  The joints in their hands are weird, looking more like the ball and socket of a shoulder than the simpler hinge of a finger.  It’s like not only are their thumbs opposable, but each individual joint in their hands, too!  They’re definitely the undisputed kings and queens of manual dexterity among my ants, and I’d imagine among the people of the world, too.

The alchemical ants have their own unique adaptations as well.  Their proportions are closer to the worker ants, but they all have big gasters, making me imagine them as the ant equivalent of having beer guts.  They need those bigger gasters, too, because they hold several individual… I forget the term for ant stomachs.  Ants usually have two: one for themselves, and one for sharing.  These guys have several more, each connected to their own proboscis thing in the ant’s mouth.

I don’t know why the ant mouth doesn’t disturb me as much as the spiderkin ones do.  Maybe they’re just too alien, where the spiderkin mouths nestle firmly in the uncanny valley.  Whatever the reason, I stick around for a full checkup on one of the alchemist ants by a medic, and see multiple tubes poke out as they make sure everything is working correctly.

I’d be a bit nervous about storing alchemical things in my body, but the alchemist ants clearly don’t share my unease.  Seeing them in their lab would make a lab tech back on Earth either faint or have a fit, but after watching for a while, the only thing that looks unsafe is them constantly swigging and spitting out liquids.  If I ignore the specifics of where they put everything, they keep everything organized and meticulously measured.  I’ll probably need to just chalk it up to magic ensuring the alchemists will be fine, and try not to twitch too much about the antkin drinking things most people definitely shouldn’t.

The enchanting ants probably have the most subtle changes from the worker caste, though time will tell if they stay subtle.  Where the medics are changing to have white carapaces, the enchanters are tending towards blacks with subtle dark greys.  I think they’re either naturally forming runes, or carefully engraving them when I’m not looking.  However they’re getting there, they are helping the ants manipulate the flows of mana as they ply their trade.

Aside from the coloration, they are physically almost identical to the workers.  If I only had a silhouette to judge on, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

And lastly, but not leastly, are the engineer ants.  Their hands are probably the weirdest, even compared to the medics, because they have two thumbs on each hand, with the second where the pinkie would normally be.  The pointer and ring fingers have the similar opposable weirdness that the medic fingers do, but the middle has a few extra joints and is definitely specialized for grip rather than manipulation.

It’s a really weird configuration, but wow is it effective for tinkering.  They practically have two hands on each hand, letting them fiddle with something while checking the design notes, or really go to town when they bring both hands to bear on a project.  As for the rest of the ant, they’re a bit bulkier than a worker, but nothing like the ranchers.  The heavy things an engineer has to wrangle generally don’t fight back, I suppose.

None of the castes have leaders yet, but that’s because of how they’re going to choose them.  It’s looking like a kind of democratic meritocracy, which is interesting.  Every ant in the specialized castes is working on a project in their field, which looks like it’ll be judged by the others.  Whoever does the best thing will get to be in charge, though I can’t tell for how long just yet.

A few projects catch my attention, like the rancher trying to domesticate a couple of Violet’s gremlins.  I don’t know what they intend to use them for, which is what has me take a closer look.  I still can’t figure it out, and I think there’s a non-zero chance of them simply being pets, but I dunno.

Most of the medic projects are over my head, similar with the alchemy and enchanting, but the engineers are right up my alley.  I think my personal favorite is a simple quick release and lock for the pit traps.  It’s a self-resetting mechanism that uses a counterweight to close it up and be ready for the next unfortunate to wander by.  I like it because it’s the kind of mechanism that will be useful in a lot more than just pitfall traps.  Time will tell if the ants recognize how useful it is.

The worker ant projects are looking a lot different than the specialized ones, though.  While they focus on individual efforts, the workers are redoubling their efforts on the enclave itself.  Infrastructure, architecture, even art; if it’s something that would generally be considered public property, the worker ants are competing to make their own little parts of it the best they can be.

The whole thing is organized chaos, and I enjoy watching them work.  There’s a renewed sense of purpose to them as they finally have a direction to follow to meet their goal.  It’s not difficult to imagine them feeling a bit discouraged when their bars stalled out.  Being the earliest to have progress issues isn’t an accomplishment to generally brag about.

On the other hand, blazing a new trail is definitely something to brag about.  Sometimes you end up only having taken the scenic route, sometimes you discover something completely new.  Either way, you get a journey to appreciate, each step leading to the next, building on the last.

I’m not worried for them, and I hope they’re feeling more confident for the task ahead.  They’ll hit other roadblocks, before or after their bars fill, and I know they’ll handle those, too.  Not only because they have the tenacity and drive of their tiny brethren, but because they will have the support of friends.

Normal ants generally don’t play well with others, but my antkin have been working from the ground up to make friends outside their own enclave, and outside my other enclaves, too.  Ordinary ants might crave sugar, but my antkin understand that friendship is so much sweeter.