"It is near"
Rhaegal's face darkened and his body tensed, while his nostrils and ears seemed to expand. So did Corgorin and Serengal. Their companions gulped: they didn't know what the dragons were referring to, but they knew they must have heard something. So they drew their weapons and prepared for a possible fight. "What is near?" Carlos asked.
"I don't know. But I know it's not far" Rhaegal answered, turning his head slightly. "I'd say... 1.6 kilometers in that direction. I can hear it walking. From the sound and the distance of the noises... I think it has multiple legs"
"Do you think it's dangerous?" Dyana asked. After living with the dragons for two weeks, he had learned that the fact that they were alert didn't necessarily mean that the enemy was dangerous to them: in fact, dragons tended to stiffen whenever they sensed something unfamiliar. It was quite normal as a behavior and indeed often it had saved their lives, but more than once they had worried a lot to then discover that the source of their fear was none other than a small bird.
The three dragons closed their eyes and tried to listen better. "Six legs" Serengal said after a few moments. "This animal has six legs, and it's not alone. There are several of them all together. From the sound they produce, they have vocal cords and bones suitable for vocalization. I'd say they're insects, but very large. Average weight... forty-five kilograms. They walk by moving leg A and leg E in sync, then legs B and C..."
"Okay, you already lost me" Carlos stopped her. "Shall we skip all the explanations and jump straight to where you put the information together and tell us what's in front of us?"
Serengal glared at him very bad, clearly not liking to be interrupted, but Corgorin spoke before her: "I can clearly smell some strong smells, I would say pheromones. They are typical of insects that live in groups. Bees, wasps, or ants"
"Ugh… let's hope ants. I don't want to get stung" Lisah exclaimed with a shiver.
"Probably, since they're moving across the ground" Rhaegal said. "But I'm not sure you'll like them, ants have very strong and painful jaws, and are often poisonous. Their sting hurts more than that of bees and wasps"
"Thanks, I'm much calmer now!" Lisah growled in fury. "Urgh... come on, let's go and see. The sooner we find out what they are, the sooner we leave"
Rhaegal let out an amused laugh at Lisah's reaction, but did his best to hide it. Since they were down there they had been able to ascertain several times that she didn't like too big insects, and above all she didn't like being teased about it. So, holding back as best he could, he nodded to the rest of the group and led them in the right direction. Within a few minutes they immediately noticed that the landscape was changing: the tallest mushrooms disappeared, but in their place stems were left broken in half, as if something had removed them by force, and around them there were trails of the same smell that the dragons smelled coming from a little further away. Eventually, in what looked like a barren wasteland made of loose earth that formed a small mound with a large hole at the top, they found what they were looking for.
They were indeed ants, which were the size of a large dog. At a guess in height they reached just above the pelvis of a human being. They were brown and hairy, similar to marmots, and had six long thin legs with which they moved. They had two extremely long antennae and rather large mandibles. There were at least a hundred of them and they came out of that strange cone-shaped structure, which was clearly an anthill; they were tearing up several mushrooms and piling them into a small pile. "Why don't they take them inside their anthill?" Atelas murmured curiously. If those ants were hoarding food, why abandon all those mushrooms right in front of their house instead of bringing them inside? It was illogical, in doing so they risked someone going to steal it from them.
"They'll have their reasons. We stand still and observe" Rhaegal said, then looked up at the hive. It was then that he noticed that it emitted a lot of light thanks to metals that were piled up all over its surface. There seemed to be mainly gold and silver, but also precious stones such as rubies and diamonds, albeit very rough. They reflected the light emitted by nearby mushrooms, thus also illuminating the area where the ants were located, which would otherwise have been completely dark. "How strange... this way they make their position visible to everyone, including predators. It doesn't make sense, they should try to hide... why light up their home like a beacon?"
"Maybe they have a bad sight?" Carlos tried to propose.
"Ants don't see, not like us at least. They orient themselves mainly using pheromones" Serengal said. "Rhaegal is right, this doesn't make sense. It's almost as if they want to attract something to their hive..."
"I think we will have an answer soon!" Atelas exclaimed. "Look, they've stopped picking mushrooms!"
The ants had completely ceased their foraging operation and were all making their way towards the pile they had created, which was now as tall as a human. When they were there, they lifted up their abdomens and from it they emitted a strange liquid which bathed the mushrooms. As soon as this happened, all the members of the group felt a delicious fragrance enter their nostrils, so good that it made them jump. "Wow... they smell like... fried mushrooms!" Martha exclaimed.
"To me it looks more like mushrooms cooked in oil!" Lisah frothed at the mouth. Why was she watering, by the way? She wasn't even hungry at the time... yet it seemed that something inside her was desperately screaming to run, grab those mushrooms and put them in her mouth...
But before she could do anything, something hit her on the head; it didn't hurt much, but it made her dizzy. It didn't take long before she realized that it was Serengal's tail that had struck her. "Hey, what are you..." she tried to say, but the dragoness ignored her and grabbed her with her claws turning her entire body one hundred and eighty degrees, and then she, Corgorin and Rhaegal did the same with the other members of the group. Lisah was about to protest, but suddenly she realized something: the instant she stopped seeing the mushrooms, her desire to reach for them seemed to have subsided…it was still there, but it wasn't as compelling as before. Enough to allow her to think again. "What... What just happened?"
"A well-laid trap" Rhaegal answered. "That substance that the ants sprayed on the mushrooms… it amplified the smell and turned it into the smell of mushrooms cooked the way you prefer. I assume that in the case of animals, they smell their favorite mushrooms. And this somehow overrides your will and drives you straight into the trap… luckily it seems to work less if you don't look at the source of your desire"
Indeed it seemed to be so. The smell they were smelling was still delicious and made him want to look for its source, but not enough to make him lose his rationality. If, on the other hand, they tried to even glance at the mushrooms, their minds seemed to go blank and they only felt the irresistible urge to run into the trap. "How come you aren't affected by it?" Sarah asked looking at the dragons, who seemed unaffected by that smell.
"Because we are carnivores" Serengal answered. "That substance only amplifies and transforms the smell of mushrooms. We dragons don't eat mushrooms, so we don't smell any delicious scents and therefore neither do we need to eat them. You, on the other hand, are omnivores, so..."
"... we smell delicious mushroom dishes, and therefore we are checked by them" Dyana muttered in a tone of disgust. "I think I understand now what the ants are doing. This smell attracts any prey towards them, and since their anthill is illuminated by all those precious minerals, even the mushrooms are clearly visible and therefore the animals lose their reason and run to eat them... and the ants then kill them"
"I think we can already verify your theory. Look" Corgorin pointed to a spot in the distance, where a large figure was approaching. When it got close enough it was possible to recognize the outline of an odontotyrannus, which was sniffing the air as if looking for something extremely rare and delicious. As soon as he saw the pile of mushrooms, the animal seemed to lose all the rationality and the survival istinct and started running towards it without thinking, but as soon as it was close to the anthill the ground collapsed under its feet causing it to sink up to its head. The odontotyrannus tried in vain to free itself, but was completely blocked; immediately afterwards hundreds of ants emerged from the anthill and ravenously ran towards the animal, biting it with their sharp jaws. The odontotyrannus thrashed furiously and squealed in pain, but soon seemed to lose all energy and its head dropped to the ground with a thud; he was still breathing, but appeared to be totally immobilized. The ants had evidently injected it with some paralyzing poison. Having now defeated the great beast, the ants began tearing large chunks of flesh off the odontotyrannus, consuming it while it was still alive.
"Urgh... that's... very terrifying..." Lisah murmured shuddering all the time, aware that if it weren't for Serengal she would have been the one devoured like this. "Let's go away, what do you say?"
"No!" Rhaegal almost exclaimed. "Listen... I know this type of trap. Haku and Darbi told me about a trap they suffered when they were still a few weeks old. Basically it consisted of an illusion that generated an irrepressible desire to get closer, and created the impression that it emitted the scent of their favorite food. It was a trap used by some hunters"
"Huh? Yeah, I've heard of that" Carlos said. "These are rather known traps among the hunters of the Jurao Kingdom, but few can afford them because they cost a lot since it takes a lot of mana to create them. We almost never used them because of this, and also because our master thought they were of little interest for a hunt, and then we risked also attracting creatures that we weren't sure we could face, and...". He froze and his eyes widened. "Wait... do you think that...!?"
"Of course! That stuff the ants make sure uses mana to create this delicious smell" Rhaegal said. "The process must be identical to that of hunters' traps, with the difference that this is wilder, has a limit on how many smells it can produce and requires a catalyst, precisely mushrooms. In any case, the amount of mana needed for this process will almost certainly not be much different from that used by hunters for their traps. Not too much mana... but not too little either"
Indeed it was true. If indeed that use of mana was already used by humans to create traps, then the amount required couldn't be too high... but since such traps were a luxury, it couldn't be too low either. It was exactly what they were looking for. "So… could that be the cure, or what's going to get us the cure?" Lisah murmured in disgust.
"Well… it certainly has a good chance of being" Sarah said. "However the only way to verify that would be for an idiot to walk up to that pile of mushrooms, pick it up and bring it back here to analyze it without getting caught by those ants..."
"Not sure. That odontotyrannus might have given us a chance" Dyana said studying the scene carefully. "The ants are now busy devouring that animal. It's a perfect opportunity"
"That's true. As long as they're distracted we can get close without them noticing" Rhaegal said. "We will use the invisibility rune, so they won't be able to see us. We will act quickly and precisely"
"How will you know if there are other potholes?" Martha asked.
"We dragons have a more developed sense of touch than yours. By tapping on the ground we will understand whether there are hollows beneath us or not" Serengal replied. "Oh, by the way... some of you will have to come with us"
"What!? Why!?" Lisah exclaimed feeling a shiver run down her spine as she looked at the giant ants.
"Because that substance is very small, and it takes small hands to pick it off the mushrooms and pick it up. Our claws are too big" Serengal answered.
Lisah looked like she was about to cry. "Why do we always end up doing something stupid!?"