Re: Butterfly (Reincarnated as a Butterfly)

If Adon had teeth, he would have been grinding them at the sudden and—in his mind—probably unjustified interruption.

But he would have been the only one, it seemed.

"Well, I am always ready for a strategy discussion," Rosslyn replied evenly.

William nodded.

Frederick said, "Excellent," and beamed as if he had no idea that he and his brother and the spiders might have been interrupting anything.

We can continue this later, then, Rosslyn added to Adon in her mind. Perhaps we should even wait until we are outside of the dungeon, as we discussed previously.

Adon could only marvel at Rosslyn's control over herself. Her emotional landscape, Adon could feel, was already resettling as she moved on to another topic in her mind. Like closing one dresser drawer and opening another. Her insecurities, even seemed to recede into the distance. Once the contents of one were out of sight, they were out of mind. It was impressive.

He wished he had the same level of control over his own mind.

Sounds like a plan, Adon replied, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice—but still giving at least a hint of it in his tone that even he could hear.

A little smile played over Rosslyn's lips for a moment and then was gone.

Good things come to those who wait, she thought.

Then the Princess was all business again.

"So, what exactly did Samson have to discuss strategically that could not wait until we have all had our sleep?" she asked.

The royal and the two nobles were within the first shift on watch, so they would not get to rest until some hours had passed and half of their knights had taken the opportunity to sleep. They might be cutting into their own energy pretty deeply, Adon could imagine, if they had to have intensive strategy discussions on top of fighting.

Rosslyn, he knew, had been pushed to the brink emotionally before he came over and tried to clear things up between himself and the Princess. Part of that intense emotionality had to be the sheer exhaustion that she, like everyone else, felt after a long day of killing and using magic.

It was not that long ago that she had used a magical attack so powerful that the exertion knocked her unconscious, and the party had stood in place to wait for her to wake up, after all.

"Probably better if he explains it himself," William said.

Frederick nodded.

All eyes turned to Samson on William's shoulder. Somehow, for reasons that Adon would never understand, that seemed to energize Samson.

The simple answer is that I think the dungeon is adapting to us, Samson sent. Well, to be more precise, the dungeon is adapting to you guys. I don't think it cares about what I can do. But the rest of you are absolutely a threat to its continued operation—or even existence, from what I understand?

The humans all nodded in agreement at once. They were all on the same page about the mission, Adon sensed.

"We certainly intend to destroy it if we can," Rosslyn said.

Right, Samson agreed. I think the dungeon is paying attention to who's doing the most damage to it, and it's working out counters to all of you. I think we're watching that play out in real time right now.

"The best it could throw at us to counter us was an army of easily killed ants?" Rosslyn asked slowly, chewing over her bottom lip in a thoughtful expression.

"I was skeptical, too," William said. "But the little bugger has halfway convinced me he's right." The voice carried a note of what sounded like affection.

And just how did you do that, Samson? Adon wondered. William did not strike the butterfly as the easily won over type. But Adon did not transmit the question. The discussion was moving on anyway.

"How is that possible?" Rosslyn asked.

"It is theoretically feasible," Frederick said, though he sounded skeptical. "The idea that the dungeon is unfinished, despite having opened itself up already, and is still finishing itself, could support the theory."

"The dungeon might be crippling itself for the future by adapting to our specific magic and throwing everything at the wall to see what might defeat us," William added. "It is entirely possible that some of the later levels are still incomplete, as the dungeon devotes more resources to whatever it has to throw our way next."

How would that affect our actual planning? Adon interjected.

Not in any specific way, just that we have to plan around that issue, Samson replied. It affects more than just this level, although I think we should have a plan for dealing with this level specifically, too.

So, no effect on our actual plan, Adon thought to himself. Just an effect in that we have more reason to make a plan.

"It makes sense to think that if the dungeon has gone to all this trouble, it has been observing us closely," Frederick said. "It will try to have a counter for everything it has observed us doing. The ants are more or less fireproof and invulnerable to our lightning with that armor."

"Adon, you were unable to contact the ants telepathically, correct?" William asked. He spoke the words in a sympathetic tone, but Adon felt that the young lord might be taking a subtle jab at him.

That's right, Adon replied quickly. It was as if they had some sort of mental protection.

He nodded. "The dungeon thought it was too powerful of an ability on the floor with the griffins. If it did not find some way to weaken it, you would be too dangerous on this floor. Because the insects are only dangerous through the power of teamwork."

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Huh, thought Adon. That was actually a very nice compliment.

Then he responded.

The dungeon didn't manage to strengthen the monsters against blunt force damage or bladed weapons, though, did it? Adon sent. Even though that's how we've killed most of the enemies we've fought since we arrived here.

"No, but we would have a hard time killing those other monsters with swords and axes, I think," William said evenly, tilting his head back toward where they had encountered the Quugaarpaks. "Especially within this cave. The dungeon does not have to make every monster it creates challenge our every weakness. Only enough of them to keep us from success."

"Samson, do you have some ideas in mind for what we can do about these monsters that were thoughtfully created to take advantage of our weaknesses?" Rosslyn asked. She stifled a yawn as she spoke.

I think we have to take advantage of the weaknesses we know they do have, he sent. The ants are easy to crush or chop up. I guess the main advantages they have are magic resistance and numbers. The dungeon might have thought that would be enough.

It easily could be, thought Adon to himself. Realistically, I can't think of any animal in the outside world that couldn't be killed by a large enough number of ants working together.

Then something about that struck him. He repeated his insight to the others.

I can't think of any animal in the outside world that couldn't be killed by a large enough number of ants working together, he sent, so why did the dungeon bother making another kind of monster on this level? Couldn't it just pour all of its resources into one monster type? If it could have just made ants, this level could have been crawling with millions of those things. I don't see how we would have survived this long, let alone made it to the next level.

But Frederick was shaking his head. "Typically, dungeons have additional monster diversity as you delve deeper into the dungeon, generally increasing monster types by one for each floor. We do not know why, before you ask. It just seems as if that is the way things are."

Then there's another monster type we haven't even seen yet, Adon sent. Goldie and I saw the ants before you guys did, then a horned rabbit, and William went with us to meet the, um, other creatures, which were living in this tunnel. But that still leaves a fourth type. Unless this rule is fairly inconsistent.

"Not where we have seen it observed, as we have here on every other level," Frederick replied instantly.

"So there is something hiding out there," Rosslyn said, voicing what everyone was thinking. "Maybe the same something that is responsible for mysteriously disappearing at least two of our people."

"Could be," William said. "Maybe. We do not know. And all we can do about that is keep watch. Be vigilant while we are here. There is literally nothing we know about this hypothetical monster except that it has escaped our detection so far."

But Adon suddenly realized that there was at least a small thing he could do. He would have to wait until the strategy conference was over, since it would require his full focus.

What do we do about the monsters that we do know about? sent Goldie, who hardly spoke up in these discussions, Adon thought, except for to try and keep the conversations on track.

"We cannot allow them to take the initiative from us," Rosslyn said. "After the group recovers, we should move out of here and prepare to act again. The goal is not to clear the level of monsters—a task which the dungeon seems to have successfully made borderline impossible. The goal is to find the exit. With the sheer number of tunnels leading out of the main chambers of this level, that will be like finding a needle in a haystack. Perhaps we simply avoid fighting the monsters more than necessary."

"Did you get any useful chemicals or insight from dissecting the ant corpses?" William asked. "I guess we could avoid the creatures, but I would rather have some better way to fight them. Like misleading them with a trail of those pheromones Adon said they follow."

Rosslyn had to admit that she had not extracted anything of value.

What about what the dungeon hasn't seen us use yet? Samson sent. Mama—I mean Goldie, to you guys—has a few different poison options that Adon and I have seen her use, and she can also spray it out to coat the enemy in toxic chemicals. Which, you know—

"Wait, are we certain we want to be showing the enemy abilities that it does not already know we possess?" Frederick asked, raising an eyebrow. "I truly thought we were just going to discuss how best to use the cards we have already shown. If the dungeon is adapting to us, giving it more information seems foolhardy."

No, I get what Samson is saying, Adon sent. In our old world, people used to kill whole ant colonies with poison. You would use it on a food supply they were interested in, so that they would carry the food back into the nest and feed the whole population on it, from the queen down to the hatchlings.

"That is pretty brutal," William said admiringly. "Perhaps it would tell the dungeon about Goldie's powerful poison abilities, but it might be a sacrifice worth making if we could wipe out most of the ants."

"The only problem is that would require a large quantity of food, and we have none to spare," said Frederick.

What about the dead ants? Goldie asked.

"I believe ants do not eat their own dead," Rosslyn said. "That would explain why they have left all these bodies behind for us instead of carrying the protein back to the colony."

I have seen ants carrying other dead ants back to their nests in the garden, Goldie sent, audibly confused.

"They were probably from a different colony," Rosslyn replied. "Ants do not really recognize other life forms outside of their own comrades within the colony as having anything in common with them. Different groups of ants go to war with each other all the time in nature. But I am not familiar with them eating their own group members."

Hmm… Goldie sounded discouraged.

William sighed. "Then we have no way of getting the poison into enough ants to make this effort worthwhile."

Perhaps we can… Samson suggested a few other tactical ideas, in a brainstorming, spitballing style. They were nothing exceptional. He had seen Adon engaging in rock-throwing near the end of the battle when Samson, Goldie, and William arrived, and he thought that might be the key to their keeping the ants at bay. Since throwing stones was a form of ranged attack, and the ants only triggered their group frenzy by smell, perhaps carrying a large number of throwing stones would allow the group to kill the monsters at a distance, avoiding the attention of the colony as a whole.

Adon doubted that would work, mainly because it would mean that the dungeon had been blind enough to assume they would not try ranged attacks—an odd assumption, considering that they had engaged in limited archery on the same level where Adon had used Telepathy to bring the griffins over to their side. He pointed that out.

There was a lot of back and forth, and several different ideas were proposed—What if we all make ourselves smell like dead ant?—but to Adon's mind, very little productive occurred over the next phase of the conversation.

By the time the strategy conference was finished, hours had passed. It was time for a shift change, which meant that it was Rosslyn and the others' turn to sleep.

The butterfly and the Princess had a quiet, simple exchange of good night messages, which felt a little different—warmer—than they had on previous, similar occasions. He settled down in a place on the wall near Rosslyn. Not on her person or near enough to smell her. His sense of smell had become more sensitive as a butterfly, and her scent might be sufficient to distract him when he wanted his complete focus on his task.

Then Adon retreated into himself. The contribution he had realized he could make involved using his Impeccable Memory.

He could try to solve the mystery of the missing knights.

He had been using Telepathy almost constantly over the course of the last day or two, to be able to communicate and, gradually more and more, to keep track of enemy movements. But another feature of constantly scanning the mental radio waves was that Adon could tell where other people were at any given moment.

If the missing knights had been captured or killed on Adon's watch, he should be able to pinpoint the exact place and time when it had happened.