Central Planning Ant, reporting for duty.

Food storage capacity: 1800 ants worth.
Food stores:
0 normal energy food -- fungus. x1 feeding ability.
335 medium energy food -- Grass seeds. x2 feeding ability.
398 High energy food -- Sweet ooze x5 feeding ability. -- reduces digging and exploration ability by 10% -- Reserved for Warrior consumption only. Currently testing High energy food effects on 5 sloth diggers and 5 normal diggers.
900 total ants.

General digging orders.
Royal Chambers fit for 1 Queen, and 2 Mates.
Food Storage Chambers: 1, size large, 1800 ants worth of food storage capacity. Expansion limit reached.
Tunnels: 5 exploratory tunnels.
1 Nursery size for 700 larvae/eggs.
Queen chamber being constructed within root cluster -- careful excavation will take about 1 hour without focused excavation. Digger ants will accelerate this to .5 hours if half the digger ants are devoted to this area.

I'm b& for today, so I might have difficulty posting with this one. Ah well... Looking forward to see where today goes.

Dominate Lesser Mind sounds the most promising, but that might be because I don't quite understand the other two. What is Warped Borrowing? What happens when you Devour a Mind?

No Instinctive Teleportation? Damn.

I say Warped Burrowing for the hell of it.

Mind devouring sounds the most useful.

This is the 4th ant quest, right?

Right, explanations of all:
Warped burrowing tears the fabric of reality which defines inorganic material and the space it occupies -- This makes all forms of inorganic materials easy to move through, not quite to the level which air is, but easy enough that any given ant can plunge into the earth, should it need to. Tunneling, burrowing and hive expansion can be extended into very hard and dense materials, such as clay, stone, metal, and similar such inorganic material. Literally, inorganic material will be bent around ants wishing to move through it, leaving a hole with even denser material around the edge of it. Though it greatly boosts movement speed through in organic material, it is by no means as fast as moving through air. Whats more, is the process cannot be reversed without physical labor.

Dominate lesser mind, is fairly self explanatory, though it does have one notable limitation: only the queen can dominate other individuals of a species. This ability allows you to pull individuals of other species into the hive almost effortlessly, resulting in them being just as loyal to the hive as any other ant -- able to be directed as seen fit.

Finally, Mind Devouring is the ability for the Hive to assimilate the knowledge of species, understanding, and exploratory knowledge upon their death, provided they are within the hive's outer perimeters, or within an ant's half hour travel from the queen, whichever is more. Additionally, some nutrients are extracted from the dying creature, in the from of a small quantity of 'soul' syrup which can be consumed later.

Assuming we can't depend on the ooze - and we shouldn't until we get the results back on what happens to our test subjects - we've got 670 ants worth of food for 900 ants. Our food stores are barely half full, too. We should do something about this.

Apart from food gathering and larva maintenance, we should put our diggers to work on the root cluster chamber and exploratory tunnels. Anything more proactive can wait until a) we decide what to get re: supernatural power, b) our scouts return from the east, or c) our diplomats return from the fruit flies.

Dominate lesser mind. Everything must be in the hive!

Mind Devouring seems the least useful.

>>5581508
I say warped burrowing.

Being able to build an impregnable hive inside solid rock or in a steel girder is too useful.

Personally, I wish you had kept the teleportation option, because then we could have nests that can only be entered by teleportation, vastly improving our defensive abilities.

If our minds become great enough, dominate lesser mind could be quite interesting, later on...

+1 for warped burrowing, here. Sounds perfect.

Warped Burrowing would mean supreme safety - once we find something ridiculously dense enough, we can shift our operations within it and invaders can only come through the tunnels we make.

Dominate Lesser Minds would mean not having to bother about diplomatic negotiations - and it would mean that cavalry ants would be more or less guaranteed.

Mind Devouring sounds like it has great potential, but less guaranteed returns. I'm not too sure about it.

Warped Burrowing for antforts, Dominate Lesser Mind for ant cavalry, Mind Devouring for ant replicants.

The denser area created by warped burrowing would make even current tunnels somewhat more defended.

But domination is more fun. I'm still indecisive.

warped burrowing sounds handy, we could make a hive in a piece of very dense rock with no entrances or connecting passages, and just have our workers warp burrow everywhere.

No invasion attempt would ever be even remotely as deadly as it could be.

Plus, it means we can burrow into manufactured packaging devices to take food.

So this works as a great defensive boost and it allows us greater access to different foods.

>>5581739
Ah, I didn't think of that. Warped burrowing sounds great, then. We could burrow into anything for food.

>warped burrowing sounds handy, we could make a hive in a piece of very dense rock with no entrances or connecting passages, and just have our workers warp burrow everywhere.

Warped burrowing still makes entrances, doesn't it?

>>5581767


...including living things. Next obnoxious little shit with a magnifying glass is going to end up with hundreds of ant sized holes in his brain.

>>5581806
>inorganic

>>5581806
Wow, didn't think of that. Our ants can take down anything of any size by Warp Burrowing inside of them and wandering around until they eat through something vital. Then, FEAST TIME!

Indeed, warped burrowing does not create impenetrable defenses, but instead vastly improves any ability to construct complex underground hive structures.

>>5581815

Oh fuck, my bad.

>>5581815
Oh, right. Disregard that, I suck organic matter.

Dominate Lesser Minds!!!

Find Butterfly's or Bee's or something like that.

AIRFORCE! Give our exploration and food finding abilities a LARGE boost.

Well, dominate lesser minds will let us get those fly mounts we were talking about last time, probably.

I ask again, is this the 4th ant quest thread?

>>5581832
I'm utterly torn. On one hand, ant air force and cavalry. On the other, extremely safe hax ants.

Yes this is the fourth.
Only the third was archived before this.

I like the warped burrowing idea.

>>5581796
True, but if the ants are constantly warping to get from sector to sector, won't they continually displace the inorganic material around them, creating constantly shifting tunnels that could seal any non-warp capable creatures in at any time (we could even implement that as a defensive measure)

With warped burrowing we could burrow into cans/bottles/flasks of BEER!

Warping, if only for the fact that most quest threads seem to involve mind control shenanigans more often than teleportation/matter displacement, and I would really like a change of pace.

Could we have more information on how dominate lesser minds works? I think I choose it... Who needs defense when you control more powerful defenders? And being invaded at some point makes things interesting!

With warp burrowing, if we ever run into humans, there is no way for them to prevent us from harvesting their food. Sealed jars, airtight seals, none of it matters when you can simply make anything inorganic move out of your way.

>>5581508
Say, would the warped burrowing also mean that digging would be much faster, simply because we are no longer digging with just our manipulators, but with each ant's entire body volume?

Warped burrowing seems to fit growth perfectly, because no one will be able to dig as fast as us.

Alright, I'm throwing my hat in with Warped Burrowing. Mind control bugs really exist, if not to this degree, but hax burrowing ants are new and exciting.

>>5581924
I have no idea what you are saying.

>>5582016
What I meant is that warp burrowing doesn't get rid of the inorganic material travelled through, it just moves it out of the ant's way. If a bunch of ants going between two given locations keep warp burrowing between the locations, they are eventually going to start filling in old warp paths by displacing solid matter into them.

Thus, any creature that cannot warp burrow will be under a severe disadvantage in our hives, as we could abruptly seal them in any path they take, and since we are planning to move to a much denser, more durable location for building a nest, once an invader is sealed in a loop or warp pathway, they cannot dig their way out by conventional means.

>>5582075
I think the idea behind Warp Burrowing is that one ant turns it on to dig a tunnel, and then all the other ants use that tunnel, not that all ants are warping always. Although a line of warping ants wandering around would seriously fuck with anything else underground.

>>5582075
>Whats more, is the process cannot be reversed without physical labor.

An ageless expanse, eturnal, enduring, flawless. This is Fate's realm, the world of destiny, maker of all things' fates. Fate's own work, thrown asunder by the power it created as it worked -- it created reality, and all that might occur within it, everything planned in an intricate web of Fate. Until the disaster that is.
It seemed something conspired against Fate, within reality, to break free.
You. You are the result of this conflict -- independant, intelligent, limitless potential.
Your power flares into Fate's realm, in a twisted mockery of Fate, and steals from there, strength unlike anything else in reality. You can feel it flowing through you, into your hive, into your brood, permeating all that you are.
Unique you were before, and now more so than ever, are you unique once again. Matter itself bends to suit your will, though no creature outside of your colony finds itself bent by your will -- You are master of materials and the earth, see how it shall make you Queen.

Within Fate's realm, as it watches you, its looking-glass, a mirror, shatters into numerious shards -- falling onto a new tapestry it was working on -- restitching reality, guiding it to one destiny. A few strands are cut in -- broken and hanging, while Fate looks now into a pool, in which an ant comes into view.
Fate, it seems, conspires against you -- You, great Queen of Forms, ender of destinies, crusher of paths.

>>5582186
Fate is pissed off at an ant hive?

I could get behind the type of divinity that takes the time to get pissed off at the little things in life.

Apparently Fate had a picnic planned.

>>5582223
When you consider we're gaining the ability to walk through walls, it starts to make sense.

>>5582203
Well then, lets send out warp burrow digger scouts to try and find a suitable patch of extremely dense and durable rock/metal/whatever to relocate the hive to, while we continue to gather foods and such.

>>5582203
tl;dr -

You are so fucking badass that the world itself parts around you to grant you access to its innermost sanctums.

Fuck that pussy.

>>5582243
FUCK YEAH BURROWING THROUGH FATE'S PICNIC BASKET

What's that fate? You sealed your delicious chicken sandwiches inside tupperware containers?

FUCK YES WARPED BURROWING

What's the current status on the fungus? Can we begin harvesting it again without risk of wiping out the colony altogether?

>>5582294
Indeed, weren't some ants supposed to be working on a fungus farm?

Currently, the fungus is nearly completely harvested.
400 ants are harvesting grass seeds.
100 ants are going to gather the Sweet Ooze

It seems that the worker ants have been unable to figure out how to establish a fungus farm -- either the conditions are wrong for the fungus, it can't grow underground, or the ants simply aren't adept enough to figure out how to create a crop out of the fungus.

>>5582340
Well, lets start making this ant hive BIG.

lets have some ants still in the main hive use the warp burrowing powers to enlarge the food storage area, start constructing a scondary food storage area deeper underground, and start on two more chambers deeper underground.

We will need the room eventually, so might as well have the ants still at home do something.

>>5582374
Hmm, I guess we should divert our attention towards exploratory mining with our new abilities.

>>5582340
Immediately cease harvesting the fungus and initiate cultivating what's left of it for maximum growth.

Any word from the Fruit Flies?

>>5582378
Mere dirt walls are no longer suitable. We should look upon our current accommodations as temporary and start actively searching for something more suitable for our new powers - rock, metal, what have you.

And therefore, sinking large amounts of anthours into expanding our current lodgings is somewhat wasteful.

We should search deeper, where things tend to be more solid. We don't need to relocate, I don't think.

Before we do anything else, we need to secure more sources of food.

>>5582440
We can do several things at once.

rolled 17 = 17

As of previous timestamp: 5.5 hours, there was no news from the fruit fly diplomacy ants.
Please give numbers for worker designations.

>>5582458
What were they previously?

>>5582458
...why don't we have the whole hive start warp burrowing in the direction of the Fruit flies? I mean, sure it isn't as easy as flat out walking there above ground, but the safety and stealth we get for migrating entirely underground is worth it.

Plus, along the way we might find a suitable chunk of hardened minarals to build a more permanent nest in.

Right. All the Infernic Warriors in the Queen's Chamber, sloth or otherwise. All the sloth Warriors guarding the entrance to the hive. All the sloth diggers digging exploratory tunnels downwards, the infernics (sloth and otherwise) digging exploratory tunnels horizontally, the regular diggers working on the root cluster chamber.

Ideas for the regular warriors and workers?

>>5582508
Because then they starve.

>>5582513
We can live for three days without food and be okay.

Don't worry about it

We should have like 100 ants harvesting the root in the current Queen chambers. We'll need to stockpile food if we're going to migrate.

rolled 34 = 34

900 ants total I believe,
400 workers harvesting grass seeds -- they will return with 400 ants worth of grass seeds every half an hour.
100 workers are 1 hour away from returning with 100 ants worth of sweet ooze.
150 warrior ants are distributed to various tasks.
50 infernic diggers are working on tunnels and stuff, along with the 145 (I may have miscounted this slightly) diggers.
Leaves 55 (50?) worker ants which I don't remember their jobs.

>>5582535
Hell, I say 300+ workers.

>>5582543
Fucking the Queen.

>>5582513
well, we keep foraging as we go, we don't just march to our own death by starvation.

>>5582543
Some of them were investigating the flies...

>>5582511
On top of that, 400 further gathering seeds, 100 still not back yet, and the remainder (forty? Ten, I believe, were dedicated to scouting and diplomacy) combing the grass for critters along with the 77 warriors.

>>5582575
Foraging for nearly a thousand people? Sure.

>>5582611
I believe it was 10 in each cardinal direction except East or something like that.

Besides, don't we only need a few ants to burrow in a straight line toward the flies? More won't help much with our burrowing, unless we wanted a huge network of tunnels between us.

>>5582642
A huge network of tunnels is not a good idea, unless they have some ants-only passagways that will fuck up or stymy any invader.

We don't want our hive to be infiltrated by something digging in a lucky spot.

>>5582673
I didn't mean that it was. It seems like a waste of ants as well.

>>5582611
Wait, shit. 350 harvesting seeds, 50 tending larvae.

Sounds like things are progressing well

how many are fucking the queen?

>>5582849
I bet they all are. What a slut.

>>5582887
Seriously though, we should allocate more ants to fuck the queen.

>>5582895
Ant workers are chicks, dude.

I heard the queen was bi.

Well technically, workers don't really have a gender, just the queen and the kings.

It seems to me we need to be doing more exploring if we can; looking for hardened materials to warp burrow in (we did pick that up, right?), new species to colonize, and new food sources, as I'm getting the distinct impression that the moss is never going to be a fruitful farm crop.

Eggs have hatched into Larvae.
Ant assignments:
550 workers --
350 harvesting seeds.
50 tending larvae.
100 .5 hours from returning with Sweet ooze
10 negotiating with fruit flies
40 scouting north, south and west -- looking for critters. Accompanied by 67 warriors.

Warriors 125
67 scouting with 40 workers.
53 sloth defending hive entrance
25 infernic (16 sloth), guarding queen chamber.

108 sloth diggers digging exploratory tunnels downwards
37 diggers clearing out root surrounded queen chamber.
50 infernic diggers (33 sloth) digging exploratory tunnels horizontally.

Infernic diggers encountered several more locations where there were wiry roots, all within less than a half hour's travel from the main shaft. Total: 6 additional wiry root locations

Deep diggers have excavated a massive central shaft, into the bedrock -- they have encountered no water so far. They are approximately half an hour's travel down.

The queen's root-chamber has been completed. It is large enough for a queen.

The scouting party has located an interesting find underneath the rock with the fungus on it. Below the rock appears to be a worm colony. Approximately 45 large earth worms have been found so far. Each earth worm is MASSIVE.

Food storage size: 1800, one chamber. Max size of chamber.
235 Grass seeds. x2 feeding ability, medium energy food.
398 Sweet ooze. x5 feeding ability, High energy food.

Results from feeding the ooze to sloth ants vs normal ants.
Normal ants have their active harvesting and digging ability reduced by 10%. Sloth ants have their active abilities increased to reach that of normal ants -- this food seems to help them be more active, strangely. No ill effects on sloth ants so far.

>>5582957

And addendum: what the FUCK happened to our fruit fly diplomats? I think it's time to send the cavalry.

Reserve ooze for sloth ant consumption, I suppose.

I don't think we can take on the earth worms yet, and I hope they aren't hostile...

Let's move the queen into her new roots chamber; not sure how many ants that requires, but pull any needed from the ones that were digging the chamber. After that we can send them to start excavating another root chamber, we could use it as food storage or a place for a new queen should we ever acquire one.

>>5583003
Hrm.

Lets try and domesticate the worms as cattle.

We can even build holding pens for them by shaping an open area in a pile of rock and filling it in with soil, since they (the worms) can't travel through harder materials.

>>5583049
Aye. Worst case scenario, we lose the sloths.

Also, worms. Very meh as cavalry mounts. Useless as diggers now that we're warpers. Tasty, perhaps?

And let's talk pros/cons of burying ourselves half an hour down. Safety vs accessibility.

>>5583099
>>5583118

I like it! Although really I see no need to move them, if they're settled under the rock; we may not have complete control, but we know where they'll probably be when we need them.

Big question: can the soldiers kill one? It just occurred to me that the soldiers haven't fought anything yet.

Eventually, it may be possible to breed the worms as food or something...

>>5583118

A half hour down seems like too much...

>>5583099
...brilliant! Didn't even think of the potential of warping as cattle pens for digging insects.

We should scout around for a half-buried boulder or something, or even human-built structures. We need something solid on ground level.

I think we should, in the interests of experimentation, butcher one of the worms - to see how difficult it is and to see how much food we get from it. And to test the effectiveness of our new soldiers.

How big are these earthworms?

>>5583221
>>5583118
I agree

Worker ants are between 2 and 3 mm long, and about 1 mm across the body.
Reports of earthworm size puts their diameter between 5mm and 10mm, and lengths in excess of 130mm
Needless to say, they are far far larger than even the queen.
Warrior ants, its worth mentioning, are slightly larger, by about 1 mm in each dimension.

>>5583236
nigger-size

>>5583306
why are our warrior ants so small? They should be atleast 3 times the size of the worker ants, imo

Welp, looks like we gotta zerg rush the worms.

Pull those soldiers off combing duty and have at!

>>5583003
lets have the sloth ants start ingesting just the ooze tosee if it can makke them permanentyl become more active. Start by trying to convert warriors first.

Hrm, the infernic ants don't eat, right? so this won't matter for them.

Infernic Larvae, do not eat.
Infernic Ants, do.

No-one's gonna crunch the numbers on ant assignment? I don't like taking the helm, I prefer to be more of an advisor.

Mind control over weaker minded but physically stronger creatures would negate the need for soldier ants. Enlisting the support of termites would allow us to have very strong soldiers good at digging and removig organic material such as tree roots and which wouldn't affect ant food supplies. Similarly worms are expert diggers adept at digging large tunnels and their castings make for excellent fungus fertiliser. Worms, like termites do not eat worm food, and are constantly tunneling-better to harness these skills instead of facing a rogue worm hellbent on destroying our carefully planned out colony.

>>5583491
but we already went with warp burrowing over the other options.

>>5583452
Just throw some random numbers

Hmm. Alright. Let's get the combing warriors to pick one (and only one) of the earthworms out of the colony and tear it apart for food, and then assuming it all goes well, drag the food inside. And the diggers that were going down to bedrock to join in the horizontal underground exploration.

All others, continue as they're currently doing.

Please assign larvae their ant types.

I say a full load of Soldiers. We don't need diggers now we can warp, and we've got plenty of workers. Thoughts?

>>5583695
We could probably use an extra 100 workers.

>>5583670
full load of soldier this time.

After all, we pissed off Fate.

Also, I know it's a bit of cheek, but can we have nice, round multiples-of-five numbers for the variant strains? These all-over-the-place numbers make my teeth itch.

<_<
Probably for the best.
I doubt anyone would've actually complained about them not being numbers which seem, 'natural'.
Silly me. :P
Anyhow.
In that case: 50 sloth warriors, 80 warriors
35 diggers, 110 sloth diggers
10 infernic warriors
15 sloth infernic warriors
35 infernic sloth diggers
15 infernic diggers
550 workers
Is that all of them?

>>5583787
That's nine hundred.

>>5583823
I think we are supposed to have 900, pending the larva getting assigned.

900 ants.
That's as many as ninety tens.
And that's terrible.

>>5583858
That's wonderful.
And aye, 900 is accurate. Which was the point I was so unclearly making.

well, I say we need some more warriors, so all those larva should be assigned to it.

We have whatever problem there is with the fruit flies, and we apparently pissed off the personification of fate by gaining our reality warping tunneling abilities.

>>5584103

>>5583858

>>5584103
Ok, so I guess all the larvae are going to be warriors this time around.

Send the diggers into extreme exploration mode. They should be digging around like crazed banshees trying to find all kinds of crap underground.

Atom counted nine hundred ants warping toward him.
He counted 900 ants. Get bigger, Atom!
That's as many as ninety tens.
And that's too many ants when you are tiny.

Final update for today -- schools back in business, so I can't afford to stay up all hours of the night.
Timestamp: 6.5 hours
75 infernic warrior ants metamorphose from Larvae.

Ant assignments:
550 workers (-5) --
350 harvesting seeds.
50 tending larvae.
100 0 hours from returning with Sweet ooze
10 (-5) negotiating with fruit flies
40 scouting north, south and west -- looking for critters. Accompanied by 67 warriors.

Warriors 125 (-5)
75 (-5) have traveled to the rock and begun an fight with a single earthworm.
50 sloth defending hive entrance
25 infernic (15 sloth), guarding queen chamber.
75 newborn infernic (55 s

Diggers -- 195

110 sloth diggers digging exploratory tunnels horizontally
35 diggers clearing out root surrounded queen chamber.
50 infernic diggers (35 sloth) digging exploratory tunnels horizontally.

The infernic diggers have uncovered another 4 wiry root systems. To the east, they have uncovered some interesting mineral deposits -- they aren't able to warp the minerals out of the way. The minerals are glowing. They've found two of these deposits.
Finally, towards the south a short ways, they've found an underground cluster of organic strands. These strands were buried in the earth, with no tunnels around them at the time of revealing them. A water appears to be carried up by these strands, towards the surface. This has led the exploratory tunnels which these strands were located in to become damp and warm.

The queen's chamber workers have been idle for the past half hour -- no work was accomplished by them.

Five of the ten fruit fly diplomats have returned. They bring word that the other five have been abducted by another flying species, which seems to use the fruit flies as cattle. They could not identify the species.

The earthworm slaughter party has engaged the earthworm target. They've sustained five losses so far, as noticed by death pheromones creeping towards the hive from the North.

Food storage size: 1800, one chamber. Max size of chamber.
510 Grass seeds. x2 feeding ability, medium energy food.
498 Sweet ooze. x5 feeding ability, High energy food. - Reserved for sloth ants. Sloth ants will preferentially eat this food.

what is the size of the Moss Rock? if its a few feet across it could make a good central defensible point for the colony, (properly tunneled)

>>5584296
wait, glowing? ACK!

QUARANTINE ANY ANTS THAT HAVE COME INTO CONTACT WITH IT IMMEDIATELY! have them stay over near the glowing rocks, (perhaps extending the tunnels to determine the size of the deposit)

The topside FUNGUS, bottomside EARTHWORM rock is 300mm across at the largest width, 185mm at the smallest width, roughly shaped between rectangle and circle as viewed from above. It goes 100 mm above ground level, and 35mm below ground level (though not straight, it curves around making is view from along the ground oval-like.)

>>5584344
we need a larger rock, lets keep an eye out for a decent sized boulder.

>>5584296
Probably glowing fungus. Organic stuff can't be warped through. . .

Okay, that just makes me laugh. They had the ants EAT the BLUE VISCOUS, CLEARISH OOZE from a PLANT, but they freak out and quarantine the ants who come into contact with glowing minerals from underground.
This is a wonderful game. It amuses me

>>5584385
lets have one of those tunnel ants who found the glowing whatever try to eat some of it.

for shits and giggles

because this game amuses alot of us.

>>5584405
even better, lets stick some of the Fungus down near the Glowing Rocks, (umm, have a couple Slothful workers bring it down there).

Interesting developments. I look forward to investigating them further. When shall the next session kick off, oh great Anti-Fate?

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, that will have to occur another day.
I can probably run another bit this Saturday, the 29th, around 6:00 PM PST.

>>5584451
I look forward to it.

>>5584459
Me too. Until then, fellow ants.

>>5584451
till then