Chapter 893: The Reliquary of Eternal Glory (1004)
Cardigant, the one who fell, and in falling, achieved true immortality. Her existence, or rather, the lack of ongoing existence, was something amazing to the Immortals, something precious.
It was, Leeroy decided, something that could not afford to be lost.
She and her sisters had come so close to losing hope! They had come within an antenna's width of letting go of their dream. The rejection of their creed by the Colony, the ire and condemnation of the Eldest, the crushing failure of their tier six evolution, all of it had piled up to become a weight that was almost too heavy to bear.
Then Cardigant had done as they had done, she had gone into battle. But then she had done the miraculous. She had sacrificed her life, successfully!
It was a revelation! A confirmation! A resuscitation! All that Leeroy had dreamed of, all that the Immortals had dreamed of, it was still within their reach! They only had to stretch forth with their mandibles, grasp the sword of the enemy, and pull it into their own faces.
They would not lose their way again. She refused to let them! And so, something had to be done.
"Wait a second." Smithant lowered her tools and looked at the crowd of anxious, heavily armoured ants crowded around her anvil. "You want me to what?"
"It's very simple," Leeroy said impatiently. They couldn't afford to waste time! "We want you to create a permanent metal container to store the body of our beloved, fallen sister for eternity. That's not hard to understand!"
Smithant stared hard at the council member, observing the maniacal, fanatical gleam in her eyes.
"W-why?" she asked flatly. "I can make something like that, sure, but why should I? It's a waste of materials and a waste of my time. I'm supposed to be down here to help repair and upkeep your armour, not making elaborate boxes for you to store dead family members in. I'm terribly sorry for your loss, I mourn this fallen sister along with you, but let it go. Let her return to the Dungeon and let's get on with things."
Leeroy was frustrated. She wasn't one for words, normally, and had no idea how she could communicate just what she wanted, just what they felt.
"Smithant, this might be hard to believe," she began, "but we aren't sad that our sister has fallen, we are happy. She wanted this, we all want this, but she succeeded. We want to carry her with us, always, so that we never forget that we can succeed too."
She stared hard at the smith, trying to help her understand just how important this was to them.
From Smithant's point of view, they just looked insane. They had compound eyes, they were always looking in all directions, it's not like they could actually stare at one thing. All Leeroy was doing was leaning uncomfortably close, to the point she might soon catch some red hot tongs in the eye.
"All right, all right! Back up a little would you, you moron! So, what, you want me to encase Cardigant in a… in a what? A box made of metal?"
The Immortals considered it for a long moment.
"A nice box?" one of them suggested from the back.
Smithant glared at them.
"A nice box?" she demanded. "Nice how?"
Another moment of silence.
"It should be decorated…" one of the giant, steel-clad ants offered.
"Maybe… it should look like Cardigant?" another said.
"Maybe some words of encouragement should be put on it? That might be nice."
"Oh! We could make it portable! We get sent to a lot of different places after all.… I wouldn't want to leave her behind."
There was a general chorus of agreement to this.
"Make it so we can mount it on our backs then?"
More agreement.
"Maybe some of those nice vine carvings? They look nice. You know the ones that curl around themselves?"
"Good idea."
"I like the vines…"
"Very appealing."
"Anything else?" the smith grated.
Another long pause.
"Maybe some scent baskets, so we can spread messages of comfort when we carry her."
"Flowers?"
"Put her face on the front?"
"Make sure to include the armour in some way!"
"Oh, yes. The armour is important."
The Immortals had grown attached to their metal shells after all this time. It was a love/hate relationship, to be sure.
"Some lights? Maybe? Something subtle…"
"It should include her core, obviously."
"Obviously!"
"We can't recycle her core!"
A hammer came crashing down on the anvil, silencing all with the resulting clang.
"You want me to enchant it?!" Smithant bellowed, her pheromones blasting away the others' words in an instant. "Just how much time do you think I have to spare?"
She clacked her mandibles harshly.
"Even the raw materials needed would be immense. There's no way!"
Leeroy leapt forward and banged her face onto the stone floor, followed by all the others. This was how the humans apologised, apparently.
"Please!" Leeroy begged. "We will help! We'll source all the materials ourselves. If you do this for us, we'll never complain about having to wear your armour again. We swear!"
"We swear!" the rest chorused.
Smithant looked out over the hunched forms of the Immortals, irritated beyond words. These idiots took up so much of her time, and were such a pain in her carapace, she almost took a savage glee in making their armour as durable as possible, just to ensure they would survive.
Which… come to think of it… gave her an idea.
"Alright, fine," she said, "I'll make your fancy box, with vines and smoke and all the other nonsense. I'll even make it with the finest materials, the highest quality metal, and I'll contribute cores to ensure the enchanting works flawlessly. In fact, I'll do the inscribing myself."
The Immortals looked up with overflowing joy in their eyes.
"Really?!" Leeroy said.
Smithant nodded.
"Really."
And she did just what she said. The box she constructed took an absurd amount of effort. Her apprentices worked (almost) around the clock as the entire Immortal battalion scrambled to fetch everything they needed whilst Smithant laboured over an anvil.
The finest layered steel, shaped and decorated with her own expert mandibles. What she built was a wonder of engineering, a majestic feat of skill and craftsmanship that was, ironically, perhaps the finest piece of metalwork in her career to date.
When at last Cardigant's body was laid to rest and sealed inside, every Immortal turned out to watch the ceremony. The lid closed and locked into place, never to be opened again, then Leeroy stepped forward and placed the celebrated ant's core in the elaborate mount that had been prepared for it.
The second the core clicked in, the enchantments came to life. The Immortals celebrated wildly as they felt the reassurance of their dear, departed sister wash over them.
Smithant snickered.
She just knew those idiots were going to carry that thing into battle. With the myriad of defensive auras she'd packed into the thing, she may just have ensured that none of them would ever get a big fancy box of their own.