Staring at the mental eaters clearing out the corridor in front of me, I was filled with mixed emotions. While I had pretty much gained useful, living subordinates, who could do a lot of the dirty work and especially one that had the capability of producing more minions for 'the cause,' I was left feeling like I was a failure of a lich. I won't deny that part of me had been weirdly been aching for another one sided scuffle with the metal eaters to bring them under my control, and I had even gone as far as being all theatrical about it with the Dark Lances and the entanglement spell. However, my plans had kind of gone 'poof' with the mental eater queen being relatively intelligent and I hate to say mature about the whole thing.

I knew the moment that she allowed her subordinates to try and rush me, that she had been testing me. It was obvious from how she stayed still, not physically threatening me during the entire encounter. In my book, that took guts and more importantly, decisiveness. Those were qualities I could respect, but it still rankled me that some bug had read me that well, most likely from the beginning. Still, from what I had learned from her, she was at least over 100 years old and had survived crossing the hellish desert outside, before finding my fortress to nest in. Surviving all that counted for something, I guess.

Also, some of the things she had shown me about the desert outside once again solidified the correctness of not wiping out the metal eaters. My uneducated opinion about deserts being a dead zone for life had kind of faltered under the images of some of the creatures the mental eater queen had shown me. It was one of the reasons that I had decided to help out the metal eaters in dealing with whatever was occupying the area of the fortress that had once been the 'barracks' and armory.

That being said, over the last 100 or so years, the metal eaters had explored most of the fortress, except for the inner sanctum, and though the queen did not fully explain why, I got the feel that she had somehow sensed Neduzar in there. In any case, their scouting left me with a good idea about the condition of the fortress, and from what I understood, things were not looking too good. If I pieced together the images right, I found that at least half the fortress had been wrecked. I could even guess thanks to whom.

Forgoing another facepalm, I sighed, being thankful that at least the treasury had survived, though partially caved in. The metal eaters had already gotten around to digging out the metal in it, but then they were attacked by the mystery creature. All I could tell from the mostly dark colored memories was that the creature had been able to kill multiple metal eaters quickly and sometimes all at once without taking damage and attacking it resulted it some kind of corrosive damage. That left me with some idea about what I was facing.

So, I decided to get prepped for things to come. In addition to the dozens of low tier bugs and two of the mid tier metal eaters, one of my skeleton avatars was also present along with all my skeletons, now loaded out with [Metal Shock] and [Dark Arrow]. Bas was also present, but it was busy crawling around trying to figure out why there were two of me. In addition, I had long since transferred the six volumes of spells back to my throne room, where I was busy flipping through them and getting ready to do my part as an armchair general. In addition, I had gathered enough metal scraps to use the spells [Melt] and [Reinforced Magic Hands] to make some crude tower shields for my summoned skeletons. Unfortunately, the books lacked more complicated forging spells, and Neduzar's memory was somewhat hazy in that area as well.

While I doubted my creations would stand up against any real strong blows, I just needed the large slabs of metal to be temporary obstacles. However, it was interesting, turning old, rusty scraps into molten iron and steel and then using magic hands about the size of my own to mold them into something. I almost felt like a kid playing with silly putty, and when I saw one of my skeleton summons standing in front of me, I got a new idea. So, as my audience watched, I started applying motel iron and steel onto my skeletons, turning them into wretched looking versions of a popular Hollywood icon.

I turned around, wondering if I could do the same with Bas, but for some reason, Bas and most of the metal eaters had backed quite a ways off and were staring quietly at me. All that could be heard in the large space was the excavation happening to the side. Even Bas was no longer muttering its usual madness in my soul link to it. “No appreciation for art... sigh.”

Soon after, the metal eaters broke through the rubble barrier they had long ago created to block off the corridor. From their memories, I knew it had been a desperate affair, as at least two mid tier metal eaters had sacrificed themselves in the corridor to hold off the enemy long enough for the barrier to be put in place. If they hadn't been bugs, I would have been amazed at their courage and loyalty, but unfortunately, that was not how a nest worked. To prove my point, after one of the mid tier metal eater's made some scrapping and skittering noises, three low tier metal eaters hesitantly entered the corridor, leading the way.

“All for a good cause...”