Chapter 630: Mapping The Quiet (2)
"Rodion, tag them as Blight variants."
<Confirmed. Advising minimal noise until their patrol path is confirmed. Current estimated vector: south corridor—sixteen meters from your room.>
Sixteen meters. That was too close for comfort.
He tapped the table with two fingers, thinking in fast spirals. He needed more data—guard rotations, blind spots, magical wards—and he needed it before those rune-etched things got curious.
He opened the tablet fully, flipping the chipped hinge so the screen lay flat. His stylus emerged from a magnetic slot. The local-mapping software flickered offline but alive, showing a ghostly schematic built from ant breadcrumbs. Each micro unit left a trace that triangulated itself back to the central hub: green for workers, amber for soldiers. The lines formed a rough star around his room.
He quick-sketched a circle over the corridor intersection: High traffic. A square on a nearby alcove: Potential vantage. A triangle by his door: Surveillance risk.
He angled the stylus between his fingers. Every move tracked—must appear idle.
With a sigh, he minimized the map and launched his favorite puzzle-strategy game—Bug Brigade Heroes!. A chibi beetle mascot greeted him with an exaggerated salute and a squeaky "Let’s rescue the larvae!" He turned the volume down to a whisper.
Cover story: bored prisoner, passing time. Real story: mapping your security like a termite in your beams.
He matched colored nectar drops, letting the game’s cheerful pops cover the soft scratch of stylus on wood as he poured ant-route times into a rosetta of tiny figures. Each time he cleared a level he glanced at the door, listening for footsteps.
Rodion cut in, voice pitched low:
<Footsteps at 30-second intervals from east corridor. Likely ward-check patrol. Distance reducing.>