Fire Ant Bomb
Fire Ants are not native to Cassel. They instead come from across the sea in the Dark Lands. They are an invasive species on several of the islands around the boiling islands and have been spreading for around 500 years. The much cooler climate than their native lands has slowed their spread. One young elven mage named Aida Cuellar accidentally stepped on an anthill then found out how much fire ants hurt. After several hundred stings, she had an idea for her university project.
She cultivated a large number of fire ants then put them in a suspension gas, which can be any gas charged with Time Magic. Anything suspended in this gas experiences time at a much, much slower rate. Now that the ants won't die, she put them in a sphere of compression glass, which allowed her to fit a hundred times more ants than would have been possible otherwise, up to five million total.
The university was impressed with her work. They were also concerned at how sadistic a weapon like this could be. They gave her accreditation for this project. Aida then marketed her grenade to the army. Cassel's army ordered a thousand grenades total, but requested a five minute killswitch after activation so the ants couldn't spread. Aida put a delayed Death Magic effect in the grenade that would kill the ants after the requested time.
Average Price: 750 Beryls per bomb
components:
5,000,000 Fire Ants
Suspension Gas
Delayed Death Magic
Compression Glass
Gravity Glass
Effects:
Creates a blanket of fire ants that will cover and sting anything it can.
Stings can be quite painful and itchy.
components:
Effects:
Chryssa
"The best way to describe this bomb is that once the glass breaks, millions of really angry fire ants start biting and stinging anything they come across for several minutes before they die.""Does this grenade work? Oh, ho yeah! It's definitely effective! It probably isn't going to kill anyone, but for just a few minutes they will definitely wish they were! Just ask Myles! He had one thrown at him before!"
Aida produced these grenades for around five years, but has since moved on and no longer makes them. There are still thousands of these out there around Cassel however. By her calculations Aida says they will have roughly a 20 year shelf life before the suspended time magic runs out and the ants suffocate and die. In the current year, we are about halfway through that period.
your safety training is showing! I was wondering how to keep the ants from becoming invasive pests if people threw them all over - or if she had a way to make sure the queen was not with the hill (like a termite hill or bee hive) But she got it!
Oh yeah...removing the queen would have ensured the ants all died anyways. And Aida having raised billions of ants to make these bombs would certainly know that. I might need to rewrite this later as removing the queens are much simpler than handwaving a death magic trigger!
Later! You have 100K words to write this coming week!