Chrysalis

"Alberton! Alberton! Answer your door you deaf idiot!"

Two young Legionaries stood to one side, faces white with worry as they watched the Legion commander smash his massive fist repeatedly into a sturdy, iron framed door so hard that dust fell from the cold stone ceiling into their hair.

These two soldiers were the first see the monster and also had by far the best look at it, so Titus had taken them immediately to the medicus for treatment and from there to the Legion Keep of Liria. Right now they were several floors below ground level and the air was thick with dust and moisture.

To tell the truth, Titus hadn’t been knocking for long but it hadn’t taken much for the huge man to run out of patience.

"Open this door Alberton or I’ll burn your stupid books to warm my backside!" Titus roared.

The door was yanked open immediately to reveal a dishevelled man in a brown robe sporting a hedge like beard that appeared to stab forward from his face like a wall of spears.

"You wouldn’t dare Titus you illiterate ape! There’s a thousand years of Legion history in here!" the beard shouted back at the commander.

Titus merely grunted. "Good, your awake" he said as he pushed the much skinnier Alberton out of his way and advanced into the chamber.

"I’m always awake" protested the scholar as he absentmindedly scratched at his robes, "what time is it?".

Titus simply shook his head and gestured for the two young soldiers to enter the room after him, which they did with some trepidation.

The room was a mess, every surface dusty and heaped with piles of parchment, book and scrolls of all descriptions. Several tables and a corner desk occupied the center of the room whilst around the walls were huge bookcases that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Every shelf of every bookcase was heaped, stacked full of enormous leather bound volumes each labelled with intricate script on the spine.

back into the corridor just long enough to bellow "cleaning!" and as Alberton began to protest that there was really no need for cleaning and they always disturbed his

this is the Legionem Abyssi Loremaster of the Liria legion, Alberton. We are here, Alberton, for you to consult the records and identify a beastie the two trainees saw in the Dungeon

expeditions been banned for a few days now? What could they possibly see on guard duty at the Dungeon entrance that they couldn’t identify? Have we stopped teaching legionaries what a thorn

we have, that would be your responsibility as Loremaster, Alberton" Titus sighed "Alberton we

The Loremaster froze.

"You mean ... Formicidae?"

"Yes".

After a moment he seemed to focus again

a wooden ladder propped against the wall in a corner of the room. With some difficulty he moved it to one to the shelves propped it open and somewhat nervously climbed it. On the seventh shelf he reached for one of the volumes and withdrew it

Thump!

the air. The trainees could clearly see the word ’Formicidae’ in stitched in gold filigree on the

the book, Mirryn turned to her commander hesitantly, "commander, I know we don’t usually see any ant monsters under Liria but

turned to listen to the answer. Titus cleared his throat. "A single ant is weak, pathetically weak, but you will almost never face a single ant. They will swarm in the hundreds, thousands even hundreds of thousands. They are far more cooperative than almost any other monster type, they are fearless, feel no pain and are ravenous. An ant colony can sweep clean

the Loremaster, turning to the two young legionaries, "the people were unable to react fast enough to the threat as the ants are excellent at creating their own tunnels, they didn’t climb out of the dungeon entrance but

the trainees eyed the walls with suspicion. "Now describe this creature for me and we’ll

they had seen, Alberton began flicking through pages on the vast volume in front of him, muttering to himself. The trainees could see each page was covered in neat script and detailed drawings of different monstrous ant

we can rule

explained, "but a dorylus queen can lay over a million eggs a month, and their colonies can grow to fifty million individuals. Also, they are nomadic, swarming endlessly and devouring everything in their path. Think of millions of monsters crawling across the ceiling, bursting out of the walls and scrambling on top of each other to kill you, what does it matter that they

claw centipedes?" Alberton frowned as he continued to flick pages, "that is

have anything Loremaster?" Titus