Chrysalis

Further down my ape passenger, who is managing to hold onto my back very well, and I come across many more ants and it quickly becomes apparent why.

Dozens of small grubs and several larger cocoons occupy the space, carefully tended to and fed by more than twenty workers. The workers are constantly checking and tending to the white grubs, cleaning them and feeding them from their social stomachs similar to the way a bird will regurgitate food for its young.

This is the brood chamber, the next generation of ant monsters are being raised here. This is super cool to see! One of my favourite parts of my ant keeping hobby was watching the workers raise up the future workers of the colony, taking care of them until they were fully grown.

It seems that these monstrous ants follow a similar lifecycle to regular ants on Earth. First the Queen lays the eggs which hatch into a larva, a small grub that needs to be fed and cared for until it becomes large enough to spin itself a cocoon and become a pupa. Inside the cocoon the ant slowly takes shape until eventually it emerges, fully formed. After a brief period to allow for the exoskeleton to harden the new ant is ready to roll.

The ape on my back is making low noises of amazement as it watched the hustle and bustle in the chamber in front of us. There really is a lot of movement, these monstrous workers don’t take their feet off the pedal for a moment.

If I look closely I can see a few unhatched eggs in the corner of the chamber. I guess that means that further down from here I’ll find the find the Queen.

Sure enough in the chamber down below her highness is back to her usual work. Dwarfing all of the workers in the chamber the Queen is being tended to constantly by her entourage, bringing her food and cleaning her so that she can concentrate on laying and growing the colony.

Honestly I’m surprised to see so few ants so far. I don’t think this colony is very old. A wood ant nest can have up to half a million workers in it, I don’t think this one has more than a few hundred.

My antennae are constantly pinging in here, flooded with the scent of pheromone trails. Instinctively I’m able to understand what some of them mean, food over this way, brood are to go this way, and so on.

The trails are laid out so that workers know where they need to be going at any time, the more workers agree on a particular path, the stronger that trail will become.

and walks towards me, several ants crawling on her are forced

still slightly intimidated by the Queen, she

Uh.... Hi ... Mum?

to pieces is all the proof I could need. The Queen, that is to say, mother, inspects me carefully, checking if

Well, she seems nice?

to about 41

to do next. I don’t have anything urgent that needs doing and thankfully I’m not threatened by anything right now, no humans chasing me down no enemy monsters. Such

way, heading up the tunnel and into one of the empty side rooms. On the way I pass two workers

they are literally delivering Xp to Mother! She doesn’t have to lift a finger in order

What an enviable existence.

the colony would cease to be. So it makes sense that to keep everything growing and prosperous the Queen should be as high

time the small puff of energy is released from my mouth the ape on my back goes crazy, giggling in delight and slapping at

Cute.

almost all of my mana and by

hungry? I can’t actually communicate with my little passenger but I assume he needs to eat in order to grow? Since I’ve reconstituted him I feel at least somewhat responsible for making sure he

and get some food. It’s time for Anthony to contribute to the colony! Making sure my passenger is secure I head back into the main tunnel and start sniffing around for the trails. I head further and further up following both the trail I’m pretty sure

keep choosing the path that heads most directly up, I want to get back to the massive area I was in before since I’m somewhat familiar with that place, I’ll be

back into the open space I had become familiar with. Looking about I can see that I’m standing on top of what is essentially an ant hill, a large pile of loose dirt