Chrysalis

So... I mean.. It’s a little odd...

I was a human before after all. I may not have lived what people would call a ... normal life ... but hey, I went to school, a bit, I saw people, I ate human food.

Now I have a giant ant Queen staring down at me and insisting that she and my many siblings are my family now.

...

For some reason I’m surprisingly ok with that.

I had a pet ant colony as a human, I kept them contained and fed them, watched the colony grow and cleaned out their spaces for them. In some ways they were the most constant members of my household, I certainly saw them every day, which wasn’t really true of anyone else.

Perhaps that is why I don’t really mind being an ant.

If I’m going to be a member of this family then I have to do my best to save them!

I start thinking out loud.

"Ok then, Queen, I don’t think we are uh, strong enough to survive the wave. If our nest is invaded from the outside as well as the inside, we could be completely wiped out!"

The Queen looks concerned and taps me with her antennae, urging me to continue.

"I think we need to move the colony! We have to get somewhere ... else. Somewhere safer".

"Do you know where we should go child?"

Err.... No?

We live in the Dungeon, and from what I’m told the entire place is going to become a death zone for up to a week!

I don’t even know that the surface will be safe from the impending danger!

...

be safer than

that would be suicide, but with my Tunnel Map I can clearly see where the entrance I first encountered the humans is. If we can find a way to the surface far enough away

...

to the surface there’s definitely a chance that we all get killed by those powerful human

down here, will the

think we have to

head. My resolution

to dig a new tunnel

bombshell, taking time

Then she responds.

the ’surface’?" she

...

how could she

bypasses the existing Dungeon passages

simple enough that

I wait nervously for her to puzzle out exactly what this

my surprise she

will do as you suggest child. Where should

If the Queen has agreed to my plan then I might have a chance of getting the workers to cooperate. I’m not exactly sure how the pecking order works in a monstrous ant colony. In a

the first ants opinion, they will join in, eventually when enough workers have agreed on a course of action, it will happen. It isn’t always so smooth of course, sometimes the workers don’t agree with each other

of the workers. If anything, she is probably closer to what most humans think an ant Queen is like on earth, in charge, making decisions and actively helping to direct the

that they can understand my pheromone language to some extent, perhaps she can just

thoughts out of my

sweep clean this battlefield first, the Biomass is too valuable to the colony for us to abandon it. Once that is done I’ll start digging the tunnel, if you can help get the rest of the ... family ... digging, then

diminished. The mana is continuing to recede, just as the

discussion the Queen gives a few more friendly taps on the head with her antennae before retreating back to the security of the nest, leaving the workers to do what they do best and complete the work

to comb over the battlefield and collect the spoils of war. As more times goes by the number of ants showing visible signs of mutation is increasing,

workforce becomes stronger then we will have a

every one of these ants is my sibling. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters that I knew of in my last life, going from that