Chrysalis

This stupid wave! Just how threatening does it have to get? I'm already a wrecked heap. A heap I say!

Now the veins are extending into the escape tunnel, which will surely cause monsters to spawn right under our feet!

An addition we have to deal with these unknown threats from below? It's enough to drive an ant crazy!

Ok.. Think Anthony, what are you going to do?

Stay and fight? Against what!? We have no idea what sort of horror is going to ascend up that tunnel, eager to eviscerate our most sensitive zones? There is absolutely no way we stay here and battle it out against whatever is coming up. One of the first things I learned about in this Dungeon is not to pick a fight you aren't sure you can win.

Run?

Run where? The tunnel isn't complete! All we can do is run up towards a dead end! They don't call 'em life ends for a reason!

Only one choice remains! Hide!

"Quick! We need to cover up the entrance and seal this tunnel!" I shout to the workers around me,

The workers respond to my call to action rapidly, as they usually do. This is a family that can be relied on in a pinch!

A hundred workers leap into action, hauling dirt up to close off the remaining open section of the tunnel entrance, quickly shovelling dirt with their mandibles.

From beneath us the sounds of bloodcurdling screams and the wild gnashing of teeth, grinding away at the bones of still living foes echo endlessly, certainly providing ample motivation to my own digging efforts.

there? Actually, I'm not confident that I really

down there are experiencing a kind of existential terror that I wasn't sure the beasts I'd

to investigate, to explore the deeper layers below just to know, just to see what it was like down there, what sort of creatures

To the surface my fellow ants (and Tiny), maybe find a

extending their baleful reach further into the escape tunnel. The speed is still slow, perhaps only as much

growing?! Is that why they are moving in this way? There

about it! Just

dirt flies, ants crawling all

to grow louder we quickly seal off the escape tunnel, plunging ourselves

muffles noises and vibrations that pass through the loosely packed soil are enough motivation for me to continue stacking dirt against the entrance. I want to get some width between me and that

fellow workers! Start bringing it from the other end

my fellow workers to keep piling dirt against the entrance, trying to put an amount of earth between us and the horrors that

have receded and we've managed to pack the dirt far enough back that even the gradually extending tendrils of the mana veins on the wall have been covered over. Any monsters that spawn in those walls will claw themselves out only to find they are still

to actually dig themselves out into the tunnel they'll

now, completely sealed within a dirt cylinder. As the rest of the Dungeon is plunged into blood and madness these ants and I exist

monstrous ants require in this world, monster live up to 10000 km under

is constant. Without being able to charge out and

long will Tiny

for now, if I can put off letting him know then

a period of time helping the digging, with the sounds rippling out from the Queen's chamber growing more and more muted until barely the slightest of vibrations can

and I have been occupied with the defence. A lot of progress has been made! According to my tunnel map, which has reached level two, the tunnel still has a long way

chunks out of the solid ground in front of her as she cheerfully encourages the workers around her to put forth their

are still vibrating with enthusiasm, fawning over their mother and, vigorously transporting