Chrysalis

"With your permission Eldest, I will leave the council and begin to organise a workforce to prepare our initial fortifications" Tungstant said.

I waved an antennae in approval and the small, dextrous ant climbed up the wall and out the roof of the chamber in a moment.

"Alright then. Pitfall traps, tunnels to attack, I like all of these ideas. What else have we got? How is our magic firepower coming along?" I asked.

The two mages in the room, Propellant and Coolant, shifted on their feet as they became the centre of attention for the council. The mage caste hadn't had a lot of time to build up their raw magic handling skills, and were without the benefit of my own extensive spending on brain power when it came to evolutions. Having said that, they were no slouches in the brain game and were able to choose their own elemental gland on evolution. So there had to be some juice there.

"The number of mage ants we have to work with is still limited" Coolant hedged.

There were over a thousand ants in the colony at this time, there were like a hundred new ants being born every day. How few mages could there be?

"How many are we talking about?" I asked.

"Five" Coolant said flatly.

"Five?!" I sputtered.

"Oh, seven including Coolant and I" Propellant offered helpfully.

Holy moly.

so few mages? When fighting against a huge horde, like the one coming to kill

entrances falling in to reveal teams of mage ants who blasted the front ranks of the horde with deadly fire, torching dozens of monsters with flamethrower like magic before retreating through the tunnels which collapsed behind them, leaving decimated and crispy ranks

into the soldier caste recently" Antionette informed me, "Large numbers of scouts and

I could understand,

out the skill paths from scratch and explore methods to raise up the future generations of mage ants" Propellant told me ruefully. "We didn't anticipate a need for a number of

have loved to have more mages right now. To clear away large amounts of weak enemies they would have been indispensable. There may be a use for the mages we have, of course,

quality all of its own. That's practically the ants

the horde that's coming our way, I need to

to your next evolution, Eldest?" Victoriant

antennae, "I only need six more levels. If we're going to battle against creatures as strong as those coming our way, we're going to

agree" Sloan the General piped up, "we may have the ability to chip away at the number of weaker monsters but tackling anything stronger is

me, didn't you? She's technically correct, but that doesn't serve

food gathering or egg laying to a high extent in the lead up to this

Florence, the to this point silent Brood Tender, "without

is suggesting that we cease food gathering operations completely" Sloan assured her, "but rather that we divert a significant

clearly not happy. I understand it, less food coming in means less

continues to run unabated. Each new hatchling deserves the

something you can only do with extensively upgraded compound eyes, one of the benefits

to appease me than anything else. My insistence on equal treatment for the hatchlings still makes little sense to them I suspect, thankfully by virtue of being old they have to listen to

for a few hours will you,

flat out for the last