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.

When fighting against a huge horde, like the one coming to kill

it in my mind's eye already. Tunnel entrances falling in to reveal teams of mage ants who blasted the front ranks of the horde with

of the council shifted uncomfortably. "We've had most of the hatchlings move into the soldier caste recently" Antionette informed me, "Large numbers of scouts and soldiers have been born. Our more specialised castes

could understand, but

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 mages at this stage and wanted

of weak enemies they would have been indispensable. There may be a use for the mages we have, of course, but there is a lot that

they say: Quantity, is a quality all of its

coming our way, I need to help with that so I can reach my second objective, which is to level up so that I can

to your next evolution, Eldest?"

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

tackling anything stronger is going to

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

high extent in the lead up to this crisis?"

surely?" protested Florence, the to

cease food gathering operations completely" Sloan assured her, "but rather that we divert a significant portion of the soldiers currently acting

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

continues to run unabated. Each new hatchling deserves the best possible start we

each of them at the same time, something you can only do with extensively upgraded compound eyes, one of the benefits of

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

to move out for a few hours will you, Senior?" Sloan

evolve and we all need some rest. We've been pretty flat out for the last few days