Chrysalis

We continued to kite the monsters for five minutes, pulling them further and further away from the main body of the horde. Our plan for this strategy depended on a few things: that Garralosh and wizard-lizard wouldn't bother to chase us, the former due to a need to conserve mana in her core and the latter because the Kaarmodo seemed reluctant to leave it's captive Croca Momma alone.

The second thing we wanted to determine and rely upon was that whatever control the two leaders had over the horde of weaker monsters, there had to be a limit. At some point the monsters must begin to regain their savage nature and break free, or perhaps they would turn and retreat back toward the main body of the horde.

We needed to understand this behaviour and one of the objectives of this ambush was to determine this.

"Have we seen any sign that the mage slaves have followed us?" I called to Vibrant.

"Nope!" she replied in a thoroughly positive manner.

Gah. I hope Wills is on it.

We continued to run with the horde snapping at our heels and eventually I began to detect heat signatures in the trees. We made it to the ambush point! Now to see what the monsters decide to do.

With a burst of acceleration I rush forward to catch up with the scouts still running ahead of us. In the middle of the pack I find Wills and I feel a small burst of relief. I didn't want to lose any members of the twenty in such a stupid, small way. The colony had invested in them to the maximum extent possible and they should continue to repay that for the next hundred years at least!

"Wills! Do we have any idea what the state of the horde behind us is?!" I shouted at her as we ran.

"No, Eldest. We'll just have to trust that the others have the situation in claw."

Hope, eh? Fair enough. Things had gone to the dogs already, I wasn't about to risk making it worse doing something crazy without information. We ran for another three minutes before the monsters behind us began to slow down. We fired acid at them, let them get as close as we could without letting them touch us, practically waggling our commercial zones in their faces but we came to a point where the monsters stopped chasing, turned and began to make their way back to the horde.

Holy smokes!

"We've hit the edge of the control range! They're heading back!" I shouted.

"We don't know that for sure" Wills warned, coming to a stop next to me, "it's possible they've been ordered to return and the range is much farther than this. We haven't seen any sign of the monsters attacking each other, they still appear to be firmly in control."

Dang, good points.

talking a lot of sense Wills. I knew

off kilter, causing her to go silent and still. Curious, I turned to inspect her more closely. Is this another Crinis situation? Is Wills weak to praise? I poked her with an antenna. "Hello in there?"

scout shook herself

not used to you giving positive feedback,

gave them? Now I'm worried all of the twenty are dealing with

moving at what humans would consider a slow jog. They must be

we follow along as

Wills nodded.

call for us to change our

departing beasts. As we walked I could sense heat signatures in the

carapace meant there was little chance that they would be seen in the dark, and the meticulous cleanliness of the ants meant

a few mages mixed in. Victor appeared out

even sneak up

to

are literally hundreds of us walking here, what is the

never

my eyes if

it time to attack yet?" I

"It's time" she confirmed.

Finally!

for the eager ants to position themselves for the first strike. The monsters were only twenty metres away and despite the trees blocking line of sight

Then:

POW! POW! POW! POW!

from the hundreds of soldiers who had patiently waited as their scout brethren had risked themselves to pull these monsters this far from the main horde. Their sisters had died to give them this opportunity and they weren't going

the moment it landed. With a roar the monsters turned once more and

The ants…. Retreated.

Gweheheh.

muster, firing acid all of the way to enrage the monsters further.

Excellent.