Chrysalis

The master was irritated.

Assan'diri could feel the rising ire of his master through the bond. Like a Blackened Death Asp monster, it hissed, sibilant, at a constant measure that put all of the Setsulah on edge.

"Diri!" muttered a nearby voice.

He turned to see Chen'thra, his wife, approach from his left.

"Master is losing his patience," she hissed, "his black mood hangs over us like a storm."

"I feel it, my heart, of course I feel it. Ever since the loss of our kin, the master has been losing faith in this mission."

They shared a moment of quiet sorrow. They had not had the time to perform the proper rituals to commemorate their lost Bond Kin, something that doubled their grief. Killed by the devilish monster that had plagued and taunted them for so long, their kin would not rest properly until the rites had been observed.

The rage of the master had been as hot as the desert sands when they had fallen. The Setsulah had shared in the blazing intensity of it. That one of their sacred number would be lost to such a monster had rankled. The creature had toyed with them. Dancing on the edge of their range, unleashing spells that they had never seen before, vanishing like mist.

They had consoled themselves that the final reckoning would be theirs. Garralosh was determined to exterminate all the humans from the pathetic frontier kingdoms and she would destroy these pesky monsters whilst she was at it.

At first they had worried that the humans and monsters would flee, but rejoiced when repeated scrying showed that no such movements were taking place. The Setsulah had not wished for their master to spend years chasing rabble and refuse through the wilds, and thankfully he hadn't needed to. They had expected the humans and monsters would crumble the moment they arrived, crushed under the weight of the thousands of monsters that rushed at them.

They could not have been more wrong!

"Have you ever seen a collection of monsters like this?" Chen'thra asked, bewildered.

heart," Assan'diri confirmed,

traps, the ambushes, the stratagems. One after the other, after the

hear what happened

wall was taken, was it

when the chatka charged toward the fourth, the

"They what?!"

updates,

sand blasted creatures built a covered reservoir and they knocked out the walls. The chatka were washed into holes and taken beneath

hand unconsciously seeking that of his wife. To those who had lived their entire lives in the deserts and mountains of the true kingdom, death by water sent shivers down their

two stood deep in the belly of the horde, surrounded by chatka, slave monsters, on all sides. More worrying than those, were the hundreds of gigantic crocodile like monsters that shared this space in the centre. The master had committed to this sacred purpose and the Bond Kin would

my heart, let us return to the

on the battle and strode toward the source of

figures with scarcely concealed hunger. Only the iron will of their parent was able to keep the primitive brutes in line.

of time to this project and it wouldn't do if the Kin were to harbor

it Assan'diri. I have no great opinion of these

the sudden touch of the

I prostrate myself. I did not mean any

to his knees and bowing low in the dirt.

have intruded on your thoughts without announcing myself, you need not

thoughts seized by the weariness they sensed

task may be coming to an end. The skein shifts rapidly here. This ebb and flow of possibility are shifting beneath our feet, yet I sense a conclusion will