Chrysalis

The council meeting was cut brutally short, the revelation of a possible city underground, so close to where the Colony is operating, warranted immediate investigation. If an enormous pile of Golgari pop out of a city, right on our doorstep, our home ground advantage will go for nothing. Not to mention they could flank us horrifically. I also need to be wary of the possible reinforcements that they call in. We need to move fast, uncomfortably fast.

To this end, I hurry to gather up my entourage for this whirlwind trip to the surface. I pick up Torrina and Corun before gathering my pets. Rather than bring them with me, I decide to send them in support of the scouting efforts. They'll be more useful there. If something does end up going south, they'll be able to help the ants escape with lives. There's only one problem with this plan.

[Nooooooo, I won't leave you, Master!]

[Crinis! I'm only going to the surface, I'll be back in less than a day! Will you get off me!?]

[I won't!]

[Don't make me order you!]

[Don't do it, Master! You'll get sucked through a portal, or challenged by a mega-monster, or slip and fall down a pit and land in the fifth strata, or an ancient will rise from the depths and swallow you, forcing you to live as a parasite in its gullet, or a great confluence of stars will smite you down the moment you set foot out of the tunnels! Take me with you!]

I can't seem to say that none of them will happen? I have managed to put my claws in some unlikely, bad situations during my stay

with me. Tiny and Invidia, you

[Yes!]

peel away

I go. It's certainly not likely that I run into trouble on the surface, but I'm starting to become allergic to taking chances. With that done, I depart on a brisk journey upwards to the surface nest. Corun and Torrina do an admirable job

the plethora of ants that pick their way through the tunnels around me. Scouting, hunting, hatchlings on training expeditions, there's no shortage of reasons for the Colony to be active in this area. Yet I feel there's something else, something… slippery. A tiny presence that somehow slips out of my awareness when I'm not paying attention to it. A small cluster of muted lights that seem to hover nearby, fading in and out of existence. Since they turn up in the Vestibule, I have to assume they're related to the Colony in some way, but nonetheless, I'm put on edge

It's interesting to be surrounded by so many hatchlings in the tunnels. They're so tiny! It's hard to believe I was once so small and weak. I'm almost tall enough for them to crawl beneath me without having to lift myself up! As one would expect, there are more Brood Tenders here than anything else, supervising the pupae and guiding the hatchlings once they've emerged. It's nice to see that a sizeable garrison of more combat-oriented castes still maintain a very visible presence in order to protect the precious future of the Colony. Not to mention the huge number of

about watching

chamber, I see a carver, amongst the smallest of all the castes, taking a blinding hot rod of metal out of a circular forge with her bare mandibles, before placing it down on a low built anvil. Moving quickly, she skitters off to one side and triggers a mechanism that brings a heavy weight down from above onto the metal with a resounding clang! Sparks fly and she resets the mechanism, the weight rising slowly as she repositions the

could probably work to build up the strength in their front arms. They could grip a hammer just

surface light and immediately feel my core shudder in pain. Here on the surface, the mana concentration takes a massive dip and the drain that was already in effect the moment I crossed from the second strata to the first suddenly kicks into overdrive. My days of leisurely wandering about up here are long

cover for my loss as effectively as I could before my last evolution. The increased need for mana appears to grow exponentially at each tier. After one more evolution, I won't even make it half a day on the

I can see new buildings have arisen, and the beginnings of a town wall going up, ants mixed with the human workers, helping to clear land and shape stones. As I crawl from