Chrysalis

I swear I sensed something for a moment, those damn flickers that pop up in my Vestibule for a few seconds before they vanish once again. My suspicions are starting to firm on that front, and I'm not happy. There'll be words with the council when this mess is done, but I can't be distracted by these… watchers right now. The Queen and I have been making quite the show of ourselves, mother has knocked down a few more buildings (I didn't imagine she had such a destructive side), but so far nothing has come forward to challenge us as we move deeper into the city. At the pace we're going, the people have managed to stay well ahead of us as they retreat to the walled square in the distance, but I'd expected that someone would come out here and have a crack at us!

WHACK!

Oh! There they are!

From the buildings around us emerge an insultingly small band of warriors and mages, firing arrows that glitter with the light of Skills, waves of sword light and a smattering of elemental spells. All of which peter out against my powerful and attractive diamond carapace.

"Mother! Looks like someone decided to come out and play!"

"This is not a game, child," she huffs, "let eliminate this threat and move on. The sooner we are done with this task, the safer the Colony will be."

"Hard to argue with that."

With my preternatural senses tuned in and my nerves firing, these piffling little blows are nothing to me. I ran along the sides of the buildings and turn my best angles to receive the strikes as I close the distance with a dash. As I loom over my first target, a brawny looking human with a standard looking sword and shield, I almost feel pity for the guy. Still, it's better that he falls by my mandibles than by the Queen's. I've rushed ahead of her but even from here I can hear her jaws gnashing as she charges forward, ready to rend these poor people into more harmless forms. Better that I deal with them before she gets the chance!

at me with a sneer and brandishes his shield in my face. It explodes with bright light, blinding me completely! With a roar of triumph, another leaps from a nearby roof, mighty hammer aglow with power as he prepares to bring it down on my head. But I… step backwards, causing the powerful blow to land with tremendous

you to sample the finest produce in the entire strata, straight from

POW! POW!

precisely, so resort to wide sweeps of my mandibles to send my adversaries stumbling as my sub-brains reach out and twist apart the threads of

this up with minimal injuries if everything

YOU ATTACK

Ah.

Crinis' feelings into account. Actually, come

"HUUUAAAARRRR!"

BOOM!

little confusing to me, they saw us come in! Didn't they have a plan? Perhaps those flickers have something to do with this situation. At any rate, they don't seem to know what to do in this moment as the four of us run

not appear to be in the mood to delay the conclusion of the day's events. It's pretty ugly. The members of the Colony are almost upon

clear run

finish this quickly,"

second! Don't forget the speakers, we'll need to