Chrysalis

The surrounding crowds, pressed together in the square, recoil with horror as Crinis makes her presence known. The fact that she snatched up the mysterious ants rather than start munching on the helpless crowd isn't enough to completely mollify their fears. Screams and indignant cries rise as they push to create distance from me, while the kid who threw the stupid ball looks on with wide eyes before being dragged away by who I presume is his mother.

Whelp, time for me to get out of here.

"Let's get the heck out of here!" I shout to my siblings before speaking to Beyn over the mental link. [We need to leave this area. Let things calm down a bit before we come back.]

The priest readily agrees, and our convoy makes directly for the nearest wall as the crowd scrambles to make room for us to pass by. A few guards brandish their spears at us, but the ants ignore them, climbing straight up the wall and using their bodies to shove the guards to one side to create space for those behind to head straight over. Each of the ant-robed humans is picked up by a large soldier and carried over whilst clutched in mandibles. You'd think they'd be a little afraid at being gripped in the crushing jaws of powerful monsters, but instead they look almost radiantly happy. These people are just as far gone as the damned priest. There's no hope for them anymore.

I maintain my grip on the still struggling ant as Crinis holds aloft the other nineteen. It makes crawling up the wall rather difficult, the individual ants are relatively small, but holding twenty of them is no joke in terms of weight! Up and over and once more in the clear as the uproar behind us continues. Being surrounded by my fellow insects rather than the panicked citizens of this city is such a relief. Back amongst my own kind!

Those ants who'd taken apart the gates were already on their way out of the city, wasting no time in their quest to return the precious artifacts back to the nest. If we can unlock the secrets of this magic, the future of the Colony will truly know no limits! A solid contingent of soldiers and scouts go with them, guarding the precious cargo. For the rest of the ants present, the work is clear. We may have seized the gates inside the square, but there are no guarantees that there aren't more besides those that we were told of.

"Do you think all of the gates will have that distinctive mana gathering array?" Coolant asks from nearby.

Struggling to contain my wiggling captives, I take a moment to reply.

"I'm not sure," I admit, "since there's no Dungeon veins in here, the mana is much thinner than it is out in the tunnels, so it would make sense they'd need such arrays to power the gates. But we don't know enough to assume that would be the case."

The mage nods her head.

"We'll just have to manually search then."

"Wouldn't hurt to send out the mages to test the mana density around the place anyway. Never know what they might turn up."

cause me problems. Only by using my external mana manipulation to pull energy toward myself am I able to maintain my

rushes off to facilitate the search as the majority of ants turn and scurry away into the city. I remain with perhaps a thousand others to watch over the walled square where order is gradually being restored, judging by the diminishing level of noise coming over the parapet. As much I want to run to the fort in support of the Queen, the situation here just isn't stable

mandibles, "I presume you're

in my grip. I wait a moment to see what will happen, but to my surprise, she

you not going

similarly gone slack. I can sense that they are still alive, it appears as though this is their strategy to avoid my interrogation. Foolish! Do they really believe that giving me the silent treatment is going to be enough

questioning, "let's say that after I was captured by the golgari and vanished from the Colony that the council got together and decided that having me running around doing dangerous stuff was a bit of a pain, but not something that they

idea of the council trying to tell me what to do. Laughable! I trained

sure they stay safe. Why not provide some guards?' or something along those lines. Only they immediately realise that I would say no. I do not

the still limp

doesn't want to be protected, but at the

a sense of martyrdom now, as if they know the

the council put into a motion a plan, probably with

Twitch.

Holy moly. So, Operation Silent Shield commences, they recruit twenty promising young hatchlings, ones who are dedicated to a fault, willing to serve in any way and give them the best training, full core evolutions and full mutations. Maybe even

Twitch.

evolution, you're probably tier four, I would guess? Yes, judging by your mana, tier four. For your last evolution, you all chose some sort of advanced gland that masks your presence, from all sources. Or does it work on perception? Perhaps the Vestibule was working correctly the whole time and I filtered

my captive, but she stubbornly

leapt out when you did, I would

be mad, not really. These twenty young ants represent the council worrying about me, attempting to look after my safety without letting me know. They basically used up a second council worth of resources, special cores and everything, just to look after me. I wish I could be more confident in saying it was a waste of effort, but I can't deny the run of trouble I've

them

sure, Master?] she

ants