Chrysalis

You might think it would be challenging to operate in a territory administered by ants. Indeed, I have heard many express such sentiments, going so far as to insinuate that I'm suffering from an affliction of the mind when I tell them otherwise. Any attempt to explain on my part is waved away as the ravings of a lunatic. Good thing they'll still trade, even if they refuse to engage in proper discourse. Gold forged by ants is still gold, as it turns out.

It just made so much sense! It took a little adjusting to, of course, but once I did, my business began to thrive! Perhaps I had an edge in that department, as I was far quicker to accept the new status quo than many of my competitors. The bribes? The under the table deals? Gone, overnight. You can't bribe an ant! There were many who tried, only to stand rather awkwardly, a purse covertly extended in one hand as a giant insect stared back at them, uncomprehending. The entire concept of commerce was foreign to their society. They didn't sell, or buy, or trade in any way, but once they understood the fundamental nature of it: fair compensation in exchange for goods and services, then they decided to ensure that that's what would happen! Any merchant who failed to see the light was hurt in the simplest and most profound way possible: crippling fines.

Overcharging? Half your business gone, overnight. Fraudulent goods? Half, vanished. Repeat offenders were out of business in a week. No matter how they tried to conceal their shoddy dealings, the ants always sniffed them out. They wailed and gnashed their teeth as they appealed to the council, but the ants didn't care. Why would they? When it was suggested that the penalties might be too onerous, they were genuinely puzzled and rejected any compromise. Since the seized materials were immediately and efficiently distributed to the poor in the city, there was a blossoming of support amongst the people for the new administrators.

Thus, a new playing field was created for the merchant Class. A place administered by uncorruptible, brutally fair and somehow almost omniscient creatures who questioned the very existence of business. With such dramatic drops in costs, the ants insisted the savings be passed on, 'fair' compensation, after all. The drop in prices allowed many who could never access my goods to now become customers, and the volumes I moved rose and rose.

For an honest businessman, nothing is better than working for ants!

Excerpt from "Letter to Bilanan of Tulson" by the merchant Chulo of Rylleh"

It takes the Colony a few hours to search through the entire city thoroughly. Every building, every mansion, every room and every cellar is opened for insect inspection. Sometime during the process word comes back from the force the Queen led to the Legion fort informing us that it was empty. Not a single soul was found inside the walls. What's more, papers, documentation, cores, rare materials, all gone. Several forges and workshops were scraped entirely clean, not a piece of wire or pliers left behind to indicate what they may have been working on in there.

It's clear that they realised we were coming in advance and wiped clean all traces of themselves and their technology from the fort before abandoning it. How much notice would they have needed to pull that off? A day? Two? Did they realise what was happening once we began testing the defences around the city, or did they have some other means of detecting our presence? The possibility also exists that they were recalled in preparation for an assault on another front after receiving a call for aid from the golgari.

No matter which of those situations turns out to be true, it doesn't bode well for us. The gates were found within the fort, just as captain Wallace had suggested they would be, and were summarily taken apart and returned to the nest for further study. Lending further credence to his words, no other gates were found anywhere in the city, not even in the largest and most wealthy looking abodes. In this city at least, running a private gateway appears to have been too expensive to justify.

of having to administer the city as part of the colony's territory also begins to make itself known as Beyn enters into negotiations on our behalf. He arranges for a full meeting of the Rylleh city council in the next day, decreeing how many ants will remain in the city and where they should go, what the guardsmen will be allowed to do and not do. It's a nightmare that

to decide what the next steps are going to be given the conquest

going to

Which means the expansion and construction of the new

ignoring any resource. We need more surface nests and to

suppose they didn't expect me to be

It steps our timetable forward a bit, but we can do

richer territory beneath us is likely to have been claimed. There'll be more cities

is dangerous," Victor warns me, "the Colony doesn't know

and before they can protest and I continue, "not on my own, not this time. I'll take Vibrant and her

and she

the best way to get the job done. I don't intend to take any unnecessary risks, but in my view, Dungeon exploration is key to our survival. Not only because of what we can learn, but because we need to continue to level up and evolve our people

and Invidia are still the strongest non-Queens in the Colony and we need to continue to power ourselves up to meet the threats that will face us. We can't

interjects. "They've proven that they can be useful to be our face when we interact with non-Dungeon

… not me. The

advancements have come from interacting with those people, I'm sure there's still a lot we can learn. We could look at establishing new villages alongside