Chrysalis

The Colony recoiled from the reprimand of its Eldest and most respected member as if it had been bitten on the antennae. It has not happened many times, when the Eldest directly criticised the actions and decisions of its family, but each occurrence has resulted in great upheaval and a paradigm shift that changed the course of the Colony forever.

This instance was no different.

Warned of impending disaster if the reckless pursuit of expansion at all costs was not reined in, the council and the Colony as a whole drew back and began to reflect. With the conquest of the demon city Orpule newly completed, there was a tremendous feeling of momentum amongst us, one that we felt could lead us deeper into the Dungeon and catapult us into a large scale invasion of the third stratum as a whole. Only when we drew back, only when we focused inward, did the cracks begin to become evident.

The need for reconnaissance of the new territories had become great, too great. In order to cope with the vast swathes of tunnel and open Dungeon that needed to be carefully mapped, examined for resources and assessed for threats across both the second and third strata meant that older paths that had become considered safe were abandoned. Even those tunnels that lay between the main nest and the lands of the golgari had become criminally under patrolled and many a scout shuddered at the thought of what the Eldest might have said had they missed an invasion along those routes.

These irredeemable oversights were immediately corrected and maintaining the watch of all approaches to the nests became the highest priority, as it should always have been.

did not end

too, a lack of attention and focus had nearly cost the Colony dearly. Desperate to push an overstretched workforce, the carvers had gone well beyond their tolerance, overworking themselves to the point of collapse, forcing the intervention of the unseen enforcers. Whole teams of builders had been lost to the shadows, not seen for days at a time as they were forced to recuperate and recover their peak condition, forced to suffer inhumane periods of

shamed the carvers and teams of construction ants more than poor craftsmanship, examples of which could be found everywhere in their latest work. As the Colony withdrew and consolidated, the carvers rededicated themselves to the pursuit of perfection, tearing down everything they had built with

on their decisions. In the never ending push to fight and expand the territory of the Colony they had raised many grubs to become fine soldiers, scouts and generals. The boundless hunger of the Colony for workers to build and construct had encouraged them to evolve huge numbers of carvers. Critical for both of those endeavours, mages were also

injuries were left to recover on their own, with little but a scant helping of Biomass to speed the process. The core shapers had been used to plug the gaps left by the lack of scouts and soldiers in the upper layers of the Dungeon, but this had caused them to draw down their wide ranging core gathering expeditions, creating a shortfall in the Colony's supply. Worst of all, the brood tenders found that they themselves no longer had the capacity to support the demands

was established. Never again would they fail the young charges who depended on them for care. There must always be capacity for the brood. This was

and lapses were uncovered and swiftly rectified. Like molten steel the Colony purified itself over and over again, hammering out the imperfections and doing whatever was necessary to ensure that they would never repeat themselves. A feverish energy gripped each and every member as they realised how close to disaster they had come and the

within the rebuke they had delivered. An immense amount of work was required to expand the territory and power of the Colony, it was true, but far more was

take on what we saw as the greater challenge, we had in fact been shirking the true labour, being