Chrysalis

Rassan'tep reached out with his mind to sense the situation as closely as he could before he relaxed a scale. He was careful to let nothing show to his fellow ka'armodo as they stood together, directing the termite assault. He had nearly panicked, and feared he would need to intervene, when the prospective Ancient had sallied forth with such brazen confidence, rushing into the centre of their encirclement without support. It was an insane manoeuvre, and for a moment, he had feared the monster had taken complete leave of its senses. After consulting with his attendants, they had quickly dismissed the idea and realised the true strategy at play.

Dangling such tasty bait in such a blatant way was crass tactics and would never work under normal circumstances. Any competent commander would realise it was bait and act accordingly, pull back, organise a staged defence without leaving any openings. This situation was anything but normal. The ka'armodo were working on incomplete information, they had less than perfect feedback from the termite troops, and it was difficult to get a clear picture of what was occurring at times. Even more to the point, the leadership here was in the hands of largely inexperienced juveniles. Expendable pawns who could safely be dismissed as “rogues” who'd acted without permission or support.

Their lack of patience and poor judgement irked Rassan'tep, though it played into his hands in this instance.

[How is that miserable creature still alive?] hissed Oolan'tep from beside him. [This is taking far too long!]

The irritated mage was so incensed she nearly raised a claw to scratch at her scales before her attendants leapt forward to prevent the shameful display of irritation. Under their careful ministrations, she was able to calm herself somewhat, though each of her peers kept an eye on her. They had not missed the near-slip.

The young these days. Rassan'tep shared a glance with his lead attendant, the two of them sympathising with each other at being forced to associate with the uncultured and wild youth. This too was noted by the gathered ka'armodo, and with his point made, he got back to focusing on his task.

With luck, he had been assigned as part of the group tasked with hunting down the fearsome tier six ant. He'd hoped he could fail at his task just enough to enable the creature to survive, though he had expected that one or several of the pets would need to be sacrificed in order to appear convincing. It wasn't to be. Despite being completely surrounded and made to endure a relentless assault for over an hour, the ant and his followers were yet to fall.

A remarkable achievement.

mental link. [We have expended

word to his people, and in this situation, the moniker stuck. Trying to hold the line and kill Anthony would only result in further losses at this point. The Colony had punched through their thinned lines with ease, eradicating everything they found in the way as they drove the termites out of the Mother Tree's island. Only small pockets of resistance held now, but they wouldn’t last for long. The moment they fell, the ants would

the bruan'chii had marched out and now were mere minutes away from meeting up with the tier six

a small group of tier six monsters be so difficult

Growled!

tens of thousands of termites. Our

queens to a new anti-ant variety, that work was largely rushed. Especially when we compare it to the effort we put into the initial form which found such success against the tree. When it comes to fighting high quality monsters with extreme

one of the design teams, Garap'tep was at least keeping his cool, as a

feels accurate to me,] Rassan'tep agreed with the promising young mage. [The termites are a poor tool for the job, an issue we tried to overcome by applying extreme numbers. However, only a dozen

had surprised even him. Anthony and his pets, along with that powerful bear, had proven to be absolute powerhouses, capable

Truth. A very promising prospect. Perhaps the most promising he'd seen

declared, much to the others' relief, though they hid it well. [We have suffered a grave defeat today, but we will not

and he could sense a little of that around him as they directed their army to abandon the fight and escape. They had to get out of the area themselves if

bond. [Do you believe that we can regroup and push the ants back once