Chrysalis

“WE ARE BATHED IN HER BENEVOLENT LIGHT!”

“WE SEEK!”

“WHERE SHE HAS LED, WE SHALL FOLLOW!”

“WE SEEK!”

“ETERNAL REST! ETERNAL GLORY! IT IS NOW HERS! SOON, IT WILL BE OURS!”

“WE SEEK!”

The column of Immortals continued to march through the ranks of ants who had parted for them. Towards the front of their formation, the Reliquary of Eternal Rest was borne upon their backs, its sacred smokes infused with pheromonal messages of hope and comfort.

“Death is near! Glory to the Colony! The end has come! Death is near!”

The waves of pheromones rolled over the ants to either side, who rolled their antennae and clacked their mandibles, unimpressed.

Leeroy continued to exhort her followers all the way to the head of the column. By the time they reached the end of the bridge, the Immortals had been whipped into a frenzy, their hearts surging with devotion to the Colony and eyes ablaze with a desperate need to lay down their lives.

The Reliquary had a multiplicative effect on the eagerness of the Immortals. They were so eager to fly into battle their armour rattled on their backs.

The bridge

clad column came to a halt with surprising discipline and the Immortals sat, lowering their bodies down to rest, though, sadly for them, not

to work the energy that suffused the air.

shore. The ants looked out over the unbroken fields

it was fire

ecstatic, almost rapturous Propellant

to burn! Burn it all!

exploded in all directions, setting the fungal forest ablaze. Huge orbs of pure blue flame were lobbed further up the mountain, starting spot fires that rapidly spread. In a matter of moments a raging inferno blazed across the

the termites, but none was forthcoming.

IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL!” she raged as she launched more and more flaming

dozens of metres into the air, the ashes burning so hot they started new fires wherever they landed. When the fuel had burned itself out, all that remained was charred ground that still sizzled with remembered heat. In the distance, the smoke still billowed up into the sky, the fungus burning

Colony had expected to see the enemy boiling out of their tunnels to fight, filled with rage and ready to defend their precious garden. Instead, the mighty column of ants looked out over a barren field,

Leeroy stepped forward.

“Let’s go,” she said.

luck, none of them would return. The Reliquary of Eternal Rest

in the lead, the rest of the army followed behind, flowing over the landscape like a natural disaster. The formation continued to be a tight column, the troops on high alert. This was not friendly

tree could conceal a tunnel or cavern filled with termites. Mages extended their senses as far as they could, even going so far as to harden the

termites did not

tight leash. They would hold their monstrous army at bay until the ants had been

see the enemy destroyed here today, regardless of the tricks and stratagems. When the battle was done, one

mouth of the termite nest itself. Although repairs had been made, signs of the damage caused by the Eldest could still be