Chrysalis

Peter looked out over the field and realised with a mild sense of surprise that his work for the day was done. The crops were watered and growing well, the weeding and pest control had been done. He eyed his fences askance, no, they were fine too.

He’d been a vegetable farmer for many years, but he couldn’t remember a time when his work was actually done. That wasn’t how farming worked. You spent the day slogging your guts out, elbow deep in filth, and you went home when it got too dark to work any longer and collapsed in a heap, most of your tasks left undone.

The middle-aged, grizzled man reached out a hand and gave his wooden fence a poke, almost as if he didn’t believe it could be as solid as it looked. The pine betrayed him, barely moving as he nudged it.

All he could do was put his hands on his hips and sigh, looking up at the clear blue sky. Things were just so efficient now. The watering happened basically automatically, a complex syphoning system had been installed by the ants, an enchanted system. He barely understood the start of how it worked, but all he had to do to give his plants a drink was pull a lever.

Fence maintenance was a communal effort, the wood provided was far finer than what Peter’s last house had been built from.

“Welcome home, dear,” his wife, Renita, greeted him as the doorbell rang when he came through the entrance. “Back early again?”

Peter sighed again and kissed his wife on the cheek. She merely chuckled at his mood.

“You need to get yourself a hobby,” she advised him patiently, for the hundredth time. “I don’t think this free time is going to go away anytime soon.”

not to wince as she said ‘free time’. He almost succeeded this

used to

want

He rolled his eyes.

for a walk. See if I can clear

Grab a loaf if you pass by

planned on heading that far, but now he probably would. The best bread would be long gone by this hour, but he could

the bell and off

The well cut and beautifully made road cut a straight path through fields, some with budding crops,

a wide enough berth around the enormous mound so that the regular folks such as himself wouldn’t have ants getting in their way and vice-versa, but he was certainly close enough to

bit of activity on the surface today, which was a little unusual, groups of ants discussing together (the antennae waggling were always a dead giveaway) as they

more than happy to leave the Colony to its business. He was just a humble vegetable farmer, what did he know of Dungeons and monsters and goodness knows what else they got up to? Nothing,

clustered around something he couldn’t see. He had no fear of the monsters. If they didn’t want him poking around, they would let him know and that would be that, but as he grew closer,

was hopelessly churned, and as he watched, a pair of smaller ants, mages he guessed, were moving around smoothing it out

their positions. He noticed a few things at that moment. The groups were made up of different types of ants, for starters. Smaller mages, larger soldiers, mid-sized scouts and generals. There were ten on either side, and interestingly, one group was carrying

drill of some kind to practise a particular Skill or scenario the ants had dreamed up. For some reason, however, Peter felt he wanted to see what