Chrysalis

The ant stared at them. Rillik, Elly, Drake and Lacos stared back.

A pause.

Rillik swore viciously, then began to turn the boat around, not bothering to hide his frustration.

“Let’s just kill it and get on the mountain,” Drake said. “There’s only one.”

Rillik didn’t bother answering, still openly cursing.

“There is never just one,” Lacos quoted the advice their leader had imparted earlier in the day, then he pointed over the monster.

Drake turned to see where his friend was pointing, it took a moment, but he eventually noticed several sets of antennae poking from behind trees or around the edge of a bush. It was like the ants were hidden, but not so well that they wouldn’t be found if you actually tried to find them.

The ant in front of them clacked its mandibles several times, the sharp, percussive noise ringing out in a rhythm that felt distinctly like mocking laughter.

“Ah, shut up you damn monster,” Rillik growled as he hauled on the oars.

The rest of the crew slumped in the boat.

“That’s the fourth time we’ve tried to land today,” Elly groaned. “How are they always waiting for us when we get there?”

could force a

in

ants should have their… jaws? Do they have jaws? Their jaws full dealing with

stopped cursing and laid off the oars for a moment, staring

information,” he spat over the side, “and why we play it as cautious as we can until

time,” Drake said, “other groups are out there earning money and

young man fumed in his seat, glaring at the mountain as he clutched the hilt

Do you have debts I don’t know about, Drake? If this is about money, talk to the group, we can help you

little anger bled out of the man, but

said quickly, “nothing

blind before the message starts to sink into your thick head? Are other groups on the mountain? Yes. Are they making money? Yes. Will they all make it back? Not even close. Every group is going to take heavy losses today, you mark my

that we didn’t expect it to be ants, but isn’t that a good thing? They’re first stratum monsters, not fourth, and they

shook his

stupid. Stop and think for a minute, would you? You see a monster from the first stratum laughing it up on the fourth and you think you’ve

evidence they’d gathered from a morning of trying to reach the

a watch on the shoreline, there has to be. Except that doesn’t make sense… don’t they have bad

traps, even openly taunting

been monitoring us somehow,” Drake said. “It’s possible they even have some sort of

if he were insane, but Rillik only

think of next?” he groused. “There’s thousands and thousands of the little buggers lighting up that mountain like a maypole, an ocean of gold to mercs like us, but it’ll be incredibly dangerous

a long while until Rillik finally