Chrysalis

Chapter 1058

Rillik watched as the dense pack of mercs floated over the water on a shield toward land. He shook his head.

“Do you think they’ll be alright?” Elly asked, uncharacteristically soft-spoken.

“No,” the golgari said, his voice flat.

“I find their tactic questionable,” Lacos noted, a hint of curiosity in his tone. “If they did not find success yesterday when attacking in numbers, why try again with an even larger group?”

The leader of the crew unclenched his hands from the railing at the edge of the the deck and rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension there.

“Let’s head down into the boat. We can talk on the way.”

The other two nodded, and together they checked their gear before climbing down the rope ladder into the waiting dinghy. Once they settled in their seats, Rillik picked up the oars, pushed off the ship and resumed his speech.

“There’s two schools of thought when it comes to tackling weak monsters in large numbers. One way is to split wide and pick at them from the edges. If they try to swarm you, there’s space to just pull back to prevent getting surrounded. It’s slower, but much, much safer.”

“And the other way?”

Rillik grunted.

“Go all in. Ball up in numbers and dive into the middle. The theory goes that the number of enemies doesn’t really matter beyond a certain point. With enough people, you can layer shields, support and firepower to the point where the weak monsters can’t touch you. It can work well enough under normal circumstances.”

“Normal circumstances?” Lacos asked.

intelligent swarm monsters before, but I’ve never heard of

“They obviously disagree.”

too greedy. They got a few kills yesterday and the cores were better than they

He shook his head.

huge they aren’t thinking about what it costs to get

crew leaders had been a disaster. Most crews had been cautious, as he had, poking and prodding to assess the monsters before they went in, standard delve tactics. A smaller number had been more reckless, diving in headfirst against the ‘weak’ ants. Those crews had lost people and gotten little in return, but what

death

quietly, “unless they retreat early. The moment they go underground, I think

Rillik felt his frustration rise but he tried to let it go. He’d said his piece

they

—----------------------

lad!”

his blade and

the

“Damn monsters,” he grated.

into his pockets, nothing more. Even so, the sight of so many closing in around them was unnerving. The ants were huge. Heavily armoured beasts, the frontline insects were durable beyond the mercenaries’ expectations, shrugging off

Hartos shouted. “Ball up, stay together, and we’ll be

to push back the waves of ants, who blasted

clapping Drake on the shoulder, “scared of our numbers. Notice that we haven’t been surrounded yet?

deeper?” Drake asked, a hint of

Hartos grinned savagely.

more fool them. We’ll smash them to bits and

large crew leader turned to roar

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