Chrysalis

Hartos looked around and was satisfied with what he saw. The mercenaries had managed to penetrate the mountain in good order, and despite the intensifying attacks from the ants, they had maintained their formation.

He couldn’t help but sneer. Those fools who’d refused to join him would be crying bloody tears when they saw the haul he returned with. Thousands and thousands of ants surrounded them already, and soon enough they’d be dead, just waiting for their cores to be extracted.

But it didn’t hurt to be careful.

“Artis!” he barked.

“What?” his long-time crewmember replied, sounding harried.

“I need you for a second.”

“Make it quick,” she snapped, “this shield doesn’t maintain itself.”

He frowned, both at her tone and the implication of her words.

“Are we really being pressured that hard?”

The mage glared at him.

“Of course we are! Look around you, the bugs are endless! No matter how much firepower we pump out, they keep coming.”

“But you can hold?”

“Yes, we can hold. It’s just very difficult work!”

He nodded.

“Good. I want you to check and make sure the mythic is still asleep. We don’t want to be in here when the damn thing wakes up.”

“That’s the truth,” the mage muttered.

She fumbled about in her robes and removed the array from one of her dozens of pockets. She stared at it intensely for a few moments.

“Well?” Hartos demanded.

“There’s tens of thousands of monsters in this mountain, wait a damned second.”

He turned his eyes back to the struggle along the perimeter as the mage continued to study the device.

finally. “It’s

“You’re sure.”

between the mythic and us, but a signal that strong is hard to miss. I’m sure. Now

“Go for it.”

the best case scenario. If they managed to dig in deep enough and snag

roared to the surrounding mercs. “We get a little deeper and we can set up a perimeter. Then we can

back as they redoubled their efforts. The fighting was thick along the edge of the shields as the insects continued to press in on them from all sides, but so long as the mages held the barriers in place, they

where they fought them, on the surface or in the

lad Drake was nearby, still doing what he could to support the more experienced fighters closer to the edge. Hartos

a fortune?”

Drake turned around, he noted how tense he looked. The pressure was

I’m ready,” he

him with

we’re holding off the insects just fine. We’ll start pulling them into the shield and harvesting cores.

and he took a deep breath to settle

forward to it,”

to your crew leaders and keep your eyes on the prize! Efficient killing and harvesting is what we’re here for. No screw

the roof, on the walls, even walking

they coming with more?” Drake asked as he flung another slash through the shield. “They could hit us with ten times this many.

Hartos chuckled.

average, but that doesn’t make them as clever as you and me. Perhaps they’re protecting something and don’t want to leave their posts, or

Artis called from amongst a

get to work then,”

bellow his orders to the hundreds of gathered mercenaries, but before

like a magic trick. He didn’t have time to be afraid, the only thing in his mind was confusion as the ground beneath his feet simply disappeared and he began

thoughts of mandibles scraping and scratching at the shield below

he flailed wildly with his

cries rang out around him as the entire

ground heavily. Drake crashed into the stone floor, landing on his side. He managed to brace himself and prevent his head from smacking into the rock just in time, a trick Rillik had taught

the name of the Path was that?” Hartos bellowed from somewhere nearby. “Sound off!

authoritative, but with an undercurrent of tension that sent a

is the light?!” Hartos

flared into existence, casting their surroundings into stark relief. Drake almost sagged back to the ground in relief when he didn’t see any ants nearby. His mind had conjured a thousand ravenous mouths ready to descend on him and the other members of

been everywhere around them only a

Something shifted behind him.

he heard someone