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.

she said finally. “It’s still

“You’re sure.”

clear readings with so many cores between the mythic and us, but a signal that strong is hard to miss. I’m sure. Now

“Go for it.”

the best case

“We get a little deeper and we can set up

of the shields as the insects continued to press in on them from all sides, but so

fought them, on the surface or in the heart of the nest. In fact, the

was nearby, still doing what he could to support the more experienced

a fortune?” he

he looked. The

ready,” he

mercenary steadied him with a firm grip on

the insects just fine. We’ll start pulling them into

firmed and he took a deep breath to settle

to it,” he

to your crew leaders and keep your eyes on the

climbing over the roof, on the walls,

aren’t they coming with more?” Drake asked as he flung another slash through the shield. “They

Hartos chuckled.

to leave their posts, or they’re fighting other monsters, or a hundred other reasons. Besides, even if more

is the mark!” Artis called from

get to

hundreds of gathered mercenaries, but before he said a word, the world turned

vanished, like a magic trick. He didn’t have time to be afraid, the only thing in his mind was confusion as the

flashed through his thoughts of mandibles scraping and scratching at the

flailed wildly with his arms, trying to grab

screams and cries rang out around him as the entire expedition plunged downwards. What

than it finished, the mercenaries thudding to the 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

Path was that?” Hartos bellowed from somewhere nearby. “Sound off! Get the shields up! Are

authoritative, but with an undercurrent of tension that sent a chill through the young mercenary. Something had gone terribly

is the light?!”

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

realised how strange that was. Where were they? They’d been everywhere around them only a moment ago, so what had happened,

Something shifted behind him.

no,” he heard