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.”

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

“Go for it.”

let his mind dwell on the best case

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

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

couldn’t use the full weight of their numbers, it didn’t matter where they fought them, on the surface or in the heart of the nest. In fact, the nest was better,

could to support the more experienced fighters closer to the edge. Hartos walked forward

make a

noted how tense he looked.

ready,” he

steadied him with a firm grip on

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

gaze firmed and he took a deep breath to settle

forward to

and we’ll start! Listen to your crew leaders and keep your eyes on the prize! Efficient killing and

flagging under the intense pressure the insects put out. Twice the size of a human, the giant soldiers were intimidating beasts, especially when they came in large numbers. They were everywhere, climbing over the roof, on the walls, even walking on the shield itself or lunging up from beneath. Along with the rising heat the deeper they went, it was an oppressive, suffocating way to fight. It was

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

Hartos chuckled.

smarter than the 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 they’re fighting other monsters, or a hundred other reasons. Besides, even if more came, it wouldn’t make a difference, we haven’t shown them half of what we

is the mark!” Artis called from amongst

to get to

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

only thing in his mind was confusion as the ground beneath his feet simply disappeared and

mandibles scraping and scratching at

he flailed wildly with his arms, trying to grab hold of

around him as the entire expedition plunged downwards. What

started 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

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

undercurrent of tension that sent a chill through the

is the light?!”

stark relief. Drake almost sagged back to the ground in relief when he didn’t see any ants nearby. His

was. Where were they? They’d been everywhere around them only a

Something shifted behind him.

he