Chrysalis

Granin stirred as the wave washed over him.

"W-was that?" Corun asked breathlessly.

"It was," the triad leader stated.

Torrina sucked in a breath, letting the shock register on her face instead of her usual stoic expression.

"This is a lot sooner than we expected," she said after calming herself. "Are you sure?"

Her teacher shot her a slightly annoyed look and she looked down. Granin snorted.

"You're too smart to ask a question like that," he scolded her, "we just got punched in the face by a wall of mana. Of course I'm sure."

"I know. I suppose I just didn't want it to happen now. I don't think I'm ready."

"Nobody is ready for what's coming. They might have spent three thousand years preparing themselves, but they still aren't ready."

At least we won't be the ones to pit ourselves against the overwhelming strength of the Ancients. I'm happy to leave that to those with far more hubris than I.

Corun warred with the sense of excitement and trepidation. World shaking events would take place, and soon. A wave the likes of which the world hadn't seen since the Time of Rending was building. It was possible the events of the past would repeat themselves, with the Ancients causing devastation on a global scale. Naturally, he was nervous.

you think?" he asked Granin and the old Shaper scrunched

others still sleeping. That being the case, the mana level isn't high enough, but it's getting close. If I were to guess, I'd say that those who

He shrugged.

The wave after this, or the one after that? Less than a year is my guess. If we don't have a solution by that time, then

when the Ancients took matters into their own hands. Cataclysm, catastrophe,

in time," Torrina said, and

and she

Granin imagined it may

awed, he thought, not for long, but I'd

of the Ancients. There would be little point keeping Granin alive, so

might still

only hope so," he said, returning his mind to the current conversation. "Our only chance of staving off disaster is to present a new Ancient. That was the task laid on the founders of the cults, and we are running out of time to deliver. If

seven," Corun fretted, and

ant in the history of Pangera, and a mythic monster at that. Considering where he'd started, it was a remarkable journey. In fact, recalling he hadn't even been born amongst his Colony, but in the tunnels by himself,

that front," Granin said. "This wave is going to be like nothing we've ever seen before, and the next will be even

pointed down below. From their vantage point high in the fortress nest below Roklu, the three had a huge range of view over the plains below. Torrina and Corun leaned forward to see what he was

activity, lava flooding across the landscape as demons rampaged endlessly. As they watched, it didn't die down, it only grew worse, and worse, and worse. Larger demons began to climb up through the belching

a constant swirl of ash and smoke, thickened, to the point where the golgari felt their lungs burn when they breathed. Not from the smoke, but from the

need to create filters