Chrysalis

“How are the demon traps holding?”

“Barely!”

“Then reinforce them, dammit!”

“I can’t just poke them with an antenna and then they become stronger. I need time to design, materials to build with, ants to do the building. Those are huge construction projects, we can’t just ‘reinforce’ them!”

“Right, sorry.”

Sloan rubbed her antennae against her carapace, trying to calm herself down. The carver, Carpentant, also soothed herself as they took the temperature out of the argument.

Which wasn’t easy inside the third right now. With the mana thickening by the hour, the air only grew hotter and hotter, to the point it had grown oppressive. Ants didn’t mind a bit of heat, not at all, but they weren’t amazing at regulating their temperatures. If things got much worse, they’d need to distribute enchanted equipment to every member of the Colony in the stratum.

“Are the farms at least producing cores and Biomass? They’re working?”

“Oh, they’re working. Too well! There’s so many demons crammed inside that we’re getting double the amount of cores we expected. The workers in charge of maintaining and operating the farms are overwhelmed, but there aren’t enough of us to help them. We need more ants!”

“If you get the numbers you need, will that stop the farms from breaking?”

Carpentant thought for a long moment. It wasn’t a simple question, but the wrong answer could have grave implications. It was already a difficult proposition to contain the mess that the plains had become. If the monsters within the farms broke out….

“If you give me what I’m asking for, plus another ten percent, we’ll have enough to properly run the farms and look to reinforce the structure.”

pain shot through

to squeeze out.

Carpentant shrugged.

one who has to distribute resources, not me. If you tell me no, I’ll go back and make the best of

causing greater chaos on the plains and costing the ants an enormous haul

you need,” she promised, “but

grumbled. “Feel sorry for them being thrown into a mess

them either, but I’ll provide extra security as well to make sure you all stay

carver froze before she nodded

“That’s appreciated.”

scratching out a few lines of scent and replacing them. The next

was frustrating, but despite the over the top allowances the Colony had made when planning to resist the wave in the third stratum, the

the new ‘scent pen’, she completed her new distribution plan and put

on the fortress,” she muttered as she rose up

didn’t really need a

could rise up and down and wheel around her smithy. She claimed it freed up more legs to work with, which was

into the nest, requesting medical treatment, or supplies, or any number of things. She was kept updated, of course, but having a description was never quite the same as seeing the situation

the paths, keeping pace with

split the same way, and she was barely able to keep up in the middle one. To her right, scouts flashed past

All for efficiency.

a staging ground and ants bustled all over the surface of the nest. Within the grand fortress, there were

as soon as she saw Sloan

the front?” she asked, snapping a