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 her

of ants,” she managed to squeeze out. “Everyone is desperately short

Carpentant shrugged.

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

greater chaos on the plains and costing the ants an enormous haul of cores and Biomass, resources they

the ants you need,” she promised, “but they’re

Carpentant grumbled. “Feel sorry for them being

I’ll provide extra security as well to make sure

irritated carver froze before she nodded

“That’s appreciated.”

of the chamber, Sloan sighed and went back to her planning documents, scratching out a few lines of

despite the over the top allowances the Colony had made when planning

completed her new distribution plan and put it down with a

muttered as she rose up from her

didn’t really need a chair, they were perfectly content to

custom built, swivelling chair that could rise up and down and wheel around her smithy. She claimed it freed up more legs to work with, which was another

immediately enveloped by the flood of messengers. A constant stream ran in both directions, toward the wall and deeper 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

and began to race along the paths, keeping pace

six lanes wide, three in either direction, with another six on the roof, split the same way, and she was barely able to keep up in the middle one. To her right, scouts flashed past her as

All for efficiency.

the nest, she found herself only a kilometre from the outer wall. The area at this exit was a staging ground and ants bustled all over the surface of the nest. Within the grand

up as soon as she saw

What brings you to the front?” she