Chrysalis

In times of war, or great peril, many things are put aside. Morality, order, law, hierarchy, respect, such things are often cast away in order to ensure the one thing that matters most to a sapient creature: survival.

We are not that way. Our mission is sacrosanct. Our law is woven into the very fibre of our beings. There is no life, without the mission, there is no future, without mission and there will never be a present, without the mission.

Though the world should burn around us, we continue to serve.

- Excerpt from the ‘Dedications of the Nameless’

The nameless one executed the eight-fold genuflection and stepped within the Sanctum of Sleep.

To be embraced by the pure darkness was like being held close by the Colony itself. It was home. Guided by scent alone, she manoeuvred through the narrow and twisted corridors until she found who she was looking for.

The Acolytes, still as a sleeping ant, stood in a loose circle around a dim light sunk into the ground. There, they kept their vigil until the second eight of the day had passed.

The nameless one approached and genuflected once more. The Acolyte to her left, the Acolyte of Shadows, signed subtly, and so she approached.

The Eldest rests, the Acolyte began the ritual greeting.

Eight hours a day, the nameless one replied.

are welcome

What news of the waking world

heretics from the battlefield is limited, and thus they escape our wrath and righteous cleansing. They do not sleep, their carapaces remain unwaxed, their antennae

stand. Give me the order, and I will hunt down

not served by your anger. Put it to one side, and

icy calm that served her so

outburst, she signed, but the

we too few. We will take those we can, and

I hear and obey.

in numbers; we shall overlook them today, lest our sisters suffer and die for lack of care. There are several scouts who have spurned the Torpor chambers for several

rest and relaxation before this day

This is well.

and secret pathways that wound throughout the great fortress like insidious tendrils of truth. There was no place she could not reach, and her quarry would not escape

had been given, and three she had delivered. Those scouts now rested in the cells, their blatant violation of the Eight put to rights. There was satisfaction in that knowledge, a quiet joy that warmed the nameless one

away from the law of the Eldest at

and cleanse her heart of this rage. She was a creature

of Rest welcomed her as she entered the grand

massive room, carved deep into the floor, waited the wheel, separated into eight segments. One portion already stirred as the ants resting there began

onto the wheel. She needed this rest, as did they all. Service to the mission was always difficult, but in this place, and at this time, it