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.

nameless one. You are welcome

greet you, Acolyte. What news of the waking world

each and every day. Our ability to snatch the heretics from the battlefield is limited, and thus they escape our

Give me the order, and I will hunt down those who spit acid in the Eldest’s

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

down and sought the icy calm that served her so well in her long service to

my outburst, she signed,

are simply too many, and we too few. We will take those we can, and remember those we cannot. They will have their time in the cells,

I hear and obey.

sisters suffer and die for lack of care. There are several scouts who have spurned the Torpor chambers for several days. Capture them and let them learn the error

luxurious rest and relaxation before this day

This is well.

one set out through the dark tunnels once again. Narrow passages 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

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 from the inside. But overwhelming that sensation, was

the Eldest at every turn. It burned in her gut, just

and cleanse her heart of this rage.

welcomed her as she entered the grand resting chamber. I hope your work has

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

wheel. She needed this rest, as did they all. Service to the