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.

You are welcome in

Acolyte. What news of the

Eight number in the hundreds each and every day. Our ability to snatch the heretics from the battlefield is limited, and thus they escape our wrath and righteous cleansing. They do

stand. Give me the order, and I

not served by

the nameless one pushed her anger down and sought the icy calm that served her so well in her long service to the

my outburst, she signed, but the Acolyte

too few. We will take those we can, and

I hear and obey.

them today, lest our sisters suffer and die for lack of care. There are several scouts who have spurned

rest and relaxation

This is well.

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

Three targets she 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 Colony turned away from the law of the Eldest at every turn. It burned in her gut, just as it burned inside every other member of the Sanctum

rage. She was a

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

the massive room, carved deep into the floor, waited the wheel, separated into eight

one as she waited for her chance to shuffle onto the wheel. She needed this rest, as did they