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

Acolyte. What news of the waking world do

day. Our ability to snatch the heretics from the battlefield is

This cannot be allowed to stand. Give me the order, and I will hunt

nameless one, the Acolyte signed, the order is not served by your anger. Put it to one side, and think on

icy calm that served

outburst, she signed, but

are all on edge at such rampant and widespread heresy. There are simply too many, and we too few.

I hear and obey.

forced to go without breaks to overcome the shortage 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

rest and relaxation before this day is

This is well.

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

scouts now rested in the cells, their blatant violation of the Eight put to rights. There was satisfaction

of violations continued to climb to catastrophic levels. Members of the Colony turned away from the law of the Eldest at every turn.

her heart of this rage. She was a creature of the shadows. Patience and cold, ruthless logic were her sharpest

entered the grand resting chamber. I hope your work has

the wheel, separated into eight segments. One portion already stirred as

rest, as did they all. Service to the mission was always difficult, but in this place,