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

you, Acolyte. What news of the waking world do the shadows

is difficult. The number of transgressions against 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

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

one, the Acolyte signed, the order is not served by your

the icy calm that served

she signed, but the

and we too few. We will take those we can, and remember those we cannot. They will have their time

I hear and obey.

suffer and die for lack of care. There are several scouts who

luxurious rest and relaxation before this day

This is well.

through the dark tunnels once again. Narrow passages and secret pathways that wound throughout the great fortress

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

catastrophic levels. Members of 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 she

of this rage. She was a creature of the shadows. Patience and

as she entered the

waited the wheel, separated into eight segments. One portion already stirred as the ants resting there began to

for her chance to shuffle 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 was harder than she could