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

What news of the waking world do the

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

cannot be allowed to stand. Give me the order,

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

the nameless one pushed her anger down and sought the icy calm

my outburst, she signed, but the Acolyte

and widespread heresy. There are simply too many, and we too few. We will take those we can, and remember those we cannot. They will have

I hear and obey.

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 several days. Capture them and let them learn the error of

and relaxation before this day is

This is well.

throughout the great fortress like insidious tendrils of truth. There

she returned to the Sanctum. 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

catastrophic levels. Members of the Colony turned away from the law of the Eldest at every turn. It burned in

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

as she entered

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

the nameless one as she waited 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