Chrysalis

“We’re under attack!” Victor roared!

The generals looked confused. They were fighting a wave… of course they were under attack!

“Not like that!” she groused. “There’s trouble inside the fortress!”

Messengers had gone missing. Reports weren’t coming back. Entire hospitals had gone dark. Several shifts hadn’t reported to the front over the last hour. It all pointed to one thing.

“There’s an enemy inside the nest,” Victor declared, a grim light gleaming in her eyes. “We need to rally the troops and find out what’s going on. If we can reach the Eldest and bring them into the battle, then there’s no opponent we can’t beat.”

The hundreds of ants clustered around her in the command post appeared shaken, but determined. How the fortress could have been infiltrated without the Colony knowing, it was almost unthinkable. Through the layers of fortified walls, the enchantments, the endless patrols, the hundreds and thousands of ants, the mages on constant alert!

But that didn’t matter now. No matter how’d they’d gotten in, if Victor said they were under attack, then they were.

“Quickly, to me!” she ordered.

The ants rallied bravely and rushed from the chamber, forming into ranks as naturally as breathing.

“Send runners to the walls, let them know what’s happening. They need to hold at all costs!”

Several scouts dashed away.

In the corridors, they found Advant, leading a charge of her own.

“Sister, what’s going on?” demanded the big soldier. “There’s something very wrong inside the nest!”

with me, we need to get a hold of

from the walls, frazzled after

reported. “The three of them are spread around the fortress and are holding

troops to fall back and join us here. If the guardians can give us some breathing room, we can right the situation inside the nest and then get back to the

to move fast,” Advant agreed. “I’ll take these ants and go ahead, you gather up everyone from the walls and follow

“Sounds good.”

order, the soldier had the ranks organised and set off toward the

capable, more than capable, of dealing with whatever she found. Soon, the troops from the walls began to

it was exactly this kind of situation that Victor

injured to fight into the central planning chamber and establish an emergency hospital there. I want an assessment checkpoint set

short amount of time, she had divided the fighting fit ants into four columns and had them advancing

to before their rebirth as Formica Sapiens, to

gave access to the entire nest was too risky, and had instead broken

shaft as possible was the first priority on Victor’s

called, leading her troops

in the air, they’d already been here and gone

rushing up and down, now it was deserted. Victor saw nothing but a blank tunnel ahead of her, whilst behind, thousands of troops marched

whoever had done this, they

moving down the wide tunnel that led to the next segment of the shaft. When they reached it, Victor knew immediately that something was very wrong. Instead of the huge, arterial path that connected the depths

Inside was simply… darkness.

inky black void rippled and shifted, occasionally sending wisps or tendrils into the air that curled in on themselves before they dissipated like smoke, or fell back down to merge with the shadows below. It was almost as if they were staring into

invasion by monsters of the second stratum? That made

be, the scent trails of Advant and her leading party plunged directly into the abyss, vanishing at the edge of the pool. Victor was hesitant. The Eldest was further down, and if she could connect with the troops fighting in the depths, they’d have the numbers necessary to storm the rest