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!”

replied grimly, her mandibles grinding together. “Come with me, we need to get a hold

the scouts returned from the walls, frazzled after

the walls!” they reported. “The three of them are spread around the fortress and are holding off the

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 defence

to move fast,” Advant agreed. “I’ll take these ants and go ahead, you

“Sounds good.”

had the ranks organised and set off toward

then waited. Every moment that passed felt like a lifetime, but she knew Advant was capable, more than capable, of dealing with whatever she found. Soon, the troops from the walls began to trickle in. A few hundred at first, but then in their thousands. Weary, injured, and still recovering from their heroics on the walls, they were more than a little confused at being pulled

no small task, but it was

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

time, she had divided the fighting fit

Colony, going back to before their rebirth as Formica Sapiens, to construct

this fortress, that had changed. The carvers had decided that having a single shaft that gave access to the entire nest was too risky, and had instead broken it into segments. Although each segment was close

central shaft as possible was

me! Forward, into the breach!” she called, leading her troops from the front

in the air, they’d

the fortress, filled with ants rushing up and down, now it was

to the nest, whoever had done this,

exited, 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

Inside was simply… darkness.

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 the deepest and

an invasion by monsters of the second stratum? That

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