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!”

together. “Come with me, we need to get a hold

scouts returned from the walls, frazzled

walls!” they reported. “The three of them are spread around the

guardians can give us some breathing room, we can right the situation inside

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

“Sounds good.”

soldier had the ranks organised and set off

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

but it was exactly this

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 move through as they come from the walls. Scout

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

common design practice for the Colony, going back to before their rebirth as Formica Sapiens, to

that had changed. The carvers had decided that having a single shaft that gave access to the entire nest was too risky, and

central shaft as possible was the

called, leading her troops from the front and straight down

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

fortress, filled with ants rushing up and down, now it was deserted. Victor saw nothing but a blank tunnel ahead of her, whilst behind, thousands

whoever had done this, they

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

Inside was simply… darkness.

or mist, the 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 the deepest and darkest depths of the shadow

by monsters of the second stratum? That

the case may 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 of the fortress. She