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!”

we’re under attack,” Victor replied grimly, her mandibles grinding together. “Come with me, we need

far when the scouts returned from the walls, frazzled after their lightning fast

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

the 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

sounds good, but we need to move fast,” Advant agreed. “I’ll take these ants and go ahead,

“Sounds good.”

short order, the soldier had the ranks organised and set

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 from the fight ahead of

but it was exactly this kind of

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 leaders

of time, she had divided the fighting fit

their rebirth as Formica Sapiens, to construct their nests with a

and had instead broken it into segments. Although each segment was close to the previous one, it created a chokepoint that the Colony could

as much of the central shaft as possible was the first

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

and her troops were thick in the air, they’d

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

the nest, whoever had done

reached it, Victor knew immediately that something was very wrong. Instead of the huge, arterial path that connected the depths of the nest

Inside was simply… darkness.

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

invasion by monsters of the second stratum? That

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.