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!”

mandibles grinding together. “Come with me, we need to get a hold of this quickly and find

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

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

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

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

“Sounds good.”

soldier had the ranks organised and set off toward the central

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

no small task, but it was exactly this kind of situation that Victor specialised

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 leaders to me. Stick to your squads. Move, move,

fighting fit ants into four

going back to before their rebirth as Formica Sapiens, to construct their nests with a main, vertical shaft connecting all levels

shaft that gave access to the entire nest was too risky, and had instead broken it into segments. Although each segment was

the central shaft as possible was the first priority on

into the breach!” she called, leading her

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

and down, now it was deserted. Victor saw nothing

had happened to the nest, whoever had

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.

wisps or tendrils into the air that curled in on themselves before they dissipated like smoke, or

invasion by monsters 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,