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

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

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 inside the nest and then get back to the defence before things

“I’ll take these ants

“Sounds good.”

short order, the soldier had the ranks organised and

off, and 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

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

emergency hospital there. I want an assessment checkpoint set up for every

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

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

that having a single shaft that gave access to the entire nest was too risky, and had instead broken it into segments.

shaft as possible was the

she called, leading her troops

her troops were thick in the air, they’d already been here and gone ahead. She had

vertical tunnel. Normally, the veritable heart of the fortress, filled with ants rushing up and down, now it was deserted. Victor saw nothing but

to the nest, whoever had done

segment of the shaft. When they reached it, Victor knew immediately that something was very

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 the deepest and darkest depths of the shadow

monsters of the second stratum?

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