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!”

her mandibles grinding together. “Come with me,

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

three of them are spread around the fortress and are holding off

some good news,” Victor said, relieved. “Tell the troops to fall back and join us here. If the guardians can give us some breathing room, we can right

take these ants and go ahead,

“Sounds good.”

the soldier had the ranks organised and

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,

them organised and moving was no small task, but it was exactly this kind

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,

she had divided the fighting fit ants into four columns

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

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 to the previous one, it created a chokepoint that the Colony could defend

as much of the central shaft as possible was the

leading her troops from the

behind by Advant and her troops were thick in the air, they’d already

eerily so, inside the vertical tunnel. Normally, the veritable heart of the 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 of troops marched

the nest, whoever had done this,

reached the bottom of the shaft without incident and exited, moving down the wide tunnel that led to the next segment of the shaft. When they reached it, Victor knew immediately

Inside was simply… darkness.

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

invasion by monsters of the second stratum? That made

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