Chrysalis

The best way to ensure peaceful cooperation with your neighbours, is to make sure it's far more profitable to continue living together than it is to go to war. Wars are expensive, messy affairs after all. Pay for arms and armour, pay for training, pay for wages, food, transportation and shelter. And after you’ve paid for all of that, what does your soldier go and do? Dies! They die! Investment is lost on so many levels that it makes my heart bleed.

And for what? Territory? Raw natural resources?

Those raw resources are the cheapest possible form of that substance. After the artisans get their hands on it, the enchanters have worked their magic on it, then you have something of worth! Being the person to dig it out of the ground is hardly a privilege.

Embrace your neighbours, and profit. Only fools and fanatics go to war.

- Excerpt from ‘On Ruling’ by Satrap Umizan

Eran Umizan, wife of the Satrap, wasn’t an easy woman to impress. She had seen rivers of gold. She had seen a pagoda of pure sapphire gleaming with fractured light beneath the waves. The fortress constructed by the ants lacked the elegance, lacked the sparkle and shine that she had grown accustomed to, but still… there was something about it that she found impressive.

Was it the scale? Certainly it was enormous. The ants had provided an escort, welcoming the diplomatic envoy from the Conglomerate within their mountain, opening the vast gates to allow their safe passage. Within, they found cavernous halls with high-arching ceilings and grand passages that dwarfed the brathians within.

Perhaps it was the time frame? She knew that the ants hadn’t been here long, a month perhaps? What they had put together in that period was nothing short of remarkable.

The precision? Every line was perfect. She leaned close to inspect the walls several times, and to her trained eye, she could find no flaw in any of them. The stonework was perfectly smooth, without chip or indent. The angles seemed to stretch out into infinity. Every arch, the neatest possible curve, every corner exactly ninety degrees.

A strong argument could be made for the art. She hadn’t expected to see it within a monster’s den, but it was everywhere she looked. Frescoes, statues and carvings decorated almost every surface. Each depicting glorious scenes of ant triumph, or incredible landscapes dotted with ant workers tending to crops and fields, or battle in the tunnels. Perhaps had they been formed of gold or silver, or carved in-relief from a diamond pane, they would have moved her more deeply, but there was still something about them that soothed her heart.

“They wish for us to sit,” her advisor, the Court Mage, Irisod told her, gesturing toward the round table before them.

as much as the walls. The chairs, thankfully, were more comfortable, made of gleaming wood that thrummed with earth mana,

for their hospitality,” she replied and

shimmering blue scales of

but not as many as she expected. The large one remained, though the monster was forced to curl its body up so as not to dominate

everything around her with wide eyes. Thankfully, Theraz had taken her words to heart and stayed by the girl’s side, keeping a tight grip on

Should their hosts turn aggressive, it was up to them to hold on long enough for the Siren to arrive

mages were similarly grim-faced as they monitored the area for

leaned close

offering refreshments, Eran. Are you

would be rude to

if they offer

we gracefully excuse ourselves from

point. What would the ants offer

entered with strangely formed front legs, gripping a tray in its claws as it walked on the other four. With a strange insect grace, the tray was slid in front of her to reveal a steaming

confused Irison spoke in her

biscuits. Apparently, they don’t have direct contact with their other nests and are short

take hospitality

“Apparently so.”

she leaned forward to inhale the fragrance of the tea, allowing her necklace to hang close to the food. No