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.

much as the walls. The chairs, thankfully, were more comfortable, made of

for their hospitality,” she replied

back from her shoulders, exposing the shimmering blue scales of her upper arms as she

several ants in the room, 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 the space. Certainly, it couldn’t fit around the

her with wide eyes. Thankfully, Theraz

and prepared as she should expect, given their perilous position. Should their hosts turn aggressive, it was up to them to hold on long enough for the Siren to arrive from her position in

for any hint of danger and communicated mentally with the

leaned close

refreshments, Eran. Are you

would be rude

if they

we gracefully excuse ourselves from

valid point. What would the ants offer besides what they

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

spoke in her

proper selection of biscuits. Apparently, they don’t have direct contact with their other nests and are short on supplies.” She hesitated. “They

take hospitality

“Apparently so.”

of the tea, allowing her necklace to hang close to the food.