Chrysalis

As nice as it is to sit down, eat tea and cake with our neighbours while discussing the inherent superiority of ant-made goods, there is still a wave going on. It’s not like it's a big deal, there's just this globe-spanning disaster in the form of endlessly spawning monsters, savage and berserk, desperate for Biomass and experience.

So, with the ink barely dry on our trade deal, the brathians returned to the waters of the lake, vaguely promising that less monsters would assault us from the shoreline and promising to return when the wave ended. Which was all well and good, there were a lot of ants pulled from the frontlines to help with the negotiations and they needed to get their abdomens back into the fight.

I decided to chat with Enid for a while before she went back to her rooms.

[I can’t believe you got them to agree to such terms,] the old woman shakes her head.

[What?] I reply, indignant. [We’re practically getting robbed! We fight the monsters in the Dungeon and control the territory necessary to collect the raw goods. Then we process it all ourselves, then we do all the work shaping it, turning it into something of use, and enchant it! If that’s not enough, we agreed to bring everything to the fourth stratum, AND pack everything according to their standards, AND drop everything on their doorstep! What else are they after? Blood?!]

[I think, technically, you don’t have blood, you have ichor. Which they would want if they could get it, yes.]

Enid lent back in her chair and chuckled. I leaned in a little closer to inspect the old woman, she really didn’t look well. The talks had drained her, she was as shrivelled as a prune.

[I’m not saying the Colony doesn’t do a lot of work, but transportation and access to markets are expensive. Most producers are lucky to see thirty percent, if that.]

[For thirty percent, I would have told them to get stuffed and set up a market on the shoreline. They’re dreaming if they think the Colony can be taken advantage of. There’s no war we can’t win, even an economic one.]

[You’re probably most dangerous in an economic conflict,] Enid observed, her tone heavy with fatigue. [There’s going to be millions and millions of you soon, so many workers, who effectively work for free…. You can afford to sell so much cheaper than anyone else.]

Hmmm. That’s a good point. The workers in the Colony don’t draw a salary, as such. They get housed, fed, educated, provided resources, but don’t have anything like purchasing power of their own. I mean, they’re ants, they don’t feel the need for any reward, they work for the betterment of the family. If I offered them some sort of reward, cores for example, as payment for their work, I honestly think they would just donate them to the hatchlings.

[This is a problem,] I told Enid. [The workers of the Colony should get some sort of reward for their efforts.]

Enid shook her head.

[There’s nothing they would accept and we both know it. I don’t see anything wrong with what the Colony is doing. The workers don’t get paid, but it isn’t as if they’re being exploited. The profit, if you want to call it that, of their work is accumulated by the family, not any individual.]

I wasn’t satisfied, but what she said made sense.

very much for your time, Enid. I can see that this wasn’t easy

sighed and tried to push herself

feel so weak. No,

as I approach, concerned, but

engaged in a proper battle like that for many years. Were I twenty years younger, my blood

of rest is the least

[What do you mean?]

understanding of what I mean starts to dawn on her, but it’s too late. Her chair is seized by a team of ants and lifted into the air while she’s still on it. Maintaining perfect balance, they begin to carry her

Where are they taking

expect only the finest

this! Just send me back to my

mental… connection…

not how a mind

I can’t hear you,

TALKING TO

sharp. I’ll catch up

healers. As if we won’t take good care

interesting distraction, learning about a whole… conglomerate of brathians living in the lake next to us. We’ve barely scratched the surface of everything that’s going on in the fourth stratum,

wave to deal with, I have a little champion to

fact… if the gate is

gate-room. Sure enough, it’s crackling with energy, a rather lethargic-looking Brilliant stumping about the place, poking at this and that

did it! Working gate technology. This might be the

barely turns

was simple, I’m… Brilliant…

so flat! Where’s her usual

time?] I loom over the tiny ant and prod her with a

ago. There’s a ton of fine tuning still to be done. It’ll be months before we get our mandibles on all the little efficiencies needed to minimise the mana