Chrysalis

“What are the lizards playing at?” Morrelia growled.

Commander Chyron chuckled humourlessly as she watched the activity in the port city with unblinking eyes.

“Trying to slither back into our good graces, I don’t doubt. Leadership is still furious with them, to put it mildly. It’ll be decades before relations get back to anything like what they were.”

“Decades. That’s not much to them.”

“True. Hardly even a blip. They may even view it as a worthy tradeoff for the ‘experimental’ action they took.”

“Are we really withholding support during the waves?”

“Completely. Thanks to that, we’ve got more resources freed up for trivial, ‘save the world’ type actions like this one.”

From the top of the old Legion fort they currently occupied, the Colony could clearly be seen. The ants were as industrious as ever, putting up their nest in a staggeringly short amount of time. Morrelia felt she could barely blink before the construction was done and hordes of ants ran in and out through the main entrance, carrying in goods from the ships down on the docks. Blink again, and the fortifications had improved, soldiers were patrolling, lookouts were positioned high up the nest and mages had begun controlling the flow of mana in the vicinity.

noticed the

dirt and rock. “They’ve spun that entire thing out of thin air. Imagine how quickly they could fortify in a Dungeon tunnel and how effectively. Dislodging them will

gut. It was still difficult for her to think of Anthony and his family as an enemy. She

them now,” she said softly. “They have territory, resources, expertise. At

glanced at her Tribune, then

and harder. The waves have people spooked, mana levels just surge higher and

author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on

felt a chill. In the face of another Rending… what could they even do? It wasn’t as if the original members of the Legionem

the waist-high stone wall, eyes glittering coldly in

deal with were Krath raids, which were unpleasant but manageable. It’s

under the pressure. The Legion has diplomats in every court, council chamber and market square screaming about being

“Are we ready?”

snorted out

course not! We’ve been cleaning up everyone else's mess for hundreds of years. Not enough recruits, not enough funds. We can’t possibly be in all the places we’re going to be needed. Which means some parts of the Dungeon will be let go, perhaps as soon as the next wave. At least

that was an inescapable fact, but this bad? There were places in the Dungeon that leaned on the Legion for their defence. If the troops were withdrawn… they would surely fall to the monsters. How many thousands, tens