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.

Commander noticed the

be a terrible enemy,” she nodded toward the still-growing mound of dirt and rock. “They’ve spun that entire thing out of thin air. Imagine how

uncoiled in Morrelia’s gut. It was still difficult for her to think of Anthony and his family as an enemy. She hoped it wouldn’t come down to fighting, but what

now,” she said softly. “They have territory, resources, expertise. At what point does it become too costly for

glanced at her Tribune, then

to put their hand up to do anything other than look after their own backyard is becoming harder and harder. The waves have people spooked, mana levels just surge

misappropriated; report any instances of

could they even do? It wasn’t as if the original members of the

stone wall, eyes glittering

off the waves well enough. The worst they had to deal with were Krath raids, which were unpleasant but manageable. It’s hard to blame them,

are buckling under the pressure. The Legion has diplomats in every court, council chamber and market square screaming about being ready for the worst. Some are willing to hear it, some

“Are we ready?”

out a

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

in the Dungeon that leaned on the Legion for their defence. If the troops were withdrawn… they would surely fall to the