Chrysalis

[Look, buzz off, will you?]

[We will not. You must come and meet us.]

[I must, eh? What if I must have a nap? Did you think about that?]

[For the future of your people and ours, we urge you to listen.]

[Not now. Sheesh! There’s business to conduct. We’ll be here for a few days, take your time. No need to come battering on my mind the moment I settle down.]

Ruthlessly, I cut the contact and my mind constructs fend off the half-hearted attempts to reconnect it. Talk about rude! The cultists of the Red Truth decided to try and arrange a meetup as soon as the Colony finished working on the nest and I managed to slip inside to put my legs up, metaphorically speaking.

They’re being sneaky, using extensive methods to mask the hints of their mana from detection, but even so, I think they’re taking a staggering risk. If they get caught reaching out to me, a monster subject to the Call, I can’t imagine it’s going to go well for them. So I continue to rebuff their advances until I can get a better sense for the lay of the land. We only just arrived on this island, and the ka’armodo aren’t friendly with the Colony at the best of times, even when there isn’t a full Legion sitting next door.

After the Colony gets settled, the brathians make their way over to us to discuss our next steps.

Compared to before, the air around Eran and her followers isn’t quite as… positive. Faced with the opportunity to negotiate trade all over the fourth stratum, the lead deal-maker for the Brathian Island Conglomerate had been, not cheerful or energetic, but eager, hungry. That hunger remains, but it has clearly been tempered by caution. Marzban is on alert, as are his son and the rest of the soldiers, hands gripping weapon hilts at all times, eyes constantly scanning for threats.

all looking out there, Eran? I assume there’s

frowns at my jovial

isn’t,] she says. [What you’ve said shows a remarkable lack of

fault. Attitudes between them and us are a little frosty. We share a border with them in the third at present, and they don’t seem to respect the line we’ve drawn in the sand. Well… not sand. The line we’ve

unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this

getting a sense that they aren’t huge fans of the Colony,] she says wryly, and I feel like that might have been a massive understatement. [To clear up your confusion, the ka’armodo

stuck up, but this takes it to a

are responsible for doing all

a ka’armodo, and the profit of that sale

with the lizards at all? That might turn out to be

all skilled and trained negotiators, but they are not… independent. They will do exactly what their bonded-one tells them to do. Some of the… wizard-lizards… will be directing the talks themselves, looking through the eyes of their setsulah and communicating mentally

themselves from the business?! They make a big show of not caring about money, yet they actually care deeply! Isn’t that just a catastrophic waste

finery. Expensive tapestries and rugs hanging on their backs. Golden torques, rings, bands on their neck, legs, toes, through their noses, pinched through the skin. It’s enough to make a