Chrysalis

Now, obviously the gravity well I created is pulling in the opposite direction from the black sun chewing up every piece of the planet it can get its little grubby hands on. However, it's not enough to counteract the force, not even remotely. Despite deploying the spell, the lake is still going crazy, the air is still screaming past me, and the boat itself is starting to lift up out of the water.

But the railing hasn’t broken! Whoo! I’ll take the wins where I can get them.

I get the feeling the well is doing just enough to take the edge off, which is nice, sure, but it isn’t enough to save my backside.

For that, I’m going to have to rely on the industrious ant and brathian mages hard at work beneath me, and inside the ships of the rest of the fleet. All I can do is float, three legs hooked around a wooden beam, as I watch my spell consume and consume and consume.

It's apocalyptic up there.

Spiralling pillars of water have towered all the way up and they too are spiralling down into the core, along with ever increasing chunks of Greystone. I’m really hoping the spell is only ripping into the outer shell of the mountain and not any inhabited areas. I get the feeling the bulk of the added rock, or at least a mega-thick layer of it, is just there for defence and for show, which I hope continues to be the case. The golgari might have brought this upon themselves, but I don’t think they would care all that much if several thousand of their citizens got mushed inside a black hole.

There are several spirals forming around the black sun, revolving around it and each other as they circle the drain down to oblivion. Rock, water, air and everything else it can reach is there, being yoinked in. Someone should shoot some fire at it, so all the nations are represented in the destruction.

Snap.

I don’t like the sound of that.

Snap!

I really don’t like the sound of that!

As well I shouldn’t. With one final shuddering pull, the railing snaps free from the deck, and all of a sudden, I take flight.

Ahhhhhh nards! Flying is freeing and all, but I didn’t want to experience it like this!

[Eldest! Take hold!]

[What?]

whip up towards me from the deck below and I snag it in my mandibles. It’s a rope, a great chonking thick one. Some of the mages below

sure the rope is fastened to

attention to it, but I’m rather

to worry! We’ve secured it

has been illicitly taken; should you

SNAP!

[That broke.]

Dang.

to the ship is going to put my siblings at risk and that’s not worth it.

into pulp by your own spell. There should be some sort of award for idiocy of this magnitude. Not only for the impressive scale of the poor decisions made,

would have learned from their mistakes after the first, absolutely after the second, near-death experience. Me, though?

head as I rise toward it defies description. An unreasonable level of destruction, a seemingly unending appetite for

save myself anymore. My brains have turned to sludge after their

Or CAN I?

No I can’t.

I at this point? Pretty darn high, a couple hundred metres for sure. Honestly, would the fall be worse than being crushed within a black hole? That’s a stupid question, of

to get misty-eyed, thinking of my family and my siblings. Except ants don’t have tear ducts, but I’ll ignore that. The Queen, my mother in this life, certainly gets my vote for ‘best mother that I’ve ever had’. Not exactly a difficult

I suppose? But those theoretical siblings can’t compare to the incredible sense of

Vibrant could outrun a black

a passing rock and roll myself over, I don’t want to look up at the black hole, I’d rather look down

second now, my carapace will collapse and I’m going to get squished.

Wait a sec…