Chrysalis

To my surprise, it’s Brendant, a soldier of the Council, who leads this expedition. Soft-spoken and reserved, she isn’t usually one to put herself forward for an operation like this, preferring to work diligently in the background. Not that I’m unhappy to see her, she’s steady and reliable, as well as powerful, being a tier six ant with maxed evolutions.

“Brendant, good to see you! Is this the whole force?”

She comes down accompanied by what appears to be five thousand ants, along with a force of five hundred wuffers. We aren’t holding back on this one. Those five hundred pets represent an enormous sum of cores, but purifying the mana of the fifth is far too difficult without something custom-built for the job.

“This is all of us. We aren’t meant to go too deep, or for too long. We’ve done a fair bit of testing to determine the potency of the mana and whether it's possible to survive down there, but we haven’t done any exploring. That’s what this expedition is for. Do some preliminary mapping and get some data back to the generals about the environment and the effectiveness of our countermeasures.”

“Hey, Brendant, why are you talking to me as if I don’t know what we’re here for? I know exactly what the mission is about.”

The smaller ant shifts a little on her six legs.

“It doesn’t hurt to have a reminder before the beginning of a mission, Eldest.”

“I’m not going to fly off the handle and invite some sort of invasion by insane slugs! I can be cool. Everything is going to be fine.”

“As you say, Eldest.”

Gah! There’s never any trust.

“How long until we depart?” I ask.

“Give us an hour or two for final prep and we should be ready to go.”

“Fantastic. I’ll leave that to you, I’m going to dip my toe into the fifth and see what it’s like in there.”

I can tell Brendant wants to say something, but she refrains, merely giving me a nod and turning back to her business.

to check out the fifth. Let’s

really

[Fight!]

[Yessssss, letssssssss.]

[Sorry Crinis, you’re outvoted.]

and find two other ants peering

I didn’t expect to

be aware that it has been

swirls violently

to do some testing regarding the mana,”

let us go down there with you. Too much risk,”

sensible precaution,” Coolant tells

mages in the Colony, we should be down there!” Propellant bites

have Brilliant on her own than the two of them. That little mad scientist is an expert at sniffing

you to go down this soon,” I tell them. “Be a little patient, there’ll be a million of us down there before too long,

many to establish any real foothold, considering the odds we’re up

nose in, see what the fuss is about,” I

“What? Why?” Coolant demands.

will do to you?” Propellant

mana of the fifth before,

not a reproduction produced by a monster. You’ll find exposure to

uncomfortable! Although, right now, as I’m on the verge of descending to another stratum, I’m in less pain from it than I’ve felt in ages. In fact, I’m almost free of pain! It’s such a wondrous, heady feeling, I honestly don’t care what the mana feels

for just a few seconds.

wait for me up here. Be ready with the healing magic, Invidia. I’ll be counting

on