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Chapter 575 What was lost, what was gained

BUT I DON\'T WANNA! I\'m tired dammit! The Legion has been gone less than an hour and I still don\'t have a full complement of legs! Give me a break! Please! Where are the mandatory rest enforcers? I have an emergency situation for them?! Actually, I think I spot one over there, what\'s she doing? Lifting rubble. Dang. I suppose in these dire times, even the strictest of Colony rules must be waived to some degree. Until I get all of my legs back, I\'m stuck sitting in the middle of the chamber within the gate whilst a flurry of work gets done around me. At least I get to \'listen\' in on the various reports as they come in.

The brood chambers have been secured, though it was apparently quite difficult to defeat the golgari. I have only sympathy for the soldiers and scouts who had to go in there. Trying to fight amongst the brood without injuring them? A nightmare scenario. A few clutches of eggs were totally destroyed, as well as many larvae. Even though the damage was contained to just a few rooms, the losses could be as many as a thousand. The eggs are kept fairly bundled up after all, there are hundreds of them in each egg chamber.

The very thought of the losses suffered by the next generation makes my blood boil and I\'m sure every ant in the Colony feels the same. If it weren\'t for the wave, I\'m fairly confident a team would have been launched to chase down the stone people and end them. I\'d have gone. Just thinking of the adorable grubs who never managed to reach maturity… I wonder if the Colony will let me retire and become a full time grub tickler? There\'s a need that I can fill! The grubs deserve only the best tickles!

Bah. No chance. The Queen would chase me out of the brood chambers in a matter of minutes. It was a relief when a passing brood tender was able to let me know that the Queen was alright. For some reason I\'d thought she\'d be safe in the egg-laying chamber, but trust the Queen to find some way to nearly die whenever there\'s a major fight going on. Apparently, she nearly died twice this time, which is a new record. Her injuries were fairly major and they don\'t think she\'ll be back to egg-production for a few days, which must be serious. Sarah has apparently holed herself up in the chamber with the Queens and is refusing to leave, though she needs some serious healing as well from what the tenders tell me. I\'ll have to pick myself up and get over there for a visit, once I can walk that is.

As for that traitorous ringworm, there hasn\'t been any sighting. He\'s so damn good at hiding in the stone and soil of the Dungeon, it\'ll be a nightmare to find him. With the wave going on, I doubt the Colony will have the antpower to spare looking for his treachery laden backside. The second he turns up, he\'s going to be food, I swear it on the lost grubs! What he hoped to achieve with his betrayal, I\'ve no clue, and I don\'t care. Justice will find him eventually.

Knowing how bad he is at fighting, I\'ve little doubt he\'s burrowed himself as deep and far as he can from any tunnel or expanse and he\'ll stay there until the wave is passed. He lived a long time that way, I don\'t expect his habits are going to change now.

"Hey Eldest, slacking off I see?"

"Brendant? What do you mean?" I gesture down at my missing limbs. "What exactly are you expecting of me in this situation, eh?"

"Not much I suppose," she clacks her mandibles, seemingly feeling quite chipper. "The council wants to have a full meeting in a few hours, once we get a better sense of where we stand. The wave is going to be a real problem and the nest is in pretty bad shape right now."

"What about the other nests?" I ask, "have we had any word of how they are travelling?"

"Runners are on the way as we speak. We should hear back before the meeting."

I\'m nervous about those other nests. They\'re smaller and less well protected than this one. Even if the golgari and Legion left them alone, I fear that the wave will be a huge challenge for them to overcome.

"What\'s the most important undertaking right now? What\'s got the highest priority?" I\'m curious about what they\'re focusing on.

The big soldier thinks for a moment.

"Probably moving the hatchlings up to the surface training grounds. If we don\'t manage to move them before the wave really picks up, it\'s going to be a nightmare to shift them later. There\'s thousands of the little sisters packed away under the Queen\'s chambers and they need to get to the academy as quickly as we can manage."

"I guess we can restart the farm project as well," I muse, "they were able to provide a ton of Biomass during the first wave. And I guess we need to secure the surface nests as well. There\'s no guarantee that any nasties that climb up from below will bump into us here, they might get all the way to the surface…"

Holy moly, I\'m starting to see the sheer body of work in front of us. Brendant sees the realisation flicker in my antennae and clicks her mandibles in understanding.

"Get well soon, Eldest," she says, "there\'s plenty for you to do."

Great. She skitters off to organise more escort groups for hatchlings and I continue to flop about as the small stumps that will become my new legs continue to sprout. Before much time has passed I feel a familiar mind reach out to me.

[Not looking so hot over there, kid. Not exactly like the mighty ancient I had in mind.]

What the?

[Granin?!]

I use a few legs on one side to spin my body around and face the big shaper standing behind me with his two triad-mates by his side.

[What the hell happened to you, you old brick head?] I cry, [I thought you were stuck with the golgari?]

He pulls a face.

[Bah. It\'s all politics. I wanted to stay and help out with the cult and try to clean up the mess we were left with when the city found out about the stupid games they were playing. Instead, the Balta clan went nuts, demanded they be given the rights to hunt you down as a matter of honour and drafted me into the expedition. Typical warrior circle rubbish,] he spat. [On the fringes of the empire, the houses can do whatever they want and get away with it, the interior doesn\'t care. I swear, the whole golgari race has been in decline ever since the cataclysm. Too much pride isn\'t healthy, especially when a giant worm shows up and eats everyone.]

I can tell the old shaper is deeply irritated, so I let him grumble for a few seconds before I follow up with another question.

[So what\'s your plan now? You going to hang around.]

[If you\'ll have me,] he shrugs. [I\'m not good for much but I happen to be an expert in monster evolution, between the three of us here, we can be a big help. The later evolutions are very different from the first, the options really widen up.]

Wot?

[MORE options?! You have to be kidding me! The menu lists are a mile long!]

He chuckles.

[Oh boy, you\'re not going to like this then. Good thing you have us around. No rush, there\'s still time until you evolve again. What\'s your level anyway?]

Uhhh, good question. I\'ve been pretty much ignoring the System messages for days now. I\'ll take a quick peak.

HOLY MOLY! Seventy three?!