“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.

The Commander noticed the direction of her gaze.

“They’ll 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 quickly they could fortify in a Dungeon tunnel and how effectively. Dislodging them will be a nightmare.”

An uneasy feeling 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 choice was there?

“There are millions of them now,” she said softly. “They have territory, resources, expertise. At what point does it become too costly for us to try and eradicate them?”

Chyron glanced at her Tribune, then nodded slowly.

“It’ll be expensive, and the Legion likely won’t act alone. However, getting anyone 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 higher and higher each time. Commander Titus believed another Rending was coming, right from the start. People mocked the idea at first. They aren’t laughing now.”

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Morrelia felt a chill. In the face of another Rending… what could they even do? It wasn’t as if the original members of the Legionem Abyssi, those founding legendary figures, had actually triumphed over the cataclysm, they had merely outlasted it.

Chyron leaned against the waist-high stone wall, eyes glittering coldly in the light.

“The ka’armodo, the golgari, the tower, church of the path, the golden city, everyone has grown complacent, confident. They were able to fend 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, I suppose. It’s been several thousand years since something like this occurred, so perhaps they thought it simply never would again.

“Now things are looking different. Neglected defences are being stretched. Underfunded armies 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 not.”

“Are we ready?”

Chyron snorted out a laugh.

“No, of course not! We’ve 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 Dungeon will be let go, perhaps as soon as the next wave. At least our resourcing is getting better as the danger grows closer. People are starting to wake up and remember their old promises.”

She hadn’t thought it was this grim. She’d known it was bad, that was an inescapable fact, but this bad? There were places in the Dungeon that leaned on the Legion for their defence. If the troops were withdrawn… they would surely fall to the monsters. How many thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, would perish were that to occur?

“Is there a chance the Colony could be used to block some of those gaps for us?” Morrelia wondered out loud. “I’ve seen the reports, just as you have. They’ve held against the waves remarkably well, defended every city they’ve taken and regulated the Dungeon to an incredible degree. They could be a weapon we can use to blunt the waves.”

The Commander gave her a warning glance.

“Using monsters as weapons is precisely the reason why we are mad at the lizards in the first place. You’re a tribune now, so it’s important that you learn and think about the big picture, but I caution you against this line of thought. Aye, I’ve read the reports. The ants are doing extremely well against the waves, because they’re monsters. An endless flood of Biomass and cores. What they did on the third? Those massive demon farms? The waves are strengthening them. If we use the Colony to blunt the waves, we only sharpen the sword that will inevitably come for our own neck.”

“The brathians seem confident that the ants are resistant, that they won’t turn against us.”

Chyron rolled her eyes.

“And did they test them against an Ancient? We have to assume the worst case scenario. Besides, this is all over our heads. We are here for one reason and one reason alone. There is a prospective Ancient over there in that nest and they must not be permitted to descend. That is the end of it.”

“Yes, Commander,” Morrelia snapped out a brisk salute.

“Good. Now get below and sort out the troops. This isn’t shore leave, I want them doing drills and gear maintenance on double shifts. If we’re going to be sitting around on our backsides, we may as well ensure our own blade receives a little sharpening.”