The Colony recoiled from the reprimand of its Eldest and most respected member as if it had been bitten on the antennae. It has not happened many times, when the Eldest directly criticised the actions and decisions of its family, but each occurrence has resulted in great upheaval and a paradigm shift that changed the course of the Colony forever.
This instance was no different.
Warned of impending disaster if the reckless pursuit of expansion at all costs was not reined in, the council and the Colony as a whole drew back and began to reflect. With the conquest of the demon city Orpule newly completed, there was a tremendous feeling of momentum amongst us, one that we felt could lead us deeper into the Dungeon and catapult us into a large scale invasion of the third stratum as a whole. Only when we drew back, only when we focused inward, did the cracks begin to become evident.
The need for reconnaissance of the new territories had become great, too great. In order to cope with the vast swathes of tunnel and open Dungeon that needed to be carefully mapped, examined for resources and assessed for threats across both the second and third strata meant that older paths that had become considered safe were abandoned. Even those tunnels that lay between the main nest and the lands of the golgari had become criminally under patrolled and many a scout shuddered at the thought of what the Eldest might have said had they missed an invasion along those routes.
These irredeemable oversights were immediately corrected and maintaining the watch of all approaches to the nests became the highest priority, as it should always have been.
But the lapses did not end there.
So large had been the need and demand for metalwork, construction expertise and earth magic within the third stratum that progress on other projects had stalled, or even regressed. The best forged materials produced by the carvers had been used to create the chains and lifts needed to utilise the lifts to move materials between the second and third strata, which had significantly delayed construction of the gates required to secure the newly constructed nests. There too, a lack of attention and focus had nearly cost the Colony dearly. Desperate to push an overstretched workforce, the carvers had gone well beyond their tolerance, overworking themselves to the point of collapse, forcing the intervention of the unseen enforcers. Whole teams of builders had been lost to the shadows, not seen for days at a time as they were forced to recuperate and recover their peak condition, forced to suffer inhumane periods of relaxation and rest.
In this the wisdom of the Eldest was once again revealed. Nothing shamed the carvers and teams of construction ants more than poor craftsmanship, examples of which could be found everywhere in their latest work. As the Colony withdrew and consolidated, the carvers rededicated themselves to the pursuit of perfection, tearing down everything they had built with the slightest deviation and constructing it from the ground up once more. Filled with righteous fire at having to correct their own mistakes, the standard that they would seek to meet from that point on was established over this month.
Likewise the brood tenders were forced to regroup and reflect on their decisions. In the never ending push to fight and expand the territory of the Colony they had raised many grubs to become fine soldiers, scouts and generals. The boundless hunger of the Colony for workers to build and construct had encouraged them to evolve huge numbers of carvers. Critical for both of those endeavours, mages were also churned out of the antcademies in droves.
Yet the other castes had become under-represented. Healers were getting swamped under the workload, more and more injuries were left to recover on their own, with little but a scant helping of Biomass to speed the process. The core shapers had been used to plug the gaps left by the lack of scouts and soldiers in the upper layers of the Dungeon, but this had caused them to draw down their wide ranging core gathering expeditions, creating a shortfall in the Colony's supply. Worst of all, the brood tenders found that they themselves no longer had the capacity to support the demands of the Colony, having been so determined to meet the workloads of other castes, they had selflessly overlooked themselves.
A careful and meticulous review of all brood tender tasks took place over that month, before a restructuring and reinforcement of the caste was established. Never again would they fail the young charges who depended on them for care. There must always be capacity for the brood. This was paramount.
All across the operations of the Colony these errors and lapses were uncovered and swiftly rectified. Like molten steel the Colony purified itself over and over again, hammering out the imperfections and doing whatever was necessary to ensure that they would never repeat themselves. A feverish energy gripped each and every member as they realised how close to disaster they had come and the vast amount of work that was required to secure the future of the family without leaving any gaps for our enemies to exploit.
This was the true wisdom of the Eldest, the true lesson that lay hidden within the rebuke they had delivered. An immense amount of work was required to expand the territory and power of the Colony, it was true, but far more was needed to do so faultlessly, without leaving gaps that others could exploit.
In seeking to push ourselves and expand quickly, moving to take on what we saw as the greater challenge, we had in fact been shirking the true labour, being lazy.
Which could not be borne.
Also at this time the Colony completed its mapping of the tier four evolutions, a subject of thousands of hours of careful research. The evolution lists had been poured through, each organ and possible mutation investigated to see what best suited the needs of the Colony. For each caste, two main variations became the default evolutions where more specialist evolutions were not required.
The soldiers came in two main types, offense and defence. All soldiers were tough and strong, with thickened carapace, reinforced mandibles and extra muscle added to the head to power their jaws. Yet the defensive battles that the Colony had fought demonstrated a need for a hardier breed of soldier. Higher Toughness, regenerative plating, innate healing factor, magic resistant carapace coating, these ants did all that they could as they continued to evolve to harden themselves against all blows. The offensive soldiers, whilst not sacrificing their survivability, focused on enhancing the penetrative power of their mandibles, such that even the armour of the Legion wouldn't be proof against them should they fight again. Thickened muscles, sharpened mandibles, extending jaws, friction reducing mandible coating, acid hardened edges and strengthened legs. These ants were like the living sword of the Colony, determined to cut through anything that stood in their way.
The scouts split into two main variants, focusing on speed and long range bombardment. Although both remained swift, the faster of the two specialised in ranging far from the nest, engaging in rapid-response actions and using their streamlines profile and hyper-mobile legs to reach truly absurd top speeds. Utilising chameleon carapace coating, they are stealthy and capable of remaining undetected via even magical means. Devoting their attention to a hit and run style of combat, the other main variant of scout dedicated themselves to accruing damage over time, employing their highly developed and potent acid alongside their pressurised firing organs to achieve stunning accuracy over long distances. Though larger than their brethren, these ants need never draw close to their enemies, spying and firing on them from great distances.