Feed on the food and you will eventually rot, feed on the rot, and you will live forever.

- Kraul Saying

Overseer Zavok sighted, wringing his wings together to make his displeasure know. This was the third rot-farm that they had clean today. The devastation of the surface had seeped even in the depts of the Undercity and even six months after that atrocious war, there was still a lot of rubble to clean. The orders of the Queen Vraska and the High Priest Mazirek were clear: all the rot-farm in the entire Undercity had to return completely functional before the coming of summer, lest the entire city didn't want to face the worst agricultural crisis, since the Guild Wars. Since the resurrection of the High Priest, cleansed from Bolas' wretched influence, the Krauls had worked tirelessly to restart the food-producing machine that sustained the entire ecumenopolis of Ravnica.

Unlike those rotten elves, too busy to complain and whine about her majesty.

Zavok stared at the collapsed ceiling and the coated skeleton that had crashed it. A massive dragon, covered in that disgusting substance, lazotep. Somebody had entangled his wings with some overgrown vines, his fall from the sky had destroyed the ceiling of the rot-farm. It made sense, as this was one of the farms closest to the surface. Mushrooms and parasites had already attacked the vines that blocked the Dragon's wings.

The overseer kicked the corpse of the mighty beast, full of disgust. He had fought against the Dreadhorde, during the War, along the Krunstraz, the Kraul's Military. He had watched the snake-headed giant topple the massive walking temple of Vithu-Ghazi. And, yet, Rhonas, so they called him, was toppled too. By a little man with a fancy sword, no less.

He heard that the Giant was worshipped as a god by his smaller kin. A god-Eternal. For this was, how this wretched horde, fancied themselves: The Eternals.

How foolish, how preposterous…

These wretched beings thought that they could attain the Kraul's immortality by simply wearing these weird blue exoskeletons. Idiotic. Kraul's immortality didn't lie in their exoskeletons but their numbers. For each one that died, a new Kraul took the place. The Kraul's Swarm had lost so many in the War, so many noble martyrs had fallen, picking their weapons to defend their mothers. The Archenemy Nicol Bolas had even seized the High Priest, twisting his mind and turning it against the Golgari but that had mattered little. Even the High Priest was replaceable in the end. The Kraul had fought, nonetheless, the Kraul had bled and yet the Kraul had already recovered their losses, fastest than any other faction on Ravnica.

To shield yourself from the rot, with this disgusting blue mineral and to call yourself Eternal. How heretical. How can you proclaim yourself Eternal, if you refuse to rot? Only those who embrace decay can live forever.

To refuse rot, to fail to embrace decay. That was why the Archenemy Nicol Bolas had lost.

And that was why the swarm had endured.

Zavok barked orders to his workers, agitating his staff. Enough philosophical quipping. They had to remove the body, it was too big for simply move it through the tunnels, so they had probably to chop it to pieces, which meant that the Overseer had to wait for a specialized team. They had already lost enough time today.

Zavok basked in song, trying to relieve his stress. When he was only a young Kraul, that had just eaten his way out his blessed mother's womb, he dreamed of becoming a singer, to join the chorus of the Undercity, to sing for the High Priest. Alas, the Swarm showed him his true calling, to lead the others. Nonetheless, he always enjoyed listening to the chorus of the Undercity, to be part of something big, it was something truly marvelous.

During the climax of the War, the music has stopped, the insects had escaped into the depths of the Undercity, while the Dreadhorde marched on the surface. And yet the Dreadhorde now lied dead, while cicadas, crickets, and katydids sang, celebrating the death and rebirth of Ravnica.

It was foolish that the surface-dwellers failed to understand that the Old World had died. The Dreadhorde may have lost the war, but Ravnica-That-Was was dead. Something new had taken his place. A new Guildpact had risen from the ashes. Niv-Mizzet, the former Parun of those imbeciles of the Izzet, they liked so much to dig their fancy contraptions in the tunnels that belonged to the Kraul.

Our queen would have fitted so much better as the New Guildpact for she was fair and just. Her majesty Vraska had been the first to acknowledge the Kraul, the first to see potential where the Elves had only saw cattle. Zavok adored his Queen and like any respectable Kraul, he had personally silenced everybody who tried to spread those treacherous lies. The vile elves dared to say that Vraska was in cahoots with the Archenemy Nicol Bolas, how they dared? Nicol Bolas had possessed their High Priest, but the Queen... No, there was no way that the Queen would have betrayed the Swarm.

Yes, it was only a lie, a rancid lie of the Elves that craved to warm their buttocks on Vraska's throne. Disgusting, vile elves. If it wasn't for the kindness of his Queen, Zavok would have already grabbed his spear and slaughtered any elf, unfortunate enough to be in his sight. Women, Children, Elders, all of them deserved nothing more than die and rot, feeding the ground.

Maybe one day but for now Overseer Zavok was just happy to be an instrument of his Queen's Will.

"Sir, we have found something."

One of the workers approached Zavok. A Kraul, thin and young, Lurek was his name, if he recalled correctly.

"What is it, another dead abomination of the Archenemy?"

"No sir, a vagrant"

Two other Kraul arrived carrying an unconscious body. Overseer Zavok inspected it. The body was covered in a peculiar armor and Zavok cringed. It was an armor made out of carapace. Even if the colors were all wrong, the smell was unmistakable. Could this be Kraul's carapace? The Elves used, before the Queen rise at the Throne, to harvest Kraul's carapace for their armor, to treat the Kraul only like cattle. The Kraul hated it. At nobody, the Kraul had ever bestowed the honor to wear their exoskeletons. To kill the Kraul for their hide, it was a crime punishable with death.

The Overseer relaxed; upon closer inspection, this wasn't Kraul carapace. It was an armor made with normal bugs remains and spider-silk. Good, perhaps this vagrant knew proper respect. Zavok continued with his inspection: the armor was quite peculiar, different to ones of the Golgari Swarm, mostly due to the lack of mushrooms on it. The head was adorned by a helm with peculiar orange lenses and long black silk that humans used to call hair. There was also a small pouch hidden under the small skirt of spider-silk. The Overseer handled the pouch to one of his workers, while he focused on the intruder.

He checked for the Vagrant's vital pulse. Apparently, the other races had an exoskeleton so thin that it was possible to feel their viscera moving under it. He learned it only during the war and Zavok found it disgusting. Still alive but unconscious.

The overseer pondered on what to do. The armor was peculiar, very peculiar. Perhaps this intruder was one of those planeswalkers? If that so, he had to send a report to the High Priest. The Vagrant was fortunate to have been founded by the Kraul, other factions on the surface had come to hate Planeswalkers for their responsibilities during the war but their Queen was a Planeswalker too and how could the Kraul hate Queen Vraska? It was inconceivable.

The overseer ordered to lie gently the vagrant on the soft ground, while another worked was sent to report at his superior. It was important to understand if the Planeswalker was an enemy or an ally for the Swarm.

Then the Planeswalker's hand twitched.

And the song of the Underworld stopped.

A wave of pain plunged deep inside the Overseer mind. It was a feeling like anything before. He dropped his staff on the ground while clutching his head. The other Kraul workers did the same. Zavok felt like a burning command was being impressed into his mind. A siren call to join a new swarm. It felt like being part of a new consciousness. To swear allegiance to the Queen.

Pain, pain, and yet... it didn't felt bad.

The Planeswalker body twitched again, and the wave of pain subsumed. The song started again.

But it was different. Exotic. The cicadas are changed their tones. The verses of the crickets were different and the low bellows of a Deathbrige Goliath had joined the symphony as to welcome the birth of a new Queen.

The Planeswalker body shifted, it was going to wake up soon. Even, now that the wave had subsumed, Zavok and the other Kraul could feel the itching in the corner of their minds. A low calling, a single word repeating their mind.

Protect. Queen.

Zavok recalled the messenger and gave him a new order. To go to the High Priest Mazirek himself and contact him with the utmost urgency. The rot-farm could wait.

He stretched his wings, doing something he never did for so many years. He sang, for this planeswalker, for this new queen, he joined the chorus.

This new symphony that had just started.