Chrysalis

Moving with extreme caution I move away from the lake. I’m fair game out here and there are many monsters who would love a slice of this delectable pie.

In the war for survival stealth is still my most powerful weapon.

I’ve been able to gather quite a bit of Biomass, probably more than usual for a creature of my level, by operating as a scavenger, picking up the rewards when others have done the dirty work, but unfortunately this doesn’t work very well for XP.

With the exception of the completely bizarre battle between the Dragon Wolf pack and the centipedes, I’ve had to carefully pick and choose my prey in order to get XP and that remains the case.

It would be nice if, on this trip I can successfully carry out a hunt on my own and defeat my opponent one on one.

I need the confidence as much as the XP, I won’t be able to stumble across wounded opponents forever.

Keeping myself as hidden as possible I dart from cover to cover, keeping all of my senses sharp.

After that last stomach full I’ve returned to full HP and my antennae is showing no signs of the extensive damage it endured during my last fight, thankfully my leg had healed long ago.

This forest really is strange, it feels like every time I turn a corner I see something weird I hadn’t seen before, like this bright orange fern looking thing. The tip of every branch has a thin tendril of an almost weblike materiel hanging down to the ground.

Won’t be touching those!

Out of curiosity I flip a stone using my mandibles towards that plant but nothing happens. My wariness doesn’t totally dissipate though. It’s possible the plant will only react when something organic touches it.

Instead of standing about eyeing off a fern I keep moving.

I come across a few different creatures as I move in the general direction I saw the hunters leave in, a large pack of small, ape like creatures were congregating around a particularly large tree. I give those guys a wide berth.

If only I had the support of more of my kind! Seeing these large groups of smaller monsters really gets me down for some reason.

I also saw a few Dragon Wolf cubs on the prowl, yet another group I couldn’t take on.

Feeling a bit stifled by my inability to find something I can fight I decide to do something I wasn’t able to do before.

Climb a tree to scout around!

my Grip skill to

can see so much further now! Behold the power of my

Ah!

and there are a few shapes on it, possibly tents?

I shall investigate!

my destination in mind I continue to snoop about while making my way towards that distant

don’t want to start any combat whilst those hunters are about, if they come over to investigate I’m going

take things

hill. They appear to sitting in

semicircle around their seating area, a few large back packs

poles and at first I think they are hanging their clothes from it but when I stare a little

is here to hunt monsters and take cores and

good position and

where camp is I have a crazy idea forming in my

virtue to the monster, this is almost the

to head out once more. As I watch they strap on their armour, check the edge on their blades and banter

something interesting happens, as a group they step out of the camp and once they are about ten metres away they all pause whilst the mage concentrates and prepares her staff. Once again she focuses for an extended period, runes appearing and rotating around the head of her staff before she taps the foot of the staff against the

outskirts of the camp glow brightly for

been completed the group moves away from the camp, heading towards

lake, ambushing the unsuspecting monsters who have gathered, then returning here to wait until the lake

way to slay

I’m certain they are heading towards the lake, then I double back

guys must have harvested a lot of monster cores

a shame if something were

Gweheheheheh.

cast as they left however. I’m sure that if I walked towards their camp an alarm would go off or I’d be melted on the spot

is no way I’m walking

willing to try

The power of

a little over hour if we account the time to travel to the lake and back, as well the time to fight and scavenge. Plenty of time to dig

by my Dig skill I can shift a surprising amount of dirt with

Muahahahaha!