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!

I use my claws and the potency of my Grip skill to

can see so much further now! Behold the power

Ah!

shapes on it, possibly tents? This could be

I shall investigate!

my destination in mind I continue to snoop about while

to start any combat whilst those hunters are about, if they

start to take things very slowly, darting from cover to cover

top of the hill. They appear to sitting in a circular shape on stones and bits of wood they’ve put together as

tents arranged in a semicircle around their seating area, a few large back packs are strewn about the place along

has been strung across two poles and at first I think they are hanging their clothes from it but when I stare a little harder I realise they are monster hides hung

here to hunt monsters and take cores

settle into a good position and decide to

camp is I have

the monster, this is almost the

once more. As I watch they strap on their

they all pause whilst the mage concentrates and prepares her staff. Once again she focuses

flare around the outskirts of the camp

away from the camp, heading towards the

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

to slay monsters I

sure I shadow the group until I’m certain they are heading towards the lake, then I double back and head

have harvested a lot of monster cores

something were to .... Happen to

Gweheheheheh.

of the spell that was cast as they left however. I’m sure that if I walked towards their camp an alarm would go off

no way I’m walking over

try

The power of

my might. I probably have 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

empowered by my Dig skill I can shift a surprising amount of dirt with each chomp and

Muahahahaha!