Chrysalis

Exploration of the Dungeon has been the task of all the civilised races who make their homes above the ground ever since the first opening was made known to us.

However a unified approach and the free sharing of information has proven impossible to facilitate. Each kingdom, church, organisation or private army or noble house than has devoted resources into plumbing the depths and secrets beneath our feet has withheld their own slice of information from the common perception. Hoarding slivers of information like family treasures.

There Is much information that has been publicly confirmed, however, enough that all citizens have a reasonable awareness of the world below, the dangers and opportunities that can be found there.

Some the key information regards the various Strata, the levels, defined by both their depth and the concentration of mana found there.

The First Strata is generally accepted to lie from the surface to five kilometres deep. It is frequently referred to as the Strata of Beasts, since most of the monsters found there are exaggerated, terrible hybrids of creatures that have long existed on the surface.

As for the lower Strata, the second and below, information is much harder to corroborate.

From the ’Knowledge of the people, a series of essays’ by the Magio Scholar Tarius.

I manage to pass a fairly profitable day in this manner.

During the quiet moments I manage to construct a third pitfall trap and add it my expanding network, excavating another tunnel to connect it all together and gaining another level of excavate as my reward.

My fairly crude traps have proven surprisingly capable, netting a consistent flow of prey that I have been able to finish off quickly and conceal within my tunnels, feeding the majority of the Biomass to Tiny and taking a little for myself.

Over the last day I managed to take four Biomass for myself, which I’ve stockpiled for the time being. I could take two upgrades to pheromones immediately but I don’t particularly see the need. It isn’t as if I’m cooperating with the colony at the moment so the pheromones won’t help achieve anything.

I did start to feel a little guilty about leaving the colony to its own devices for this long. After digging out the third trap I decided to start the arduous process of connecting my small network of pitfall traps to the main nest by way of a rather long underground tunnel.

This particular project will take a long time to actually complete, particularly since I have to return to the traps to check on the situation every now and again, as well as making frequent, ever longer trips to transport the dirt and rock I’ve dug back to the surface.

is proving more and more difficult. I’ve had to travel ever further away from my pitfalls to find a space to dispose

the area they tend to scatter the dirt and pound it into the ground, concealing my work to some

time to feast and then sleeping immediately. Every time he wakes up he’s grown a little larger and after repeating this process four times across the day

his teenage size, all he wants to do is sleep and eat.

If I can continue to feed him up at this pace he’ll be able to

monsters I’ve gained the experience but I haven’t managed to get that crucial level ten. Every time I finish off a monster now I await the pronouncement of Gandalf with all of my soul but he hasn’t given

know patience is required but it’s so hard when the goal is so damned

some more, let the feeling of ant-zen wash over me and take away my worldly

of traps to the colony. Gradually I lose my sense of time as I work,

desires, or wants. There is only the

CRASH!

PREY! GETTEM!

sprint towards my traps. So eager am I that

at the walls of the pit and tearing apart the branches

brutish, it’s fur is thinner and patchy, almost as if the creature were sick. The thickly muscled limbs testify to the brute power of the

yet. A fetid, diseased pallor, fluid leaking from each eye and missing teeth are the first impression I get and further glimpses don’t improve my opinion

from every pore of the monster’s body, filling the air and

Wait a second...

quickly learn that I AM in pain! I’m losing health

me just by being nearby? I’ve never seen anything like this

I more health I’m going to lose, stop slacking about Anthony, get in

POW! POW!

tunnel into the pit I present the back-zone to my prey, eyeball it over my shoulder and unleash two blasts of the restrictive acid, catching the

try and restrict its movements. Looking at the monster I’m