Chrysalis

[Troglodyte?! Where in the BLAZES did you get that thought?!]

This guy is so touchy! Judging from the ’sound’ his voice makes in my mind I definitely consider him to be male, he sounds like a British general from the 1800’s.

Oh.. Uh.... I took a look at the ... Dark Crawler core and it said they were engineered by... Troglodytes... so I assumed...

[BOSH and POPPYCOCK! Only the BLASTED system in this Dungeon refers to my great people as "cave dwellers"! We refer to ourselves as the Sophos and have done since before this SMARMY Dungeon existed!]

Uh... poppycock?

What is a Dungeon anyway?

[... You are inside the Dungeon you BLITHERING simpleton! You’re smart enough to talk to me but have no idea where you are?!]

I’m... not local? Sir?

I have no idea how to talk to this guy. He doesn’t have eyes I can focus on, I feel rude staring at his wrinkly forehead.

[What do you mean not local? You’re here aren’t you?! I can’t imagine a BLASTED thing like you could get out of the Dungeon at all! Those DUNDERHEADED surface dwellers lack the sophistication and senses of us Sophos! If they’d seen you they’d think you were any old monster and squashed you flat I dare say!]

Despite his voice frequently rising to a mighty roar, filled with energy and outrage, his body never moves, not even a twitch. The juxtaposition of voice to frame is completely bewildering, I’m finding it hard to focus on all of the incredible information he’s passing me!

Please... Sir! I haven’t had a chance to ask anyone as... knowledgeable as yourself about this... Dungeon! If I have caused offense by eating your crawlers I am very sorry! I thought they were just monsters and attacked them.

[Just monsters? BALDERDASH! I laboured many hours in the monster forge to produce those beasts! How am I to complete my reconnaissance of the forest expanse without them? HMPH! If you weren’t so unique I’d have already fed you to Crinitus here!]

You can tell I’m not a normal monster?

[Of course! What do you take me for? Some primping, pink, puffy HUMAN? My people are renowned over Pangera for our unsurpassed mental magic. UNSURPASSED I SAY!]

AHH! Yes! Clearly unsurpassed!

My bootlicking seems to mollify him a little, though it is hard to tell since he basically has no face. I try not to think such thoughts too loudly lest he pick up on them and feed me to his worm.

[Hurrumph! I could detect the movement of your thoughts long before I came upon you here. Clearly not the mind of a monster spawned from this WALLY of a Dungeon! What say you, ant?! How did you come to be?!]

Uhhhhh.

How can I explain this... I... died? On another world? And then I ... uh.. Woke up here in an ant body... ?

...

...

[By the MAGNIFICENT MINDS OF THE MIGHTY SOPHOS! You were reborn here you say?!]

the sheer volume of the response I can barely think a reply. I

.. Yes!?

[I see!]

of silence follows as my brusque new associate absorbs

to the recorded wisdom of my people you are not the first we have encountered

people like me that were reborn in the ..

[Yes].

...

still around? What happened

Another pause.

been when they encountered us. Others were

statement without shouting, perhaps he

mad

don’t seem particularly

Uh.. No?

find your new environs to be ...

I was pretty used to being on my own with nobody to talk to... and it

were a human previously as I understand it from your thoughts, you don’t find it strange to

...

I was too busy trying to level up and evolve, then I found the colony and

...

silence. I wish this guy would move or something! I can’t even tell if he’s

...

STIFF UPPER LIP, that’s the

Gandalf! He got his

that one of your kind had survived and gone deep into the Dungeon. Whether or not they had come from the same place as you before they were reborn, I dare not say. The old records detail many powerful monsters who survived countless battles and descended deep beneath the surface. To my people they are known

this Dungeon go? We must be nearly a kilometre down where we are, it

...

SAY! What a jape! Where you a joker in your

I’m wrong then

a tear

kilometre under the surface here, but common knowledge amongst my people puts the radius of Pangera at slightly over 10,000 kilometres. As

... Right.

so stupidly dangerous already then! Not

because of the

Wave?!

...

old BEAN! I shouldn’t forget that you know nothing of this place! Have you not noticed that the number of monsters and the density

I have!

Soon a phenomenon known on this world as a ’wave’ will occur. Simply put the Dungeon will start to spit

a

it already spitting out massive numbers? And where will