Chrysalis

I leave my pets and Vibrant working on the shortcut tunnel and slowly encroach on the marsh expanse solo. It isn't that I don't think they could fight whatever it is that we find in here it's just that I don't want to attract unwanted attention at this point. So I do something I haven't had to do for a while.

I engage stealth ant mode.

Luckily I'm still relatively small for a monster so remaining unseen is still fairly simple, the plant growth is thick here, reeds and hillocks blocking line of sight in every direction. Slowly and cautiously I creep about, all of my sensing apparatus tuned to their most fine state, twitching at every shift of each tuft of grass.

I'm tense!

Super tense!

With this stupid pressure hanging over my head and flying solo for the first time in a while I'm really feeling the heat. It's also unnerving to be moving through this swampy terrain where there could be monsters under the water or indeed, every plant could also be a monster! Luckily I have my heat detection for the latter, the plant monsters register much higher on that sense due to their peculiar biology than normal plant life, thus I manage to avoid most combat as I navigate around the edges of the terrain.

I try not to stand on the top of the mounds that poke out of the waters lest I present my silhouette to prying eyes, I don't particularly want to have this magnificent form lighting up the eyes of every croc and murder flower in the expanse. So I get the best view I can whilst staying low.

This expanse is freakin' huge. Much bigger than the forest expanse and that one already pushed my understanding of what an underground space could be. The roof is easily twice as high and through the low lying mist and trees I can't quite see the walls as they widen and curve away from our entrance. From what I have seen though I would judge this place to be at least double the size of the forest.

around 10,000 km, which would make it significantly bigger than Earth, as I recall the radius of earth was 6 ish

the expanses get even larger the lower you go, some are truly ridiculous from what I've heard. Perhaps they would even be a similar size to some countries on Earth if we were to compare the floor area, which is crazy to think about. Still, this marsh is easily larger than I expected to find an expanse in the first layer of the

either hitting the jackpot or a noose around my

mana infused natural resources like wood and stone with properties are all features of the expanses. Great opportunity also brings with it great danger. Expanse' are great points of conflict, not only between nations of the surface but between monsters down below. The big dogs all want the best territory and

monsters to terrorise the nearby surface but are also herding the weaker monsters straight into the belly of their parent to

head. Surely not… The monsters seem unusually quiet and obedient

more investigation can happen we need to learn more about the terrain in

one to the next to move around without getting my feet wet but I can't sense any heat sources under the water and I can't see

right at home here. The trees are dense, standing tall on splayed roots that plunge their thousand divided fingers into the waters and mixed between them are more tree-like monsters, their bark exteriors concealing the hungering

swampy water and spread their branches impossibly wide. Huge fleshy leaves the size of a lounge room spread shade everywhere. From below

Oooo here we go.

the plant. The flower itself is beautiful, shades of yellow and orange rippling across the petals

HACK!!

Vigorously I shake my body to caste of the lethargy that had started to wash over me due to the influence of that damn plant. This must be some kind of mind affecting ability, perhaps caused by