Chrysalis

The city was in ruins. Forget about a hurricane, earthquake or other natural disaster, this level of destruction was far beyond that. It looked as if a meteor hand landed on the city, or if a god had stamped down with its heavenly foot. If the latter had occurred then that god had supremely flat arches because the city was just gone.

It looked as if no two bricks still stood one atop the other. Every building had been flattened, the open spaces were strewn with rubble and the once proud, cobbled roads were broken and cracked. In the distance, the hill on which the castle had once stood, with its inner wall and high towers, there was only a ruin.

This city had been built up over two hundred years of effort and endeavour, and now it was gone. If anyone wanted to try and recreate the city, establish the kingdom of Liria once again, they would need to do so from scratch. Heck, even the job of cleaning up this mess would take a monumental effort.

Although, just because the buildings had ceased to be, didn't mean the space inside the walls was empty. Oh no, it was full to bursting. With Monsters.

Across every surface, on top of every stone, they stood, stock still. As if mesmerized by an illusion, monsters of every type from the first strata stood rooted to the ground and stared in one direction, unmoving and still. The site sickened me to my core for reasons I couldn't explain. It was unnatural for monsters to act this way, as if they were mindless drones with no will of their own. These were creatures born of the Dungeon! They should fight, struggle and battle!

Silent and still they appeared weak, like slaves to a greater will than their own. Bears, frogs, centipedes, hounds, slugs, bats, apes, lizards, even a few shadow beasts were in the mix, each doing the exact same thing, staring in the same direction, even the sightless monsters, as if they were receiving the light of the sun from their god.

Or goddess, in this case.

her aura that dominated the air around me grew stronger, threatening to knock

Croc did not seem to follow in that pattern. Of all of her different offspring mutations she most resembled

had the one Crocodile head. It was difficult to make out the smaller details at this distance, but I think she did have more than just the two eyes, I'd have to closer to be sure, something that wasn't

extended from the back of her body, lazily sweeping

head all the way to the tip of her tail. They were dark in colour, and gleamed like obsidian in the light. Her scales were a deep, dark green and even at this range I got the sense that

in monster terms, so long as you discounted

physical reality for a crocodile to be this large. What is this, the cretaceous period?! Someone get this frickin' dinosaur out of

semi-trailer truck, in mass as well as length, since she wasn't just long, she was built. Her neck, shoulders and body were thick with muscle, not to mention her enormous jaws which looked

bewildered by the sheer size of the monster that I failed to focus on what was happening

I sent

is that? What are they doing?] she asked, her mind

you seeing this freakin'

area occupied by the enormous crocodile and tried to divert my focus away from gawking at Garralosh to take in what was happening in the monsters'