Chrysalis

[Is there a particular reason why you Sophos are so loud?]

[LOUD? WE’RE TALKING MENTALLY YOU CRETIN. NOT A SOUND IS MADE!]

[Formo! You know exactly what I mean! Every time I form a mind bridge with a Sophos I’ve had my head rung like a bell! Can you tone it down a little?]

[WE ARE SIMPLY EXUBERANT, MY BOY! FULL OF BEANS!]

[I seriously doubt you eat beans, Formo.]

[WELL, NOT UNLESS IT WAS A BEAN MONSTER I SUPPOSE!]

[Just, take it down a notch, please?]

[I SHALL- ahem. I shall try. I must say young Anthony, I didn’t expect that I would see you again. Judging by your change in size, you’ve been quite productive over the course of the wave.]

[Well, once the colony got rolling, the wave was almost more help than it was harm.]

[Hmm. I wonder if you understand why that might have been the case.]

[I’m not sure what you mean.]

[No matter. Come, my boy, let us wander this way. My domicile is found near the forge.]

I expected, but the place is much more humble than I had assumed it would be. After my first meeting with Formo, I

and such lived and had been informed that most of them lived in holding areas beneath the village. I’d been a little surprised at that. I’d expected that they might treat their pets a little better, considering how much they relied on them. Tiny and Crinis have been sent down there as pets are discouraged in the upper levels. I’ve been assured they’ll be treated with

of Mana Veins here. The walls are bizarrely clear of them, light instead being provided by a series of core powered lighting installations. I was pretty darn interested in learning how the heck they did that but Formo was

the real defining feature I could pick out was the mottled colouring of their skin. Most of their skin was green, but some had

lot of your people around Formo. Is

us! We’ve worked hard to ruffle the Dungeon’s feathers and it doesn’t appreciate it, not a whit! So

bitter he

work? The Dungeon just up and

talking about, but when the opportunity to rant about the Dungeon pops up, who am I to

I

use of it. When the Dungeon tunnels connected to ours, we were the first to come into contact with monsters and battle them. The surfacers

[That’s terrible.]

After hundreds of years, we were so steeped in the mana of the Dungeon that the stupid System couldn’t differentiate between us and monsters. In an instant, like a switch was flipped, we lost

boggled. What a tragedy!

more than a thousand years ago, and there are some of us still alive from that time. We were nearly wiped out, I’m afraid to say, it was a close run thing. Luckily we’d relied on our pets from the outset, and they did not desert us. Now we build our settlements around any spawn point we know

do you actually fight the Dungeon? Is it a thing that you can hit? I thought

seems to think it runs the show around here. The Sophos may already know about it, or they might

against the interests of the Dungeon, once you know what it wants. For

a heap of those after all the fighting and eating that’s gone on over the last few weeks and I haven’t been bothered to read through them all. I actually unlocked Garralosh’s full profile after eating her Biomass, considering there was only one of her the Expert Profile was unlocked

Those damn centipedes

Formo nodded his head.