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.]

my first meeting with Formo, I envisioned the Sophos to be an all-powerful community of core shapers without compare. I’d assumed that they would live in the lap

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

installations. I was pretty darn interested in learning how the heck they did that but Formo was

few Sophos I saw. Most of them looked fairly similar, the real defining feature I could pick out was the mottled colouring of their skin. Most of their skin was green, but some had patches of red, or blue, or even orange I saw. Other than that, their featureless faces appears the same from one to the next.

Formo. Is it a market day

course not! There just aren’t many of us! We’ve worked hard to ruffle the Dungeon’s feathers and it doesn’t appreciate it, not a whit! So

bitter he is from

Dungeon just up and decided your people

don’t much like talking about, but when the

sure I wouldn’t

seep through the ground, we were the first to experience and make 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 ignored our warnings and laughed at our pleas for help. I

[That’s terrible.]

to keep a good Sophos down! We adapted, thrived even! But things began to change. 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

tragedy! How the

I’m afraid to say, it was a close run thing. Luckily we’d relied on our

the Dungeon? Is it a thing that you can hit? I thought it was

already know about it, or they might pin me down and dissect me. They seem pretty anti-system

interests of the Dungeon, once you know what it wants. For example, have you seen the Expert Profile of a creature after consuming a

I’ve unlocked 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 straight away. I haven’t been able to bring myself to read

I have. Those damn centipedes were the

Formo nodded his head.