Chrysalis

I'm a little nervous. What's the story going to be? No matter what I don't think it's going to be something I like. Don't keep me in suspense, let me hear the damage. Just how bad are things going to be. The three guards remain perfectly still during this time, watchful and poised they don’t miss a single movement I make. The three older shapers are a little more mobile, but not much. I get the feeling that these Golgari are a little more attached to stone than just having different varieties of it for skin. They are unusually still when they don't have to be moving, as if becoming a rock themselves.

[You know the purpose of our Cult?]

[Absolutely. You desire for a twentieth ancient to take its place amongst the other nineteen. Something about 'closing the circle' or some such.]

She nods her head in agreement.

[That is correct. We seek to empower a monster in order than it may come to dominate the lower Strata and achieve a tier of evolution on par with the existing ancients.]

I'm a little surprised to hear that.

[Do you actually know what tier the ancients are?] The theoretical maximum tier? I wonder how high it is! Ten? TWENTY?!

[No, we don't.]

Dang.

[To our knowledge there have been only two conversations between the sapient races of the surface and the ancients. During the Cataclysm we now refer to as the 'Time of Rending', the mana level in the Dungeon rose to unprecedented heights. When the tunnels connected to the surface, mana from the centre of Pangera flooded the skies, followed a tidal wave of monsters that nearly washed away any remnant of civilisation on this world.]

Yikes.

bad. How long

all that they found. Tales of the destruction they wrought are legend to this day. Scholars debate the history of these events, for not much that was written during that time survives today, but we do not believe the ancients sought to particularly destroy the surface world. In our Cult we are told that they devoured monsters more readily than

how monsters get stronger

ancients cannot evolve, nor can they level up. This we believe to be true. So why consume so much? Could it be that they sought

people think they were trying

[Sure…] I lamely agree.

to before spoke of the 'Red Truth'. This is the name given to the knowledge that was passed on from a dialogue between a powerful Kaarmodo Wizard and Arconidem, who rose under their lands. For us, it was Yarrum, the Eternal Worm. A Shaper by the name of Irrin Stelix communed with the great worm before founding the

they say?

three of them snap their attention

not share,] the words

need to

about

are not able to receive the words of

Gotta … you just gotta love them ancients. Worms.

sincere and fervent love of the ancients and worms. For my part, I

A new voice breaks into the conversation, younger, a little more light than

I? It was the first wave

wave was immensely dangerous to us at first, but eventually turned into a boon for the colony, enabling us to harvest experience and Biomass at an unprecedented speed. By the end of it, I'd started hoping it might stick around. The solid defences we encountered on the way down to the second strata gave me pause

The mana levels in the upper strata rose beyond what we would expect, by far, and the duration of the wave

but muse, [it started to rise not along after I was born in the Dungeon and its never gone back to the level I experienced then. I can't say I never wondered why that might be the

another brief pause as