Chrysalis

A few hours later, Granin barges into the chamber and pushes past my ever watching triad of guards to climb down into my cell. When he reaches the bottom and sees me feeding a little mini-demon, he freezes for just a second before he bursts out laughing.

[You as well?] I complain.

[I mean - I just - … Can you imagine their faces if they heard?]

Not this again. I'm almost starting to feel guilty.

[He's an incredible piece of work!] I point out defensively. [I didn't even need to do anything to change his core, just fiddled with his evolutions a little.]

[I know, I know.] Granin waves a hand. [I have to say I was pretty impressed they managed to raise a demon so well, it's notoriously difficult to do.]

That's intriguing. Now that I have a demon in my little group, I'm quite curious to learn more about them. The more I know about my team members, the better I'm able to support them.

[Why's that the case? Is it something to do with the basic shell mentioned in the profile?]

Granin nods.

[Demons are a bit of an oddity in the Dungeon. You can effectively think of them as being divided into two groups. The lower-tiered demons spawn as basically brainless, violent monsters who are even more bloodthirsty than your average beast. Sometimes they don't even eat what they hunt, just move onto the next battle to satisfy their bloodlust.]

[What a waste of perfectly good Biomass!]

[I know. As they evolve, they get stronger, but their basic instincts don't go away. All demons are capable magic users basically from birth, even those who focus on it and evolve down the path to becoming like our little friend here,] he gestures to the Envy demon, [get more adept with magic but are still enslaved by their instincts.]

[So they get smarter, but remain mindless killing machines?]

[Basically. They become more cunning killing machines.]

Third Strata

But we aren't

[There's more?!]

to the second group. These are the upper demons. More powerful, more specialised and entirely in control of their instincts. Just as smart as the surface races, they

demons evolve enough, they

This is shocking news!

of the Red Truth. The Demon Cities are a massive threat to the civilised

guys don't trade or interact with them in any

Abyssal Legion wages a constant war or the Demon Cities, trying to exterminate them entirely. To any delvers, the demons are a continual menace. They don't want us down there and hunt down any delvers they find like animals. Thankfully, they spend far more

Aren't

Granin shrugs helplessly.

city, then the demons in the city next door are fair game. They might be able to control their urges, but that doesn't mean they don't enjoy indulging them. Be careful with your new friend there. He's not able to betray you, but you might find he gets a little erratic

adorable. He can't support himself on his wings just yet and has to 'walk' around on his little stick-thin arms. When I try to feed him a tiny mouth appears in thin air to start nibbling on the Biomass I offer. Obviously, I'm not feeding him the Biomass from his own former body. I don't know if

the demon, we need to work out what you

ice magic turned out to

rocky face turning

going to need something else. You're aiming for the rank five fusion, which is unlikely to happen before the end of the tournament, so raising the elemental skills won't

I hesitate.

have a … uh … special attack that I can use. If the enemy is taken by surprise, it basically a guaranteed win. I could use it in

stares at me

Gravity spell?]

is,] I

don't fully trust Granin and his team. More than that, I don't trust the broader Shaper community even a little bit. Granin thinks for a moment and speaks a few words to Torrina. She nods and concentrates hard for a time before nodding back to her

trigger on it this time. Even in this short amount of time, Gravus' allies are moving on his behalf. Things are going to get rough for us and the next matchup is going to be a serious problem. If you blow up the next opponent with some powerful unknown spell, then they'll be screaming to have you taken out

I shouldn't

get to work early, we can lay the groundwork for our counter-argument. The leading triad doesn't have universal support in their suppression of you and between now and then we can stoke those attitudes and point to the numerous abuses that start popping up. With a little luck, we'll have enough sympathy on our side that when they try to

sound completely sure