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 sounds

But we aren't

[There's more?!]

and transition 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 have their own society down there

that when demons evolve enough, they 'graduate' into

This is shocking news!

of the Red Truth. The Demon Cities

guys don't trade or

the Demon Cities, trying to exterminate them entirely. To any delvers, the demons are a

Aren't they

Granin shrugs helplessly.

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

'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

what you are going to be doing between now

my elemental skills? The ice magic turned out

rocky face

feel like we're going to need something else. You're aiming for the rank five fusion, which is unlikely to

I hesitate.

attack that I can use. If the enemy is taken by surprise, it basically a

stares at me for

Gravity

is,] I

my secrets. I still don't fully trust Granin and his team. More than that, I don't trust the broader Shaper community even

pull the 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

shouldn't use

I 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

completely