Chrysalis

"Fall! Fall, you interlopers, invaders and unbelievers! You are the nutrients provided by the Dungeon to grow something greater! Your Biomass will be the building blocks used to construct the new Path! The new way! Go in peace, under the mandibles of the Colony!" Beyn orated, his sonorous voice rolling through the tunnels like wind.

"Give it a rest, would you?" Isaac muttered, working his spear relentlessly alongside the soldier ant next to him.

Why he wasn't back on the surface patrolling the quiet streets of Renewal and enjoying the new ale being brewed up there, he still didn't know. Instead of relaxing and putting his feet up, here he was in the Dungeon, fighting alongside the Colony and the several other surviving members of the town guard, getting an earful from the mad preacher while they were at it.

After another five minutes of fierce battle, the sudden rush of shadow beasts was finally put down and Isaac gathered his people rest. He pulled off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow as the others did the same, patting each other on the back and sharing any levels or Skill improvements they might have gotten.

"Friend Isaac!" came a voice from behind him.

"Ah, plops," he cursed before turning with a smile to see the one-armed priest approaching, hunched over due to the weight of the shield he bore on his back.

Isaac pulled a face.

"I'm not sure you really need to be carrying that thing around," he said, "Do you even get a strength bonus from your class?"

"I do not," the priest said, breathing heavily. An hour of yelling hadn't winded the man in the slightest but carrying an oversized shield for twenty metres knocked the air straight out of him. Classes, what a thing. The vagaries of the System were nothing new to Isaac, he was born and bred in it, had never known a life without it. "… but the burden is light," Beyn gasped, "as I am strengthened by my faith. The shield of righteousness is my burden to bear, as decreed by the Great One directly."

"Did the 'Great One' really decree that?" Isaac asked sceptically. "That's not exactly how I remember it."

of the Great One's actions," the priest replied defensively, "would you rather I bother them endlessly with questions about

you do that

"That's not the point!"

little unusual for him to this flustered and Isaac could see he looked tired, worn out by some internal struggle. Though every instinct in Isaac's body screamed in warning, he reached

man?" he asked, "you don't seem

youth were invisible in the man, burned away by the heat of his conviction. In this moment, Isaac was reminded that he was, in fact, the older of the two of them. The priest was a young

him, leaving him looking more like a confused young man than Isaac had ever seen him. "I think…

mana sickness is it? Have you been back

his head

fine.

Isaac looked at him

hesitantly at first, then

fallen dramatically since the siege ended. I have tried to explain to the faithful that a class such as this is hard to train, and likely powerful as it advances, but they hunger so desperately for the next improvement, the next chance for the System to illuminate this glorious path. They take risks, they push too hard and no matter how I try

patrols," Isaac protested this idiocy, "every single one of them. In terms of hours on duty, they exceed every single one of the guards, even the trainees we took

underground city had grown more and more accustomed to life under the 'rule' of the ants, the more they had grown to like it. To the poor and working people, the Colony were liberating heroes. When Isaac had formerly opened the ranks of the guards to volunteers after the siege, there

hoping the Colony never actually found a use for all the gold they'd

and need a great deal of teaching, lest they do or say something that tarnishes the image of the Great One and undoes our work spreading the word. This has

his eyes and Isaac got a clear look at how lined and webbed with