Chrysalis

"Get back here!" I grumble at Brilliant, "if you don't behave yourself, you're going back in the mouth!"

She freezes in the process of dashing off into the city and turns back towards us.

"Do I even fit in there anymore…?" she asks doubtfully.

[Invidia, show her the mouth.]

He does.

"I see that I would indeed still fit…" she says, the scent faint.

"Yes, yes you would. When it comes to mouths, Invidia is ranked second in our group behind Crinis in terms of size and believe me, you don't want to spend any time in there."

"Why is that?" she asks, her curiosity overwhelming her good sense… as usual.

"Because everything that goes in there is slowly annihilated, disintegrating into tiny molecules that are then digested. She doesn't even need teeth to shred her food."

"That's… horrific."

"I think that's the point. Anyway, before we run off into a strange city full of demons that we don't know anything about, how about we stick together as a group and agree on some simple ground rules?"

"Ground rules like what?"

are a snack. Try not to get eaten. Second, let's try not to antagonise anyone, pun not intended. I'm pretty sure the city

"Crystal!" she nods enthusiastically.

with the promise of new

I

the hatchling carefully. I get the feeling she'll try to run off

the wall that encircles Grokus' compound, and therefore the base of the pillar, and any other structures, a gap we cross rapidly and find ourselves immediately surrounded by the press of strange buildings

or any sort of planning having gone into the layout of the city that I can see so far, which correlates to the obscene tangle that I witnessed from above. It looks as

to each other, there are almost always some differences that can't be put down to mutations alone. Compared

lot more demons

[I do not know.]

it

"ROAR!"

BOOM!

the heck

shaking crash rattles through the air and I plant my feet firmly, antennae swaying through the air rapidly. To the side, I see that Tiny has leapt forward and snagged Brilliant off the ground before she could make a getaway, although she was heading toward the source of the noise, as

go check

to react all that much to the disturbance, seemingly far more interested in us than they are in whatever caused it. Feeling my tension unwind a little, I nonetheless keep my guard up as we thread our way through the buildings toward the source of the noise. A few minutes later we find what we're looking for in the form of a large, brutal looking demon dragging away what appears to be whatever is left of the demon he had a disagreement with. The ground is heavily cracked, and a few nearby walls are clearly damaged, but again, nobody seems to be willing to do anything about it. The hulking form of the grey skinned behemoth slowly stomps away out of our line of sight,

the very peak of tier six, judging by his core. Clearly a physical build, he was as

Tiny, you can’t go

looks disappointed, relaxing from the impressive pose he'd pulled in order to