Chrysalis

Life in the fourth stratum is considered by many to be the pinnacle of existence. The rich mana intensive atmosphere, the wealth and prosperity available to those who are strong enough to hunt the powerful monsters, the abundance for those who can pay for it. Many empires of Pangera have shifted their capitals to this layer of the Dungeon over the thousands of years since the breaking.

This has caused a strange environment to arise in the fourth, as it is, without a doubt, a place of tremendous danger. The monsters that populate the stratum are without a doubt powerful and vicious, many of them being intelligent creatures capable of great cunning, even communication. The great sky-wyrms, the most threatening of their kind, have roamed the mountains for hundreds of years; growing up to a hundred metres long, they are fearsome opponents and have caused the downfall of many a hunting party, or even cities.

Thankfully, the ingenuity of the sapient peoples is nigh limitless. In their fortified mountain cities it is possible to live an extremely comfortable, and secure life, though that peace has been bought, and continues to be paid for, in the sacrifices of others.

• Excerpt from 'The Life of the Great' by Tiritus

[Oh! There you are. Thank goodness.]

[Sarah?]

The great bear snout snuffs about before she shoves her head through the narrow opening and I spy her big bear eyes blinking at me owlishly.

[I've been trying to dig you out, the termites are everywhere.]

[Yeah, I noticed. How the heck did you manage to find me?]

[Bears are good diggers,] she says a little defensively, [I've got strong claws and a great sense of smell. Why wouldn't I be able to find you?]

certainly can buy the part about the strong claws. Those things are beyond strong, they're terrifying. I've seen them cut the

and then point to the side, [and Crinis is

plenty of shadows to work with, little pockets of darkness that she can saturate with mana

are the termites? Do we know where they are coming from?] Sarah

the ends of my antennae

what we can gather, they're busy crawling over the rubble that Tiny brought down on

were aiming to flood us with overwhelming numbers, the big idiot literally brought the house down. I don't doubt he destroyed

the whole point of this exercise. Unable to bring their numbers to bear against us, our foes are forced to dig through literal tons of material before they can put the bite on us. Still, it's only a matter of time, and not much of it, before they clear the rubble and get to us. In order to have a fighting chance, we need to get the band back together

is shifting all of this rubbish

a second, Sarah. I might have

away from the constant manipulation of earth mana and put them back onto gravity duty, except this time I invert it. A reverse gravity domain. It's tricky

Even compressed, the mana can't power the domain enough to lift

[Is that you, master?]

thought it

[It is! Keep going.]

let's try and meet up. Stay put, Tiny. We'll dig to

[Yessssssss.]

I'll clear some space for

to move quick, the termites are wriggling all over the rock, thousands of them now. With a few great swipes of my mandibles I clear enough room for Sarah to squeeze through and then the two of us are

[Right! This way!]