Chrysalis

As before, my consciousness fades away before it’s drawn from my body. The dizzying experience of having one's soul sent spinning down the plug-hole isn’t one that I missed, but I’m starting to get used to it.

What does that say about my life?

Eventually, everything falls still and I float, formless in the void. I suppose that means I’ve arrived?

[Indeed. I am interested to see that you have survived yet again.]

Wow. Way to damn me with faint praise. You sound surprised that I survived. I’ve been kicking backside in the Dungeon! I’m taking names up there!

[You continue to surprise me with how well you have adapted,] Gandalf muses. [If all of your fellow introduced souls performed as well as you, progress would be much more swift.]

Progress? Progress to what?

[I don’t believe that is any of your business.] The voice is faintly amused, happy to continue dangling his secrets beyond my grasp.

Fine. Keep your damned secrets to yourself then. I’ve got other things I want to complain about.

[You want to complain?] Gandalf sounds almost surprised, as if nobody had ever done so before.

Of course I do! Diamond Centipedes? I mean… really. DIAMOND CENTIPEDES! Why don’t you just spit in my face, huh? Why not just show up and poke me straight in the eyes? It’d hurt less!

[I believe I’ve explained to you that I am not in direct control of such things. The centipede species has been performing well in the Dungeon and so they are being propagated. Success breeds success.]

Performing well? My family has stomped them into the ground every time we see them! Obviously, ants are the superior insect. Something must be direly wrong with the Dungeon if it keeps spitting out those clawed idiots.

there are no mistakes. The System does not

Could have fooled me….

You decided to forgo

shrug as a bodiless soul-thing, but I make

really my

picked up by the powerful Dungeon Seers located around

There’s also that, I suppose.

the Paragon to its conclusion. Though I didn’t expect you to choose the Altar of Self. You have been

this is a little un-ant of me, but I want to step forward to protect my family from the things out there that want to harm them. The best way for me to do that is to become strong enough to

[Even the Ancients?]

this stupid Call in me? It’s a literal pain in

muses, [I ceased taking pleasure in their futile struggles millennia ago.

Struggles? Against what?

I suppose you

elaborate on

[No.]

the mud. Are you going to let anything slip? It’s not like I get a lot of opportunities to come down and speak to you. In fact, I’m probably running out of chances to engage in this conversation. Pretty soon, I expect I’ll run into the wall and won’t evolve much anymore. One or two more times, probably, three

journey and engaging in these conversations has

just throw out words like ‘cycle’ and

a cyclical manner, mana surging, new monsters emerging, fighting to see which are the best, then receding and

are currently in a surging part of