Chrysalis

“It’s all yours,” Magellant said magnanimously.

“Are you sure?” Columbant replied, antennae flicking with indecision.

“Of course. You and your team did the bulk of the work, I only arrived to provide cleanup at the end.”

“Then I will claim it with gratitude. You have my thanks.”

With one swift movement, she scooped up the powerful core sitting on the stone between them and tucked it into the pouch slung around her carapace. All of a sudden, the bag felt far more burdensome than before as the dense core settled amongst so many weaker ones, but it wasn’t unwelcome.

The serpent had been a powerful monster, with a strong core. She would study it carefully when she had the time, documenting everything she could find for the core shaper records. After that would come the brain-bending work of altering the core, attempting to engineer an even more perfect creation.

If all went well, she might have found her fourth pet! She’d need to buy the Skill to increase the number she could have first, though.

“I can’t thank you enough for arriving when you did. The situation was hopeless.”

“I noticed that the tunnels were far more dangerous than expected and thought it would be best for us to meet up early. I’m glad your trail hasn’t faded, otherwise I might never have found you.”

“It’s a bit embarrassing, but I made the poor decision to flee trouble by going deeper into the Dungeon. A foolish mistake, I know.”

Ranging from the Colony as they did, there were basic principles that they all strove to follow. The most fundamental of all: deeper is more dangerous, not less. No matter how inviting and safe that tunnel might appear, or how much pressure you were under, you didn’t go deeper unless you were fully prepared.

Feeling the pinch from heavier than expected fighting, Columbant had taken one turn that she should never have considered and ended up in an even worse predicament as a result.

“You want to head back to

we planned to stay out longer, but after recovering this core and running so close to disaster,

get home, I’ll be able to hit my Biomass targets as

to be the price of cutting the expedition short, then that

return journey, scratching out maps and lines on the tunnel floor. They were sixty kilometres from the territory of the Colony in a straight line. Naturally, the Dungeon didn’t work in straight lines. They’d have to

close to the position they held, huddled against the wall. It was necessary that they

other and their loyal pets.

work,” Columbant said, examining the diagram closely, “are you ready

“Right away.”

heading home,] Columbant said to

had forced Columbant to reevaluate just how durable her design really was. She’d felt that nothing would be able to threaten the beetle-beast within the second stratum, but

fifth tier would do a lot for the group, allowing the softer targets like Rist and Slither

far away, though there was a little work

journey was a long one, the rising tide of monster spawns slowing their progress significantly. Thankfully, as a consequence, Magellant had no issues collecting the Biomass she’d

core shapers finally crossed the threshold into the Colony’s territory, they heaved a

pheromones against their antennae, all their stress melted away. The random monster attacks ceased; within the well

came across siblings who waved and welcomed them

home! How far out did you

“Working hard out there?”

sure you…

had seemingly come from the shadows, but when Columbant turned

be caught skipping on rest. Now that she was home, she had a great deal of torpor to catch up

second homecoming for the two core shapers occurred when