Chrysalis

I don't know what’s up with these demons, but they are seriously feeling themselves at the moment. Every now and again, we’ll be out on the plains and some tier five Stab Demon will come sprinting at me from out of nowhere, leap ten metres in the air and come crashing down like a spear from the heavens… only to bounce off my carapace without me noticing.

Where is your sense of self preservation, idiot?! Life is precious, a miracle of mana and coincidence, don’t waste it like this. Alas, monstrous life is as cheap as it gets on the third, and the price is currently crashing through the floor. In fact, I’d go further. It crashed through the floor, through the basement and burrowed deep into the earth where it found a portal to a new reality, the EvenDeeperVerse, where it continues to plunge to new, mind-bending levels of depth.

The spawn rate for demon larvae is getting so out of control, they’re starting to scrape the bottom of my carapace when I walk over them. Usually this happens when one of the vicious little stabbers jumps too high, not from being stacked on top of each other!

The vastly increased number of larvae of course means a vastly increased number of higher tier demons roaming the plains. They hunt each other, or, if feeling particularly full of themselves, have a go at passing Mythic Monsters.

But something else weird is happening as well. Something I haven’t seen before.

[Over there, Master. Another group.]

[Where?]

[Tiny is pointing at them.]

[Ah, so he is.]

Hmmm.

[It’s still odd, no matter how many times I see it.]

[It is unusual, Master.]

These are,

eyeball blinks

unnaturalssss,] he says with

My boy is growing up. I feel a tap on my carapace and notice Tiny has sidled up to me and poked me

it? What

me to ask your

shoulder nonchalantly, but I can see his ears twitching in excitement. Ho boy. This is going to be

do you think

me, a serious expression plastered on his face. He narrows his eyes and nods slowly,

[Odd,] he declares.

me a solemn

I really

the back and steps to the side. The air coming off him

want to say something, but I can’t bring myself to puncture

going on in the pea-seed brain of yours

plains in the middle-distance, a pack of tier five demons going absolutely wild on everything they see. This is extremely unusual behaviour for demons out on the plains. They’re solitary hunters, preying on each other until they reach tier six, at which point they gain true sentience and seek out a city to take them in. Here we see a gathering that breaks that pattern. These demons should be trying to slice each other's faces off, but instead,

It’s not natural.

we’ve seen this lately either. Ever since we broke off the assault on that demon horde, we’ve been creeping about hunting while looking for another horde to take bites out of and

is that these demons have become possessed by the will of Arconidem and are acting against their own natures. Should

me to

who’ve banded together, just like they have, in order to do whatever the Ancient goonball wants them to do… will

[... Most likely, Master.]

can just form… out of the blue? Like, if enough of them get together, that’s just a