Chrysalis

After further hours of roaming back and forth, trying to get a sniff of our prey whilst fending off the endless tide of demons, we finally get another hint.

It’s Al who manages to catch a glimpse, and he lets us know with his usual even demeanour.

[I found something,] he says.

[Oh yeah? Like what?]

[I believe I have detected a trace of almost pure ash mana. It is… unusual.]

[Get at the point, man, enough of your waffling!]

[What are… waffles?]

[Argh! Damn your endless curiosity! What is so unusual about this ash mana?]

He glares at me, which is quite the intimidating glare, I might add, and I know that the question of breakfast foods has only been delayed, not resolved. Nevertheless, he continues.

[Its purity.]

I swear to gandalf, I’m about to flatten this damn eyeball into a pancake. Perhaps he senses my rising ire, because he elaborates without further prompting.

[I suspect it has come from Pyrixan. Only she, that I’m aware of, could manifest such a powerful and concentrated form of that mana.]

[Goody.]

Is it nice to know we got a hint of our enemies? Yes, of course, but I’d rather it didn’t come in the form of manifested destruction in the form of concentrated ash mana.

[Where are they?] I sigh.

[I found the trail at the edge of my awareness. Several kilometres that way.]

can sense

[I can.]

see if you can sniff out anything

[Agreed…. Now, waffles.]

[Oh for -... fine.]

breakfast baking. I’ve been told that waffles are great with syrup; personally, I never had the chance to try it, but these are the little details Al is

minutes of careful travel, Al pipes up

[It’s them.]

it’s almost a shock to

[What? Are you sure?]

flares

[I am.]

news! We finally caught up

wings as he holds his little body aloft, glaring into the distance. That serves as a timely reminder that we aren’t in peak shape. Tiny might be eager to battle, but he’s

that off, we’re almost certainly

this way down into the bowels of the third, away from my Colony, it had better be a trap. If they went to all this effort just to inconvenience me, that’d be annoying as heck.

had a thought, is it a trap, if you

He stares at me.

am unsure what you

an essential component of a trap, or is it a

so I

best to restrain our mana signatures, Al and I sharing the burden of handling Tiny’s since the big ape can’t do it for himself. As we draw closer and closer to the spot

we stick out like a sore thumb. I’m huge, for one, and we’re covered in a moving purple dome of energy

the gravity domain in order to make us less conspicuous?

Will I?

swept away in