Chrysalis

It was strange to be able to smell death. It seemed like the sort of thing that shouldn’t have a smell. Sure, things like decay and rot, they had a distinct scent, an extremely potent one, but those were distinct from death itself. A function of death, in a way. When a person died in front of you, or around you, there wasn’t a discernible odour, as far as Jern could tell. It wasn’t like the soul leaving the body was something his nose could detect.

Yet, as he stood on the precipice of the second stratum of the Dungeon, he could smell death.

He didn’t like it.

“It’s so cold,” Alis shivered as she stood by his side, looking down into the slowly stirring darkness.

“It’s going to be colder once we get down there,” he said.

“I don’t want to think about it. At least it’s supposed to get warmer once we reach the third.”

From what he’d heard, Jern wasn’t confident she would enjoy that heat much more than the cold. He’d conversed with a few ants from the next two layers, and it seemed to him that neither were all that hospitable. Only when they reached the fourth would they find a climate they would consider suitaboe for life.

“I never thought I’d be standing here,” he noted aloud.

Alis looked at him, and then back down the sharply sloped tunnel. The border between the first and second lay before them, a sharp border in the Dungeon. To both of them, it looked like a cloud of ink that revolved almost imperceptibly, a dark pond he could toss a stone into. After a moment, he shrugged, picked up a small shard of rock and lobbed it forward, gently, just a couple of metres.

As it fell into the ‘pond’, the flat surface didn’t ripple, it wasn’t disturbed in any way, and the sound of the rock hitting the tunnel floor reached him a second later, muffled.

“What did you do that for?” Alis asked.

“I was curious,” Jern defended himself.

out of there and rips your head off?” she scolded him. “You’ve got to be more

idly considered telling her he was much better at killing monsters than she was, but decided against it at the last minute. Alis didn’t particularly enjoy being reminded of

should probably head back,” he told her. “Beyn told us we shouldn’t be out here too

“Good idea.”

wasn’t far away, constructed in a large cavern formed from the intersection of multiple tunnels. A common phenomenon, he was told. Passages between strata were much rarer than regular tunnels, so

hardened stone were patrolled by armed pilgrims, hundreds of them at a time, and the ants swept the surrounding Dungeon on a never ending cycle. Even so, the effects of the wave were impossible to ignore. Monsters would burst out of the ground

off as best they could. It was probably a good thing they’d been doing

Even the old ladies.

and Alis waved to the guards, who let them in without fuss, then made their way towards the back of the camp, where it butted against the cavern wall. They found Beyn not far

remain here for at least a week,” Beyn insisted. “Your devotion is to your credit, Sister Myra, but I will not have members

from the Dungeon Sickness?” the grey haired woman demanded. “Everyone is certain our lack of

ourselves. The mana thickens

reflection and meditation since it sounded holy enough for her

approached and Beyn smiled at

and Jern,

at the tunnel down. Are we really going to

looked grave and

of these people burns strong, and I would hate to force them to delay on their holy journey. Dungeon sickness is a very real and truly dangerous concern. There are many in the camp who have been suffering silently. Were it not for the aid of our ant sisters, then I’m afraid hundreds, maybe more, would have

zone within. All of them had been

to go back in, Alis,”

at him and then tried to cover it with a cough, not wanting to appear difficult in front of the priest. Then he remembered

and I thought I should do it today. I was hoping you could advise