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.

of there and rips your head off?” she scolded him. “You’ve

she was, but decided against it at the last

told her. “Beyn told

“Good idea.”

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

a never ending cycle. Even so, the effects of the wave were impossible to ignore. Monsters would burst out of the ground inside the camp at all hours; one even emerged

fought them off as best they could. It was probably a good thing they’d been doing so much fighting recently. Pretty much everyone was getting used to swinging some sort of weapon

Even the old ladies.

without fuss, then made their way towards the back of the camp, where it butted against the cavern

week,” Beyn insisted. “Your devotion is to your credit, Sister Myra, but I will not have members of this pilgrimage

demanded. “Everyone is certain our lack of symptoms can be attributed to the protection of

mandibles to shield us from much harm, of that I have no doubt,” Beyn agreed, “but for other trials, we are expected to carry the burdens ourselves. The mana thickens precipitously as we descend, and were we to advance to the Shadow Sea without tempering ourselves, then many of us would falter. It takes time, time we can use to reflect and meditate on

liked the idea of reflection and meditation since it sounded holy

approached and Beyn

and Jern, how fare

Alis gushed. “We were just outside the camp looking at the tunnel down. Are we really going to have

looked grave

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

created a low-mana zone within. All of them had been expected to spend time inside, slowly letting the

probably due to go back in, Alis,” Jern told

at him and then tried to cover it with a cough, not wanting to appear difficult

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