Chrysalis

To be honest, I find the thought of my three pets evolving more exciting than my own prospect of evolution. I can’t wait to see how the three of them turn out. Especially Invidia. The demons are super weird in the way that they evolve, and the little dude has been stuck at tier six for a heck of a long time. His Skills have come along really nicely, since he grinds a heck of a lot more than Tiny, and more than Crinis even.

His mastery of mind magic in particular is stunning. It’ll be interesting to see if mind magic turns into anything else as it goes up in rank.

I’ll need to settle down and look at my own Skills and mutations soon as well. I’ve got some big decisions to make, especially in regards to my Nave. Things are going funky in the cathedral, and I need to try and work out a more clear direction. Not to mention the more powerful mutations I’ve been offered at +35. I’m keen to see what sort of effects I can get on some of my other organs.

I’ll have myself fully maxed on mutations way before I even need to think about my next evolution, which will be nice. Geez, my next evolution, heading to tier eight… I have no idea what sort of insane options I’m going to be offered at this point. In fact, I won’t have an option to continue my current, multi-part evolution. I might be offered something that finally takes me off the paragon path.

“Eldest, Eldest!” One of the scouts rushes up to me and I see it’s Wills.

“What is it?” I ask as she runs over.

“There’s something going on up top. They want you up there!”

“Eh? What do you mean ‘something’? There isn’t any more information than that?”

“I’m not sure. There was some weird activity down on the shoreline that the scouts found suspicious.”

“Suspicious? More suspicious than the endless swarm of sea monsters sprinting on their fins at our walls?”

“Different,” the scout snaps back, frustrated. “Something different than a horde of sea beasts sprinting at our walls. I’m not sure exactly what it was, but it was deemed worrying enough that we decided to send a runner to get you.”

“And you came yourself because?”

fastest scout in the

enough, let’s

pillar until the two of us reach the walls. The fighting is still constant up here, and the din of battle shakes my antennae as the ant defenders subject the endless press of monsters to a buffet of acid and devastating magic. Without any ceremony, the two of us press through the rows of ants until we reach the front and Wills points

“Down there!”

I look.

I pause.

I look again.

“That is weird.”

“Right?”

pole formed of some sort of glimmering blue stone

okay. I understand why you got

you

someone is playing a joke, or they’re trying

don’t think anyone is going to

Do we put together an escort to bring

the middle of a wave? They’ve got

diplomatic contingent, but there aren’t any down here on the fourth stratum at present, why would there be? All we’ve been doing is fighting and building. We don’t need anyone to

thing

take control of this situation. Clearly, I’m in the best position to represent the Colony to… whoever we’ve got

would they welcome being connected to a monster in this way? There’s a lot of questions, but I can already tell that I’m just going