Chrysalis

To purify the fifth’s mana is an absurd idea, a comical suggestion. It’s impossible, everyone knows it’s impossible, and not because we haven’t tried, or made half-hearted attempts. Hundreds and thousands have died, enough resources to bankrupt an empire have been spent, over several attempts, some by individual empires, some by conglomerates of several major powers.

All have been unsuccessful. Not only unsuccessful, but unmitigated disasters. Even when these efforts managed to gain a foothold, they were eventually snuffed out, unable to hold their ground against the unrelenting pressure placed upon them by the fifth. The monsters there will not abide any change to the environment, which is itself a horrifying ordeal to overcome.

Then, there are the Krath tribes, roving bands of sadistic killers, who will unleash unspeakable torment on any they capture, breaking the will of would-be invaders and sending them running back to the safety of the fourth. Against these factors, purifying the fifth has become nothing more than a dream within a dream.

Yet, when the great ant spoke of it, I couldn’t help but have hope.

- From the private notes of Rathwyn Werilos, Mage of the Tower

sucks. I hate it here. I can’t believe even the mucus-ridden toxi-snails actually enjoy living here. Take a vacation in the fourth

all, they’re helpless little things, unable to fight at all, every drop of evolutionary potential and energy was required to create

aka fifth stratum mana, to feed to our happily chuffing wuffers. The answer the carvers came up with was a sweet track system. Each section slots

can lay down the track. The end result is that we can easily

incredible engineering of

if we can’t defend it. Defending our territory is becoming harder and harder every second as more and more native monsters sense what we’re up to. The second they do, they come screaming out of the shadows, twisted with rage, and throw themselves into our

different than the

that’s no defence against the omni-present acid. Every time he so much as sticks a finger outside the slowly expanding bubble of clean mana, he has to snatch his hand back as it begins to sizzle. Even Crinis has a hard time. Her flesh… shadow… I mean… is it even flesh anymore? Whatever. It’s a lot of things, but it ain’t that durable, so if it's exposed to the acidic atmosphere, it starts to burn away rather quickly. Even worse for her,

might lose a limb. Thankfully, he’s the one who is the least likely to suffer, since, as a master mage,

monsters before they can reach the rest of my family. Every now and again, I duck into the safe zone, just for a