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

to say, the fifth, despite everything I’ve heard about it… really sucks. I hate it here. I can’t believe even the mucus-ridden toxi-snails actually

the carvers begin to fortify and lay down the experimental ‘track’ we intend to use to feed the wuffers. After all, they’re helpless little things, unable to fight at all, every drop of evolutionary potential and energy was required to create the incredibly unique set of organs and mutations required to not only tolerate the toxic mana,

contained ‘goop’, 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 into the next and powers up, extending the reach of the formation and drawing in more energy, feeding it back to

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

the incredible engineering

screaming out of the shadows, twisted with rage, and throw themselves into our defensive formation with no regard for their own safety. So long as they can spread the poison and push us back, they don’t even care

but I’m a little different than the others. Having an exo-skeleton is a serious advantage since it takes the acidic effect a lot more time to eat through it than it would skin and muscle. My joints are

thick covering of fur, but 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

his little fluttery wings and noodle arms is the weakest of all of us, physically. Were he exposed to the atmosphere for even a few seconds, he might lose a limb. Thankfully, he’s the

working to push back the monsters before they can reach the rest of my family. Every now and again, I duck into the safe zone, just for a little breather and to give myself a thorough scan, to ensure