Chrysalis

Before Crinis can dive headlong into the enemy and give herself a terminal case of toxic mana poisoning, I rush back to the safe-zone, alerting the ants as I go.

“We’ve got an attack! Weird… things coming out of the river!”

Once I’m close enough, I use my antennae to try and scrape Crinis off my carapace and fling her into the purified mana, but she clings onto me, refusing to go. More accurately, she lets her body become shadow, and my antennae just slide straight through her. Heck of a trick.

[Crinis, get into the safe-zone, that’s an order.]

[I want to help fight!]

[Sure, do it from inside there. Go! Shoo!]

Unable to resist a direct order, she has no choice but to accede to my demand and slink back inside the blue mana. Invidia is already there, hovering over the blob of darkness, healing and cleansing her of the infection she’s accumulated.

Seriously, eating the things that live here is dangerous business. If we could work out a way to clean the Biomass so we could consume it safely, that would go a long way to helping us break through the stratum.

Considering there’s literal tons of inedible monster coming towards me right now, it’s a bit unfortunate we haven’t worked out that solution yet. Ah well, no time to worry about it now, I’ve got weird… slime things to destroy!

wide and mind-constructs spinning, I run forward to put myself between the monsters and the Colony. The only problem with that strategy is the fact the river runs all the way down the length of this tunnel, which means there’s a good stretch of it within the safe zone, and of course there are enemies emerging

interesting to see. We know that they hate and try to destroy it, but actually being inside it? Let’s just say it doesn’t seem to agree

inside the purified area. Perhaps they were all going to emerge in there, but one of them jumped the gun when I got too close to the river. As it stands, I shouldn’t need to help out

care of the monsters in there!

not

see him to feel the grin stretch across his bat-like face. With a

able to pull themselves back together or something. Keep fighting until you get the

news that these opponents can take a lot of punishment only seems to fire him up more.

do? I don’t want to get too close to these things; I’ve already got a dangerous level of toxin exposure, and getting wrapped up by half a dozen of these things wouldn’t help the situation. With the bulk of my mind-constructs devoted to purifying myself, I

of the tunnel in a disgusting tangle of gloopy limbs. The muck of the river sloughs off them as they move, leaving a trail behind that will have to be cleaned up later. Ugh, these things

quick for their size, squelching and slurping as they use their many limbs to propel themselves forward. Every now and again, I catch a glimpse of their gnashing maws, right in the

are like an awful, fifth stratum version of Crinis gone wrong, aren’t they? If she’d been like this the first time I saw her, there’d be little chance I’d

see how they deal

me further. Using my reflexes and forewarning, I dodge efficiently out of

VOID CHOMP!