RinoZ
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Chapter 1449 - Kicking into Full Gear
🕑 Added 2024-09-18 07:19:53 +0000 UTCSorry the chapters have been late! I was... uh... distracted by Satisfactory and Frostpunk 2.
I repent.
Have all the chapters for the week!
Bod tomorrow.
It was truly impressive to see what the family was capable of when they really put their minds to it. I’m so used to my siblings’ unified way of thinking, thanks to the Vestibule, that I’ve stopped considering what it actually looks like to others when all the ants work in such a coordinated fashion.
During a break from exploring and fighting territorial monsters, I take a little time to creep back up to the entrance to the fifth, just to check things out.
I have to say, I like what they’ve done with the place.
It hasn’t been that long, all things considered, but the narrow entrance into the tunnel, and indeed the tunnel itself, don’t look anything like what I remember when I first came down here.
In fact, it couldn’t be more different.
The entrance has been widened and the engineers have been busy working on it. A series of lifts are in constant motion, rising and falling as a never ending stream of ants, people, materials and everything else needed to fuel the invasion comes down. I can only imagine the shenanigans going on above in the fourth to maintain this flow. Solant’s logistical mastery at work, no doubt.
The tunnel itself has transformed completely. Cleansed by the blue mana, it’s lost the toxic atmosphere and hazy yellow-green hue I see everywhere else in this place. Instead, the carvers have turned it into a massive hub for receiving and distributing everything coming down from above. There are stockpiles, warehouses, wide paths filled with traffic I guess I could describe as roads.
Unsatisfied with the existing network of tunnels, the Colony has been busy boring their own channels through the rock to make more direct and efficient connections. I can already see the colossal fortress that Solant has envisioned starting to take shape, and this right here is intended to be the beating heart of the operation. We may never be self-sustaining here in the fifth, but as long as we can move things efficiently from the fourth, we should be able to get everything we need to make it through the coming wave.
Just thinking about the wave is enough to dim my spirits a bit. I mean, they’re always terrible, but this next one….
Take any stratum, during a wave, whatever makes it a pain in the carapace is dialled all the way up to eleven and beyond. I still shudder to think of the never ending hordes of demon larvae on the third clawing and chewing on each other as far as the eye could see. Just what is the fifth going to be like? How much more awful could this place really get?
I know the answer to that question: a lot. It’s going to get a lot worse. I may not be able to articulate how, but I can feel the slimy doom coming in the tiniest hairs on my antennae. Man, they’re twitching already, that’s how bad it’s going to be.
Actually… that makes no sense, what the heck is going on?
I am definitely detecting something, and I’m fairly sure it isn’t my own future despair, so just what am I picking up?
To the surprise of everyone around me, I launch to my feet and start crawling over the area, my antennae sweeping from side to side as I track down the sensation like a bloodhound on a scent trail.
Luckily I’m large enough to step over everything in the way, but that doesn’t mean it’s not discomforting for the non-ants who have to watch the giant monster crawl overhead.
Thankfully I don’t cause too much of a disturbance as I move through the area, focused on the faint feeling I’m getting. It’s definitely gravitational, I decide. There’s a slight eddy in the field, or perhaps several, but they're quite small, barely enough to register the ‘noise’ of everyone else moving around in here.
I spend ten minutes moving this way and that, doubtless getting in the way of many people, but for some reason this is really sticking in my mandibles and I’m determined to work out why. Eventually, I come to what I’m fairly sure is the source of at least one of the disturbances, but find myself quite confused to be staring at a wall.
I mean… it’s a nice wall, as far as they go. Natural, Dungeon-formed tunnel, vintage stuff, newly cleaned of slime and mucus, top quality rock, all that good stuff. So why in the heck am I getting vibrations coming from it? The wave hasn’t started, so there shouldn’t be monsters forming in there, so what exactly is going on?
That’s when I notice the very slight hole, little more than a crack and I lean closer to investigate. Yes, there’s definitely a cavity of some sort behind this wall, though it isn’t very big. I don’t suppose it’ll cause much of an issue, so I shrug and engage my mandibles, tearing chunks of stone away to reveal the little hidden pocket… and the monsters tucked away inside.
Aha! A sneaky little spawn point must have formed in there, but… but what have we got here?
There’s roughly a dozen of them, bigger than demon larvae, possibly the size of ant hatchlings, and they are aggressively red, glaring up at me with fluid-adjacent eyes and limbs. With little to no warning, they throw themselves at me and I rear back, instinctively unleashing a barrage of fire magic that evaporates the little creatures.
[You have slain Level 1 Vas Rubrum]
[You have gained XP]
Uh… excuse me?
Comments
Sean Hibbitt
If ever I saw a good excuse for not working, it was satisfactory and frost punk :p
DrDankness
Dove went full on mad hatter. I think his time as a skull knocked a few screws loose. Now that he got a body and agency he might end up the scariest and funniest lich out there.
alt31415
Yeah, that's what everyone's put together by now. What's your point?
TheLostGolem
As long as Rinoz doesn't discover techtonica... I'd fear for the chapter release schedule...
Cdrsan
Also fell down the satisfactory rabbit hole, heck the Factorio DLC comes out in October too, I can't escape 😵💫
evyatar
True, but it could just be the maker as they know it, the fifth layer had changed and everything and everyone from before died, then when the rending was still midway, the maker was in the fifth layer himself, they see him as their god who constructed their world, the fifth layer? So “the maker”
alt31415
Yeah but the Krath refer to him as the 'Maker'.
evyatar
But I don’t think he created the karth, he corrupted them, the purified eggs are probably the origin of the race before the Rending, another ancient race that lives underground like the core shapers that got declared as monsters
evyatar
This type of fighting in the fifth where he faces sneak attacks and swift ambushes would give him some really good actual combat experience, not in the terms of levels, but actual valuable use of his mutations and getting used to moving at extreme speeds as a normal reflex to dodge attacks, even minor ones, this would serve him really well in the future when he fights, I hope to see his actual combat advancing, this is fighting sentients, and sure, he doesn’t get biomass, but I bet his skills level up extremely fast, when he is in 24/7 delving into tunnels while ‘engaging’ the slugs while using his precog dodge skill and his mind magic and such to continue
taukid
0.000000001xp is still xp!
alt31415
We had their names shown a long time ago but I can't remember. Starts with T, I think? The toxin-ancient whose domain is said to make the 5th-strata look like a pleasant seaside vacation.
Desmond Cheong
The maker from 1446 is the sleeping ancient in charge of the fifth (krath)? demons-arconidem. Krath- ??
Shimelton
I find the excuses… unsatisfactory.
alt31415
Thats too much to hope for
Athena Alexandria
I literally delayed reading these chapters because of Satisfactory 🤣
Roombot
Or will the blue mana surge with the wave?
Shane Mitchell
Satisfactory and frostpunk can be forgiven
alt31415
Red Vessels? Interesting. Also one thing I'm worried about is the extra mana that comes with a wave, pushing back against the Wuffers' blue.
Rahsheem Reid
Just like the eldest! Make sure you are getting proper rest also!
Ruwa
I wonder if they can be core shaped to be immune to the slime or perhaps be like the wuffers and purify it. Either way they might make interesting pets
afgasd adgasd
My brother in Christ satisfactory has dominated the majority of my free time as well
Ian Levy
The purified monsters begin to spawn
CentaureHeart
The wave is going to be rough for the Colony but the purified monster will also hit the Slugs
Runaway_Cactuar
Lol RinoZ. Crazy how you get XP for a LV1 larvae...
Buck
Oh RinoZ, frequently have you repented the error of your ways in falling under the seductive sway of video games and even more frequently have you again sought them out to play rather than writing more Chrysalis chapters! 😂
Shawn Liu
definitely the original monsters/ecosystem of the fifth
Kiongku
Satisfactory 1.0 is out but good thing Rinoz is not distracted by Deadlock too…
Nathan Emerson
I wonder if those are the original monsters of the fifth.
ChillyPepper
One day, decades from now, I'll be surrounded by loved ones in my final days. As we look back on a life well lived, they'll ask me what the best day of my life was. I'll respond with certainty that it was this day, with 5 new chapters dropped, half of one being dedicated to bullying the Legion and saying one smelled really bad. Thank you and enjoy satisfactory :P
strainge guy1
Red vessel?
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter! New monsters?!
Azgaroth
Thank for the chapter. Did RinoZ update all at once all the delayed chapter??? Also does the "New?" monsters are the Fifth Startum Monster, when cleansed from the Mana/Mucus??? Edit: The answer to my first question was in bold at the beginning of this chapter, i am blind....
Gonvas
Damm! 5 in a row 🤩🤩
