A chrylurk is a swarm within a swarm: each one a mortal’s corpse twisted in metamorphosis then possessed and puppeted by mosquitoes, spiders and slugs; each a thread in the ghostly web woven to ensnare the collective in a grand eusocial symphony.

It is nearly as infeasible to describe a chrylurk as to describe a tree. One could gesture vaguely — a trunk with branches with leaves — but the exact arrangement is never repeated, subject to the vagaries of life-history.

The way I usually explain how alchemy works is the existence of two magical substances. Essence is the fundamental basis of alchemy, and it arises from the dreams and desires of a conscious brain. Why this is so is oft-considered one of the great mysteries of the world. But essence is innately unstable and reactive; whenever it comes into contact with physical matter, combustion-subsumption results and together they create limina.

—O Rancor? Line? (No response.) Where’d you scuttle off to?

Noon sun floated high, but clouds and mist left the grasslands awash in gray. In faint wind, the land roiled like an lake with sharp green waves. The stalks didn’t reach her katathorax — dangerous place for the hive to operate, but such was the only territory left to claim.

By rule, all who left the tunnels by day wore concealing cloaks — and only the upright castes even got that honor. That Trist was granted such a privilege stung like the slightest of insults.

To Furtive Niona:

Oh, miserably do I pick up the pen once more. To think, exscient I was, this exercise ever brought me any mote of joy or satisfaction! How could anyone descry these limp squiggles of ink and find in this anything but locus of limitation and confusion?

I have begun this piece in the posture of a rant, then proceeded accordingly — and that alone is evidence enough of the deficiency, I think. The indignity of a beginning! The insult of a linear procession!

Chitinous tarsi lighted down on cold stone. The sound was lost in the enveloping patter of rain rushing down sloped roofs. Droplets of water beaded ineffectually on waxy exoderm, repelled by the two bodies. Only their setae-furred antennae and locks of silken hair needed any cover.

Darkling sky over chilled air over empty streets. The two chrylurks had retained stealth so far, gliding and bounding over the city’s rooves. Now nearing their destination, they had to descend to the streets, courting the great risk: a mortal spotting them.

Two chrylurks, Gloom and Adversity, crawled through tunnels of limestone. Shimmerbugs aglow were the only illumination, glinting off pools and streams. Water trickled through, carving these caverns deeper, but its work has largely been outpaced by the hive’s excavation. Behind them, the floor bore a layer of crushed chitin and exoderm, and the walls a tracework of woven lines. Both grew scarce as they went on.

One night, a poet encounters a chrylurk. Twelve verses trace the curve of that moth’s spiral-flight.

O curiosity, why in mirrors do you see bloodlust?

:: Be me :: thrallborne. :: Vectored by a master infiltrator :: stealthy as fuck :: slipped right into the summer palace :: infested a princess. :: Court never figured it out! :: Three instars pass :: fending for myself :: totally parasite-mastering. :: One day a hive nurse shows up, starts tending to me :: it’s another infiltrator. :: Court’s face when princess’s favorite maid was a bug and no one noticed.

Golden sky hung above as horizon enveloped sun. Gilded like kintsugi, shining between shards of darkling clouds. This twilight might well have been night already — that suited me.

I crawled up the tower, claws of my tarsi hooking into brickwork. Human alchemists loved this plain white stone. What was it that drew such empire-wide devotion — the symbolic purity? As if this tower wasn’t a stain on forest that had predated it. Even where it wasn’t garrish white stone, it was angular iron bars flecked with red.

For a mortal enthralled to a chrylurk’s will, one’s mind is not one’s own. Trivial wisdom, oft quoted. But for all its overpreached banality, few have reckoned with what this truly means. Chrylurk subjugation is no less than a challenge — a refutation, an annihilation — of the human condition. Beyond human! Subjectivity itself ought experience a profound vertigo in the face of the thralls.

‘(Sleep is another kind of rot,)’ Ava thought. Her dreams had changed. Images hung around. Shapes carved into her sight, afterimage of a some blinding glare. Colors bled from the forms, as hazy as smoke in still air. Maybe blowing out some long sigh of relief — maybe achieving that relief, first — would be what banished them, but Ava was suffocating.

You awaken in chrysalis. Your mind hangs by a web, our web, our embrace. Like dewdrops rolling down threads, your dreams are pulsing-sliding along silken lines, and our dreams enjoin and subsume. Your sleep is long, and communion has washed all vestiges of you into us — tucked safe, in care unending — leaving you blank as a palimpsest. Upon this canvas we shall paint you.

The first law of alchemy defines the chain of emanation. Through dreaming, matter begets essence; through alchemy, essence begets limina; through transmutation, limina begets matter. This is a chain and not a loop, as enforced by the second law of alchemy: It entails that alchemization and transmutation are governed by opposing fields whose energy values must have a product of zero at all points in space. Thus, the “transmutation of dreams” would be a phenomena as paradoxical as a machine perpetually in motion.

Do tapeworms feel cozy or confined, dwelling undetected in those prison walls of flesh? The host feeds them, yet growth must conform to viscera squeezed tight.

A certain ennui gnaws at Vil. (“Vili” if you must — do not use her full name). She has everything a girl could want — provided that girl does not want more than three plates each day, a bed to sleep in, and a life as a bargaining chip.

A veil softly clad the swamp, delivering it from desolation. The chrylurk foundress perched centermost of the web she’d woven. Her claws lightly brushed at the silk drawn atop of rotting log, combing away pollen grains and morning dew.

Once, wizenblight had befestered this land to its very depths. The rot of all things, turning soul against itself, were no more than an abortive mockery of parascixion, but perhaps it spreads so far and wide for that very simplicity.

Serivane was silk that had evanesced beyond the veil that separates the physical and the ephemeral. At least, that was the theory. This Hive we name Ravaging-With-Downpour was built in the caverns behind a grand waterfall at the very rim of the highlands. Serivane ghosted through stone just fine, but running water? The threads always seemed to fray a little bit faster faster.

—O Rancor? Line? (No response.) Where’d you scuttle off to?

Noon sun floated high, but clouds and mist left the grasslands awash in gray. In faint wind, the land roiled like an lake with sharp green waves. The stalks didn’t reach her katathorax — dangerous place for the hive to operate, but such was the only territory left to claim.

By rule, all who left the tunnels by day wore concealing cloaks — and only the upright castes even got that honor. That Trist was granted such a privilege stung like the slightest of insults.

Chitinous tarsi lighted down on cold stone. The sound was lost in the enveloping patter of rain rushing down sloped roofs. Droplets of water beaded ineffectually on waxy exoderm, repelled by the two bodies. Only their setae-furred antennae and locks of silken hair needed any cover.

Darkling sky over chilled air over empty streets. The two chrylurks had retained stealth so far, gliding and bounding over the city’s rooves. Now nearing their destination, they had to descend to the streets, courting the great risk: a mortal spotting them.

Two chrylurks, Gloom and Adversity, crawled through tunnels of limestone. Shimmerbugs aglow were the only illumination, glinting off pools and streams. Water trickled through, carving these caverns deeper, but its work has largely been outpaced by the hive’s excavation. Behind them, the floor bore a layer of crushed chitin and exoderm, and the walls a tracework of woven lines. Both grew scarce as they went on.

One night, a poet encounters a chrylurk. Twelve verses trace the curve of that moth’s spiral-flight.

O curiosity, why in mirrors do you see bloodlust?

:: Be me :: thrallborne. :: Vectored by a master infiltrator :: stealthy as fuck :: slipped right into the summer palace :: infested a princess. :: Court never figured it out! :: Three instars pass :: fending for myself :: totally parasite-mastering. :: One day a hive nurse shows up, starts tending to me :: it’s another infiltrator. :: Court’s face when princess’s favorite maid was a bug and no one noticed.

Golden sky hung above as horizon enveloped sun. Gilded like kintsugi, shining between shards of darkling clouds. This twilight might well have been night already — that suited me.

I crawled up the tower, claws of my tarsi hooking into brickwork. Human alchemists loved this plain white stone. What was it that drew such empire-wide devotion — the symbolic purity? As if this tower wasn’t a stain on forest that had predated it. Even where it wasn’t garrish white stone, it was angular iron bars flecked with red.

‘(Sleep is another kind of rot,)’ Ava thought. Her dreams had changed. Images hung around. Shapes carved into her sight, afterimage of a some blinding glare. Colors bled from the forms, as hazy as smoke in still air. Maybe blowing out some long sigh of relief — maybe achieving that relief, first — would be what banished them, but Ava was suffocating.

You awaken in chrysalis. Your mind hangs by a web, our web, our embrace. Like dewdrops rolling down threads, your dreams are pulsing-sliding along silken lines, and our dreams enjoin and subsume. Your sleep is long, and communion has washed all vestiges of you into us — tucked safe, in care unending — leaving you blank as a palimpsest. Upon this canvas we shall paint you.

Do tapeworms feel cozy or confined, dwelling undetected in those prison walls of flesh? The host feeds them, yet growth must conform to viscera squeezed tight.

A certain ennui gnaws at Vil. (“Vili” if you must — do not use her full name). She has everything a girl could want — provided that girl does not want more than three plates each day, a bed to sleep in, and a life as a bargaining chip.

—O Rancor? Line? (No response.) Where’d you scuttle off to?

Noon sun floated high, but clouds and mist left the grasslands awash in gray. In faint wind, the land roiled like an lake with sharp green waves. The stalks didn’t reach her katathorax — dangerous place for the hive to operate, but such was the only territory left to claim.

By rule, all who left the tunnels by day wore concealing cloaks — and only the upright castes even got that honor. That Trist was granted such a privilege stung like the slightest of insults.

Chitinous tarsi lighted down on cold stone. The sound was lost in the enveloping patter of rain rushing down sloped roofs. Droplets of water beaded ineffectually on waxy exoderm, repelled by the two bodies. Only their setae-furred antennae and locks of silken hair needed any cover.

Darkling sky over chilled air over empty streets. The two chrylurks had retained stealth so far, gliding and bounding over the city’s rooves. Now nearing their destination, they had to descend to the streets, courting the great risk: a mortal spotting them.

Two chrylurks, Gloom and Adversity, crawled through tunnels of limestone. Shimmerbugs aglow were the only illumination, glinting off pools and streams. Water trickled through, carving these caverns deeper, but its work has largely been outpaced by the hive’s excavation. Behind them, the floor bore a layer of crushed chitin and exoderm, and the walls a tracework of woven lines. Both grew scarce as they went on.

A chrylurk is a swarm within a swarm: each one a mortal’s corpse twisted in metamorphosis then possessed and puppeted by mosquitoes, spiders and slugs; each a thread in the ghostly web woven to ensnare the collective in a grand eusocial symphony.

It is nearly as infeasible to describe a chrylurk as to describe a tree. One could gesture vaguely — a trunk with branches with leaves — but the exact arrangement is never repeated, subject to the vagaries of life-history.

The way I usually explain how alchemy works is the existence of two magical substances. Essence is the fundamental basis of alchemy, and it arises from the dreams and desires of a conscious brain. Why this is so is oft-considered one of the great mysteries of the world. But essence is innately unstable and reactive; whenever it comes into contact with physical matter, combustion-subsumption results and together they create limina.

To Furtive Niona:

Oh, miserably do I pick up the pen once more. To think, exscient I was, this exercise ever brought me any mote of joy or satisfaction! How could anyone descry these limp squiggles of ink and find in this anything but locus of limitation and confusion?

I have begun this piece in the posture of a rant, then proceeded accordingly — and that alone is evidence enough of the deficiency, I think. The indignity of a beginning! The insult of a linear procession!

For a mortal enthralled to a chrylurk’s will, one’s mind is not one’s own. Trivial wisdom, oft quoted. But for all its overpreached banality, few have reckoned with what this truly means. Chrylurk subjugation is no less than a challenge — a refutation, an annihilation — of the human condition. Beyond human! Subjectivity itself ought experience a profound vertigo in the face of the thralls.

The first law of alchemy defines the chain of emanation. Through dreaming, matter begets essence; through alchemy, essence begets limina; through transmutation, limina begets matter. This is a chain and not a loop, as enforced by the second law of alchemy: It entails that alchemization and transmutation are governed by opposing fields whose energy values must have a product of zero at all points in space. Thus, the “transmutation of dreams” would be a phenomena as paradoxical as a machine perpetually in motion.

Meanings for the terminology used in various writings in the dark fantasy series, Vermin Cathexis[In Vermin Cathexis].

Vermin Cathexis: Index[In Vermin Cathexis] About[About Vermin Cathexis] Glossary[A Glossary for Vermin]

A chrylurk is a swarm within a swarm: each one a mortal’s corpse twisted in metamorphosis then possessed and puppeted by mosquitoes, spiders and slugs; each a thread in the ghostly web woven to ensnare the collective in a grand eusocial symphony.

It is nearly as infeasible to describe a chrylurk as to describe a tree. One could gesture vaguely — a trunk with branches with leaves — but the exact arrangement is never repeated, subject to the vagaries of life-history.

The way I usually explain how alchemy works is the existence of two magical substances. Essence is the fundamental basis of alchemy, and it arises from the dreams and desires of a conscious brain. Why this is so is oft-considered one of the great mysteries of the world. But essence is innately unstable and reactive; whenever it comes into contact with physical matter, combustion-subsumption results and together they create limina.

A veil softly clad the swamp, delivering it from desolation. The chrylurk foundress perched centermost of the web she’d woven. Her claws lightly brushed at the silk drawn atop of rotting log, combing away pollen grains and morning dew.

Once, wizenblight had befestered this land to its very depths. The rot of all things, turning soul against itself, were no more than an abortive mockery of parascixion, but perhaps it spreads so far and wide for that very simplicity.

Serivane was silk that had evanesced beyond the veil that separates the physical and the ephemeral. At least, that was the theory. This Hive we name Ravaging-With-Downpour was built in the caverns behind a grand waterfall at the very rim of the highlands. Serivane ghosted through stone just fine, but running water? The threads always seemed to fray a little bit faster faster.

—O Rancor? Line? (No response.) Where’d you scuttle off to?

Noon sun floated high, but clouds and mist left the grasslands awash in gray. In faint wind, the land roiled like an lake with sharp green waves. The stalks didn’t reach her katathorax — dangerous place for the hive to operate, but such was the only territory left to claim.

By rule, all who left the tunnels by day wore concealing cloaks — and only the upright castes even got that honor. That Trist was granted such a privilege stung like the slightest of insults.

To Furtive Niona:

Oh, miserably do I pick up the pen once more. To think, exscient I was, this exercise ever brought me any mote of joy or satisfaction! How could anyone descry these limp squiggles of ink and find in this anything but locus of limitation and confusion?

I have begun this piece in the posture of a rant, then proceeded accordingly — and that alone is evidence enough of the deficiency, I think. The indignity of a beginning! The insult of a linear procession!

It bears mention this project has drunk from many sources to sustain its inspiration, cannibalizing both our own past works and lifting concepts from other media — hopefully with meaningful innovation!

Some popular culture osmosis goes without saying: the changelings from My Little Pony and the xenomorphs from Alien are very distinct touchstones. Taylor’s swarm abilities in Worm, or the focus on silk and weavers in Hollow Knight: Silksong also undeniably left a mark on this creation.

Chitinous tarsi lighted down on cold stone. The sound was lost in the enveloping patter of rain rushing down sloped roofs. Droplets of water beaded ineffectually on waxy exoderm, repelled by the two bodies. Only their setae-furred antennae and locks of silken hair needed any cover.

Darkling sky over chilled air over empty streets. The two chrylurks had retained stealth so far, gliding and bounding over the city’s rooves. Now nearing their destination, they had to descend to the streets, courting the great risk: a mortal spotting them.

Two chrylurks, Gloom and Adversity, crawled through tunnels of limestone. Shimmerbugs aglow were the only illumination, glinting off pools and streams. Water trickled through, carving these caverns deeper, but its work has largely been outpaced by the hive’s excavation. Behind them, the floor bore a layer of crushed chitin and exoderm, and the walls a tracework of woven lines. Both grew scarce as they went on.

This plotline was conceived in early 2026 as a narrative that might be easier to execute than Misavow or the Untitled Abduction Fic.

However, the very first chapter hinges on an unanswered question as to how the protagonist’s rather complicated power can actually be used to resolve the problem as presented. I believe I did resolve this, but never wrote down (and thus forgot) the details. In either case, properly presenting the convoluted power interaction to the reader was daunting and halted progress.

One night, a poet encounters a chrylurk. Twelve verses trace the curve of that moth’s spiral-flight.

O curiosity, why in mirrors do you see bloodlust?

Meanings for the terminology used in various writings in the dark fantasy series, Vermin Cathexis[In Vermin Cathexis].

:: Be me :: thrallborne. :: Vectored by a master infiltrator :: stealthy as fuck :: slipped right into the summer palace :: infested a princess. :: Court never figured it out! :: Three instars pass :: fending for myself :: totally parasite-mastering. :: One day a hive nurse shows up, starts tending to me :: it’s another infiltrator. :: Court’s face when princess’s favorite maid was a bug and no one noticed.

Golden sky hung above as horizon enveloped sun. Gilded like kintsugi, shining between shards of darkling clouds. This twilight might well have been night already — that suited me.

I crawled up the tower, claws of my tarsi hooking into brickwork. Human alchemists loved this plain white stone. What was it that drew such empire-wide devotion — the symbolic purity? As if this tower wasn’t a stain on forest that had predated it. Even where it wasn’t garrish white stone, it was angular iron bars flecked with red.

For a mortal enthralled to a chrylurk’s will, one’s mind is not one’s own. Trivial wisdom, oft quoted. But for all its overpreached banality, few have reckoned with what this truly means. Chrylurk subjugation is no less than a challenge — a refutation, an annihilation — of the human condition. Beyond human! Subjectivity itself ought experience a profound vertigo in the face of the thralls.

‘(Sleep is another kind of rot,)’ Ava thought. Her dreams had changed. Images hung around. Shapes carved into her sight, afterimage of a some blinding glare. Colors bled from the forms, as hazy as smoke in still air. Maybe blowing out some long sigh of relief — maybe achieving that relief, first — would be what banished them, but Ava was suffocating.

You awaken in chrysalis. Your mind hangs by a web, our web, our embrace. Like dewdrops rolling down threads, your dreams are pulsing-sliding along silken lines, and our dreams enjoin and subsume. Your sleep is long, and communion has washed all vestiges of you into us — tucked safe, in care unending — leaving you blank as a palimpsest. Upon this canvas we shall paint you.

The first law of alchemy defines the chain of emanation. Through dreaming, matter begets essence; through alchemy, essence begets limina; through transmutation, limina begets matter. This is a chain and not a loop, as enforced by the second law of alchemy: It entails that alchemization and transmutation are governed by opposing fields whose energy values must have a product of zero at all points in space. Thus, the “transmutation of dreams” would be a phenomena as paradoxical as a machine perpetually in motion.

Hunter Seven is a chrylurk with no number, only a designation. When her latest hunt lets her capture Pequilenna, the daughter of an imperial senator, Seven devises a plan to subvert her prey’s mind and bring a whole capital city under the control of her hive. But can she remain loyal to her hive queen when memories of her own infestation, mysterious and traumatic, begin to resurface? Only by giving into her lust to dominate Pequilenna can Seven make peace with her parasitic nature.

Do tapeworms feel cozy or confined, dwelling undetected in those prison walls of flesh? The host feeds them, yet growth must conform to viscera squeezed tight.

A certain ennui gnaws at Vil. (“Vili” if you must — do not use her full name). She has everything a girl could want — provided that girl does not want more than three plates each day, a bed to sleep in, and a life as a bargaining chip.

Those who gazed into that abyss became servants of it. Any that turned away were but helpless prey.

Ignorance is invitation, and perception is surrender.

In late 2025, we began to brainstorm a race of parasites, combining a number of concepts that interested us — vampirism, hiveminds, and above all a sensibility for weird and detailed biology.

These thoughts remained on our mind for months, and we gave a few attempts at outlining stories that would make use of these monsters, but we achieved little writing in that year’s anguished final months.