Serpentine Squiggles

Three Laws of Alchemy

Alchemy is about change. Not decay, not erosion: the art of transmutation wroughts new order from components sacrificed. At its core, alchemy is change for the better‍ ‍‍—‍ the fuel of transmutation, then, is hope.

Whenever an organism burns with dreams, wishes, ambitions, a little mote of alchemical essence is created. Call this cathexis. This bundle persists in the body for a time, absorbing energy from the world, before its eventual dissolution, whereupon it releases more energy than was spent to fuel it.

(The old adage claiming a person cannot survive a second without hope isn’t true, but this observably‍ ‍‍—‍ if subtly‍ ‍‍—‍ factors into metabolism.)

Each mote of essence interacts with an alchemical field; with great density and excitation of this field, the body’s liminal aura can organize itself into a complex, coherent structure.

Ignition of the alchemical flame requires essence far in excess of what a human naturally produces. For this, alchemists imbibe ambrosia. Divines take the form of creeping vines, bearing leaves, flowers, fruit. The leaves boil into tea and tincture; the flowers bear nectar for bees to spit into a fine honey; the fruit, squeezed, ferments into a fine wine.

An alchemical flame can be brought into resonance with an object‍ ‍‍—‍ most often by drawing symbols in chalk which focus and shape the flame‍ ‍‍—‍ what results is a spark, lightning leaping from the alchemist to the target of their work, consuming it.

Matter destroyed this way becomes limina, an intermediate form of potential matter‍ ‍‍—‍ divine clay. Limina is unstable and slowly collapses back into a dissolved form of whatever substance was consumed.

However, a focused alchemist can send forth a second spark which will shape the limina into a form dictated by the structure of the alchemical field. (With experience, both can be married into a single spark of creative destruction.) When well‍-​shaped limina becomes corporeal, the ritual of transmutation is complete.

The alchemical field is closely related to the transmutation field. Mathematics unifies them as the mutamyr. They share a force carrier, and information and energy can be transmitted at distance through them, but the alchemical and transmutation fields cannot coexist in the same place.

This is easily expressed in mathematical form; at a point in space, excitation of the transmutation field multiplied by excitation of the alchemical field must equal zero.

The initial outline of the cycle of genesis requires some reframing. A core theorem holds that nature abhors alteration. And thus without intervention, the natural course is to minimize it. The intensity of mortal dreams is such that the genesis of essence ex nihilo is rendered the less chimerical state. Why this is so remains one of the great mysteries‍ ‍‍—‍ but once it arrives, the cycle continues, for essence itself is mercurial.

Motion, such as the circulation of an alchemist’s soul meridians, endows essence with a measure of permanence or inertia, but at rest? It swiftly exhausts itself upon matter, a conjunction that produces a more stable form.

Limina, by turn, is likewise unstable, albeit on a more sedate schedule than essence. But without the endowed permenance of essence in flux, limina will collapse into transmuted matter. And finally, transmutation itself bears the stain of alteration, but the cycle has finally arrived at a point where it can be shed, slowly washed from transmuted matter in vaporous breath.

Thus, in mathematical form, the first law is a system of relations‍ ‍‍—‍ asserting that (by measure of alteration) cathexis exceeds essence exceeds limina exceeds transmutation exceeds matter‍ ‍‍—‍ coupled with a law that alternation tends toward zero.

The third law of alchemy characterizes what happens in that ultimate stage, the transition from transmutation back to matter most mundane. This process is called cancelation.

Transmutation, at its core, is a kinetic force; it draws matter into a certain configuration. Cancelation is a force in the opposite direction. Were this force to happen at all once, a transmuted object would burst into a spray of small particles. In fact, this “explosive cancelation” is exactly what happens when the transmutation field is abruptly removed‍ ‍‍—‍ such as by the incursion of a more powerful alchemical field.

A key concern of the art of alchemy, then, is carefully managing the cancelation force. The equations have a certain slack in them: unlike the “equal and opposite” absolutism of kinetics, cancelation forces must merely be equivalent. Equal and opposite is the simpliest equivalence, but an oblique force of much greater magnitude is also equivalent. It need not be kinetic: a sufficient energy input can dampen this force entirely. But this cost may be prohibitative.

This, finally brings us to the three great laws of alchemy:

1. Dreaming descends to essence, essence descends to limina, limina descends to transmutation.
2. The alchemical cannot be transmuted, and transmutation cannot be alchemized.
3. Each working of transmutation requires an equivalent unworking.

Concisely, the law of cycles, the law of disjunction, and the law of cancelation.

On Vermincholie

All it takes is a drop of vermincholie. The substance is a deep, dark green, bearing rainbow‍-​sheened iridesence where the light dares touch it. Thick, slimey, the consistency of oil turned to sludge. It lies in wait with an ever‍-​present heat.

The touch of cold air prompts an immediate reaction akin to oxidation or combustion, a patina of grey insulation forming over the skin of the liquid. It is a yolk that grows its own leathery eggshell, a self‍-​incubating egg.

The touch of warm flesh, by contrast, cracks open this skin and out pours seething vermincholie like always hot oil. It sears flesh like acid and infects that wound with a viral payload. The affliction? Ovirexia. In its early stages, it overwhelms the immune system with a plague’s virulence. Fever and tremors, but one notices all fluid discharge soon begins to sting and sour.

If hale and hearty, one can resist it, just as with any disease. It might only take one drop, but further draughts are needed to render this fate inescapable.

The true teleology of ovirexia is a unique delirium. The head aches, dreaming nightmarish notions that writhe and enthrall. The soul itself is infected, a metabolic ritual to catalyze the production of emyra, glowing fruit of the mind and amply‍-​studied alchemical component. Production waxes to a peak each night, in eye‍-​fluttering dreams that leave the heart pounding with climatic intensity. Forced cathexis.

You can almost see the light that glimmers behind the eyes of one in the throes of ovirexia. Emyra is born, mote by mote, and drains like waste into the veins. This metaphysical enrichment renders the it alluring, delectable to predators hungry for souls. The host now bleeds nectar.

If infected for long enough, emyra builds up throughout their biology‍ ‍‍—‍ in the fat, in the muscles, in each and every tissue. They become a treat at once irresistible and empowering.

Ovirexia is a virus, but it is a disease with a certain pluripotence. Not just a matter of mutation and adaptation (how else could it so relentlessly overwhelm the immune system?) but the genetics prefigures a kind of evolution or ontogenic recapitulation. It does not stop at constructing mere capsids; when the virus is dense as with the conquest of the host, they swell and burgeon and specialize, metamorphosing into cell walls replete with organelles.

One may speak the words spontaneous generation, but far from it; this is a slow process. So many would‍-​be cells promptly commit apoptosis, having suffered too many mutations or simply lacking the epigenetic mandate of heaven. The genetics will be retranscribed again and again, generations crafted then discarded, before a suitable egg cell emerges.

This can take weeks, months. Not quite an inevitability‍ ‍‍—‍ a host may not remain infected for long enough to complete this process, or their infection may not advance to an intense enough stage. Vermincholie is more than a fomite for viruses. It contains the foundation and fuel for this ovigenesis.

It is easy to interpret vermincholie as a mere liquid egg‍ ‍‍—‍ it is moreso the seed that makes a womb of its host.

On Exoderm

A chrylurk molts with utilitarian persistency. The shell is far more complicated than the integument even of iatrogos, let alone lesser insects. In a naked imago‍ ‍‍—‍ which is not the natural simplification it may seem‍ ‍‍—‍ three layers of sclerite exist.

The deepest are hardened structural supports‍ ‍‍—‍ hollow tubes analogous to the trachae of their ancestors. It misleads you little to simply consider these to be bones.

Between those breathbones and the shell proper lies all of the flesh and fluid that pulses to effectuate life. Protecting that is the the hard clasp of the exoskeleton. It clads the bug stiffly, though its hardness and even the extent to which it properly encloses the soft internals is subject to variation.

Factors like nutrition and stress hold sway as well as the phermonal command of the queen or her court, but a chrylurk’s biology responds flexibly to deliberate or subliminal desire. A chrylurk may chose to grow a thin shell molted with ease a month later or a thick shell that will exact a week’s preperation and recovery to part with‍ ‍‍—‍ in half a year’s time.

But a chrylurk with exoskeleton bare ought to suggest a gaunt, flayed austerity. Across most of the exoskeleton, setae stand stiffly in rows. Only with exceptions, such as the mane above the chest, do they sit so close together as to merit being called fur.

The sparse setae are capable of flexing and pointing in an extreme analogue of the mammalian pilimotor response. Across the limbs and body, they can ripple and pinch in complex patterns. But it is impossible to discuss this physiology without finally broaching the outward appearance of chrylurks.

Beneath their abdomen, special glands secrete ectoplasm, a thick glaze that serves as the waxy precursor to exoderm. Fresh ectoplasm is still semi‍-​liquid, fit to be molded. Mixing venom and saliva adjusts its resulting properities, rendering it softer or textured. Hives often stock shelves of lotions for finer control of exoderm.

It may dry to something soft like leather or hard like scales at manifold preference. Exposure to air and heat is what sets the exoderm, blunting its chemical responses. Thus, for accelerated and consistent results hives often have sauna rooms.

Another custom is the weaving of lines of serivane throughout this false flesh. Serivane extends the chrylurk nervous system, and thus when inserted with care, the bug can feel deformations of the exoderm as if it were flesh.

The serivane sensorium dulls over time, and the exoderm itself suffers the wear and grime of the world. Thus, far more often than a chrylurk undergoes a proper ecdysis, they will shed their exoderm‍ ‍‍—‍ an exfoliation.

Exoderm can be washed and reused even after an exfoliation. Though eventually, it will be chewed and regurgitated as nesting material for the hive. (To save time, some hives may opt to have drones eat the exoderm right off one’s body.)

It may take a full day for a chrylurk to regenerate a full coat of exoderm, devouring extra rations to compensate, but the secretion of glaze only truly halts when the exoskeleton feels the weight of false flesh. Especially if the hive lacks the spare labor or resources for the luxuries of bespoke skin, a coat of old exoderm can be set in place. This halts the secretion.

Naturally, the craft of mixing and shaping exoderm is an art, the pride of a hive. In some hives, flayed bugs are bathed in clay and licked with tongues of flame, granting them a ceramic chassis. In others, instead the ruber seepage of trees is used to render bugs shining black. Others weave in so much silk that a better analogue is fine, lacy clothing.

But these are the stylings of decadent ancient hives, now more memory than practice. Modernly, the most successful have had little opportunity to explore the far depths of expression possible when every walking body is an obligate canvas.

No, the careful mixing of exoderm‍-​lotions for softness and texture, the pilimotor flexing of setae, it all has been tuned to excel at one purpose above all else: the imitation of human flesh.

On Serivane

Chrylurk anatomy is by nature mercurial and contingently adapted, but among its constants are the silk glands. In addition to the customary half a dozen distict blends of silk which spiders are fain to produce, chrylurks introduce a special new category: serivane. Behold gossamer of the most phantasmal elevation. It vanishes in air; it vanishes in solid matter.

Serivane is a thread that can pass through any material. It makes for an excellent trap: invisible to the unscrying eye, and yet when twisted just so, tensing in a hidden dimension, its ghostly remove falters and it may catch whatever has passed through it with phantom force. If not to trap, then it also serves to track, leaving a conspicuous lead to follow. Or, given a gentler twist, instead the passage of material leaves it faintly rippling in echo.

Chrylurks boast an acute keenness for the vibration of these invisible threads. Specialized setae line their chitin, and thus should a thread of serivane dangle freely, it will be drawn like iron to a magnet‍-​head. These setae are sensitive to the most minute flexures of the thread while conducting fine movements of their own.

Through this medium, chrylurks may call and communicate among themselves at quite a high bandwidth, dozens if not hundreds of threads vibrating independently.

Before we discuss communications, it’s worth reiterating that, much like conventional silk, serivane has its own varieties. The serivane used for traps and pulley tricks is especially stiff, a ‘force’ blend, while the serivane used for tracking is quite stretchy and flexible. The serivane used for communication balances both qualities. It is known by some as hivesilk.

Hivesilk may stretch to several times its unstressed length, and readily adjoins to itself, leading to a curious flexibility of networks. One chrylurk may bind silk to another and remain connected even should they walk apart. If the thread grows too thin, then more hivesilk can be woven to extend the thread.

Now suppose the second chrylurk binds herself to a third‍ ‍‍—‍ then suppose the first would now like to bind to the third. Physically, the first remains distant from the other two, but she need not approach: the second can simply bind her two connections together, exending each other.

Done as described, this would sacrifice her own connection with the first (though the operation is easily reversed; they could trade back and forth). But what if the three wished to form a triangular topology? This requires a more involved operation.

Conventionally when binding to each other, chrylurks will exchange at least two threads. If there are two threads, then should the need arise, both chrylurks can move the two threads to a spinneret.

More silk can be drawn and woven into each thread, and like this they form a loop. Each chrylurk pulls one thread while weaving to extend the other. Like this, the loop rotates, and after one cycle, the threads have been doubled.

A doubled thread is easily split‍ ‍‍—‍ thus, two threads easily multiply into any number threads, and given any number of threads, you can easily render webs transitive. A binds to B and B binds to C implies that A could bind to C‍ ‍‍—‍ even should all three be separated by great distance!

The setae which bind to hivesilk cluster together, often behind the head, at the licenest or “hivenet port.” This direct connection is complimented by a horn‍-​like structure that often adorns the heads of powerful chrylurks. The spiral of the horns serve as the basis for a web to be woven within, a tapestry of threads vibrating sympathically with distant serivane excitation‍ ‍‍—‍ a wireless receiver.

Contra Sanguine

It would incorrect‍ ‍‍—‍ laughably ignorant‍ ‍‍—‍ to say chrylurks drink blood. The needles and siphons that surround our mouth serve to exsanguinate our prey, and there is undeniable beauty in seeing the flesh part and dew a deep red. But the mundane soup of hemoglobin and plasma is an unimpressive meal of little interest to my children.

Indeed, the most skilled of my collectors drain such a volume from thralls that it would be fatal were it not for apheresis; sifting the blood and returning the that vital dross which does not feed our true hunger.

No, when prey is infected with our desire, infested with our young, a change overtakes them. Their essence is catalyzed and extracted, secreted into the veins, bestowing a taste finer than the thrill of fear: a bittersweet tang overwhelming the coppery flavors of blood. Our alchemy transmutes their blood into nectar‍ ‍‍—‍ that is what we sup upon!

For I So Adore Emergence

Emergence is my favorite part of the process, I think. Every entiote begins their life as a small worm out of place, a thing that doesn’t belong, invader to a host. Cunning and desperate they cling and root and infest, spreading and mutating until they are an inevitability.

I’ve watched my children overtake so many thralls. To watch your own egg corrupt wimpering meat… yes, this is a mother’s pride.

But the analogy extends‍ ‍‍—‍ are these hives we build, nested in dank basements and abandoned tunnels, not parasites upon the flesh of this civilization?

I do so loathe this suffocating need to hide what we are. I dream still of a day when our spires can pierce the land from below, when a chrylurk queen can sit upon a throne for all to see.

Until that day… our infestation continues.

Appearance of a Chrylurk

Chrylurks have five pairs of eyes. Two are highly derived compound eyes, inverted into a concave pit filled with transparent jelly. These eyes have overlapping scales that form an aperture to let in light. Above them sit complex, unblinking ocelli that function akin to spider eyes.

Thin antennae sit even higher above, often extensively adorned with silk, and on either side of the head, horns curve downward, webs stretching between the arches.

But it is the mouthparts of chrylurks which are at once fiendishly complex and instantly distinctive.

Highest is their proboscis, a long trunk‍-​like organ about three handspans long if fully stretched. It is flexible, with setae for fine tactile and gustatory sensing. It ends in a wided pad capable of holding tools, tipped with a claw‍-​tooth. Along its length, it can evert several fine needles to pierce and suck.

The proboscis may hang down in a relaxed position, membraneous flaps at its base covering the mouth. Whenever it would get in the way, it can curl up spiral‍-​like, falling snugly into a slot below it; the compact form juts form the face like nose, but forms a seal with other mouthparts, and like this it becomes the middle of the upper “lip.”

On either side of the proboscis are the mandibles, which extend downwards to sharp, hollow fang‍-​tips, dripping wet and ready to inject venom. The mandibles lock together along a groove lined with dentation‍ ‍‍—‍ thus when the proboscis is curled up, this vertically toothed grin is exposed.

Beside the mandibles, at the corner of the mouth, the curling fingers of the maxillary palps lend their assistance, obviating any need for utensils. Setae tufts spike outward, leaving the maxillaries as much as a cosmetic display as a appendage.

Lastly the labial palps and hypopharynx form a soft, flexible tongue perfectly suited for slurping the jelly meals derived from regurgitated blood nectar.

Cultivation of An Alchemist

An alchemist’s growth progresses through four known phases. Really, it’s more properly counted as eight; each is split in half.

The black phases are Impurity Cleansing and Vessel Carving.

• First you slowly, carefully expel bits of random transmuted matter from your body to cleanse your soul. This takes a lot time because those transmuted bits are your body, so if you do it all at once you shred a bunch of tissues and die. Also, you’ll constantly lose progress from eating food that contains trace transmuted molecules or your metabolism will inadvertantly pollute you wih more transmutation.
• Once you’re pure, your liminal body begins to grow. You focus on circulating essence through the pathways that become the meridians of your soul, this also takes a long time because it’s essentially drawing a new circulatory system by hand using a whole new sense. Pretty much impossible unless you have book full of diagrams telling you what goes where. You want to following it perfectly, because any fuckups will compound and kneecap your progress later on.

The white phases are Canal Expansion and Essence Rotation.

• Once your meridians are complete and stable, you then start pour more and more essence into them to stretch and level up their capacity and throughput. You also start to use your completed control to refine and evolve the limina that forms the ‘mass’ of your soul.
• Once your meridian are sufficiently wide, you focus on increasing the speed at which essence circulates, like a dynamo, greatly expanding the ‘aura’ that surrounds you, giving you the ability to sense alchemical phenomena at a distance.

The yellow phases are Aura Projection and World Separation.

• As your aura grows stronger, you gain the ability to distort and concentrate it, and now instead of gently sensing the liminal world, the rotations of your soul can push back against it. With mastery, you gain the ability to perform workings at a distance.
• This next one is a bit involved. Basically, sufficiently fine aura control lets you focus it into a cone, and then a beam, and then finally an inverted cone‍ ‍‍—‍ which creates a critical point where the rays must all pass through. Except they cannot, the density of essence excitation is a mathematical singularity. The rules of alchemy unravel‍ ‍‍—‍ but i’ll get it into the details in an appendix.

The red phases are Soul Individuation and Blood Fruition.

• Almost no one reaches this point because while the two skills connect, there’s a big gap between what yellow phases achieve and what red phases require. It’s also really vague because again, no one gets this far. But basically, here the soul takes primacy, becoming the first mover that the body follows rather than the other way around. Regeneration becomes trivial, and you’re kinda immortal. You’re individuated, removed from the world of material phenomena.
• The capstone is basically transubstantiating part of your body into holy fruit that can empower others when consumed or can even function as autonomous mini‍-​souls. This is not super effective or clear in purpose because this stage hasn’t been functionally figured out. This might also be a straight up dead end, since the ancient idea here is if done right these fruits could be a “philosopher’s stones” that completes the transmutation of dreams, creating new source of essence. But modern equations have proven this is impossible, and maybe soul individuation straight up cuts you offer from generating new essence the normal way, making all of this ultimately a big ol’ bike‍-​sticking.

Reaching the peak of a particular phase is called compleation. Alchemists with a well‍-​formed soul are called compleat. Ascending white phase is second completion, and ascending yellow is third compleation. (No fourth compleation alchemists reside outside of myth.)

Anyway, now for the appendix. Transmutation requires a boundary (generally a sphere, it’s mathematically simplest) inside which the working takes place. This is why alchemists draw transmutation circles: it doesn’t matter how your circulate your essence, your soul alone can’t form a complete boundary unless you like, put the target in your mouth or something.

So, once you start generating aura it becomes feasible to rawdog it, creating bubbles of essence just by wiggling your soul‍ ‍‍—‍ this is known as the “Silver Circle”‍ ‍‍—‍ but it’s tricky and risky.

The other rule is that you can’t stand inside your own transmutation circle. Partly because essence is exclusive with transmutation, so you’d destroy your owl soul, but even if the pattern on the boundary avoids targeting you, the feedback from you soul circulating a pattern that manipulates a volume including the soul creates a feedback cycle that would fry your meridians.

Now, peak yellow phase is where you get to break these rules. You get domain expansions. The aura singularity is probably chaotic on its own, blowing stuff up and annihilating souls, but modern alchemists can create golden spheres, which are special crystal lattices that reflect the aura in a unique way. Imagine shining a light through a crystal to create a circular pattern on the paper below it. Now imagine it’s a 4D crystal that creates a spherical pattern.

Still, there’s no special trick that gets around either the “if you transmute yourself, you destroy your soul” or the “if you create a positive feedback cycle, you fry your meridians” mechanics.

No, peak yellow alchemists have control fine enough that their answer is “just don’t lol.”

Within your golden sphere’s radius, you can perform transmutations anywhere without needing to draw a circle, because everything is already in your circle.

However, shining the aura singularity upon it destroys the gold sphere, and the structure of a soul can only support a single gold sphere; creating a second will tear you apart.

Seven Strategies

The ancestral chrylurk formed secret hives far from human settlements and spent most of their time asleep, many falling into a deeper hibernation state. Tripwires warn them of intruders near the hive, and while no alarm is triggered, they mainly awaken to drain nectar from the blood of their thralls, most kept in a drugged coma along with their masters. A few of the hives’ chrylurks will inspect the hive, hunt and gather resources before returning to sleep. A hive that only snatches a few humans a year and rations carefully minimizing its risk of detection.

but lucky hives may find themselves an excess of humans, if (say) they can grab every member of a travelling group. The more thralls they keep, they more time they can spend awake, meaning more time to hunt farther afield and build the hive stronger.

As a hive expands, it naturally adopts a certain philosophy to govern its operation.

The Dominance approach addresses the major constraint on hive logistics: keeping thralls long‍-​term allows for a more consistent sources of nectar, but unlike chrylurks, mortal metabolism is frustratingly consistent, less able to simply hibernate to ration resources.

These hives have recognized the ability of thralls to learn, and therefore use a balance of venom‍-​punishments and rewards to condition them to assist the hive’s operations.

The drawback to this approach is trained thralls must remain isolated from feral populations to minimize the risk of escape or attracting hostile attention.

An alternative, then, is the Manipulation approach. These hives use pheromones to restrain the growth of larva within their thralls, allowing hosts to not even recognize their infection, and carry on their daily life oblivious to their service to the hive.

These chrylurks have adapted exceptional stealth or disguises, allowing them to access their thralls and drain them while they sleep.

But the consequence of exceptional modeling and mimicry of prey is that the chrylurks necessarily attain comparable intelligence. Communication with prey becomes possible. This begins as more manipulation adapted to subtler means, but at what point does luring in prey with promises of pleasure and protection stop being a lie?

That point is the Alliance approach. These hives communicate intelligibly with their thralls, investing resources simply to benefit and incentivize their hosts. Necessarily the hive still pursues stealth‍ ‍‍—‍ one of the first demands of the thralls is secrecy‍ ‍‍—‍ but with an ambition to one day do away with it.

Key to this dynamic is that the hive holds power over the thralls, and pleasing them is seen as conducive the hives’ aims rather than the end itself. If a hive fails to maintain this standard, one might say they have been infected by mortals, rather than the other way around.

So in a hive pursuing the Integration approach, they serve mortals and their ideals; in some cases “chrylurks” may not even exist, and entiote imagos instead exist as organs in mortal body, extensions of their will.

But the ultimate result of blurring the lines between host and parasite is that loyalty to either side becomes meaningless. Chrylurks achieved all of their cunning and triumph through imitation and exploitation of mortals. To reduce either side to total enslavement to other would eradicate that creativity.

The insight of the Transformation approach is surrender to this evolution, embracing the war of mortal against chrylurk as a catalyst to bring about a parasitic apotheosis.

Of course, there’s a subtle caveat to this. If the virtue you prize highest is parasitic fusomorphosis, the trial by fire of evolution unchained, then you must necessarily become a champion of parasitism above all else. Few mortals wish to be infested, while every parasite wishes to do it, whatever the philosophy governing them.

And if your advocacy of parasitism is specifically by the logic that suffering builds character, then it is little surprise that you may come to enjoying inflicting that suffering. To wreak terror upon the mortals and dare their reprisal.

The Savage approach is just that: dispensing with all stealth and subtlety, and instead relishing in all out war. Cruelty is the point.

What fruit arises from the war? Imagine a hive torturing its thralls simply for the joy of it‍ ‍‍—‍ but any joy grows stale with repetition. So begins the variation and vicious creativity‍ ‍‍—‍ and at a certain point, this is pursuit of novelty more than brutality.

And any war requires innovation of tactics, new tools of destruction. The point of waging war was to force evolution, and so you research and develop new strategies.

The Inquiry approach is defined by this amoral probing, pushing the limits of chrylurk biology and hive technology. Could entiotes dispense with thralls entirely? How radically could we redefine their usage?

Of course, the ideal test subjects, the theorectically optimal thrall, is a productive slave. And here we have the loop; a cycle that leads back around to the Dominance approach. This is the spectrum of hive philosophy.

Where do you sit?

Eight Industries

• The Bleeding‍-​bee Clan prizes nectar. The hive only thrives when all bugs are well‍-​fed, so an ample food store and the skills to prepare it is the ultimate concern. The greatest hive cooks the finest meals.
• The Wasp‍-​mother Clan prizes their larva. The brood is the hive’s past and future. Through larva, thralls, and through thralls, nectar, labor, and insight. The greatest hive muliplies most abudantly.
• The Scorpion‍-​fang Clan prizes their venom. It subdues and transforms prey. Of course, venom requires delivery, so it is equally important to bear proud fangs and honed claws. The greatest hive is most potent.
• The Rainbow‍-​dragonfly Clan prizes their bodies. The hive is defined by its members, so each should strive to be beautiful, powerful, and keen. Their shells are iridescent rainbows; their wings grant them flight; their eyes peer piercingly. The greatest hive has the greatest vessels.
• The Locust‍-​swarm Clan prizes their swarms. The virtue of chrylurks is that they are not one, but many; hives and hivelings alike are multitudinous. Swarmlings allow chrylurks to be utterly flexible and efficient. The greatest hive bears awareness at every size. As above, so below.
• The Queen‍-​weaver Clan prizes silk. It binds the hive to the collective will; it is the foundation of evanescence; and it is a strong, flexible fabric. The greatest hive trains the keenest weavers.
• the Vine‍-​witherer Clan prizes their fungus. Chrylurks were made to contain and master antiblight, and thus hives ought to pursue their unique advantage and dig the catacombs where even gods rot. The greatest hive makes the greatest sacrifice.
• The Termite‍-​crown Clan prizes their nest. No hive could exist without walls around it, and thus its architecture and material is of chief concern. The greatest hive bears the most elegant designs.

The eight can be compact paired into four quadrants. These are the Farmers (Bee, Wasp), the Warriors (Scorpion, Dragonfly), the Binders (Locust, Weaver), and the Builders (Witherer, Termite).

Where the hives differ, they can be sorted into allies and rivals.

The Allies are:

• The Bleeding‍-​bees’ taste for nectar allies them with the Wasp‍-​mothers, who excel at extracting nector from thralls.
• The Wasp‍-​mothers’ interest in secure prey to host their young allies them with the Scorpion‍-​fang, whose blades and venom are honed for subduing targets.
• The Scorpion‍-​fangs’ pride in their natural weapons allies them with the Rainbow‍-​dragonflys’ pursuit of refining the physical form.
• The Rainbow‍-​dragonflys’ encouragement of diversity of form and ingenuity of function allies them with the Locust‍-​swarm and their flourishing infracolonies.
• The Locust‍-​swarms’ adoration for swarmlings allies them with the Queen‍-​weavers, who specializing the silk‍-​spinning breeds.
• The Queen‍-​weavers’ devotion to the art of evanescence allies them with the Vine‍-​witherers’ and their esoteric mysteries.
• The Vine‍-​witherers’ cultivation of ritual temple and catacombs allies them with the Termite‍-​crowns’ exaltation of architecture.
• The Termite‍-​crowns’ eye for beauty and function allies them with the Bleeding‍-​bee, who especially enjoy the design of food larders.

The rivals are:

• The Bleeding‍-​bees believe hives should flourish with art and dance rather than minize themselves in alien efficiency, and this is in tension with the Locust Swarm.
• The Wasp‍-​mothers believe hives should hunt and breed thralls above all else and see little value in masturbatory silken arts only a minority can master, putting them in tension with the Orb‍-​weavers.
• The Scorpion‍-​fangs believe hives should pursue worldly power and dominion, rather than serving some inscruable elder agenda, in contrast with the Vine‍-​witherers.
• The Rainbow‍-​dragonflies believe members of the hive should roam free with the power to defend themselves, rather than locking themselves itno a solitary, fortified hive, putting them in tension with the Termite‍-​crowns.

The Cruel Mathematics

Chrylurks need to consume essence to survive. We can invent a measure of essential mass, motes, defined such that the average person has ~100 motes of essence. In ordinary humans, essence dissipates and regenerates in equillibrium.

Chrylurks requires roughly ~10 motes a day, and more to use their special abilities, like serivane manipulation, transcision, or venom catalysis.

Chrylurks can eat a person to gain ~40% of their essence.

Infecting prey with a symbiotic virus (ovirexia) alters the targets’ metabolism to produce the chrylurk’s essential nutrients. Still, it takes days for the virus to take full effect. Immune response may rebuff or recover from the effect. But while the virus proliferates, the essence equillibrium is disrupted, leading to oversaturation. Subsequent chrylurk essence extraction is roughly doubled.

A chrylurk can drink prey blood to extract a small portion of their essence. This is most effective if the prey is first injected with a venom mix that draws essence into the blood. Thereafter, feeding can be ‘gentle’, ‘eager’, ‘intense’ or ‘greedy’.

Humans can only survive gentle feeding (~15% blood drawn) without issue. Eager feeding (~35%) is survivable if given immediate medical attention. Intense and greedy feedings are fatal. However, adept chrylurks can develop means to perform apheresis, returning blood once essence has been extracted.

After being fed upon, prey will experience distinct psychological symptoms; malaise and nightmares. Duration of these symptoms depends on depth of feeding. Further exposure to chrylurk venom ameliorates these symptoms and accelerates recovery time to the next class down.

Advanced hives are capable of growing special extraction pods designed to keep prey in a ever‍-​dreaming coma, regularly injecting them with chrylurk venom and extracting essence autonomously, resulting in an efficient output. These pods can likewise be run at a varity of intensities; a gentle pod can extract a slight flow of essence for the prey’s entire natural lifespan, while greedier pods will burn through hosts, overtapping their essence production until they are husks of no use to the hive.

Gravid chrylurk gynes can infest prey with eggs. As the eggs develop and hatch, the host is infected with ovirexia and the larva continually drain essence. essence drain is generally tuned to match the rate at which the host generates essence, and this bottlenecks the growth of the larva.

Pheromones can quicken or slow the larvae growth rate. A fast growth rate will quickly deplete host essence (often too quickly, and with too little essence extracted, to properly mature), but a slow growth rate can allow for an oversaturation of essence, to be extracted by an allied chrylurk.

The chrylurk lifecycle is highly adaptive to environmental conditions; given the right pheromone input from the vector, a entiote may never develop a cocoon or imago stage, instead allowing their host to serve as a larder of essence for a nurse‍-​lurk to drain, either intermittenly or upon host death.

Using these numbers, we conclude a chrylurk can survive from eating three people a month, or performing two eager feeding each night. A hive needs over ten pods per member; less if they hunt.

However, these calculations assume the chryrlurk remain active each day. To avoid exhausting their prey, chrylurks are adapted to enter a dormant state, a sleep to halts their steep essence consumption.

An entire hive may sleep for years, waking only if silken tripwires raise an alarm, but this is of course not viable if nurselurks must attend to thralls and extraction pods.