I walked beside the caterpillar for about ten minutes before we were approached by a greasy-looking cockroach. This was the worst, and it was all bug and nearly as tall as me, but the Mexican accent made him slightly better.

“Aye, buddy! You sound come down and have some drinks of fermented nectar with the boys and me! You look weird enough to know how to have a good time!” The cockroach said to me, in a combination of its chattering hisses.

The sound made my skin crawl, and all the hairs on my body tried to stand out straight. There was nothing that could make something like this attractive, no matter the modification.

“Vishticalus, leave him alone! I am taking him to see Grixaitalax. Get out of my way, or I will cut all your legs off like last time!” My caterpillar friend growled at the disgusting bug that was bigger than her.

Vishticalus took a few steps back with a cringe and then said, “Calm down, Danincalinox! I am just asking a friendly question! You know that we are good stuff, we just like to try new things! And drinking helps that!”

I was a little bit curious about what this guy was talking about. It didn’t sound like they wanted to do anything sexual, more like thrill seeker.

“You can after I have taken him. For now, get out of my way; you smell horrible,” Danincalinox growled, and the roach backed away, nodding.

Vishticalus then turned and crawled up the tunnel wall and then squeezed into an opening, disappearing.

“Dani… Is that alright? I don’t want to make a mistake saying your name, and it sounds nice, right?” I asked as we started to walk, but she didn’t reply right away, nor did she look at me.

“Fine, it is better than butchering my name. Soon we will come up to the central city, and this place is hectic. I take this route because the wild types live in this area, but they all know me. The city is different,” Dani explained to me.

I listened attentively since this was the first time she was talking, but I had more to ask. I wanted more information about what this cocoon really was besides what I had gathered from the outside.

Each of the three shells was about nine feet tall and five wide, but I really didn’t know much past that.

“I will make sure to stick close to you, but can you tell me some things about this place as we walk? Like why the place seems like it is alive? Not like you or me, but more than a tree or plant,” I questioned Dani, and she nodded, seeming to appreciate the question.

“Citipods are an organism that leaches energy from its host to grow. There are Digger bugs that work every day to increase the area around each of the Citipods to grow,” Dani explained as the tunnel started to get steeper.

I could hear a whirring of buzzing, clicking, and every other insect sound I could think of getting closer. The slow descent started to get faster as the path became steep steps that were not ever wide and not built for human feet.

I had to move fast and watch my footing as I did so I didn’t slip and fall. I kept looking over at Dani enviously as she quickly descended the stairs with little to no problem and eight times as many feet as me.

“Stay beside me, and ignore everything that is going on around you when we exit the tunnel. Do not panic; just move at the same pace as me, and stay close. The trip will take almost an hour, so you had better be able to handle this,” Dani explained as we started to stop as the path became less steep and started to plane out.

“Sure, I should be fine!” I shouted since the noise was so loud.

“There is no need to shout, I can hear you just fine, and you should be able to hear me just fine, right?” Dani asked, and I nodded my head slowly in slight shock.

I could hear her perfectly fine like her voice was canceling the other noises out.

[She is using a frequency that is drowning out all the other sounds for you, but it doesn’t seem to affect how her voice is transmitted. This is a fascinating creature, and with the natural spikes, hmmm… Are you thinking what I am thinking?]

‘That this is probably going to scar me for the rest of my life?’

[Don’t be such a wuss and get some of that bug ass! I bet she will be quite the looker! Three tentacle monster girls? What kind of sick joke is this that I am stuck in your head with this water witch? You should work on getting Mex a dark female Growth Elemental or something like that!]

‘Holy, calm down, you have the twisted piss whole for now, but I am almost worried about them.’

[Don’t worry, what I am doing isn’t what you think, unless you are more intelligent than I give you credit for.]

‘So you’re not screwing Maelstrom in the basement of my mind?’

[Oh yes, we are doing that, but Stormy doesn’t mind; Maelin feels differently, but he puts up with it. Unlike Blaza, Maelstrom is the smaller half of a Dark Primal Elemental and still has all three parts together. There should only be two, but there is a third entity in there that is the darkness.]

We reached the bottom of the stairs, and I could feel the noise that was coming from up ahead. It was so intense now that it started to vibrate my chest, and my hairs were back to standing on end again.

“Are you ready for this? Once we start, there will be no stopping, we have to keep moving forward, or there could be trouble,” Dani explained to me, and I took a deep breath that I didn’t really need and then let it out as I nodded my head.