{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/vermin/parascix-path",
  "path": "/posts/vermin/parascix-path",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-30T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "A chrylurk is a swarm within a swarm: each a metamorphized corpse of a\nmortal as possessed and puppeted by mosquitoes, spiders and slugs;\neach a thread in the ghostly web woven to ensnare the collective in\nthis eusocial symphony.\n\nIt is nearly as infeasible to describe a chrylurk as to describe a\ntree.  One could gesture vaguely --- a trunk with branches with leaves\n--- but the exact arrangement is never repeated, subject to the\nvagaries of life-history.\n\nEach chrylurk is a motile colony for its swarmlings.  One caste grows\nexceptionally large, rivaling human proportions, thus forming the\nsilhouette-skeleton of a chrylurk.  Its chitin grows riddled with\nholes for its swarm to crawl and nest in.\n\nThese body-caste bugs fuse together --- often two that grant a\ncentauric form, joined where one's abdomen melds with the other's\nhead, an important structure called the chrysoma: the lurking core.\nThe womb of one body-half becomes the breeding ground where the swarm\nrenews its numbers.\n\nThe chrysoma is also the center of blood-nectar metabolism.  True to\ntheir quasi-mosquito nature, every chrylurk preys vampiric on mortals,\nbut for all the nutrition blood can boast, it is but a convenient\nmedium for the chrylurk's ravin.\n\nMortal brains burning with desire generates a soul, and its\nmetaphysical essence diffuses through blood circulation.  Chrylurks\nare soulless husks unable to generate essence on their own.  Hence\ntheir hunger for ensouled mortal blood.  But simply draining\ndischarge from wounds offers but crumbs.  No, chrylurks first prepare\ntheir meals.\n\nBy fang or stinger, chrylurks inject their prey with venom that\ninduces ovirexia.  The mind is wracked by a hallucinogens, the body\nafflicted by a virus, and the soul breaks down.  Dreaming begets\nessence; so through this nightmare-hallucination, the character of the\nmortal soul is altered, mutated, transfigured.  Prey begins to secrete\nessence tailored for chrylurk consumption.\n\nVenom can have its dose-blend altered for sowing or reaping.  To reap,\na bite delivers enzymes: then the accrued subtle body of the soul\ndissolves into the blood, increasing the availability of essence in\nthe blood.\n\nBut a dose to sow does more than corrupt the soul.  It assaults the\nimmune system day after day, subjecting the host to fever and tremors\nand all the malaise of a disease.  If, when, the virus triumphs over\nthe host, the very proteins cells are infected-instructed to grow are\nthe same chrytoxins that sink the host into ovirexia's nightmares.\n\nThe corruption turns self-sustaining.  The body ripens itself for a\nreaping dose to let it all come gushing out.  At this point, the\nvictim has become the chrylurk's thrall.\n\nBut thralldom means more than self-envenomation.  Once the immmune\nsystem falls, the next target is the endocrine system.  The emotional\nresponses of the thrall betrays it for the\nchrylurk's benefit.  Stable neurochemistry becomes impossible without\ncontinual application of the venom-drug; the appetite skews to prefer\nthe taste of gorge from a chrylurk's social stomach.\n\nSuch are the internal changes, but long-kept thralls are obvious at a\nglance: the distribution of fat and the texture of the skin shift,\nheedless of sex; muscles and bones atrophy to impede resistance; the\nflesh becomes deeply flushed and delectably sweaty; the constant\ndraining of blood and soul leaves the thrall pale and skeletal.\nBloodshot eyes dilate from the throes of chrytoxin.\n\nOvirexia is a disease, a constellation of symptons and behavior\nanomalies induced by chrylurks.  For all that they will sow with venom\nand reap with enzymes, the infectious virus is foremost, the particle\nfrom which all else can spring.  Everything else, in fact.\n\nWhen a thrall goes long without a chrylurk dosing and draining them\n--- (their beloved siphon --- they experience an acute withdrawal,\nheadaches and hypertension. (Some might call this a punishment for\nflighty thralls.)  But at length, this passes, at least in thralls\nthat have fully \"turned.\"  They begin to produce low levels of the\nneeded chrytoxins with an inefficient emergency metabolism;\nbloodletting through self-laceration relieves the hypertension.\n\nTheir psychology changes, akin to the inanition state known to\nstarvation's victims; they become restless and pursue any scent or\nsight of their siphon.  This may sufficient to reunite thralls that\nhave been taken from their siphon; and in cases where that chrylurk\nhas died, this wandering may instead bring it into contact with\nanother chrylurk fain to claim it.\n\nThe most likely outcome, for a thrall with no chrylurk to sustain it,\nis death or perhaps a partial reversion of some of the biological\nchanges induced.  (Once a thrall's body begins to undergo\nphysiological changes, even if the virus is purged, returning fully to\nan unaltered biology is impossible, and it will always be easy to slip\nback into a thrall state.)\n\nBut especially for the most fully transitioned thralls, another\npathway of mutation unfolds.  The truth of viral ovirexia is that it\nis no simple virus --- it is the entiotic germ.  A chrylurk is nothing\nless than the mature reproductive stage of an entiote.\n\nThrall endocrinology changes the distribution of fat, but when\nrepeatedly drained of blood and scarcely fed, a thrall instead wastes\nto skeletal gauntness.  Without a siphon, though? A thrall ripens,\nblood ever-rich in new essence without outlet.  All this excess gets\nstored in fat, a distorted mirror of soul's natural genesis.  Like\nthis, any untended thrall becopmes an ever more tempting meal --- a\nhungry chrylurk would gladly rend their juicy flesh from their bones.\n\nBut this accumulation of essence-fat prompts a new mode of ovirexia, a\npivot in the entiotic germ's behavior.  Rather than just synthesizing\nmanipulatory molecules, it leverages chrylurk genes to form a viable\nzygote.\n\nThis is an unreliable process; in theory, it ensures that chrylurks\ncould return even from complete eradication of every hive and\nhiveling, but in practice, the species could never survive if this was\nthe primary mechanism for generating fertile entiote eggs.\n\nA more reliable mechanism is direct and explicit: the\nstinger-ovipositor of the chrylurk queen-caste drips with\nvermincholie, a calorie-dense blend of venom laced with eggs and\nessence.\n\nEntiote eggs and larvae require a rich diet of essence to fully\ndevelop.  For this reason, chrylurk prey divides in two kinds (it\nwould not be unreasonable to call them genders): nectar-thralls are\nthe gaunt figures described above, but more important to chrylurk\nreproduction is the brood-thrall.  (Derogatorily, one could summarize\nthem as bloodbags and eggsacks.) \n\nBrood-thralls carry the parasitic larvae, maggots crawling and\nfeasting even as growth hormones encourage more fat reserves. The\nthrall grows thicker and curvier, though not all of the weight is\ntheir own --- the larvae multiply rapidly and asexually. (Though it\nisn't uncommon for a queen to lay multiple broods in a single host,\naccelerating development.)\n\nA well-groomed and well-drugged thrall can generate essence faster\nthan uninfected mortals; so much so that the resulting disturbances in\nthe mutamyric field can unsettle or stupefy mortals that encounter\nthralls.  The effect resembles the dread miasma of chimeric beasts.\n\nEntiote pupation has phase polyphemism, akin to grasshoppers' latent\npotential to beget locust swarms; at low density, as soon as an\nindividual larva has sufficient essence, it forms a concoon and\nemerges as a small swarmling.  Such swarmlings go on to mate and lay\neggs in the flesh of in other mortals.  Or, often, the same mortal,\nsince the ovirexia-augmented essence production will make it a\ntempting host for future generations.\n\nWhen a mortal is replete with infesting larvae, either from an\nabundance of free-living swarmlings or because a queen keep repeatedly\nlaying in them, the parasitic larvae begin to aggregate.\n\nIn this aggregation phase, pupation is suppressed, and larvae allow\nessence to accumulate at a greater density.  In the process, they\nmanipulate the formation of the soul.  (Wild larva often struggle with\nthis, and the guidance of a queen leads to more efficient and\neffective results.)\n\nWell-known to alchemists is the concept of compleation, the great work\nwhich induces the nebulous and mercurial incompleat soul to undergo\ncrystalization into a more grand and potent form. \n\nChrylurks instead subject their thralls to parascixion --- compleat\ndesolation.  The soul's tumor-growth is pushed and pushed to a\nbreaking point, swelling until it begins to strain under its mass.  By\nthe symmetry of soul and mind, cognitive distortion creeps in at this\nclimax, antecedent to dissociation and derealization.\n\nThis, at last, is what the synchronized larva-aggregation trusts as\nthe signal to begin pupation: a half-woven half-secreted cocoon\nsubsumes the host, encompassing the whole body.  And at last, reaping\nenzyme comes to catalyze the soul. (Any queen would relish conducting\nthis envenomation-annointment.) Before, reaping was a slow, decimating\nerosion, always careful to preserve the whole.\n\nThis is a spark antecdent to a funeral pyre.  The advent of alchemical\ncompleation had wrought for mortals a pathway of crystalline\nascension.  The inversion entails a katabasis---harrowing, hollowing.\nChrylurks are soulless husks, so each pupa must discard this\nsoul-tumor it had grown.  At the heart of the lurking core, the\nchrysoma, is an insatiable hunger and eternal emptiness.  This is what\nlurks deep within every chrylurk: the kenoma.\n\nA chrylurk is a ruin created by the collapse of a soul made parascix.\nIn contrast to fire (combusting with an explosive release of heat)\nconsider the gradual implosion of days spent in chrysalis, a\nmetabolism scouring the soul yet trapping all the heat inside the\npupal walls.\n\nSuch intensity is necessary to forge the lurking core.  It is the\nshadow of mortaltiy: a soul sunk in profoundest negation.  But it is\nno",
  "title": "Thrall → Parascixion → Chrylurk"
}