Chrysalis

The wuffers go first. Well, that’s not entirely true, I go first, since I can survive down there, for a while at least, without any help. Once I plunge myself back into the goop, I don’t descend this time, but wait as the entire contingent of wuffers is lowered down the tunnel after me.

All five hundred of them.

All mooshed together, they don’t appear like separate monsters at all, but rather one big, blobby, ball of cheeriness as they wuff wuff away, perfectly content with the world. The moment they touch the mana of the fifth however, an arcane-chemical reaction takes place.

The happy pets don’t change at all, but the mana around me certainly does. Like a pump is suddenly turned on, there is a massive whoosh of energy as the wuffers suck in a huge quantity of the poisoned mana. Clinging to the side of the tunnel, it’s like I’m inside a sewer and someone just flushed a whole mess straight into my face.

It’s unpleasant, is what I’m saying.

Once the creatures have taken in all they can, the flow settles down and things return to normal. I nervously wait to see if there’s any activity from below, but the monsters down there seem to be chilling for the time being. After about a minute, something changes. From above, the wuffers finish purifying the mana of the fifth, and release that cleaned energy above themselves.

Then they descend a little and the process starts again.

the first time, but rather a slow and steady descent as the wuffers form a solid mass, not allowing a

since I have to fight them off

off the pain of being in the fifth. Are they enough for me to sustain myself down here permanently? Nope. I’m still literally on fire, all over my body, being burned constantly by acid, which isn’t the best. I’m also still being invaded by toxic mana, which would devour me if I left it alone for mere minutes. But the rings are

they actually

wuffers doing their work until we reach the lower end of the tunnel. I bring myself down into the chamber itself and perch on the roof, out of trouble’s way. Things are pretty much the same down here as they were when last I saw

Amazon, note that

going to go straight to heck. In preparation for that moment, we wait here for a while,

mind bridge

Eldest.

[Got it.]

type of mana is vulnerable to corruption from the atmosphere in the fifth. I didn’t believe it when I heard it was so toxic we couldn’t even make a gate down there, but apparently Brilliant ran tests to confirm it.

the fifth. Both forms of mana are thick and slow-moving, like syrup or molasses, but when they