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.

solid mass, not allowing a single drop of corrupted energy to slip past them, and filling the tunnel with clean, pure energy for the ants to climb

forming a plug in the way they have has seemingly prevented the natives below from sensing what we’re up to for the time being, which is a good thing, since I have to fight them off by myself if they decide to come up here. I mean, things are bound to go straight to heck once we reach the opening, but for

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

they

their work until we reach the lower end of the tunnel. I bring myself down into the chamber itself

encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's

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

feel a mind

Eldest. Prepare

[Got it.]

up my minds, ready for battle. We have to be careful using mind bridges down here, every 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. This mana is so virulent, every other form of energy it comes into contact with will become foul and no longer work, or worse. In the case of a mind

seconds later, the wuffers break their tight formation, creating a gap in the middle as they squish themselves against the sides. Through the hole they’ve created, purified blue mana slowly falls down into the sludge of the fifth. Both forms of mana are thick and slow-moving, like syrup or molasses, but when they come into contact with each other, they fizz, each trying to eat