Chrysalis

"Wuff, wuff, wuff."

I don't know why, but these new pets the shapers have designed seem to have such a positive outlook on life. There's a gleam of simple joy in their eyes as they wibble and wobble about the place, soaking up vile goop and emitting their mist.

After evolving, they're a bit bigger, but not by as much as I expected. It makes sense on reflection, what would they need Might for? Or toughness? They have one job, and all their evolutionary energy can go into that.

"Why did you make these guys so cheerful?" I ask Bella as my comrades continue to go to war against the enraged fifth stratum beasts in the background.

"Do they… need your help?" she replies, looking nervously over my shoulder.

"I'm sure they're fine."

"There seems to be a lot of screaming…."

"That's the slugs."

I do check before I reply, of course I do, but I snatch my senses away as quickly as I can. Even still, I continue to hear Crinis raving in my mind.

[FILTH! YOU DARE CONTAMINATE THE MASTER'S AIR! I WILL RIP UNTIL YOU CAN BE RIPPED NO MORE!]

Shudder.

"Well… we didn't, really. I don't think we spent any time shaping their personalities at all. Perhaps it's come about as a result of their function?"

"What, as cleaners?"

She shrugs helplessly with her antennae.

"I don't know, Eldest, I legitimately can't explain it. For whatever reason, they have just… come out this way."

I look again at the little guys, gleefully wibbling into whatever pile of foul, noxious slime they can find and soaking it up like a paper-towel, wuffing away the whole time.

"Their efficiency has really gone up," I observe, impressed.

Bella flinches as another explosion goes off, probably closer than we would have liked. Invidia hisses with satisfaction as rock and debris trickles down from overhead, so I know it's fine.

"Yes, they had evolved just enough to perform their duty when Solant… and you… took them out. Originally, we'd wanted them to have at least reached this stage before field testing."

"Am I crazy, or is the mist more potent as well?"

Acting as a counter to the goop, as well as the invidious mana of the fifth, the mist is… difficult to describe. Wherever it touches the poisonous gas, the two just seem to… cancel each other out. As it rises into the air and reaches the strings of mucus attached to the ceiling and walls, it eats away at them until they shrivel up and vanish. 

"That's their mutations, along with boosting organs they gained at this tier. We thought that the most critical issue for them would be how much cleansing mist they can produce per unit of slime consumed. If they aren't ahead of that curve, then they need to absorb more slime than they can produce mist. Since the slime is self-propagating, they need to be making much more mist than they are eating slime."

"Are they ahead of that curve now?"

"No, it will take another evolution before they are just ahead of breaking even."

Huh…

Well, from what I can see, the experiment is a raging success! The wuffers are doing a stellar job eating slime, and it just so happens to be summoning an endless buffet of experience for my pets, which is fabulous! I can't wait to see what their Levels are like once this rampage is done. Fingers crossed they'll be getting close to the tier seven evolution. In fact, I have my suspicions that Invidia might already be there, or at least very close.

Man, they really are going crazy over there. The shockwaves from the continuous explosions, punches and the shrieks of Crinis' victims are absolutely deafening. I think I might need to head over there and check things out.

"Excuse me for a minute, I'm just going to make sure those three are alright."

"Of course. N-not at all, Eldest."

The two scouts are more than happy to let me, remaining behind with the small team of shapers they've brought with them, the actual 'masters', or 'mistresses', I guess, of the pets.

I climb my way forward, scoutting carefully over the remaining patches of ooze to find that things are as busy as I thought they were. In fact, I've never seen anything quite like this.

The three of them appear to be almost literally holding back the tide against a tsunami of sludge, slime, frogs and slugs. The tunnel is full of them. Full. 

[Holy moly! Why didn't you tell me it was getting this bad?!]

[GOOD FIGHT!] Tiny roars, excitedly.

[The experience. It ssssshall be minessssss,] Invidia insists.

[DIEEEEEEEE!] Crinis screams.

Alright… so they're getting a bit greedy. That's fine, we can work with that.

[Shove over a bit, then, make a little room for me. I'll help out, and I'll do my best to make sure that I'm not taking too much of the XP, alright?]

Tiny and Invidia begrudgingly agree, while Crinis continues to shriek and fight, a forest of tendrils lashing out at the monsters ahead of us.

Doing my best not to fall, I grip tight to the stone and make my way onto the ceiling, hanging upside down. I hope my grip training pays off here, otherwise I might look very foolish….

Thankfully, I don't immediately fall flat on my face, and I manage to find an angle I can fire above Tiny's head and out into the mass of creatures ahead of us.

I do my best to provide some cover fire, lobbing gobs of lava at the oncoming tide, blasting them with the occasional bolt of lightning and generally making a nuisance of myself as best I can. Naturally, throwing gravity bombs in this sort of congestion would be stupid, and defeat the purpose of supporting my allies, since the whole point is to give them the experience.

The relentless fury of the fifth stratum monsters is something to behold, though. Time and time again, they throw themselves bodily at us, only for Tiny to batter them away, or Crinis to snatch them out of thin air, at the last second. If Leeroy saw this sort of behaviour, she'd think she's found some kindred spirits! They have no regard for their own lives whatsoever. It's as if they consider the slime and ooze to be more important than themselves. Weird.

After an extended period of this, I notice something worrying.

[Crinis! How low on shadow flesh are you?]

[DIIIIIIEEEEEE—wait? What?]

[Shadow flesh? How much do you have?]

[Oh! I'm… I'm almost out.]

I was worried about that. The number of tendrils she's been able to extend has been steadily decreasing for the last five minutes. I immediately start pulling out gravity mana, condensing and shaping it.

The slugs are a bad matchup for Crinis. She needs to touch them to hurt them, which means she gets poisoned and constantly has to shed the toxified flesh. Her reserves of flesh are massive, but not enough to endlessly sustain herself.

To be fair, Tiny is looking pretty tired as well. He's not an endurance athlete, he's built for maximum power.

Invidia… seems fine. He can cast spells like this all day.

[Pull back when I say so,] I warn them, [I'll drop a gravity field and then we run for it. Ready? Now!]