Jel sat up, blinking blearily into the light-darkness. It was only her and Pride there, which was odd, all things considered. Avar and Crave were not the athletic sort, which made Jel wonder why they were able to finish their ascension before either her or Pride could. At the very least, she woke up before he did, which was something she could tease the grumpy dragon whelp with later.

She sat up, stretching and changed into her small form. Unlike most of her siblings, who she assumed would become humans for their covert configurations, Jel chose to instead become what was essentially a slime. A lump of dragon mana, with her own soul infused within it. She morphed herself in her slime form, taking on the form of Fara with her overalls and boots. Grinning, she morphed back into her slime form and began to construct a new configuration that was more ‘her.’

The first step was the general form, a human since she still wanted to be able to not entirely freak normal humans out, if only so she could have fun with Desire. Next was the face, which she chose to be soft and effeminate, with a round head. She chose hair that flowed over her back like a waterfall of black, gold-yellow skin, and eyes that practically shone with green. She made her height quite short, being only around five and half feet tall-- she did not want to stand out in her infiltration form.

Form made, she stepped onto the ground and looked down at her naked body, frowning for a moment before making her slime body into a modest green dress that shone like silk. With a moment more, she made herself some flat shoes to go with the dress and added a neat little green bow into her hair. She smiled to herself and admired the form she decided to spend the most time in.

It was her decision from before she had even become a dragon. Finding her pyrausta form far too limiting when doing delicate work like runecraft, she decided to pursue a smaller, preferably malleable form to take day-to-day. That, however, left her other forms to suffer. Most of the vague energy she was given from the dragon was spent making her mind sharp and her body malleable. Besides her slime body, her mind was her top priority. It was the one thing she would always have, no matter what, so she expanded it greatly. She forewent having a core, a part of her soul where she derived power from, and instead expanded on what she already was. The main thing within her mind to focus on, however, was the remnants of [Chaotic Adept] that remained after the system was taken from them. It went beyond having an edge of difference to her that made others see her as inconsistent and chaotic, and became something closer to her being able to really understand every perspective she could imagine. The logic, line of reason, and origin of thought were all laid bare to her, and she understood it. To a degree.  Her pyrausta body, however, barely benefitted ascension and her dragon body was nothing but a four legged, exoskeleton covered, winged lizard.

It was all worth it, though, to be able to take such a comfortable form. 

As she thought to herself, Pride began to stir in his cot and suddenly sat up. Jel waved to him and he nodded, “I am the last one to finish, then?” he asked.

“Yep,” Jel answered, “How was yours? Mine was great! I feel so much better than before. No shade on the mistress, but this body is so much better for what I want to do. Maybe it was that she didn’t know what I wanted to do before she made me?” she wondered aloud, “Probably that, yeah.”

Pride stared at her for a few seconds before shrugging, “Sure, whatever makes you happy,” he said, “Let me get into a smaller form,” he said, shifting into his small form. As expected, he was a human, and one that Jel could imagine more than one human falling for at that. She began to wonder if he spent the extra time comatose to simply make his human form to his desire. He had a similar skin tone as Fara did, with a slightly darker shade of blonde hair, angular face, and blue eyes, “I think I turned out well,” he said, nodding to himself.

Jel looked him up and down for a long moment, eventually nodding, “Yeah, I think so too,” she echoed, “How much did you put into that?”

He looked down once more, nodding, and took his robe-armor, tossing it on and clicking his tongue in annoyance at its size compared to his body, “I believe I put an equal amount of my evolution into each form, with a bit more than each into my soul. You?”

Jel sighed wistfully, putting her hand up in front of her, “It felt like the sky was the limit, but I couldn’t just go wild. I had to prioritize, and I chose what was best for me. I pumped over half of mine into my mind, with most of the rest of it going to this form,” she explained, letting her soft hand revert to fleshy slime for a brief moment before snapping it back, “Though, I wonder if Unio can do this?”

Pride shook his head, “He cannot, most likely. He is a normal slime with an abnormal mistress. Unless the mistress does something weird, then he will be how he is now for at least a while yet,” he replied.

“Then not for long,” Jel joked. Knowing the mistress, she was an hour away from being able to make them all psychic like she was, “Anyway, we should get going. And figure out why the skiff is tilted,” she said, opening the door to the hallway and leading them out.

Pride thought for a moment, “I have a few theories, but the most likely is that the mistress somehow got the skiff stuck in the tunnel and rammed it into a tunnel or some such.”

“No, I think something else happened, like we got stuck on a mountain, or something like that,” Jel replied, leading them into the dining hall. There, sitting at the table in the corner, were the three zombie sisters, Crave, Desire, and Eva, all sitting there and playing a card game. Jel looked at Desire's small form with a look of approval, then turned to Crave. She had… some thoughts. He reminded her of something the mistress once called a ‘beholder’ on a rant during a sigil design session. His body was about as large as an average man’s torso, with a massive eye in the middle, two stumpy arms protruding from the side, and a mane of appendages with bulbous eyes on the ends. On top of that, he was floating there, hovering up and down slightly.

Eva was the first to notice their approach, “Hey guys!” she called, waving them over. Jel and Pride followed, but before Jel could ask any of the questions she wanted to, Eva held up a hand, “Yeah, I know what you’re going to ask. Here’s what happened,” Eva began. She explained what had happened while the pyraustas were all comatose, including the part about them leaving Granulous which they were already well aware of, “So, yeah. That’s everything. Questions?”

Jel tilted her head back and forth as an internal debate about what to ask first raged. She was far too slow, however, as Pride spoke before she could, “Yes, I do. Can we trust the Clockwork woman, and are we sure we cannot deal with the Cyst ourselves?” he asked, leaning against the wall.

Desire and Crave shared a glance, shrugging to Pride, “Look, we’re not the ones you want to talk to if that’s your plan,” Desire said, “I mean, Avar’s job is smithing and helping Fara, Crave’s is to gather knowledge, mine is to… be emotional support? Whatever my job is, we’re not good at fighting. The most we could do is throw some fire at it every half minute or so. If you two want to go fight it, find Idle and Fury. Those two are going on about the same thing. Also, tell the mistress if you really plan on doing it,” she said, taking her hand of cards from Tisi.

Jel waited for Pride to step away before climbing up to the top deck, gazing at the cavern above and beyond. Leaning against the gate of the upper deck’s outer wall, she looked into Pride’s eyes, “So, what do you want to do?” she asked, “Because we could do plenty of things, but I know that you don’t want to just sit around and wait for the mistress to make an army of her necromechs.”

Pride sighed, nodding, “You are right. I would rather remove this annoyance now than later. The issue is that we do not know how powerful this Cyst is. We could simply die in attempting to get closer to it. And I would rather not put the mistress through that sort of trouble,” he remarked, shaking his head. Jel returned his comment with a blank stare, “What?”

Jel shook her head, “Pride, who did the mistress bring with her to this place?”

“The Clockwork lady, VII,” he answered.

“Right, and who knows a lot about Clockworks?”

“VII,” Pride growled, “Look, I don’t trust her,” he returned, eyes narrowed.

Jel returned Pride’s glare with one of her own, “Look, we can do one of two things. One, we can just go out there and kill it, possibly dying in the process, or two, we can go ask this lady, who the mistress is apparently friendly with, if we stand a chance. Can you really not swallow your pride to ask for help from a former enemy, Pride?”

Pride clicked his tongue, looking away for a moment before looking back at Jel, “Fine, I can. So, what? We go find this lady and ask her how powerful we are compared to the Cyst?” he asked.

“No,” Jel said, “We get everyone else up for a scrap on board, go to the mistress for approval, then ask the lady for her help. Now come on. We’ve got work to do,” she said, sprouting wings from her back and leaping from the skiff, soon followed by Pride. It took all of five seconds to find Fury, flying around and making kicks to the air in his human-ish form. They floated up to him and he stopped as they did so, “Hey, Fury,” Jel said, “Do you want to go fight the Cyst?” she asked bluntly. She knew her siblings well, save for Crave who she was simply not as close to as her more battle-craving siblings or the easily teasable Desire. There was little chance of him turning the offer down.

As expected, he did not disappoint, “Finally!? Good! I was getting bored of practicing. Who else is coming? The sisters? Idle? Aerolat?” he asked.

“We’re finding Idle now, then we’re going to ask the mistress for permission, then VII for her opinion. How’s that?” she replied, smiling Fury quickly agreed, pointing towards the top of the tower to where Idle was. They flew up to the top, finding Idle in her human form sitting with her eyes closed.

Before Jel could pitch her idea, Idle held up a hand and stood, “I heard,” she said, “I’d like to join you three. Fighting that thing will be a boon for us, considering how much material makes it up.”

Jel and Fury gave radiant smiles while Pride nodded, “Good! Now then, where’s the mistress?” she asked Fury and Idle.

Idle closed her eyes and held up a hand, “She’s in the catacombs right now, bringing up a few bodies,” she explained, “Let’s wait in front of the door.” The others followed, landing in front of the door, and they waited for the mistress to appear from the tower.