A World of Monsters. (An Encyclopedia on the creatures of the world of Null.)

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Killapede.

[Sketches depict a large, centipede like creature with multiple forms. All the forms have a singular pair of glowing eyes, long sharp mandibles like blades, and segmented chitinous armor that interlocks to protect their segments fro damage. The bigger they are, the rougher and spikier their armor becomes.]

[A note is attached. It reads 'Things that scuttle are creepy. These things have dozens of legs, so that makes them super creepy. It's basic creepy-science.']

Scientific Name Translation: Many-Formed Killer.

Average Size: Ranges from 15-70 feet/4.572-21.336 meters, depending on what stage of the life cycle it is on.

Average Weight: 2.3-35.5 tons, depending on stage of life cycle.

Notable Sexual Dimorphism: Females have bristled antenna while males lack bristles.

Habitat Range: Rain-forests and wet lands.

Summary:​

There are tens of thousands of species of arthropods on our homeworld of Null, across land, air and sea, and many thousands more subspecies and variants therein. Of these, one particular species has come to thrive in the wetlands and rainforests of the continent of Arisa. Long and segmented, with a pair of legs for nearly every segment, the Killapede is a fierce and well armored killing machine. It's deadliness is only compounded, however, by the fact that as it increases it's success in hunting and survives battles, it grows ever larger, eventually changing into a similar but deadlier form. Each form is dubbed with a new title, which goes as follows: Killapede, Murderpede, Butcherpede, and Slaughterpede. Some chuckle at the perceived childishness of such grim names. No one laughs when facing a 70 foot long horror with meter long mandibles and electrified acid spittle.

As previously mentioned, the Killapede line possess multiple forms. The first and most common form is the Killapede itself, a creature that is roughly 15 feet long and who is armed with pair of long, razor sharp mandibles and a toxic, corrosive spit it can launch in a spray for several seconds at a time. It is at the weakest in this form, with its chitin being bullet proof but still susceptible to infantry armor piercing weapons. A well placed shot from an anti-tank rocket is more than enough to cut one of these horrors in half. Its armor covers all of their segments and is interlinking, providing cover for the otherwise armorless intersections between the segments. This interlinking is not, however, flawless: A well placed shove of a spear or a blade can slide in and pierce the flesh below, if one is willing to fight one up close.

The next several forms see an increase in size, durability, and overall deadliness as new abilities are gained. The Murderpede form sees a size increase of twice that of the Killapede, at 30 feet long. They gain the ability to conduct an electric current, which they infuse their corrosive sprays with in order to electrocute prey hardened against both toxins and acid. Butcherpedes increase to roughly 40 feet long and their liquid spray ability is altered to instead fire a sticky, viscous glue like substance that in addition to the previous abilities helps bind and slow down all that is hit by it. The final form, the Slaughterpede, jumps to a 70 foot length and its electrical ability has evolved to be able to be produce an electric field all over its for a limited time, one powerful and accurate enough to effectively act as a point-defense shield, melting both rail slugs and detonating Slugger rounds that attempt to bypass it. By the time they reach this size, it is recommended that field teams do not engage, and instead call in support from Stormcutter Gunships in order to deal with the threat. [A note is attached. It reads 'Giant creepy crawlies that get even more giant. What a world.']

Despite popular myth, Killapedes are not, in fact, the juvenile form of the later stages. Adult Killapedes are naturally 15 feet long, and the advanced forms are the result of some form of mutation that increases their deadliness to unprecedented levels. Unlike other creatures with similar ability, researchers believe this is not the result of radiation induced mutation at some point in the species past, but a mystical genetic fluke that naturally occurred that managed to find its way into the species genepool. The fact that the specimens of later forms remain healthy and potentially live indefinitely as with most life on Null rather than dying sooner or later due to flaws in the changes only compounds the evidence for this being a natural, if horrifically unprecedented, evolution. [A note is attached. It reads 'Nature is reliable like that. Just when you think it's done making horrors on purpose, it one ups itself without trying.']

As arthropods of such sizes, the Killapede line possess fully functional sets of lungs. Several sets, in fact, across its upper segments closer to the head region. This allows them the ability to hold their breath when underwater for extended periods of time. Indeed, they often spend long periods of time swimming through water or crawling along in river beds to get to prey or to bypass predators that would be a threat to them. This makes crossing bodies of water in rainforests and wetlands a hassle, as more than one unit of Hunters or soldiers have literally stumbled into a river-passing Killapede due to not being able to notice them due to brackish waters.

When hunting prey, Killapedes and their variants tend to open up with a sneak attack with their sprays. Those that survive intact and do not run away often are then met by the 'pedes with their elongated and obsidian sharp mandibles, blade like extensions that are upon modified front legs that are capable of, and have indeed in managed to do, duels between themselves and other blade carrying individuals. Butcherpedes and Slaughterpedes that manage to find somewhere large enough to hide in use their new-found goo sprays to store prey for later consumption, often leaving their layers inky goo covered places that can leave those not expecting to walk into a pool of the substance to become stuck.

When mating season occurs, males meet first in places that have in previous years proven excellent locations to call for females. Males then proceed to battle one another, often dueling with their mandibles, for the right to control that particular stretch of territory for the duration of the mating season. The victors then proceed to call out for females and must often fend the location from hostile elements. When a female does arrive, no further actions are needed to commence mating: The male that manages to hold the location until her arrival has proven his capabilities. Parents then share responsibilities in guarding their eggs, often switching roles between guarding the nest and hunting. Interestingly, Butcherpedes and Slaughterpedes rarely if ever engage in reproductive behavior. Given their comparative rarity, it is likely a result of there being too few suitors to mate with than as a change in their instinctive drives, though research is still being done by scientists to determine the truth.

At the end of the day, Killapedes are another monstrous animal that those living in the regions they exist in must learn to live with. Members of the Bughunter Nation take a particular interest in hunting the beasts in their Killapede forms, as they are small enough at this stage that armored cloaks made from their heads and upper segments can be created for their use with ease. This makes the Bughunters the most common, and arguably naturally occurring main predator of, the Killapede line of creatures, keeping their numbers in check lest too many Butcher and Slaughterpedes appear. [A note is attached. It depicts a well done sketch of a Bughunter Oros in Killapede armor hunting and felling another Killapede by piercing it's head with a spear shoved between the armored plates.]

 

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Jaco Killer.

[Sketches depict a massive mantis like creature, its upright torso reaching 15 feet high, not including the antenna. Its eyes are like those of other Nullian arthropods, possessing simple eyes with singular pupils. Interestingly, the ones on the Jaco Killer do not glow, leaving only a pair of white iris' on a field of black sclera. The mouth is similar to the jaws of other Nullian arthropods, having an upper and lower jaw, though it is flanked by a pair of dangerous looking mandibles. The creature's forelimbs are covered in many sharp spines, clearly meant to improve gripping while also being sharp enough to cause cuts if yanked when attached to a target. One sketch disturbingly shows a tree whose branches are like with creatures having been run through them. One such branch has a creature being added to it by the Jaco Killer.]

[A note is attached. It reads 'I've always had nightmares of being hung up on a tree by one of these things. Still have them, sometimes.']

Scientific Name Translation: Sadistic Branch Killer.

Average Size: 15 Feet/4.572 Meters in height.

Average Weight: 2.5 tons.

Notable Sexual Dimorphism: Females posses feathered antenna.

Habitat Range: Most heavily forested jungle regions in Royalback territory.

Summary:​

The majority of the Nations of the Oros species have peoples who instinctively dislike insectoid creatures. Why this is so has been argued for centuries, with many pointing to the dangers and brutality of the invasive Spider-Ants as a likely candidate. Some, like the author of this very encyclopedia, however, have another theory as to why this is. The likely culprit is a massive mantid super-predator known for its horrific territorial displays an unsightly speed: The Jaco Killer.

The Jaco Killer, originally known as 'Jaco's Killer', was first given its modern name some two thousand years ago by renowned Royalback Hunter and biological researcher, Jaco Shen. He was the first to document the life style and cycle of these infamous insectoids, and it is his findings that I shall share within this book, within my own hand. Contrary to popular belief, the Jaco Killer did not get its name for slaying Jaco himself, it is simply the result of his name being attached to the specimens of his studies, the beasts often being referred to in old times as the 'Branch Killer'. [A note is attached. It reads: 'Jaco himself lived a long and fruitful life, dying in recent times following the tragic nuclear terrorist attack on the Royalback Great Walled City of Yang Quartz, which led to its invasion by mutated wildlife. I'm hearing rumors from the Mil-Net that we've finally found the culprits responsible for that, but we're still trying to nail down their base of operations.'-Circa 3149]

The Jaco Killer is notable massive by most insectoid standards, looming in at 15 feet tall at the head. It's long lower torso is nearly two dozen feet long and well armored, meaning often one has to target the relatively unarmored upper torso to kill one in battle. Even regular Slugger rounds can be used for this task, but the incredible speed and regenerative capabilities of the Jaco Killer makes it deceptively difficult to kill for good. The source of this great speed, despite their ungainly lower means of mobility, is partially due to a heavy diet rich in Fulgerite, which drastically increases it's capability for movement several times over.[

The Jaco Killer is thus armed with several weapons. It's foremost and most iconically notable ones are its forelimbs, the outer edge being sharp as blades and the inner edge covered in sharp spikes for better gripping. This, combined with their imposing size, grants the Jaco Killer a set of forelimbs that can pick up a fully armored adult individual of the Civilized Races. In addition, the Jaco Killer can electrify portions of its body, forelimbs included, in order to stun prey.

Once its prey is defeated, the Jaco killer takes it and returns to its home tree, a place hung full of its grisly trophies: On each branch is a prey creature, their bodies run through the center mass and left to hang. Most die immediately from shock and blood loss, but some prey are hardy enough to remain alive for relatively long periods of time. One such prey are the Mortal Races. The Jaco Killers, like many beasts, cannot feed upon our flesh, but this does not stop them from taking an Oros soldier it has captured and running them through the torso on a branch, leaving them grasping at the bloody and gruesome wound they now posses in their mid section. The Jaco Killers are very thorough in removing the armor platings that would otherwise prevent this occurrence on their Civilized prey.

Indeed, the intellect of a Jaco Killer is vast, enough that it possesses a notable amount of emotional intelligence. With this great intellect comes a savagely sadistic streak and a great enjoyment in causing suffering and pain. This, more than any other, is the reason why they perform such gruesome acts of skewering their prey from branches. Indeed, while some believe this serves as a way to warn off intruders from their territory, the evidence suggests these beings want intelligent beings to find these places and realize where they are and what will occur to them before the Killer strikes at them. [A note is attached. It reads 'Sooo, this makes them evil, right? Something like this has to be evil, right?']

In terms of diet, the Jaco Killer is a carnivorous creature, feeding heavily from the edible beings it captures and hangs from its tree. Whatever it does not eat, it uses to fertilize the often highly desirable vegetation surrounding its territory that is used to lure in plant eating creatures into the region, where upon it harvests them quickly and brutally, often toying with whatever unfortunate souls were lured into its territory. More than one innocent soul has been lost over the millennia, unwittingly entering this territory in order to seek out sought after fruits and roots for their kin to feed off of.

The Jaco Killer has no set mating season. Whenever a male and female meet, the male offers a portion of its bounty to her to feed off of before they engage in mating. Several weeks later, the female lays eggs which in turn hatch not long afterwards. The young spend several years remaining near their mother's tree, feeding off of whatever excess prey she collected. Once they mature, those that survive predation go off to find their own trees capable of sustaining their newfound size and weights before beginning the cycle of violence once more. [A note is attached. It depicts a tiny Jaco Kilelr presenting a dog head to its parent, staring in a speech bubble 'mother, I have killed'.]

Jaco's Killer is a widely known and fiercely hated creature by the natives of the Royalback Nation. The species has regularly been the target of extermination hunts across the centuries on the orders of various Emprerors and Empresses of the Royalbacks, often falling short of being able to completely render the species extinct. Following a period of calm, the Killers rebuild their numbers and the cycle begins anew as they once again become a threat to local populations. With the advent of the Great Walled Cities, it is becoming less and less common for towns to have enough people seeking wild food to fall prey to the murderous insects. Despite this, however, the hatred for them is so strong among the Royalbacks, that every few decades, another Great Purge is ordered. In recent years, the Royalbacks have begun to seek aid from the Bughunter Nation, who have had run ins with the beasts themselves, making it very likely they'll be rendered extinct by the end of the next two centuries. [A note is attached. It reads, 'And nothing of value was lost!']

 

[TripleMRed]

Flora, Land.

[Sketches depict a wide, wide, wide assortment of plant-life, from trees and grass, to flowers, to strange and monstrous looking lifeforms that exceed classic plant design. The coloration range from classic green foliage, to sanguine hued leaves and mesmerizing arrays of blues and purples. It is exceedingly obvious that the assortment on display in these sketches only scratch the surface of the amount of plant life on Null.]

[A note is attached. It depicts a very well detailed sketch of a single rose that has yet to bloom, its thorns razor sharp and with droplets of blood on them.]

Summary:​

Complex life, no matter how hardy or capable, relies on feeding on more life to survive. Even creatures that feed directly off the magic of the world requires ingestion of at least some minerals and vitamins that cannot be extracted from raw magic without complex spellwork. As a result, the food pyramid, at its base level, requires plants in order to sustain it. The majority of life on Null is omnivorous, but for the most part, prey animals make the most use of plant matter in order to feed themselves. As such, it would be remiss of me to write about the life forms of our homeworld if I did not make at least one entry dedicated to basic and arguably most vital component of the predation pyramid.

Like the plants of our sister Spirit Realm of Lacuna, plant life in the Mortal side of Null has a wide range of coloration for their foliage. The most common color is green, as these plants use the substance chlorophyll to attain energy from sunlight. These types of plants are considered the oldest and most widespread family of plant life, however they are far from the only one. Red colored plants feed on a potent mixture of raw magic in the air as well as blood drained from the ground, with raw sunlight being a supplementary means of gaining energy.

Others have colors that seem to have no real connection to feeding on light, though all can to some sort of affect as a supplement if it is not their primary means of food production. Purple and blue colored plants feed almost exclusively on the very magic of Null, raw Mana produced by the world surrounding them, the colors being the intermingling colors of wild Nullian Mana. Others drain power from elemental stones, or in the case of the Lightning Rod Tree, directly converts lightning into usable energy in stormy parts of the world. [A note is attached. It reads, 'I have friends who live in Lacuna. They tell me the Mana there is either light blue or green, rather than dark purple and dark blue like here. They also says the Mana of our side is 'weird' and 'funky' and that it makes spell casters who aren't born here go a little nuts and become more aggressive. 'Dark Mana', they call it.']

Unlike the plant life of Lacuna, however, many plants of Null are not purely static entities, passively going through life. Indeed, a notable percentage of flora, like the animals around them, are omnivorous in nature. Most not only passively take in nutrients form the ground and light from the sun, they also use a variety of methods to actively take in nutrition from corpses near them, with others still have developed specialized tools to make more corpses when possible.

Most of the 'Shooter' category of plants are actually just specialized roots that have come out of the ground and have been evolved for a deadly purpose. One of the most common types are the 'Repeaters', which are essentially giant flowers that open up to unleash a hail of sharp, metallic thorns with the speed of a bullet. Most Nullian animals are hardy enough to wade through this, but a weak kind of prey animal such as the relatively fragile Flicker-Tongue would be reduced to a pile of bloody shreds and red mist by the amount of thorns being launched at them. [A note is attached. It depicts a sketch drawing of two beings, a Flicker-Tongue and an armored Oros soldier being fired upon by a Repeater. The Flicker-Tongue has exploded into a cloud of blood and fragments, while the Soldier is being knocked back and off their feet by the sheer volume of fire involved.]

Another of the 'Shooter' category of plants is the 'Vampire Thorn'. Where as the Repeater fires a hail of thorns like bullets, the Vampire Thorn is like a missile or cannon. A large spike that is connected to the main body of the plant is fired with enough force to penetrate even most kinds of Nullian animal hides, where upon its serrated edges hold it in place and it starts to suck the bodily fluids from the creature while it still lives. Once completed, it unhooks itself from its prey and resets its spike back into the main body, where it then waits for the next animal to step into its range. A similar but purely melee version of this plant exists, though rather than being used for feeding, it's a purely defensive structure that keeps plant eaters away via a quick and brutal stab.

While not technically a Shooter category plant, the Whip Vine is another mostly defensive ranged option for some types of trees. Rolled into a tight bundle or laying on the ground like a sort of extended minefield, the Whip Vine attacks by unferrling and whipping its target. The force is sufficient to cut a Spirit man wearing old, unaugmented jousting plate armor in half. If it manages to kill something or wraps itself around something particularly weak, the Whip Vine wraps around the target before unleashing thousands of miniature syringe like structures coating its outer layers, allowing it to draw the victims bodily fluids out and feed upon them.

These are but some of the most common structures used by plant life to harvest more nutrients from the very things that feed upon them, rather than waiting for their fermenting corpses to fertilize the ground. Razor grass appears to be normal grass at first, but closer inspection reveals the individual blades to be sharp as razors and rigid as metal. Accidentally walking on it leads to bad things happening to ones feet if said feet aren't tough enough. Sap Mines are a pressure sensitive ground based defensive measures that only trigger when a certain amount of weight is placed on them; the bigger the mine, the more weight is required to set it off, so there are mines for killing medium sized life forms and those designed to drive off Giant and Titan sized monstrosities. Not kill; drive off.

While there is a wider array of defensive and offensive measures plants use, to end off this section so far, there are the 'Blast Fruit'. Resembling fleshy, glowing fruits, these objects are actually large sacks filled with gas. The most common type unleashes a cloud of toxic, caustic gas that is meant to drive away intruders from their territory, though it would reduce weaker creatures to a pile of dissolving matter on exposure. The least common type unleashes a seemingly harmless gas into the air, covering nearly several acres worth of forest in it from a single fruit. This gas, however, is flammable, and their specific fruit has an internal spark maker that lights it after a few moments. That's right; a naturally-occurring fuel air bomb. Worse still, the plants of the Blast Fruit of this type have fire proof bark, meaning that the sections of forest comprised of them remain intact as everything in an over a hundred meter radius is consumed by a hellish firestorm.

Even with these defensive and offensive measures, larger and tougher forms of life have little issue feeding on plant life. The Oliphant and Apo, for example, are unaffected by all but the most destructive means of driving them off, due to their sheer size alone compared to most other animals.

Most plants, however, have long developed alternate ways of interacting with fauna. Any plant with fruits or vegetables, for example, relies on animals to take their seeds to other places in order to spread themselves. The humble Apa is a common example of such fruit, coming in a wide range of flavors and coloration, unified by their caustic juices and single massive seed in their center that is often spat out by Apos due to them finding the high amount of cyanide distasteful. Humorously, many Oros have taken a liking to the almond taste of the cyanide in these seeds and enjoy eating them as a result. [A note is attached. It reads 'I've tried eating Apa-Seeds raw myself, but I can't do it! People say cyanide tastes like almonds, but it just tasted like poison to me! Then again, I am weird, so maybe it's just me?']

Many such plants also are widely used by Civilized Races in farming. Banki plants are curved and their seeds act like a handle that one grabs unto and uses to peel off the skin to eat the plentiful and delectable fruit-flesh beneath, tossing the seed away to become a new Banki plant in due time. The Plumpkin, or Genocide Gourd, gets its nickname due to it ruthlessly and brutally extending its root systems to choke out and kill all other, weaker plant life around it, spreading like a plague through farm fields if left unchecked. Spud-Spuds, also known by their modern name of 'Tatos', are tubers that enjoy a wide range of beloved recipes such as mashed tatos and spud-fries. These are but a handful of many countless types of fruits and vegetables grown and enjoyed the continent over by Civilized Race and wild animals alike, not counting the ones that directly feed off of foliage.

One notable plant that that is difficult to grow but renowned for the flavorful substance within its massive nut is the Paynut plant. Paynuts, as their names implies, requires a form of payment in order to safely remove and enjoy the large seeds they make. Animals with a taste for such a food kill and bring a form of payment to feed the Paynut, whereupon it loosens the seed to be taken away safely and enjoyed. Animals that attempt to take the Paynut without paying for it will find the plant having injected an obscene amount of cyanide into it, ruining the flavor and causing an upset stomach following consumption.

There are simply too many kinds and varieties of plant life to categorize in a book such as this one, though one can find a wide range of tomes that detail the wide, wide world of plant life on Null's land. Regardless of the kind, however, plants are as much living things as any other creature of Null, vital to sustaining the wider ecosystem and many being able and willing to participate in predation as well. For any Oros, they are particularly a vital component of living, as we Oros are truly omnivorous and require at least some of both meat and plant tissues in our diet to survive. Completely deducting one or the other leads to a slow, but eventual decline of health. Theoretically, an Oros can survive purely on one or the other indefinitely without requiring the other, but doing so leads to them becoming far more susceptible to being killed by an outside force, the most common source of death for an Oros on our homeworld. [A note is attached. It reads, 'Once, I got stuck in a mine in my home town after a particularly nasty tunnel collapse while I was helping to fix some equipment. The twenty of us had nothing to eat but wild Bore-Worm meat for 40 days before we were finally rescued. We was so weak by the end, if we weren't found and rescued, we would have all been killed by angry Common Maulwurfs. Well, all of us anyway. Rest in peace, guys.']

 

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Ghul

[Sketches depict a 4 limbed, lanky dark armored creature covered from head to toe in black plates. A single, cylopean eye resides at the center of its face, with a snouted maw of four plates, two jaws and two flanking mandibles that are as armored as the rest of its form. Its limbs are long and lanky, and all four end in 5 long, opposable digits that allow it to grip with either its hands or its feet. A long, well muscled tail with almost crocodilian like features sprouts from its armored buttocks, with sketches showing the beast using it for swimming and offensive actions. Other sketches depict the beast feeding on carrion, tearing apart what seem to be undead creatures, and one particular sketch shows on larger and more regal than others of its kind, with a crown of bone extending out from around its head.]

Scientific Name Translation: Death Eater. [A note is attached. It reads 'Stinky cat-monkey things is more like it.']

Average Size: 2.85 meters/9.35 feet at the head at full height.

Average Weight: 1k lbs/ 453.6 kgs.

Notable Sexual Dimorphism: None, species is hermaphroditic.

Habitat Range: Any biome, though they tend to stick close to any Corpse-Lands that are in the region.

Summary:​

Scavangers are a vital part of any ecosystem. From the wide family of Geier birds, to Scavanger Beetles, to earth worms, all are vital for clearing the world of rotting flesh and carrion and to keep nature healthy and clean. No scavanger, however, are as fearsome or bold as the menacingly large and intelligent Ghul, a creature with an intimidating appearance and reputation, yet with certain traits and qualities that have brought unto them the attention of one of the Great Spirits of Lacuna and have become something of official, if animalistic, animals of her will.

The average Ghul is creature that stands close to three meters tall when standing at its full height, though most of the time they run on all fours and stay low to the ground, causing them to appear much shorter when they're not standing upright to use their front limbs for attacks. They are covered in a dark, almost black armored shell, that hugs their forms and gives them an appearence almost as though they are wearing suits of chitinous armor. The exception to this covering are several rows of teats lining their chest regions, which actually grown outside of their armored forms and thus do not leave openings into their internal sections. [A note is attached. It reads, 'I don't know about Ghuls, but I know for a fact myself that losing your tits in a fight hurts like hell! And they've got more than one pair, so that's like several times worse! At least they're kinda small and compact when not in use, so I guess it doesn't hurt them as much, probably?']

The Ghul has a resemblance between a cross between a primate, a feline, an insect, and a crocodilian, and that is because they are in fact just that. Genetic and fossil evidence fully supports that at some point within the last 3 million years, the first Ghuls were made during a mystical event that caused the fusion of several members of the previously mentioned species, giving rise to their current form. There is much argument, however, as to the cause of this magical event, with some scientists believing it to have been a natural, if particularly chaotic, magical occurrence, while others believe that a third party was behind their fusion, most likely candidates behind the mysterious Uplifter creatures known to lurk in the shadows of our world.

Regardless of their origins, the armored plates of a Ghul is highly resistant to damage, even capable of deflecting indirect shots from railgun rounds. This armored form, combined with their relatively large sizes and deadly capabilities, gives the Ghul a temperament that defies the stereotype of most scavengers. They actively drive off other predators within their weight category scavenging carrion, their greatest limitation being that they do not operate in large groups but in small packs of a handful of individuals at a time spread across a large area individually.

In terms of armament, their claws lining all their digits are long and sharp enough to rend untempered and unruned steel with little difficulty, their tails are muscular and strong enough to crumple stone pillars to the point of bursting in half, and they can produce and spit out a highly dangerous corrosive bile from their mouths that inflict disease and hallucinogenic attacks upon the victim. This 'Necro-Bile' also has the added affect of driving Geier birds like Rot-Hawks into an attacking frenzy, causing them to swarm the enemy of the Ghul, their own senses of self-preservation erased by a blood-lust untypical of their kind. [A note is attached. It depicts a doodle of a cartoonish Ghul pointing at a Oros soldier in armor, a flock of birds swarming him. A word bubble from the Ghul reads 'git 'im, bois!']

Furthermore, the Ghul is highly intelligent, able and willing to use tools on hand as weapons, or to use tactics to attack those entering their territory. A single large feline like eye resides at the center of their head and can, with great concentration, produce an energy beam of psionic nature capable of slicing through trees and scything through armored vehicles with ease, at the cost of temporarily blinding the individual Ghul in question. Both this eye-beam and the Necro-Bile they spit out are highly radioactive, thus requiring caution in order to avoid severe rad-burns.

The most intriguing element of the Ghul, however, is their complete immunity to necromantic magics. Surviving texts from ancient times revealed than when necromantic rituals performed by demonic beings were performed to raise the dead, any Ghul's brought back would immediately have their bodies retaken by their original souls, their ancient and dead flesh returning to life anew and reknitting back into a whole form, and the newly revived Ghul immediately turning its sights on the destruction of the Necromancer that dared to raise it up. This trait is what caught the attention of the Great Spirit of Night, Dreams, and Death, Luraru. The Great Spirit has since officially adopted the creatures as her personal servants in her campaign to eradicate necromancy, which in essence means these dark, dangerous, and macabre creatures are, technically speaking, holy. [A note is attached. It reads, 'Technically, the best kind of 'nically!']

Despite technically being holy servants to a goddess, Ghuls are still very much dangerous animals in their own right. They are territorial and aggressively drawn to any masses of rotting material to feed upon, and have a wretched odor that follows them like the stink on a Noxigon. Fascinatingly, this smell is actually a sign that the Ghul is clean and free of disease or bacteria on their outer-shells. Despite their nature as carrion eaters, Ghuls meticulously clean themselves with a foul-smelling but highly anti-bacterial formula created by mashing various kinds of fungi and lichen together. As such, aside from an eye-watering assault on the senses, one can safely touch a Ghul without worry of becoming diseased, and even a direct bite carries little risk if it has not eaten or spat up Necro-Bile recently.

The most dangerous and powerful kind of Ghuls are Ghul Queens. These beings are Ghuls that succeeded in findind, and consuming, the rotting flesh of an Elder God, causing them to ascend into a new and dangerous form, noted by a bone-crown forming around their heads. Ghul Queens gain many abilities, including the ability to produce a hyper-deadly airborne toxin capable of killing all life in a near kilometer wide radius, the venom being so potent that nothing will ever grow again in this place. Despite this, life continues, as another ability of the Ghul Queen is to reformat the dead plant-matter of these poisoned lands and breath into them a new life, twisting their forms until they become grotesque, rotten versions of their old selves. A Ghul Queen claims this entire patch of land they poisoned as their personal kingdom, a process that is known as 'Putriforming', so named because of the ungodly putrid smells that these living-death flora produce. [A note is attached. It reads 'I wonder if they have like actual kingdoms. Do Ghul Queens have courts? What does a Ghul Court look like? Does she sit on a throne and wave around a lil' sceptar to bop normal Ghuls on the head with? I have so many questions! Note to self, find book on Ghul Queens.']

In theory, by their nature as chosen agents of the goddess of death as well as their ascension to demi-godhood by consuming the flesh of an Elder God, Ghul Queens theoretically have the ability to raise the dead at their command. None have ever actually displayed this ability. After all, Ghuls don't want undead things. They want rotting corpses to feed upon. Furthermore, the more powerful the undead in question, the blessings of Lacuna results in the Ghul facing it to gain power in direct proportion, in order to see it destroyed. In theory, this has no upper limit, but in practice, the lack of undead gods in the world results in no real titanic clashes between them and these literally blessed eaters of carrion.

As previously mentioned, Ghuls are hermaphroditic in nature, possessing both kinds of sex organs stored within their armored forms. When mating season occurs, Ghul packs hunt to find potential mates. Upon finding one, they each offer the other a sample of their Bile for testing, to see what sorts of carrion the other has eaten. They then inspect one another for cleanliness and, if both find the other suitable, they proceed to mate. Their several pairs of teats come in handy in nursing a whole litter of pups born two months after the mating has taken place, the parents taking turns hunting and feeding their young. Young Ghuls are born without their armor, and thus are highly vulnerable. They are those raised in a dark, secluded, and easily defensible place until the time that their young's armor finally grows in and they can begin teaching them the ways of their kind.

Once the young have grown enough to fend for themselves, they break off from their parents in search of territory to claim as their own. This intermediate period between their guarded youth and their adulthood in a pack of their siblings is where the majority of young Ghuls meet their end. Upn expiry, a Ghul is found by others of their kind and then ritualistically cannibalized for their hearts and livers, before the remains are buried beneath soil to rest eternally.

Ghuls are dark, brutal, and macabre creatures who play a very important role in keeping the world clean of rotten flesh. They cannot feed upon the flesh of Civilized Races but can, with time, be tamed and trained to protect graveyards from unwanted looters. As a direct result, they are respected creatures, albeit ones whose smell and eating habits results in most leaving as soon as they discover their presence rather than giving them a moment's consideration. Ghul's are perfectly fine with this arrangement: As long as they get rotting meat they can feed upon and they are properly taught, they are perfectly fine with sharing territory with Civilized species. As living extensions of Lacuna's will, few can ask for better, if foul smelling, guardians of the dead's rest. [A note is attached. It reads, 'I visited a graveyard that had the bones of one of my ancestors. We still had his ash jar, but she'd been fancy and important enough to have a whole grave for her bones to rest in. I got to meet some of the Guard Ghuls around and whoo, it took me ages to stop smelling whatever gunk they use to keep themselves clean!']

 

[TripleMRed]

Uplifter.

[Sketches depict a rather ominous creature, a being that at a glance seems to be donning a cloak while its seemingly eyeless head stares at the viewer. Close inspection sketches reveal this 'cloak' to in fact be numerous tentacles, and close inspection of the head reveals two pairs of eyes on either side of its vaguely wedge shaped head. Its maw is jawed, with for mandibles ending in teeth covering up its otherwise exposed cheek-line, which reveals numerous sharp teeth. It's front-most section is covered up by plating that resembles teeth, interlocking when closed. The flesh is vaguely purplish and two of the many tentacles seem to extend from the main body like primary arms, ending with a pair of sharp hypodermic fangs. Sketches depict such beings using strange and dangerous powers, and observing the sketcher from the shadows.]

[A note is attached. It depicts a highly detailed sketch of a close up of an Uplifter head. It is staring directly at the observer, with a single word written in the corner: 'Creepy'.]

Scientific Name Translation: Maker of Monsters.

Average Size: 4 meters/13.12 feet from head to tentacle-tip.

Average Weight: 1 ton.

Notable Sexual Dimorphism: N/A, male identification used though rarely some can be identified using feminine identification.

Habitat Range: All locations.

Summary:​

On a world with life as common and varied as our own, few things stand out as being truly 'unnatural'. Magic saturates our world, and we are very much aware thanks to the 'Book of Origins' that Null itself was crafted on the cosmic plane by the 'Weaver', a younger sibling to our Mediator Media and a being of incalculable power within the omnipresent dimension known as the Aether, a goddess like being known whose very name is shared by our world: Null. This Aether Being preplanned a great many creatures by carefully planning set evolutionary plans while she weaved the world, these plans culminating in certain species being borne into the Mortal realm. This includes all of the Mortal Civilized Races of Null, such as the Oros. However, despite this careful planning, Null had a goal for our world, for it to be a place of danger and death, and as a result she placed a system upon Null that would ensure that it would be populated by the most dangerous creatures imaginable.

This system was in the form of floating, vaguely cepholopodic creatures known in official texts as 'Uplifters'. The role for these artificial beings is a simple, yet horrifying one: They would periodically peer through the veil between worlds, into other realities, and pick and choose dangerous beasts for 'trials'. If these creatures succeed the Trials, then they would be integrated into our world by the Uplifters, who among other things would grant the creatures Sentinel Bacteria in order to avoid them being dissolved by our world's caustic pollutants in our air or be overwhelmed by our higher than garden world standard gravity. One of the most infamous examples of such creatures that they wrought to our world is the Spider-Ant, with evidence in other creatures that they were created into their current forms by Uplifter meddling.

A typical Uplifter is long at over 4 meters in length. Much of this length is their many, many tentacles, which they use for fine manipulation of objects when they do not use telekinetic powers. their main body is relatively short at only 2 and a half meters long, and is mostly a hose for their tentacles. An Uplifter lacks much in the way of organs, mostly existing as a heart and stomach analog more used for close analyzation of materials rather than to gain actual sustenance. A complete skeletal system provides them with some structure, with the skull being the most robust of this system. Of the tentacles present, two are noted for possessing hypodermic fangs at the end, one at the tip of each tentacle. These fangs possess a mutagen with which the Uplifter can use to change a creature in any way they see fit. This mutagen is fast acting and capable of doing anything from evolving a creature to a more advanced state, mutating their forms to a new and monstrous appearance, or simply 'upgrade' the existing body to a more robust form.

As artificially beings crafted and breathed life into by a god-like being, these creatures are virtually unkillable. Even total atomization through mundane means will simply result in the creature reforming elsewhere, though if 'killed', a body will be left behind, a hollow shell devoid of life and useless for anything but as proof of ones ability to fight these beasts in combat, a rare occurrence indeed. There are only three known ways to permanently kill an Uplifter: For it to be slain by a divine being, for them to be denied resurrection by their council of brothers, or to be completely consumed by the Aether. This last one is the most common way for us Mortals to kill them, though a Magi with skill in Aetherworks is required in the deed. Regardless of if they are killed, however, a new Uplifter is created by the rest of their brethren to replace the one that was lost, albeit one whose personality is likely to be wildly different from the original. [A note is attached. It reads 'Immortality almost sounds cool, if it wasn't so painful. Life is painful enough without being unable to die on top of that.]

In terms of offensive and defensive capabilities, a typical Uplifter is a match for most intermediate Magi in terms of skill with Aetherworks. With the power of the Aether in their possession, they can perform virtually anything that can be imagined. Summoning miniature suns into life, calling down the fury of a storm or the blood-freezing chill of a hyper-blizzard, altering the laws of physics such as gravity or outright rewriting what is real or not in a localized area, and much, much more. It is not an exaggeration to say that Uplifters are one of the most dangerous creatures on Null, however this is tempered by their duty to their role. Their wildly different personalities and outlooks can result in their actual danger to people ranging massively, though most will have no ill will to members of the Civilized Races of Null, and none would dare to step out of line with their role to expand and improve the deadliness of Null's ecosystem. Furthermore, when encountering a Civilized Race of Null, they are bound by their restrictions to avoid using outright Aetheric attacks upon them, in order to avoid Aetheric Damage upon them.

[A note is attached. It reads 'I've met people who have lost parts of themselves to Aether Damage, even Oros who lost their limbs! I asked them what it's like to have parts of themselves wiped off the face of Existence. All of them said the same thing: It's extremely painful and the pain never really goes away, you just get used to it being there. The ones who lost the bones where their arms or legs used to be say it's even worse than that and they had to take decades of psychological counseling in order to cope. I have nightmares of suffering Aether Damage. When I wake up, I swear I can feel the pain from my dreams where I'd been hit...']

Though highly illusive, encounters with them in the past has been frequent enough for many to have had their mutagen stores extracted. This mutagen is processed and used for a wide variety of scientific experiments, such as the upliting of animals in a controlled environment to more person-like forms. The largest experiment of such uplifts occurred in the Great Walled City of Yang Quartz, featuring a village's worth of uplifted Flittermice ranging from mice to squirrels in the experiment center. [A note is attached. It reads: Sadly, following the tragic nuclear attack on Yang Quartz by a currently unknown group that led to the city's fall, this experiment has since been lost, though recent recovery efforts have found evidence of their continued existence within the fallen Great Walled City. Hopefully, through more such experiments leading to the process being perfected, we can create new forms of life that are amicable to ourselves and each other.'-Found this from the author's blog and added it to my notes, Hildra.]

That all said, the Uplifters continue to this day to live mostly in the shadows of our world, dutifully plucking examples of dangerous life to integrate into Null's ecosystem. The people of our world are of two minds of this, often at the same time. Many are bitter that our already dangerous world is growing even more dangerous with each passing year and each passed Trial the Uplifters perform, though at the same time, it cannot be denied that our planet's many dangerous have managed to make us into effective fighting machines. Those that glean through the Book of Origins pages know that Null intentionally made our world this way, not for us to suffer, but for us to be prepared for the trials that await us our among the stars.

While it is hard to be thankful, it cannot be denied that this information causes most to feel a sense of unease: Namely, what awaits us out in our universe that requires such a harsh world? Many answers have been given to us by the knowledgeable Spirits of Lacuna and the Magi Order, and all of them are rather troubling. Despite this, however, we cannot give into despair. We must stand together, united, against every danger, whether domestic or foreign. Together, we can stand against anything, no matter how terrible, that awaits us in the dark between the stars. [A note is attached. It depicts a picture of one of the two moons of Null, Senoria Sanguine. It is blue, with seas of glowing blue god-blood, and an aura of menace. Drawn around the moon itself are sketches of tentacles.]

 

[TripleMRed]

Nightmare.

[Sketches depict a large, maggot like creature with pale, almost translucent skin and glowing insides. This is the early stage of the creature, however, and its adult form takes on a bipedal, limbed existence. It has a trificated jaw structure, the lower jaw splitting into two upon opening. Black eyes with white pupils stare out of its newly skulled head and the sketches depict it using telepathy and telekinetic abilities.]

[A note is attached. It reads 'You know, if they weren't such jerks, they could probably make a killing with using their powers for street-magic.']

Scientific Name Translation: Fear Maker.

Average Size: 3 meters/9.8 feet tall.

Average Weight: 1 ton.

Notable Sexual Dimorphism: N/A.

Habitat Range: Near Civilized Races.

Summary:​

Our homeworld is home to many strange and bizarre creatures, whom posses a wide host of mystical abilities that defy mundane explanations and that feed on a host of mystical items as a result. All of these beasts however, strange as many of them are, are natural. The creature known as the 'Nightmare' is not. What we know as the Nightmare hails from the Spirit Realm of Lacuna. In its home dimension, they take the form of diminutive, squat equines called 'Mares', that sneak into Spirits' homes and feed upon their dreams while they slumber. This is their original true form in the Spirit Realm. What they appear like on the Mortal plane, however, is what gives them their name.

Upon breaching the barriers between our two planes of existence, the Nightmare makes a conscious effort to become a truly terrifying creature. They spawn in the dead of night, starting as small, maggot like creatures, precursors to their full forms. In this state, they perform the same action as they do in Lacuna, sneaking undetected into homes and feeding upon the dreams of those within, eating their good dreams and leaving only nightmares. Oros are immune to direct forms of magic, but this means little to the Mares or their Nightmare forms as they siphon dreams via psionic abilities, allowing them to tap into Oros minds and feed upon their dreams in this manner. [A note is attached. It reads, 'When I was in high-school, we had a biology class that had a captured Nightmare maggot in it. I could feel it trying to probe my mind, but since I was awake, my nervous systems kept changing between one another. It made me woozy, but better than being mind-controlled by a giant nightmare buggo!']

The more psionic energies they steal to feast upon, the larger a Nightmare becomes and the more powerful they grow in tandem with their size. Eventually, this results in the Nightmare undergoing a metamorphosis, resulting in their signature appearance as we think of them today. Tall, limbed maggot-men, the final stage of the Nightmare has its original maggot like body become akin to a massive, tailed brain structure as the rest of their new bodies grow beneath them. At this stage, their abilities have grown to such a degree they no longer need to enter people's homes to feed. Indeed, a single Nightmare can siphon the dreams of whole towns within the territory they lay claim to. It is usually at this stage, wherein mass reports of nightmarish dreams spreading across the populace, that the hunt for the Nightmare takes place.

Their lairs vary wildly, but usually have some common elements, having become full of a silk the Nightmare uses to create its home to its desired form. Nightmare Silk, while having some physical properties, is a mystical construct tied to the Nightmare that makes it. Upon their demise, the Silk begins to degrade rapidly, with whole cave systems once filled with the strands becoming devoid of them within a week after the Nightmare's demise.

As for encountering a Nightmare, the beast is a powerful psionic in this late stage. Their limbs are long and having some power, but are rarely if ever used throughout the duration of the fight, the Nightmare instead making heavy use of telepathic and telekinetic attacks against those that hunt it down. The longer a fight goes on and the more injury is accrued upon the Nightmare, the more powerful its attacks become in direct proportion to its desperation to survive. As this occurs, the aurora like light patterns produced within its body, primarily in the brain housing, begins to rapidly fluctuate in response to this agitation and injury. If a Nightmare is slain when it is in the middle of making heavy use of its powers, a feedback loop will occur and cause the Nightmare to lose control of its powers. They then typically ascend into the air as they lose all control before producing a massive blast of psionic energy with their last breaths, a psychic bomb that explodes the nervous systems of weaker creatures and causes painful headaches to the Civilized Races to be caught in the blast. [A note is attached. It reads, 'It doesn't just affect organic minds, either. It also affects electronics. I've had to fix up more than one drone or vehicle that got caught up in a Nightmare deathsplotsion and let me tell you, EMP hardening means jack-piss for something like that.']

Upon its physical body's death, the Nightmare's physical shell remains in this world, albeit desiccated and with no more connection to the Mare that had inhabited its gnarled form. This shell, ironically, has many positive medicinal concoctions that can be created by using the required body parts to create them, thus making Nightmare hunting a positive net benefit upon the creature's demise. These effects are naturally more pronounced when used on Mortalized Spirits, or normal Spirits back on Lacuna, making a healthy market of trading Mortal produced goods from Nightmare body parts to Lacuna, or the Mortalized Spirit populace on Null.

Due to the nature of their existence, Nightmares lack a biological sex of any kind, and thus do not reproduce. Every new Nightmare is the direct result of a Mare from Lacuna burrowing over to the Mortal realm and taking on this twisted form for its purposes. The closest thing to reproduction Nightmares engage in is mixing their magical abilities with their Psionic ones in order to create temporary astral projection clones to fight alongside them. If there is any interest in the reproductive cycle of the Mare species in their natural form over in Lacuna, this is covered in the book, 'A World of Spirits, An Encylopedia on the Creatures of the Spirit World of Lacuna'.

Nightmares are a recurring hassle that, while rarely directly a threat to Mortals, have long term consequences that cannot be ignored and allowed to occur. Nightmares left to feed off a sleeping populace for too long can result in wide numbers of innocent people lacking sleep and thus becoming more susceptible to attacks by animals during their waking hours. To die is bad enough, but to be killed because you've been lacking sleep for four weeks in a row is even worse; it's downright insulting. As such, whenever a Nightmare is confirmed to be present, a proper hunting team is sent out to deal with the creatures, and allow the populace to sleep soundly in their beds once again. [A note is attached. It reads 'I once played a game with my friends to see how long we could go without sleeping. I lasted a whole month on that dare before my body had enough of my hallucinations causing me trouble and just automatically shut me down for sleep when I got on a couch. Best week long sleep coma ever!']

 

[TripleMRed]

Slinker.

[Sketches depict a long and highly flexible scaly creature. The beast has four limbs, but the body is long enough that i curl around objects with little issue, the limbs being used to improve its grip on the object. It's face is long and snouted, and completely devoid of eyes, resembling a long, even, and completely smooth crocodilian skull, almost closer to a mask rather than an actual skull, sets of interlocking teeth running along its maw, plated scales running along the lines between its head and its neck like a crown. The sketches show this creature stalking from the shadows, literally entering and exiting from the darkness itself as though leaping into or pulling itself out of a pool of unmoving black water.]

[A note is attached. It reads, 'Lucky lizards. They don't need eyes to see, but if I lose one in a way that it can't regen properly, so sorry Hildra, but you need a Seeing Eyepatch for the rest of your life. What a rip-off!']

Scientific Name Translation: Shadow Stalker.

Average Size: 2.4 meters/7.87 feet long.

Average Weight: ~500 pounds.

Notable Sexual Dimorphism: Females are larger and have red markings across their skulls and backs.

Habitat Range: All Biomes.

Summary:​

Of the various families of creatures on Null, few are as intimidating or as troublesome as the Shadow Beasts, a family of highly varied species that all share one thing in common: Eyeless heads that resemble smoothed bone-masks, and the ability to travel through anywhere that lacks light, hence their name. The least physically durable but most intelligent breed of such beasts is the humble Slinker, a creature known for it's ability to adapt on the fly during a hunt as well as an unusual body structure that allows them many avenues of combat.

The Slinker's most notable physical characteristics, after the facial features that unite the Shadow Beast family, is its long, tube like body. Covered in smooth, iridescent green scales, the Slinker's long body is highly flexible, allowing it to bend in any direction without any real difficulty. Their faces are long snouts, almost crocodilian save that they are perfectly smooth and bone like, like an evenly smoothed bone mask. A total lack of visible eyes and ear holes leaves one to wonder how they can sense things, though extensive research has found that they can see and hear very clearly despite the seeming lack of ways to interpret visual and audio stimulus. Running along the back of its head, in the area where its skull like face and its neck interlock, a set of teardrop shaped plates extend outward. Theories have long stood that these are used as a method of feeding the creature stimulus, though more recent evidence indicates that these plates are in fact related to other senses, mainly electro and mystic sensory in nature. [A note is attached. It depicts a cartoon drawing of a Slinker seeing musical notes. Words follow, reading 'I read a paper once that Slinkers can see sound, taste electrical and magical impulses, and feel depression. It was an interesting read!']

Despite only weight roughly 500 pounds on average, the Slinker's body is very, very strong, due to it mostly being muscle. As a result, it is not uncommon for Slinkers to wrap themselves around an enemy and try to crush them with its body's raw strength. Those observed working together were known to wrap themselves around the limbs of larger prey in order to break or crush the joints of the animals in question. Slinkers, like with most life on Null, cannot feed on the flesh of the Civilized Races, but this does not stop them from using their extreme crushing strength in a fight.

In addition to their own long and flexible bodies, their jaws posses incredible bone crushing capability, able to bite through unaugmented reinforced steel with little issue. Their claws, while affixed to relatively short limbs, are sharp, allowing them to grip onto objects with ease and allow them to climb, or to cause gashes when they are in the middle of attack their prey. Their greatest and most dangerous ability, however, is their ability to 'dive' into darkness, giving them unparalleled mobility in any location with a patch of darkness wide enough to allow their forms to enter. Attempts in the past have been made to shine a light on these 'dives' and attempt to cut the creature in half and stop their escape, but this has proven useless. When a Shadow Beast of any kind is in the middle of a 'Dive', either in or out of a patch of darkness, no amount of light shown can stop the Dive while it is in the middle of occurring. As a direct result of their ability, capturing one without use of special magics to prevent its escape is almost impossible, as even the most minute of temporary power outages will give a Slinker the opportunity to escape whatever holding's it is in. [A note is attached. It reads 'Don't you just hate it when your 8 foot long skull faced shadow monster escapes because you had to change the batteries on your flashlight cage?']

Furthermore, a Slinker is a highly intelligent hunter, one that often will not attack directly unless it has little other choice. It will sneak about, stalk, and otherwise perform its name sake in order to catch their unsuspecting prey by surprise before moving in for the kill. This very intellect, however, is what allows them to be excellent companions. Slinkers, if trained young or through circumstances be forced to trust a member of the Civilized Races, become loyal friends who rarely stray far from their Civilized counterparts. Indeed, 'tamed' Slinkers act much like large canines, though numerous laws and security concerns make it so that Slinkers, tamed or otherwise are not allowed to inhabit the confines of the Great Walled Cities, leaving them to coexist with us on the outskirts of our territory.

When mating season occurs, Slinkers congregate in large numbers to isolated areas. Once there, they divide themselves between male and female exclusive groups, before beginning a great chasing game. The larger and stronger female of the pair chase the weaker male across the width and breadth of the area, until the weaker is finally caught. Once this happens, the two Dive into the shadows where they can mate in peace. After this, the two parents separate, with females tending to their nests, guarding and teaching their young. Young Slinkers are too weak to survive in the shadows for long, and as a result must be raised in normal-space. This leaves them and their parent at their most vulnerable, and as a result Slinkers often make nests in the most defensible positions they can find, though first time Slinker mothers have been known to miscalculate and build nests at ground level in exposed clearings. At about two years of age, a Slinker has grown big and strong enough to be able to survive on their own, as well as begin their first Dives on their own. It is around this time that they separate from their mothers and go off on their own. [A note is attached. It depicts a detailed sketch of a baby Slinker, which is notably smaller and chubbier than their full grown adult form. Words follow, reading, 'Soooo cute!']

The Slinker is a devious and dangerous animal, but one that can be avoided by most Civilized Races by simply not heading into their territory. Often, however, Slinkers hunt livestock for those whose farms have yet to modernize into full agricenters, and as a result conflict between Civilized Races and Slinkers continue to this day. Only time will tell whether this conflict of interests will continue long into the future.

 

[TripleMRed]

Shadow Maw.

[Sketches depict an enormous shadowy beast existing a huge tear of darkness in a well lit area. The creature is massive and with qualities like that of a maggot and a mantoid insect, with a massive, smoothed armored head at the top of its body. The creature's main body is segmented, with many small grub like legs running along the underside of its segments. At the top of the body is a chest like region, with a pair of massive insectoid arms tipped with huge scythe-blades, used to prop the creature upright and for movement and attack. The head is wedge-shaped and utterly smooth and bone-like with a lower jaw and a pair of flanking mandibles. Sketches show the inside of the creature's mouth: It is an endless expanse of teeth, lining the jaws and circling the throat, which is an empty black pit from the perspective of the sketch.]

[A note is attached. It reads 'I know I can't actually get eaten by one of these things, but the insides of their mouths.....One word: teeth.]

Scientific Name Translation: Devouring Shadow.

Average Size: 20-30 meters in height when standing upright..

Average Weight: 3,565 tons.

Notable Sexual Dimorphism: N/A.

Habitat Range: All Biomes.

Summary:​

The Shadow Beasts are a troublesome family line of creatures, due to their ability to 'Dive' into the shadows, allowing them to circumvent the barriers of the normal world of matter we inhabit. The various members of this line are varying levels of dangerous, due to this ability and their respective temperaments, but one creature within this family line in particular stands out as a monster above all others, a creature infamous for its ravenous appetite and profound hatred of Civilized Races. These rare but highly dangerous monsters are known simply as the Shadow Maws.

The largest of the Shadow Beasts at being a Giant-Class creature, the Shadow Maws are also the most dangerous. They are driven by an innate, almost supernatural hunger, a need to feed that cannot be fully sated and which will cause them to consume whole swathes of land in short order. Flora, Fauna, and even the mineral wealth of the soil itself are all eagerly consumed by the beast, leaving the areas they strike barren and lifeless. They are especially dangerous to Civilized Races as we are some of the few things these creatures are incapable of eating. As a direct result of this, they are enraged by our presence and have been known to break off from their feeding frenzy in order to try and strike us down. They are creatures of such power that unlike the other Shadow Beasts, they do not require patches of darkness to Dive in and out of the shadows. They can enter and leave the Shadow Realm at will. Luckily, however, their sheer size is such that it takes them some time and effort to move between the realms, with active light slowing them down further. [A note is attached. It reads 'Shadows Maws don't need darkness to dive out of the darkness. They just....show up, whenever they want to. It's scary as hell to me.]

In the most ancient of historical times, Shadow Maws were a grave threat due to their destructive capabilities, devouring farm land and livestock and slaughtering farming communities by the dozen. In this era, Shadow Maws were slain by great heroes who were blessed with mighty weapons forged by the Great Spirit of Blacksmithing, Eruiru. All of these heroes would go on to become legends in ancient folk-lore and records, though many of their names have been lost to time with the loss of many such records. It was during these times that the Shadow Maws first appeared in modern fossil records, as they are now known to have existed millions of years ago before suddenly dropping off the fossil record at around the time of the last major extinction event, likely entering some form of hibernation or stasis until food became plentiful again.

The Shadow Maw is a creature that is always heavily armed. It's huge, scythe like limbs are mostly for mobility, dragging it's lumbering form around, but they also have sharpness and strength to bisect whole treelines and cleave armored vehicles in half. They can project an irradiated, incendiary, molecular acid from their maws, used to melt structures and leave those inside to a gruesome and slow death. They can project and unleash explosive orbs of dark energy that cause nuclear decay on impact and gravitational anomalies. Shadowy lightning can be cast forth, disabling technology and burning holes through armor. The signature attack of these creatures, however, is when they are not fighting Civilized Races: they open their jaws as wide as they can before inhaling, causing a sucking effect with gale-force winds that draws in anything unfortunate enough to be in its way to be drawn into its mouth. Even trees and embedded rock is uprooted and drawn in to be consumed. Massive crushing jaws ensure even the most heavily armored of creatures are disposed of in a matter of a bites. [A note is attached. It reads, 'Nothing should be able to just chew up a damn Greater Shinook! It's just not right, it's just not natural.]

Dissection of fallen Shadow Maw's corpses has revealed interesting, and disturbing, truths about them. They appear to lack much in the way of any internal organs. In fact, they are almost entirely composed of nothing but bone, plating, and muscle tissue. No discernible stomach has been found, and indeed, inspections by Magi indicate that whatever the Shadow Maw eats is destroyed entirely. Some speculation exists on if they cease to exist entirely, or if they are fed to some shadowy 'void' unrelated to the Aether but which the Shadow Maws are borne from, and it is generally agreed further research into this topic will be required in order to discern the truth.

The Shadow Maw has no mating season and in-fact lack sexes entirely. No known records indicate the reproductive methods of the Shadow Maw, as all time they spend not eating in the material world is spent in the shadow realm, with all Magi led hunting parties into the place resulting in no way to track the beasts down. So far, there are three theories on how they come into being. The first, and less likely, is that they produce an egg like seed similar to those discovered in the shadow realm and spit it out through their only orifice, their mouths, in a form of asexual reproduction. The second theory is that these creatures may split apart via budding in order to create new Shadow Maws, as all Shadow Maws discovered share the exact same genetic traits with one another. The third, and most ominous, is that they are not born at all. Rather, each Shadow Maw is an extension of the shadow realm itself, being created from within it at the loss of any currently existing one. Without a means to properly track those that reenter the shadow realm, we may never know, though rumors abound of a new tracking method being developed by Magi that could shed light on them, if this new method passes muster.

The Shadow Maws are ancient, dangerous, and violently spiteful brutes. They come and go as they please in the wild, feeding on whatever they encounter, and go out of their way to destroy Civilized Races they meet in their path of destruction. Some say it is luck that they have yet to appear within and attack a Great Walled City, but there is enough evidence to suggest that Shadow Maws, for all their brutish nature, have some measure of intellect, and know when a fight is too much for even itself to win. [A note is attached. It reads 'That's reassuring, but it doesn't stop my nightmares of these things showing up in the streets outside in the city and just tearing up the place.']

 

[TripleMRed]

Skin-Stripper.

[Sketches depict a large spider, big enough to be the size of a person when not counting its legs. It's exoskeleton is armored with reinforced plates, and its leg tips are tipped with sharp blade like tips. The pedipalps, while lacking proper digits, have segmented plates that allow them some level of proper grasping on whatever they hold. It's head possess 8 eyes, two stacks of four lined above the other, the upper pair slightly further back along the head than the bottom pair. It's mouth is similar to the insectoids of Null, having a jawed structure, with the signature fangs of a spider being integrated into a large set of mandibles flanking the mouth. When the mouth is fully closed, the fanged mandibles curl up the front, vaguely resembling a large mustache like structure. The abdomen is large and holds the silk production organs, which a cut-away reveals are very large. Females have larger abdomens. Disturbingly, one sketch shows the beast skinning, drying, and then using the flayed skin of their prey as a hammock.]

[A note is attached. It reads 'Okay, so like, them using skins as a hammock is really disturbing, but also really metal as all hell.']

Scientific Name Translation: Flaying Fang.

Average Size: 2 meters/6.6 feet long, not counting legs.

Average Weight: 500 lbs/226.8kgs.

Notable Sexual Dimorphism: Females are larger than the males, have larger abdomens and have red markings.

Habitat Range: Heavily forested areas..

Summary:​

Arthropods are some of the oldest multi-cellular life on our homeworld of Null, having existed since the earliest days of complex multicellular life in the oceans some 600 million years ago. In the eons since, many distinct branches and families of arthropods have come into existence, with few as intriguing as to the wide world of Arachnids, which includes spiders, scorpions, and other related species. Of these many Arachnids that call Null home, few have as fearsome a reputation, however, as Flayer Spider, known by its contemporary and ancient folk name of the 'Skin-Stripper'. [A note is attached. It reads 'I remember lots of my Spirit friends snickering at hearing the name. Apparently Spirits have these things called 'strip-clubs', where hot chicks and dudes take off their clothes and stuff in front of a crowd for money? I dunno, sounds far fetched to me.']

At 2 meters in length, Skin-Strippers are some of the largest spiders to exist outside of the Land of Giants to the far West. They are relatively light, with much of their weight being in the way of an armored exoskeleton capable of repelling indirect Slugger fire with ease. This lightness, combined with the great strength in their 8 legs as well as a keen silk-spinning ability allows the Skin-Stripper unparalleled mobility in their preferred environments, this being heavily forested regions. The type of forest is not relevant, as over time dedicated subspecies have come to inhabit everything from tropical forests to rainforests alike.

Despite their size, speed, and relative durability, the Skin-Stripper is not all that common. Fossil evidence indicates that only within the last million years or so, their numbers have begun to severely dwindle to modern comparative rarity. The most likely cause is the increase in deadliness among the life forms of Null, as it is a well established fact that as more time passes, the deadlier Null as a world becomes. Despite this, modern day Skin-Strippers have become adept and intelligent hunters who are infamous for their trademark technique. As their name suggests, the Skin-Stripper is infamous for flaying its prey of their skin, which the Skin-Flayer then dries into a leather before adding their webbing into the mix in order to turn the skin into a hammock for themselves. This trademark technique is so ubiquitous among Skin-Strippers that not only has it become their folk name, it has even developed into something of a culture among themselves. Some Skin-Strippers exclusively hunt for the skins of specific prey, while others make do with whatever they can catch. One particular culture actively takes live prey back to their lairs in order to preserve them and wait for optimal conditions for skinning and leather making.

In terms of armament, Skin-Strippers have sharp tipped legs which provide them with excellent cutting and piercing power in close quarters. Their eyes offer them excellent vision even in darkness, and some subspecies posses quill like hairs along their bodies which can sense vibrations in the air, offering them superb sensory information. A volatile acid is produced from their mouths, which is further mixed with venom from their fangs for a dangerous armor destroying substance that also poisons the wearer. Their silk, produced from their abdomens, is durable enough that only the raw strength comparable to Cerberi can hope to rip it apart, thus requiring a sharp blade to cut through it to escape. This silk is resilient to heat and cold, but is highly conductive to electricity. As a result, any modern day Power Armor with a basic electro-stun defense feature can easily escape by electrifying the webs and causing them to disintegrate within a matter of seconds. [A note is attached.It depicts a cartoon Skin-Stripper with an exclamation point over its head as an armored man electrifies its webbing with his PA. Words follow, reading 'Imagine holding your prey down in your super-web, only for it to just start producing a mini-lightning storm.']

In terms of hunting tactics, the Skin-Stripper is highly cautious, spending hours if not days tracking their preferred prey until the perfect opportunity arises to strike. When this happens, the Skin-Stripper attacks quickly and brutally, tying up their prey before injecting them with venom to kill them. Upon confirmation of the prey's expiration, the Skin-Stripper expertly and efficiently uses its sharp-edged limbs to flay the target, with the most experienced managing to perfectly preserve the skin with as few needed incisions as possible. Then feasts on the flesh below before going back into hiding to tan the acquired skin for its uses in attracting mates and for use in regular activities such as sleep.

When mating season arrives, male Skin-Strippers meet in established mating grounds for their kind, bringing with them their collection of skins. Females come and inspect the collections of the various males and decide on which of the most successful they will mate with. Despite what some popular culture would have you believe, female Nullian spiders, Skin-Stripper ones included, do not eat their mates. This is a common misconception, due to identification. They only eat males who fail to meet their standards long before any mating commences. If a male is selected to mate, then his life is not forfeit. After mating, the larger females seclude themselves in dark areas to lay their egg sacs. They then use the collected skins donated to them by their male counterparts to cover up the egg sac for warmth. This skin covering also doubles as nourishment for the young when they finally escape into the world, thus debunking another common myth that spider-young swarm and consume their mothers.

In every day life, with the advent of the Great Walled Cities, Skin-Strippers are growing increasingly less common in the common mental viewpoint. Only the Bug-Hunter Nation continues to keep much attention to them, due to the Bug-Hunters actively hunting and consuming Skin-Strippers as part of a ritualistic ceremony for a special sect of their Hunter's Guild members. When asked on the street of their thoughts on the Skin-Strippers, the spider-like Spirit Race that is the Ira have no real opinion of them, failing to see what relation one would draw between the Skin-Strippers and themselves. As one Ira put it: 'We deal in poisons, potions, and remedies, not butchery.'

[A note is attached. It is a a detailed sketch of an Ira woman. She is an Arachne style tauric individual, with what would be pedipalps acting as legs for her womanly body at the 'head' of her spider body. She possess greyish skin and armored segments lining her arms and 'legs', with a short-muzzled face that have a pair of small, cute fangs poking out of her thin lips. A pair of mandibles flank her mouth, though they appear to be for show more than anything. Five red eyes line her face, two in a conventional position, two above those eyes, and one at the center of her forehead. A pair of pointed, armored ears flank her head, and her purple hair is tied in a bun over her head. She is wearing a skirt and a T-Shirt that seems to be for a band called 'Fire & Fang' that give her well endowed form a sense of modesty. Words follow, saying 'This is Isha, my co-worker at the engineering shop. I always heard Ira were potion makers, but she makes a great engineer!']

 

[TripleMRed]

Bloodsucker.

[Interestingly, the sketch section for this page of the book appears to be covered up by digital notes, all saying 'NO NO NO' on them.

...

...

Beneath the digital notes are sketches of the beast. It is a tall, long limbed and with fine, lanky muscles on its frame. Patches of fur exist to cover up the groin and chest, and a short, furless tail extends out of the base of their spine. It stands digitigrade , sharp inch long claws on its feet, with sketches showing it moving at great speeds thanks to this leg design. The hands are tipped with claws several inches in length, sharp as obsidian and able to cleave through tank plating like it was nothing. The most terrifying aspect, however, is the head: It is canid like, with a long snout and pointed ears, the nose seemingly gone and thus giving the head a skull like quality to it. A pair of large fangs poke out from its lips and some sketches show it smiling, revealing rows of sharp teeth. The eyes are slitted and almost seem to have an unnatural gleam to the in the sketches. Other sketches show the beast feed, draining its victims of their blood as they struggle in their grasp to no avail. Some creatures in the sketches appear distinctly female and are no more horrifying or brutal than their male counterparts.

It is like the unholy fusion between a werewolf and a vampire.]

Scientific Name Translation: Blood Dog, Diabolic Hellhound, Devil Dog, Blood Feeder [An official note is attached. It reads 'Scientific Name under debate.']

Average Size: ~2.7 meters/~9 feet in height,.

Average Weight: 1840 lbs/834.6kgs.

Notable Sexual Dimorphism: Females have more feminine figures and notable breasts which the males lack entirely.

Habitat Range: All Biomes.

Summary:​

Allow me to preface this entry by saying in no uncertain terms that this is a creature that is no longer alive. The Bloodsucker has been hunted to extinction in the wild and is thus now little more than a bad memory for our kind. However, extinct or not, it would do us all well in order to remember the monster that terrorized us and our ancestors for so many centuries, lest we forget the horrors that afflicted us all.

Before anything else, we must go over the details of how these creatures came to be and their relationship with the Civilized Races of Null, particularly us Oros. To begin, the Bloodsucker is not a naturally occurring creature. They were not part of Weaver Null's designs and plans for this world nor for us. These beasts were specifically engineered and unleashed upon the world by an Uplifter, one who was tried, found guilty, and destroyed by the rest of his kind for this action in such a way that not even its name survived to the modern day. What we do know of it is that this Uplifter believed that Null was too easy for the Mortals that called it come, that the Civilized Races did not have enough challenges. Thus, it created the Bloodsuckers, true monsters.

These beasts were first created and unleashed 8000 years ago, about 5000 years before the Prophet Am came into being and a 1000 years after the first modern day Nation arose, the Royalbacks. In this time, the Bloodsuckers were numerous and ruled the world with a cruel and bloody fist. We, particularly the Oros but also the Chimera and Cerberi, were nothing if not cattle for these beasts. Whole towns and villages were kept as feeding stock for the beasts, who marked their personal prey by scarring their faces to deter other Bloodsuckers from taking their property. This period of time lasted about 200 years. The youngest of the races that would have formed the Great Nations, known as the Ghost Dancers in the modern day, were rendered completly extinct. This all changed, however, when the first masks were created. Crafted en masse by the Bloody Ones who had been driven into hiding from the onslaught of Bloodsuckers, the masks hid the faces of the Oros who wore them, causing the Bloodsuckers to lose track of what prey was their own. When they came in close to investigate and find their prey, the united Oros fought back and slayed their oppressors through sheer force of weight and numbers.

With the fall of their dominion over us, the Bloodsuckers, whose numbers had never been truly great, fell into hiding, stalking and striking from deep within the darkest corners of the world. The masks became a common facet of Oros culture from then on and would continue to exist as part of our society until the extinction of the Bloodsucker in recent centuries and the building of the Great Walled Cities. With the deaths of our long-standing predators, many now forgo wearing masks as they see it as a symbol of the old days of fear and pain.

During the time of their existence, the Bloodsuckers were infamous due to their unique ability among all of Null's animal life to feed upon the flesh of Civilized Races. The reason for this is as simple as it is horrible: They were us. Bloodsuckers were constructed by the long dead Rogue Uplifter using the Oros DNA as a base, with Bloodsuckers sharing 99% of the Oros genetic genome. They were made by taking an existing medical condition that results in blood-drinking Oros, known as 'Bloody Ones', and twisting it into the monstrous need to feed that consumed the Bloodsuckers' whole existence. This relationship made their twisted, bestial forms all the more terrifying for the Oros, knowing that these beasts were, on some level, fellow Oros, ones who wished to feed upon the blood of their unaltered kin.

The weapons of the Bloodsucker was numerous. Their teeth and claws could break through virtually any armor with ease, their claws in particular having morphic capabilities that allowed them to be as sharp as obsidian on demand and always harder than diamond regardless of sharpness. These claws also have the ability to leave permanent scars on flesh capable of regeneration such as our own. These claws have are enhanced beyond what is natural, allowing them to cleave through any non-unbreakable material with ease, be it mundane flesh and bone, rune augmented enhanced power armor, or the flesh of the supernatural such as spirits and the like.

Their strength was far in excess to their lithe, lean muscled forms, able to outmatch a Cerberus in open combat. Their speed, agility, and cunning all allow them to excel at ambush, and their vocalizations carried with them an instinctual fear in all who heard it, allowing them to disorient any they encountered. The only saving grace is that the unbreakable bones of their Oros origin were lost in their creation. This is little comfort to those that fought them, however, as their sheer durability meant that even armor piercing railgun shots were unable to breach their skeletal structure with ease, merely cracking and micro-fracturing the impact sites. This durability bordered on the supernatural, allowing them to survive even with the loss of more than 50% of their bodily tissue, with a simple drink of blood being enough to kickstart their healing back to full strength.

The worst quality, however, was their intellect. This intelligence granted them a cruelty and sadism few creatures could match, with Bloodsuckers intentionally leaving some of their victims alive and in agony so their screams of pain could lure in new prey. They have been observed torturing their prey by letting them think that escape is within their grasp, or that they could reach a medical station, only to be dragged away at the last possible second by the Bloodsucker that toyed with them. This intellect also meant they avoided feeding on children outright, even after the loss of their control of the Oros people. This had nothing to do with morality and everything to do with pragmatism: A child is a poor food source compared to an adult and has the ability to produce more of its kind later on. You do not kill the young in a herd, after all, you kill the older members and wait for the young to grow up, have children of their own, and then become possible food in the future. All children who encounter a Bloodsucker have survived, but always with a marking or scar of some kind on their faces to mark them as the future food of that particular Bloodsucker.

Furthermore, the Bloodsucker came in multiple variants. The slower moving Tar-Man variant suffered a defect that causes their Sentinel Bacteria to overproduce, causing them to be drenched in a sludge like material that was flammable but which was thick enough that the flames never reached the Tar-Man below. The Pygmy variant was much, much less durable than the main-line, but made up for it by attacking in packs. The most dangerous of all, however, was the Aetherbane, a beast with access to Aetherworks that allowed the most powerful of them to alter reality on a localized level to suit their needs. All of these were hunted down and destroyed alongside the rest of their kind.

The reproductive methods of the Bloodsuckers was a mystery for a long, long time. Nobody had ever witnessed them mating with one another and lived to tell about it, and males and females of their kind treated each other no differently than they treated others of the same sex. We only know what their young look like thanks to carefully monitored experiments that create new Bloodsuckers by harvesting and combining germ cells from male and female Bloodsuckers slain in the field. These young are wild and animalistic, but surprisingly can be raised to be amicable and non-threatening creatures. This disturbingly indicates that the sadism of Bloodsucker is not, in fact, instinctive: It is learned behavior.

In the thousands of years that document them and their interactions with the Civilized Races of Null, there have been those that break from the norm. Some ignored the Civilized Races entirely, and a handful even acted as protectors to Civilized Races against the rest of their ilk. These shining beacons of decency, however, were nowhere near enough to prevent this predatory species from being marked for destruction. Many rightfully morn the loss of 'the good ones', the Bloodsuckers that rose above their brutal taught natures. In the end, however, their losses were acceptable to destroy this species that actively hunted our kind for millennia.

The last of the Bloodsuckers was hunted down and destroyed in the wild over a hundred years ago as of the time of this writing. The only remaining examples are ones bred in a lab, of which only less than a half dozen remain, and of which are scheduled for decommissioning and storage in stasis pods out of the fear that they may one day turn against us. There are many, most of them of the younger generation that did not live through the ages where Bloodsuckers were in the wilds that argue against this decision. I cannot pass judgement on these young people, for they know not the horrors of the days long passed, though a part of me cannot help but admit that there is reason in their collective voices, that it is wrong for us to treat these lab-borne Bloodsuckers with such fear and suspicion. This is only a small part of me, however, for the rest cannot help but feel relief that this long nightmare for our people may finally be at an end.

---

[A long note is attached here. Words follow, reading 'When I was a little girl, about 7, I was spending time with my grandparents at their home in the old country of the Stonecutters Nation. Grandpa Jol and Grandma Birma. They were these really old, really scarred up Warrior and Tall Body-Type Oros respectively, but they were the gentlest, sweetest souls I'd ever met. They loved the heck out of me and my parents, they took me on all sorts of adventures and taught me all kinds of things about history and right and wrong and so much more. They were the best grandparents a girl could ask for, and they were the only ones I knew of since my mom's parents were long dead by the time I was born. It's actually kinda uncommon for Oros of my day and age to have met even one full set of grandparents. Most only knew one grandma or grandpa that was still alive, most didn't know any.

One night, when I was going to bed, I woke up at night because I'd gotten thirsty. So, I went downstairs all sleepy like because I wanted to get a glass of water, and since I was 7 I was a big enough girl to get it on my own.

The first thing I noticed that was wrong was that my grandparent's room had it's door open. Actually, that's not correct. It wasn't open, it was ripped off its hinges. The second thing I noticed was the blood on the floor that led down the stairs. I'd always been a heavy sleeper who slept through animal attacks before, but there was something different this time. I could smell it in the air: the blood was my grandparents', not some animals. I did the smart thing first and hit the silent alarm button just like my parents and grandparents and school-teachers always taught me to do in an emergency like this....then, I did the stupid thing they told me not to do; I didn't hide, I started to go down the stairs to look for my grandparents.

'Oma?' I called to granny. 'Opa?' I called to grampa. I didn't hear either of them say a word. I kept going down the stairs until I reached the bottom. When I was down there, my little ears finally heard it: Something moving in the kitchen. It took out my My First Survival Knife from my pajama's sheath and, shaking like a leaf and the little idiot that I was, went to investigate.

When I got in the kitchen, there was blood everywhere. The central cooking station had been torn out of the ground and tossed out to the side, embedded in a wall. Laying on the ground was my grandma and grandpa. They were both covered in their own blood and their throats had bites taken out of them. It stood there, shaking, when I realized that there was this big shadow. It wasn't a shadow. It was huge, bigger than grandpa, and it had to squat a bit in order to fit in the kitchen and keep its head from scraping against the ceiling. It was staring at me, these big, unblinking eyes that almost looked like they had these tiny, glowing embers of hate glowing deep within them staring right at me.

My grandparents were dead, and they'd been dead for a good while by this point.

This thing had been waiting down here for me to come after them.

Before I could try and turn and run, it grabbed me. I didn't see it move, one second it was there, the next it was holding me up in the air by my neck with one hand. I tried to scream, but all that came out was choking sobs. My training kicked in and I started trying to stab it in the arm with my knife. It was like trying to stab an Ironwood tree, my attacks did nothing.

The thing stared at me, it's big fangs showing. I think it was smiling, it found my struggle funny. Then, without any other noise and much slower than it needed to, it reached out with its free hand and scooped out my left eye, making sure to sever the nerve with its claws. It dropped me on the floor then as I was sobbing and screaming before it left. It heard gunshots outside, neighbors and the first responders having arrived far too late.

I was real quiet for the next year or so. My parents were heartbroken and angry and all sorts of things, and they never let me out of their sight when I wasn't in school. My eye regrew, but because of the thing's claws when it severed my optic nerve, it grew back mostly blind. I got a Seeing-Eyepatch after that.

I eventually went back to being me, silly, weird Hildra. But my grandparents were still dead and my eye was still janked up. I got Mr. Cool as a pet to help cope, but the nightmares never really stopped. They still haven't on some nights.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm glad these things are extinct in the wild. I'm glad and I hope they stay that way forever.

-Hildra Bergentruckung. You can quote me on that.']