GROWTH - From a Speck to a Titan
- Thread starter BeeBadidoo
- Start date
- Original
-
- Tags
- original alien semibiological
- Location
- France
[X] UPGRADE - Your hollow is, frankly, terrible. A cramped, bland hole with nothing in it. You need to expand it, make a workshop, and add some things.
- Location
- Minnesota
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] UPGRADE - Your hollow is, frankly, terrible. A cramped, bland hole with nothing in it. You need to expand it, make a workshop, and add some things.
If we hunt and eat more we might not fit in our hollow when we come back to it.
Wonder if we could make a niche for ourselves in making base defenses? Traps that will alert or capture/harm intruders and the like.
If we hunt and eat more we might not fit in our hollow when we come back to it.
Wonder if we could make a niche for ourselves in making base defenses? Traps that will alert or capture/harm intruders and the like.
1337Procrast
Fire Emblem Enjoyer
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] UPGRADE - Your hollow is, frankly, terrible. A cramped, bland hole with nothing in it. You need to expand it, make a workshop, and add some things.
- Location
- Nowhere and Everywhere
- Pronouns
- He/Him
UPGRADE won. Update later today or early tomorrow.
[X] UPGRADE - Your hollow is, frankly, terrible. A cramped, bland hole with nothing in it. You need to expand it, make a workshop, and add some things.
Jungle 7
- Location
- Nowhere and Everywhere
- Pronouns
- He/Him
UPGRADE won.
Your hollow slipped into your sight as you crept across the underside of the branch. Harrowing depths faced your eyes on the top of your central mass. If you fell, you were gone into the dark, dank jungle floor. Full of rotting leaves and terrifying Beings. Your hunt had gone well there but Crafter had shown you what sort of things lurked there in his artwork. Immense eyeless things swam in the grasping mud, made so by the neverending rain and blocked sunlight. They surfaced when they sensed prey in the endless leaf litter above, tendrils stretching through the ground. You had gotten very lucky to not have been surprised and devoured in little pieces. Crushed and split by sharp teeth in monstrous jaws.
You wouldn't be going back there for a while if you could help matters.
As you squeezed yourself in through your little entrance, you found yourself comparing your home to Crafter's. Obviously, it was lacking. You knew that such a comparison was unfair as he had months to work on it and far more experience than you but you couldn't stop yourself from ing doing it. The splendor of Crafter's entrance with fine art and a door conflicted with what was, if you were to be honest with yourself, a literal hole in the bark. Nothing to say of the interior which was so far beyond yours it was a Titan to your newborn. Bare, cramped walls versus artwork and tools.
Yes, you needed to renovate your home into something more worthy. The only question was how to go about it. Once remodeled, it would be hard to change as it was bark, not soil. After thinking for a while, you came up with a plan. First, you started by scraping the main tunnel you were in to be bigger. Far bigger. This was the main branch where all your separate rooms would come off of. Once you built this, it would be extremely difficult to expand without destroying the other rooms.
Just scraping it out so it was around five times your size with a long length took nearly half a week. As you got deeper into the bark and the branch you were building, the harder it got. At least, all the digging and scraping had strengthened your legs. They were getting sharper and stronger with each passing day. Your limbs had formed sharp, serrated ridges on their sides. Like teeth. Perfect for cutting wood. Additionally, they grew thick with muscle. Your chitin could barely keep up with the growth, so it didn't.
You underwent a drastic change in appearance. Before, your chitin covered you everywhere with only your joints exposed for flexibility. Now, they separated like a drifting clump of branches in a river. Slowly, your armor split and raised itself, becoming sections of hard plating on your body. Their color changed as well, becoming brown like the wood you dug in. Inside the rents rested strong muscles. Red and sinewy showing through thin, nearly transparent skin. They formed weak points but your limbs were on the whole far better. It was simply a trade of surrendering a degree of protection for strength and sharpness.
Once you finished the main tunnel, things were looking much better. It was several feet high and meters long, stretching deep into the branch of the spire. You could truly move around in your own home now and while there was nothing on the walls, it was only a matter of time. You finally had a true space to call your own.
Still, it was only a work in progress. More expansion came in the form of a storage room, workshop, and a resting room far in the back. That last one was because you wanted some time if an intruder came in. The storage room was the easiest and most simple. You finished in a day, the work was no different from the main tunnel.
It was worth noting that you didn't spend all your days just digging. When you were tired of it, you would go out to search for materials. Primarily, bone fragments and interesting flora which you threw in your storage room. You also hunted. Nothing hard. Just simple prey nearby to fill your stomach and rid you of some boredom. The main difficulty was finding them which was rendered easy by your excellent sensory tendrils. However, the best part was that they gave you an opportunity to try out traps.
On branches, you would set up spike traps. They were simple and didn't take much time to set up dozens around your home. What seemed like normal bark would collapse under your prey, throwing them into sharpened wood spikes at the bottom. It wasn't ineffective but there were two primary issues. Those with long limbs were usually able to climb and certain body types like long ones weren't affected at all. The second issue was that stronger Beings could either react fast enough or simply take the spikes with armor.
So you gradually made your traps more complex. Some weren't even traps at all, just alarm systems. In a feat you were particularly proud of, you had slowly set up a network of threads around your home all connected to each other. The network was unreliable in storms and certain areas with a lot of wind but with your tendrils, you could detect anything that touched one of the threads. Of course, it worked both ways. You simply knew where to step to avoid tripping the threads.
That took another week of work. Occasionally, you went to the main Nest to catch up with the pack which seemed only to grow bigger and bigger. The new recruits were primarily made up of immigrants. From the western plains like you and the eastern ocean where apparently, the environment was turning unfriendly to newborns. It was constantly producing a stream of refugees. Additionally, certain Titans such as the Storm Mother were in a high spawning phase littering the world with their offspring. Many were your siblings like Stitch though they were slightly different as they were of a later batch. Now, new issues with the identification of Pack members were starting to pop up.
This level of recruitment, this fast, couldn't be sustained for much longer.
You were spared of the whole situation with your sparse mingling with other members and general distance while building your nest but you had seen a fight not too far away. It was encroaching on you. Still, you continued building with a storage room, workshop, and resting room soon attached. They were all a tad barren at the moment with only some mediocre materials from your hunts in the first while the workshop was missing the vast majority of Crafter's intricate tools with only simple tools you had made.
At last, you finished after a month of solid work. Your limbs were stronger and more nimble. Your body had changed drastically in form, better befitting your nature now instead of just being a standard form from your mother shared by thousands of your siblings.As the month ended and the weather grew a tad cooler, you headed to a Pack meeting called by Bullet. It was mid-day, the two suns had turned their fiery gaze to the jungle and the canopy was sweltering and humid. Your air holes worked hard to circulate air throughout your body to prevent overheating. The exposed skin helped a lot in dissipating heat.
As you entered, you heard the rumble of the crowd. Many were whispering to each other about what the meeting was all about. There were even more Pack members than you thought. Your fellows filled every nook and cranny of the spire canopy you all gathered in. There were small Beings and large Beings, long ones and short ones. It was the most diverse group of Beings you had ever seen and second in numbers only to your birth plains.
As the whispering reached a crescendo, the metal clang of Bullet's spikes resounded out from her chamber and she exited. You hadn't seen her in a month and in that time, she had grown. Her long sinuous body rippled with muscles, her bulk spiraled out of her burrow. Her movement was silent. Not a whisper of sound escaped. The tunnel she emerged out of barely fit her even with the expansion. Set in eyes lined her body scanning everything around her.
Her four-jawed mouth opened wide showing a dizzying array of different tongues. Some were forked, some had claws, others were thin and thready while some were large and thick. They extended out, tasting the air before she withdrew them and spoke. Her voice bounced off the many black leaves in the Spire canopy producing an intriguing echo.
"I know," she said first. Her side-eyes came out of her body, held on stalks of muscle. She looked at every single Being. "I know what you need. What we all need. Flesh and growth. I know prey has been growing scarce, that you think there are too many pack members. That our borders are too small," she paused here for a bit.
"I will change that, give you what you need. There's a group of flesh crafters far below us. In the dark corners of the Jungle. We're going to eat them. In short? We're going to war!" she screamed out, her body amplifying her voice to thunder.
At first, Beings were silent, not sure how to react but a single cheer went up that quickly spread throughout the spire. Beings hooted, screeched, hissed and beat turning the normally quiet canopy to a storm of noise that slammed into you. You too got caught up in it and yelled in excitement. War meant flesh, war meant growth. You had been itching to kill again, to feast on your prey. To feel your teeth crunch into another's meat. To feed the void. Your saliva dripped from your mouth like dewdrops from a leaf.
What role do you take in the war?
[] SAPPER - You stealthily take note of enemy movements. Install traps where you can. Harass the enemy. Bleed them by a thousand cuts. Make them paranoid of every discolored patch of bark.
[] BACK UP - You are the response team. Called in as reinforcement when things go wrong. Likely the most dangerous yet most rewarding. Your body would quickly adapt under the pressure.
[] FRONTLINE - You are the first to any battle. The tip of the spear of the invasion. The most rewards and the most unexpected challenges.
[] WRITE IN - Perhaps there's another role you can fit in.
[x] SAPPER - You stealthily take note of enemy movements. Install traps where you can. Harass the enemy. Bleed them by a thousand cuts. Make them paranoid of every discolored patch of bark.
This unless someone comes up with a clever write-in.
This unless someone comes up with a clever write-in.
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
CedeTheBees
Probably high right now
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
- Location
- France
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
- Pronouns
- He
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
- Location
- Minnesota
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
Half Moon
In the end, there is no end.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
ConfusedPotato
Unverified Verifier
- Location
- Australia
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is really cool, dude.
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
- Location
- Nowhere and Everywhere
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I don't normally close votes this early but I think which is going to win here is fairly obvious. Sapper/Assassin it is.
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
- Location
- Belgium
[X] SAPPER/ASSASSIN - Hunt in the rear of enemy territory with your traps and ambush capabilities. Make the weak among their ranks fear going out alone and challenge relatively isolated worthy foes when you can with a direct ambush to sharpen your hunting abilities. Risker then just using your traps but if you successfully pull it off surely your growth will be more broad in nature.
Understory War 1
- Location
- Nowhere and Everywhere
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Far above you, the suns slowly fell prompting the night sky to rise. Stars like glittering jewels and nebulas like colorful ripples in the fabric of the sky shown down upon the jungle. The swirling jade clouds of the moon were fully on display unobscured by any clouds. The temperature was perfect, nighttime cooling the normally sweltering jungle and producing a breezy mist that settled light on one's skin.
Of course, you weren't up there. You couldn't see those sights or really much at all except blank darkness. Comfortable coolness in the canopy was freezing claws digging into your muscles and bones here. You shivered involuntarily. Your recent adaptations didn't help much as rents in your armor let out heat from your body. Claws clung even tighter onto old, hard bark. Gnarled and weathered from millennia of survival. Your claws couldn't dig into the trunk unlike in the canopy. Too hard. Thankfully, a few branches were still attached. They were small and thin by the scale of the Jungle but at least you could fit your body onto them.
You were in the true understory.
There were many areas of 'false' ground where dirt and leaves pooled in the branches of the Spires so you had thought you went to the ground to the ground already but no, you hadn't quite reached it Your tendrils had extended outward to feel vibrations and sense enemy movements. Eyes were useless in this environment. Things were quiet with only the rustle of your partner shifting their limbs periodically.
"Nothing. We should move, to the next quadrant below?" You asked quietly. Pack language was mandatory, the pack couldn't risk information getting out.
"Yes. Three more until the border is determined," Bough replied. They withdrew their branches and crawled towards the edge of the branch you two were on.
Something you hadn't considered when war finally broke out against the Gears was determining their territory. No group or Being in the jungle really had a defined territory with markers. It was really based more on the whims of the members. So just finding out where they were below the extremely vague 'below' was proving an arduous ordeal.
You were right behind Bough as they reached the tip. They shot off a few tendrils with explosive force from their core with a twitch. It was nearly silent and in the darkness, couldn't be seen. You couldn't see it but the tendrils must've hit another branch or Spire as a limb brushed to your right indicating direction. Bough kicked off and leapt. Their limbs first trailed backward by the force of the jump but then they maneuvered them forward to cling onto the next Spire.
They didn't reach a high arc, falling nearly immediately. Not that you were worried as you did the same. The Spires were tall enough that you would smash into the other at some point if you fell at the slightest angle towards it. Just a second later, you heard wood splintering. A sound that scratched itself into your mind. Bough was there. Now it was your turn. You tucked your tendrils back in and did the same as Bough.
Jumping was terrifying in complete darkness.
As the wind whistled past your ear holes, you impacted the Spire and your claws scraped against the old bark. The force jittered your limbs and your claws rapidly started heating up from the friction. You kept clinging to the Spire, you knew that you would come to a stop. Which you did with your limbs shaking slightly from the exertion.
"Are you well?" asked Bough, a bit above you.
You replied in the affirmative and climbed up to rest for a bit with them. Your tendrils came back out again to sense anything nearby. They brushed against the bark sensing vibrations. Bough was right next to you, they were extremely quiet. That was when you heard...something. Patterned taps on one of their limbs alerted Bough. They tapped you back saying they hadn't heard anything.
You closed your eyes and focused hard on your tendrils and ears. Another noise. Another and another. They were repeated at a constant rate and moving too. Circling around the Spire you and Bough were on. Your muscles itched to be used. To pounce and tear the noise into a screaming mess of blood and bone. Anticipation ran through your blood.
You calmed yourself down by breathing deeply. The circulating air slowed your racing blood. What if you missed it? What about Bough? Could you even fight the noise? These questions were important and you had no answer. One of your tendrils brushed Bough, they were completely frozen. Not a single muscle moved an inch. They had likely detected the noise as well by this point and you decided to follow their example.
You froze.
Bough was a native of the jungle, if their response was freezing, you had to be right to copy the response. The noise kept circling around the spire. It sounded like raindrops on wood in your hollow. That steady drip that never changed rhythm. Your blood cascaded through your body still even as you breathed deeply. Blood pumps in your body were working hard even as you wished they would slow down.
Your limbs tired of stillness, burning with stiffness. They ached to twitch and murder that thing. Just as you were tempted to just pounce on the damn noise and end this whole situation, one way or another, it moved away, still repeating its dripping water sound.
You untensed your muscles, stretching them with a groan of relief. Your tendrils and limbs extended outwards as much as they could producing satisfying pops in your joints. Bough was doing the same though their limbs made cracking sounds.
"What was that?" you asked, pointing in the direction the voice went with a sensory tendril on Bough's body. Confusion was second only to relief in your mind.
"I call them, Clickers. They can detect you if you move," Bough informed you. They reached down with a limb and lifted you up to the branch they were on.
"How?" you asked again. You didn't see how sound would translate into the detection of movement.
"Don't know," they answered. That, well, that stumped you. How could making clicks do that? You would find out later.
"Time to report in then. Clickers might or might not be part of the Gears but Bullet must want to know," you said before you started climbing the Spire to the canopy.
Bough wordlessly followed you, their branch-like limbs gripping the bark well. The two of you crawled up slowly and cautiously keeping your ears peeled for the sound of Clickers. As you neared the top, your skin felt the cold sensation of falling water spread across it. It was slow, simply a drizzle.
Your eyes opened again. A soft blue light shined through the leaves' venules causing the stem and veins to cast patterned shadows on the bark. Bough came to a stop on a thick branch and basked in the light for a while. They spread their many limbs, uncoiling and melting onto the branch. They were protected from the rain by the leaves above.
You too made the decision to rest. Climbing up was no easy task even if you had good limbs for it. A heaviness weighed down on your body as you sat down next to Bough, admiring the view. Your legs curled inwards forming the surface that you sat with, covering your mouth on your undersides. The small eyes there closed and retracted slightly to avoid touching anything.
You spent some time in silent companionship.
After a while, Bough coiled their limbs again with a groan, forming proper legs instead of thin sticks. You followed suit, your joints popping from the movement of unfolding. The rents in your armor made it much easier than before, legs flexed easily and smoothly. Bough pointed up using an uncoiled limb, a simple message. Sighing, you went back to your voyage again, leaving the branch and climbing up the hard bark of the Spire. At least, you could see this time.
As you climbed up, the rain fell harder and harder. Thick droplets endlessly hammer into your body spreading a coldness that struck right to your center. You struggled to climb against the deluge of water from the sky. Your legs shook as they powered you upwards but carry you up they did. An eye was on Bough below.
They climbed quickly despite the rain. The falling water was channeled through small grooves in their body allowing it to flow off without impacting Bough much. You were reminded they were a native of the area, of course, they would have a body better suited for the environment. Your body was still much more generalized than theirs. Still, that didn't help the current situation.
"May I climb behind you?!" you shouted over the brewing storm as you stopped.
Bough nodded instead of replying in words. They swung their coiled together limbs faster, now with six and a tail to ensure stability. You weren't far, they passed over your body quickly. Your eyes tracked them as they did so noticing how big they were. Their core wasn't large, their number of limbs was what lent them size.
Overtaking you, Bough slowed down to let you follow. From behind them, you could spot small limbs, uncoiled, helping in the steep ascent. Resolving to go faster, you dug your claws into the softer wood here and kept throwing yourself up. Bough returned to their natural speed as you did so.
Together, you two advanced upwards despite the intensifying storm. Far above you, thunder rumbled. Crackling and sharp. Sometimes, flashes forced their way through cracks in the leaves nearly blinding you as the contrast between your dim environment and lightning was the contrast between night and day.
Your ears flooded with the sound of rushing water. A deep thrumming mixed with the beat of a million droplets of water. Bough sheltered you from the worst of it but it was still the strongest storm you had been in so far in the forest. Your legs burned but you went on.
Eventually, you spotted what seemed to be an abandoned hollow through the rain. A small hole inside the Spire was just a couple of body lengths away. You tapped Bough on their underside in the direction of the shelter. They understood without saying anything, instantly turning towards it. This was what you liked about working with Bough. They were so responsive and understanding.
The two of you veered off and crawled into the small hollow. It was damp and empty but Bough and you made yourselves as comfortable as possible. Bough went deeper while you sat in the front, watching the rain go by in the jungle.
What do you do after reporting to Bullet?
[] MURDER: A feeling of shame permeated you over running away from the noise. Rip it apart and feast on its corpse.
[] WAR: Do what you were meant to do. Trap, kill, eat, repeat.
[] AVOID: Perhaps you were in over your head. Perhaps it would be better to back off.
[] WRITE IN
Of course, you weren't up there. You couldn't see those sights or really much at all except blank darkness. Comfortable coolness in the canopy was freezing claws digging into your muscles and bones here. You shivered involuntarily. Your recent adaptations didn't help much as rents in your armor let out heat from your body. Claws clung even tighter onto old, hard bark. Gnarled and weathered from millennia of survival. Your claws couldn't dig into the trunk unlike in the canopy. Too hard. Thankfully, a few branches were still attached. They were small and thin by the scale of the Jungle but at least you could fit your body onto them.
You were in the true understory.
There were many areas of 'false' ground where dirt and leaves pooled in the branches of the Spires so you had thought you went to the ground to the ground already but no, you hadn't quite reached it Your tendrils had extended outward to feel vibrations and sense enemy movements. Eyes were useless in this environment. Things were quiet with only the rustle of your partner shifting their limbs periodically.
"Nothing. We should move, to the next quadrant below?" You asked quietly. Pack language was mandatory, the pack couldn't risk information getting out.
"Yes. Three more until the border is determined," Bough replied. They withdrew their branches and crawled towards the edge of the branch you two were on.
Something you hadn't considered when war finally broke out against the Gears was determining their territory. No group or Being in the jungle really had a defined territory with markers. It was really based more on the whims of the members. So just finding out where they were below the extremely vague 'below' was proving an arduous ordeal.
You were right behind Bough as they reached the tip. They shot off a few tendrils with explosive force from their core with a twitch. It was nearly silent and in the darkness, couldn't be seen. You couldn't see it but the tendrils must've hit another branch or Spire as a limb brushed to your right indicating direction. Bough kicked off and leapt. Their limbs first trailed backward by the force of the jump but then they maneuvered them forward to cling onto the next Spire.
They didn't reach a high arc, falling nearly immediately. Not that you were worried as you did the same. The Spires were tall enough that you would smash into the other at some point if you fell at the slightest angle towards it. Just a second later, you heard wood splintering. A sound that scratched itself into your mind. Bough was there. Now it was your turn. You tucked your tendrils back in and did the same as Bough.
Jumping was terrifying in complete darkness.
As the wind whistled past your ear holes, you impacted the Spire and your claws scraped against the old bark. The force jittered your limbs and your claws rapidly started heating up from the friction. You kept clinging to the Spire, you knew that you would come to a stop. Which you did with your limbs shaking slightly from the exertion.
"Are you well?" asked Bough, a bit above you.
You replied in the affirmative and climbed up to rest for a bit with them. Your tendrils came back out again to sense anything nearby. They brushed against the bark sensing vibrations. Bough was right next to you, they were extremely quiet. That was when you heard...something. Patterned taps on one of their limbs alerted Bough. They tapped you back saying they hadn't heard anything.
You closed your eyes and focused hard on your tendrils and ears. Another noise. Another and another. They were repeated at a constant rate and moving too. Circling around the Spire you and Bough were on. Your muscles itched to be used. To pounce and tear the noise into a screaming mess of blood and bone. Anticipation ran through your blood.
You calmed yourself down by breathing deeply. The circulating air slowed your racing blood. What if you missed it? What about Bough? Could you even fight the noise? These questions were important and you had no answer. One of your tendrils brushed Bough, they were completely frozen. Not a single muscle moved an inch. They had likely detected the noise as well by this point and you decided to follow their example.
You froze.
Bough was a native of the jungle, if their response was freezing, you had to be right to copy the response. The noise kept circling around the spire. It sounded like raindrops on wood in your hollow. That steady drip that never changed rhythm. Your blood cascaded through your body still even as you breathed deeply. Blood pumps in your body were working hard even as you wished they would slow down.
Your limbs tired of stillness, burning with stiffness. They ached to twitch and murder that thing. Just as you were tempted to just pounce on the damn noise and end this whole situation, one way or another, it moved away, still repeating its dripping water sound.
You untensed your muscles, stretching them with a groan of relief. Your tendrils and limbs extended outwards as much as they could producing satisfying pops in your joints. Bough was doing the same though their limbs made cracking sounds.
"What was that?" you asked, pointing in the direction the voice went with a sensory tendril on Bough's body. Confusion was second only to relief in your mind.
"I call them, Clickers. They can detect you if you move," Bough informed you. They reached down with a limb and lifted you up to the branch they were on.
"How?" you asked again. You didn't see how sound would translate into the detection of movement.
"Don't know," they answered. That, well, that stumped you. How could making clicks do that? You would find out later.
"Time to report in then. Clickers might or might not be part of the Gears but Bullet must want to know," you said before you started climbing the Spire to the canopy.
Bough wordlessly followed you, their branch-like limbs gripping the bark well. The two of you crawled up slowly and cautiously keeping your ears peeled for the sound of Clickers. As you neared the top, your skin felt the cold sensation of falling water spread across it. It was slow, simply a drizzle.
Your eyes opened again. A soft blue light shined through the leaves' venules causing the stem and veins to cast patterned shadows on the bark. Bough came to a stop on a thick branch and basked in the light for a while. They spread their many limbs, uncoiling and melting onto the branch. They were protected from the rain by the leaves above.
You too made the decision to rest. Climbing up was no easy task even if you had good limbs for it. A heaviness weighed down on your body as you sat down next to Bough, admiring the view. Your legs curled inwards forming the surface that you sat with, covering your mouth on your undersides. The small eyes there closed and retracted slightly to avoid touching anything.
You spent some time in silent companionship.
After a while, Bough coiled their limbs again with a groan, forming proper legs instead of thin sticks. You followed suit, your joints popping from the movement of unfolding. The rents in your armor made it much easier than before, legs flexed easily and smoothly. Bough pointed up using an uncoiled limb, a simple message. Sighing, you went back to your voyage again, leaving the branch and climbing up the hard bark of the Spire. At least, you could see this time.
As you climbed up, the rain fell harder and harder. Thick droplets endlessly hammer into your body spreading a coldness that struck right to your center. You struggled to climb against the deluge of water from the sky. Your legs shook as they powered you upwards but carry you up they did. An eye was on Bough below.
They climbed quickly despite the rain. The falling water was channeled through small grooves in their body allowing it to flow off without impacting Bough much. You were reminded they were a native of the area, of course, they would have a body better suited for the environment. Your body was still much more generalized than theirs. Still, that didn't help the current situation.
"May I climb behind you?!" you shouted over the brewing storm as you stopped.
Bough nodded instead of replying in words. They swung their coiled together limbs faster, now with six and a tail to ensure stability. You weren't far, they passed over your body quickly. Your eyes tracked them as they did so noticing how big they were. Their core wasn't large, their number of limbs was what lent them size.
Overtaking you, Bough slowed down to let you follow. From behind them, you could spot small limbs, uncoiled, helping in the steep ascent. Resolving to go faster, you dug your claws into the softer wood here and kept throwing yourself up. Bough returned to their natural speed as you did so.
Together, you two advanced upwards despite the intensifying storm. Far above you, thunder rumbled. Crackling and sharp. Sometimes, flashes forced their way through cracks in the leaves nearly blinding you as the contrast between your dim environment and lightning was the contrast between night and day.
Your ears flooded with the sound of rushing water. A deep thrumming mixed with the beat of a million droplets of water. Bough sheltered you from the worst of it but it was still the strongest storm you had been in so far in the forest. Your legs burned but you went on.
Eventually, you spotted what seemed to be an abandoned hollow through the rain. A small hole inside the Spire was just a couple of body lengths away. You tapped Bough on their underside in the direction of the shelter. They understood without saying anything, instantly turning towards it. This was what you liked about working with Bough. They were so responsive and understanding.
The two of you veered off and crawled into the small hollow. It was damp and empty but Bough and you made yourselves as comfortable as possible. Bough went deeper while you sat in the front, watching the rain go by in the jungle.
What do you do after reporting to Bullet?
[] MURDER: A feeling of shame permeated you over running away from the noise. Rip it apart and feast on its corpse.
[] WAR: Do what you were meant to do. Trap, kill, eat, repeat.
[] AVOID: Perhaps you were in over your head. Perhaps it would be better to back off.
[] WRITE IN
Apologies for the long update times. I'm having some severe health issues.