#⚠ [thelastpathfinder]

[trogoautoegocrat]

"Tarantulas? I brought you another preserved specimen. This one is a hexapodal mammal of some kind."

"A hexapodal mammal?" Tarantulas takes it from you, passing the specimen between numerous different hands -- like it'd somehow make him observe it better. "What planet did you say this was from?"

[trogoautoegocrat]

"We could be friends. If you'd like." The little ghost's former confidence seems to have fled; now he stands hunched, like a kicked mechanimal, anxiously wringing his hands like he expects his offer of friendship to be received as a grave insult.

The offer is a strange one.

Very few creatures are foolish or blindsided enough to willingly pursue a relationship of any kind with him, let alone a friendship. A useful ally, perhaps, but he's never been seen as anything more. He's aware of it -- he does little to prove himself to be anything else.

Maybe his prolonged silence is what portrays it. Maybe it's the fact that, for the first time you have known him, he is completely stilled. Frozen. Hung on a web; joints full of silk.

"Friends," Tarantulas tries the word, and it feels unfamiliar and heavy in his mouth. He could choke on it. He thinks that, maybe, he wants to.

The silk melts, and he stoops closer. Invasion is a habit more than anything intentional.

"Friends. I don't know you, spectre. Introductions are only polite."

[trogoautoegocrat]

The small, pale mech appears rather abruptly; whether he snuck up is unclear. He crouches there, motionless, staring at Tarantulas with an eerie cosmic optic. Then: "Are you a beastformer?"

Tarantulas' head turns slowly, the gross imitations of mandibles that line the sides of his face twitching in strange rhythm. Disgustingly organic – the song of long-dead cicadas; a leitmotif of things not understood, and things that never will be.

He could be looking at him. He could also not be. The crude imitations of something else that shroud his visage leave the amalgamation utterly unreadable.

There could be functional optics beneath that visor. The spider's eyes could be more than just mimicry – their curious tendency to bore right through the hapless onlooker, innumerable hands deftly picking apart servos and wire, could imply something more than vile decoration.

Regardless, it does not matter. Stop focusing on inconsequential details, like how this robot has far too many eyes that may or may not work, or how he has far too many arms that definitely do work, because you can see them swaying with an eerie, unplaced sense of elegance that does not belong to this creature. It shouldn't. If nature is a thing that would even subscribe itself to something to trivial as laws, then this misguided act of creation surely breaks all of them. Every single one. You could imagine he knows he's doing it, too.

Whatever. It doesn't matter.

The thing is speaking. You asked it a question. The polite thing to do is to listen.

"What I am is of my own design. A modification. Preceeded by endless research and experimentation– an organic bio-disguise."

[trogoautoegocrat]

"Will you teach me about your favorite fields sometime, my friend? I know I'm nowhere near as smart as you, but I like to listen."

He pauses whatever it is that he's doing, a chorus of wire and organic.. strings suspended up over his arms, looking very much like a strange, wood-rotten instrument. There's the soft, metallic clicking of his mandibles as he considers your question. "...Perhaps," Tarantulas mutters, somewhat to himself. He returns to his work, weaving flesh and flex into one another, stocking the empty carapace of something recently cleaned out. Liquefied horror still clings to the inside of the shell. "If I can find the time. I almost have this figured out - we're nearly done with it, Spectre. Soon."

------🕸------

[trogoautoegocrat]

"Do you want to perch with me somewhere high and gloomy? Ominously, if that's your preference."

"I will, if it is not too... open. Ominosity is not my intention. It will happen anyway."

[trogoautoegocrat]

Tarantulas' too-skinny frame, top-heavy limbs that seem crudely welded on as an afterthought, alongside the utterly strange additions of biological components like hair and eyes and mouthparts could likely give you an impression of what he'd smell like, anyway. You know what clings to him; it's the stench of acidic death. Death and batteries. His mandibles are twitching again as you speak. He's listening, at least. "I am a scientist. One of the best. Too good for the likes of Kimia." The slow dripping of his words are bitter syrup. Spilled ichor. A bottle tipped over. He won't tell you what he once was, or what it is he does. Those jars still line the shelves of his distant memory, specimens suspended in ethanol and stinking of terrible choices. Very few have ever witnessed such a museum of misery. They are impossibly dear to him. Instead, he offers you something else. Quietly, as though uttering some terrible secret. "I am Tarantulas."

"We could be friends. If you'd like." The little ghost's former confidence seems to have fled; now he stands hunched, like a kicked mechanimal, anxiously wringing his hands like he expects his offer of friendship to be received as a grave insult.

The offer is a strange one.

Very few creatures are foolish or blindsided enough to willingly pursue a relationship of any kind with him, let alone a friendship. A useful ally, perhaps, but he's never been seen as anything more. He's aware of it -- he does little to prove himself to be anything else.

Maybe his prolonged silence is what portrays it. Maybe it's the fact that, for the first time you have known him, he is completely stilled. Frozen. Hung on a web; joints full of silk.

"Friends," Tarantulas tries the word, and it feels unfamiliar and heavy in his mouth. He could choke on it. He thinks that, maybe, he wants to.

The silk melts, and he stoops closer. Invasion is a habit more than anything intentional.

"Friends. I don't know you, spectre. Introductions are only polite."

[trogoautoegocrat]

"Self-defined," Tarantulas echoes, and he seems to be mulling over the term. Truthfully, he thinks many things are self-defined, but that is not what this little 'bot means. The creature in front of him is speaking in a.. discernibly personal manner. His mandibles twitch once more. He elects to not answer. "I am different. And I am also an inconvenience, but they could not hurt me. Not truly. Heh." The laugh doesn't suit him. Not really. It's a nasally sound, if he could even produce one. Something childish and drowning in a quiet rasp. Imagine a snake. Imagine the snake had hands to hold a lighter, and that it has been smoking for the past couple centuries. Pretend this scenario is not ridiculous. Stop thinking about nicotine-addicted reptiles. Get your dome in the divertissement! This is clearly a robot made up of no present or future. Only the past. He's full of it. The crude arms sprouting from his back seem to twitch and wave as he speaks, an odd indicator of attention and focus. He stoops closer. "And you? An offense? A pest? Something to eradicate?"

The small, pale mech appears rather abruptly; whether he snuck up is unclear. He crouches there, motionless, staring at Tarantulas with an eerie cosmic optic. Then: "Are you a beastformer?"

Tarantulas' head turns slowly, the gross imitations of mandibles that line the sides of his face twitching in strange rhythm. Disgustingly organic – the song of long-dead cicadas; a leitmotif of things not understood, and things that never will be.

He could be looking at him. He could also not be. The crude imitations of something else that shroud his visage leave the amalgamation utterly unreadable.

There could be functional optics beneath that visor. The spider's eyes could be more than just mimicry – their curious tendency to bore right through the hapless onlooker, innumerable hands deftly picking apart servos and wire, could imply something more than vile decoration.

Regardless, it does not matter. Stop focusing on inconsequential details, like how this robot has far too many eyes that may or may not work, or how he has far too many arms that definitely do work, because you can see them swaying with an eerie, unplaced sense of elegance that does not belong to this creature. It shouldn't. If nature is a thing that would even subscribe itself to something to trivial as laws, then this misguided act of creation surely breaks all of them. Every single one. You could imagine he knows he's doing it, too.

Whatever. It doesn't matter.

The thing is speaking. You asked it a question. The polite thing to do is to listen.

"What I am is of my own design. A modification. Preceeded by endless research and experimentation– an organic bio-disguise."

[trogoautoegocrat]

Tarantulas leans closer to him. The sharp green jewels of his numerous eyes blaze (maybe he can see out of them?), and the intensity of it might have been stifling, if you were anyone else. He isn't angry, or frustrated. He's interested. You know it the second he begins speaking. "Both are classed arachnida, and tarantulas are spiders, yes, but not all spiders are tarantulas. Tarantulas -- the common name for Theraphosidae, consists of what my alt-form would best be likened to. They are what I am modelled from. They differ. Urticating hairs, spinnerette count, fang placement, hunting methods-" He pauses his rambling, but only for a moment. A split-second. If you contain the ability to scent, then maybe you'd note the stink of energon wafting from behind his mandibles. "Trapdoor Spiders- Ctenizidae- hunt more like tarantulas than spiders do. By hiding in wait and pouncing. Tarantulas do not use webs for hunting. They do not have enough spinnerettes. And their fangs pierce, rather than pinch."

You have gotten him talking now. He is not going to stop. The Gods -- should they exist and should you believe in them, salute your efforts, little bird. "Fascinating does not even begin to describe it, Spectre. On top of every other intricacy of these creatures, they are organic. Flesh. Meat. Sinew. Chitin. Bone. I have studied them down to the very marrow."

"We could be friends. If you'd like." The little ghost's former confidence seems to have fled; now he stands hunched, like a kicked mechanimal, anxiously wringing his hands like he expects his offer of friendship to be received as a grave insult.

The offer is a strange one.

Very few creatures are foolish or blindsided enough to willingly pursue a relationship of any kind with him, let alone a friendship. A useful ally, perhaps, but he's never been seen as anything more. He's aware of it -- he does little to prove himself to be anything else.

Maybe his prolonged silence is what portrays it. Maybe it's the fact that, for the first time you have known him, he is completely stilled. Frozen. Hung on a web; joints full of silk.

"Friends," Tarantulas tries the word, and it feels unfamiliar and heavy in his mouth. He could choke on it. He thinks that, maybe, he wants to.

The silk melts, and he stoops closer. Invasion is a habit more than anything intentional.

"Friends. I don't know you, spectre. Introductions are only polite."