#As in they tuck their tentacles in when not actively hunting but then let them lose when they are hunting!

[donuts4evry1]

Ok so I've posted this exact video before but someone asking about it on AOP's jellyfish stream reminded me of it so I'd just like to say

Box jellyfish washed up on beaches can make incredibly adorable squeaking noises because their pedalia (muscles? that hold the tentacles) are very strong and when they flex them on land it squeaks sorta loudly

it's sometimes hard to hear, because the conditions have to be just right, but when you hear it it's like 😳😳😳 woahh

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Animorphs in Zombie Apocalypse AU?

• It’s been seven years since the end of the war.  Three years since the Animorphs — all six of them — stumbled off of the Rachel on its return, over two dozen ex-yeerk-hosts in tow.  It’s beginning to feel like this peace might last.

• Rachel’s in the middle of a business lunch when the call comes in.  Her line of fragrances (“Animal Essence by Rachel Berenson: Let out your wild side”) has performed pretty well this quarter.  But there are always marketing campaigns to manage and deals to sign, which is why she and her PR manager Linda are in a trendy Brooklyn café when the phone in her purse buzzes.

Jake tries to sound calm, as he tells her that they’re being called in.  Because it’s Jake, he almost succeeds.  No details yet, he says, just a behavior-altering pathogen.  Possibly extraterrestrial origin.

Around her, the room has gone cold and strange and far away.  How silly the delicate spread of quinoa and avocado on her plate appears now, how pointless the fan of business cards in her hand and manicure on her nails.

“My cousin,” she says, and then “family emergency,” and then “I have to go.”

•  Marco’s head lifts when the din of the crowd goes quiet ahead of him, scanning automatically for trouble.  Jordan Berenson is cutting through the crowd on the dance floor.  She’s utterly out of place in her full business suit amidst the night club’s flash and camp, her straight posture bizarre among the half-naked slouch of bodies that surrounds her.

“Hey there, G-woman!” Marco calls over the music.

“She’s a fed?” his security guard Rena asks sharply, glancing at the line of cocaine clearly visible on the nearest end table.

Marco waves Rena away.  “She’s family.”

He sees Jordan absorb the label with no small amount of surprise.  He’s not sure what the fuck else they’d count as: they’re not friends, but that doesn’t change the fact that they fought and cooked and lived and nearly died together during the war.

“I’m here on behalf of the NSA-CDC joint commission,” Jordan says, trying a small smile.

“And what’s Uncle Sam want with little old me?”  Even as Marco says it, he knows: he really really does not want to hear what Jordan is about to say.

•  Cassie rolls to her feet when the Army transport jeep approaches, heart already beating faster.  The hork-bajir preserve doesn’t get many human visitors, and the official ones never bring good news.  She glances over at Tobias – who was, like her, listening to Toby tell a surprisingly entertaining version of their war story to a group of youngsters – and sees him tense, feathers flaring.

Please, she thinks, don’t let it be the start of another “human” rights battle.  Which just goes to show that it’s been a while since the war, long enough that she thinks another spat over land grants is the worst thing that can happen to this community.

• «Prince Aximili.»  The aristh looks nervous enough to be about ready to trip over his own hooves.  «Sir, there’s a message for you.  It’s from Earth.»

Ax nods automatically, even knowing that the gesture won’t mean anything to his fellow andalites.  «Who on Earth?»

The aristh shuffles his back hooves, tail tucked close to his body.  «Just… Earth.  A human called the President of the United States.  She says she’s calling on behalf of the entire planet.»

A war-prince must always project calm and confidence, to reassure all warriors and civilians who might be watching.  Ax manages, only just barely, to remain still and inhale slowly.  To keep his voice level when he says, «Thank you.  I’ll take the call in my private quarters.»

• There are three of them in the cramped observation room.  Then four, then five, and finally six.  A unit, huddled together and barefoot and unable to speak.  They’re not the only ones here for the meeting, of course.  Other people await them in the next room: the Joint Chiefs, the U.N. representatives.  Collette and Timmy.  Peter.  Tom, Jordan, Walter and Michelle.  The president.

On the other side of the glass, Eva beats her hands against the wall.  A guttural moan gargles in the back of her throat.  She’s walking forward, not seeming to realize that she encounters a wall again and again.

The flesh has already rotted off her extremities, leaving bone and putrescent muscle exposed underneath the peeling curls of skin.

“We’ll find a cure,” Cassie says.  Even as she tries to breathe through a nightmare come to life, a flashback made present.  “We’ll find a way—”

“My mom is dead.”  Marco’s voice is as steady as the hands of a man sawing off his own leg.  “No heartbeat.  No brain activity.  No respiration, digestion, circulation.”

Tobias looks back into the room, then at Marco.  «But…»

“She’s an organ donor.”  Marco’s eyes are dry, but he sniffs hard to keep them that way.  “Wanted her body used for science, for humanity, when she couldn’t use it anymore.  She’s dead.  We’re respecting her wishes.”

Eva’s mouth gnashes at the air, teeth and jawbone exposed where her lips have already decayed.  Her fingertips leave streaks of gore on the plexiglas.

“We know it spreads by fluids,” Jake recites dully.  “That even a few drops can infect an entire water system.  We know that it kills the hosts within hours of infection, and then uses their bodies to try and reproduce itself.  We know it can be killed by fire, and by beheading the host, but so far that’s all we know.”

«How many humans have suffered its effects so far?» Ax asks.

“We don’t know,” Jake says.  “Lowest estimate’s a few thousand.”

“And the highest?” Cassie asks.

He turns to look at her.  The answer’s there on his face, in the way he can’t seem to stop himself from reaching out to take her hand.

• “How bad is it?” Ronnie asks Cassie that night.

She pulls him into her arms, desperate to sink into warmth and soft muscle and still-living flesh.  “Remember last time humanity got attacked by an alien pathogen?” she asks.  “Remember how that ended for the invading parasites?”

He has to know that she’s dodging the question.  But then he wasn’t in the room when the graph tracing the U.S. watersheds spread slowly from blue to red, the entire continent glowing sickly crimson within weeks.  The heading at the top said Conservative Estimate.  They never saw the non-conservative one.

• Please remain calm, the president’s broadcast says, and stay inside your homes.  Boil any water before drinking, she adds, even though they don’t think that that will do any good.  Better to give people something to do, some way to feel like there’s still hope.

• Rachel goes up against entire hordes.  She becomes elephant, alligator, grizzly and cheetah.  She perfects the necessary motions to grab and rip, to sever the spinal column in one bite or one slash.  She wades through firestorms as a salamander or rhinoceros, swoops in on kafit wings or surges upward on lerdethak tentacles to rip bodies to bits.  Sometimes the others join her.  They get infected a dozen, a hundred times, and each time they morph and survive.

• Which is where Tobias’s suggestion comes from.

«I say we arm the populace,» he says.

It’s the six of them, sitting around Marco’s kitchen table — one of his kitchen tables in one of his houses — after yet another bout of endless killing and very little progress.

“Meaning what?” Jake says.

“The civilian death toll’s already high enough, if you ask me,” Marco says.  “Seeing as how everyone and their aunt is out there with hunting rifles and modified dracon beams blowing their neighbors away.”

Cassie winces.  He’s not wrong.  The riots have cost more lives than the plague, according to the latest estimates.

«We’re safe,» Tobias points out.  «Or we can fix ourselves.  Because we’re morphers.  We have the cube… why not use it as widely as possible, on as many people as we can find?»

“That’d be illegal,” Jake says.

Rachel lets out a dull laugh.  Cassie can see her point.  They’re way past that by now.

“And when the vampires start morphing too?” Rachel asks.  “What then?”

“Don’t call them that,” Marco snaps.  “They’re dead bodies with parasites inside, not…”  He laughs, humorless. “Vampires, revenants, the undead, that’s all stuff you play for pretend on some television show.  It’s makeup and bad writing.”

“Yeah,” Rachel says, “just like aliens.  Just like shapeshifters.”

«I sincerely doubt that the infected would have the necessary mental abilities to sustain focused attention upon achieving an animal shape,» Ax says.  «Tobias’s proposal would indeed break several laws set by at least half a dozen species… and it may be the only way to save this planet.»

“How do we make sure the civilians are using the morph tech responsibly?” Jake asks.  Which shows that he’s already thinking about it.  Already halfway there.

• They make an announcement on the only remaining television channel.  They send out a broadcast on every frequency that emergency radios will pick up.  They go even more old-school, and pass out fliers.  Anyone who wants the morphing can come.  Can wait in line, sometimes for hours, to press their fingers against the box in Marco’s hand.  Acquiring DNA is their own problem.  So is the two-hour limit, for all of the warnings that Cassie repeats ad infinitum to the waiting crowds and the folks at home.

It’s inevitable, really, when the panic breaks out one day outside the elementary school where they’re recruiting.  No one can say for sure if the woman was actually infected, or if the man next to her just thought she was.

Eight people are trampled to death in the ensuing crush.  Nearly a hundred more are injured, too many to treat in a town that has already run short on dozens of essentials that must be shipped in from other parts of the country.  No one can say how many are infected, just that the Animorphs spend nearly a week clearing the undead out of the area around the elementary school before it’s finally safe to use again.

• The reports coming out of the densely-populated East Coast are shocking.  There was a battle between human and undead outside Yonkers, and now Yonkers is overrun.  All groundwater from the Chesapeake Bay watershed is now considered infected, take precautionary measures.  Florida has closed its borders, and is gunning down anyone who gets too close.  A riot over a shipment of bottled water took out eighteen square blocks in downtown Philadelphia, and took out the entire shipment of water as well.  The wealthiest residents of Boston and Manhattan are moving off-planet as fast as craft will take them, leaving the rest of the planet to die.

And then one day the reports… stop.

No CNN, no NPR, no MSNBC.  No U.S., not really, not anymore.

• “I’m going to go lie down,” Jake’s father says, after a long day in the lab.  And, “It’s just a headache, I’m sure.”

It’s the last thing he ever says.  Eight hours later, Tom becomes the one to shoot him in the head.

• When Rachel picks up the phone, Jordan says, “You know you’re my hero, right?”

Rachel rushes out of the house, phone up to her ear, desperate for a better signal.  “How… you…”  She draws a sharp breath.  “It’s been three months!”  Not just three months since she heard from her sister.  Three months since anyone that she knows of has succeeded in making a long-distance call.

“Sat phone,” Jordan says.  “Government-issue.  We’ve all been taking turns using it, in here.”

“Holy shit.”  Rachel pulls the gun off of her belt and, almost unthinkingly, puts a bullet between the eyes of the child who has been shuffling toward her on corpse-stiff limbs.  “How are you?  How’s DC?”

“Not great, actually.  INSCOM’s got me and a bunch of other essential personnel in a bunker.  Or they did, anyway.”  Jordan clears her throat.  “The perimeter’s been breached, and there are about twenty of us holed up in this room.  Maybe four—”  Her voice wavers, steadies.  “Four, five hundred hostiles outside, judging from the security cameras.”

“I’m—”  Rachel is running down the street, cataloguing morphs.  “I’m coming for you, just hang on.”

“Rachel.”  Jordan’s voice is terribly sad.  She’s three thousand miles away.  “Just listen, okay?”

Rachel sits on the ground.  Curls into herself.  Fetal position, a ball of helpless rage.

“We’re each taking one phone call, and it just seemed really important to me.”  Jordan takes a breath.  “To tell you that I love you.  That you’ve always been my hero.  Since… forever, really.  And that everything I am, everything I’ve done, is because of you.  So…”

There’s a noise in the background of the call.  One Rachel doesn’t want to identify.

“Tell Mom and Sarah I love them, yeah?” Jordan says.

Their mom’s been dead two weeks.  Sarah is MIA.  “I will,” Rachel says.  “I promise.  Jordan—”

“Time’s up, gotta go.”  There’s a click, and the line goes dead.

•  Ax lies so smoothly, so thoroughly, that he doesn’t know if he even remembers how to tell the truth.  The fight against the pathogen is going well, he tells the Andalite Navy.  Humanity is doing well.  There’s no need for alarm.  No need for drastic action.  Yes, he would like to stay here indefinitely, but only to do what he can to assist the clean-up efforts.

•  They morph every six hours, setting alarms to make sure that it happens.  There is no uninfected water, not anymore, which means they’re constantly exposed.  It can’t last forever.  One of these days, Tobias knows, one of them is going to go in their sleep.  And there’s nothing to be done to fend it off indefinitely.

•  The being who appears in Marco’s living room is human and raptor and andalite and most definitely none of the above.  (Ketran, Rachel will say later, and then silently shake her head when they ask her what the word means.)  They all still recognize the Ellimist when they see him.

“I came to you once with an offer,” the Ellimist says.  “Your lives, and your families’, in exchange for relocation to a different planet.  I can bring your families back.  Save them, and you.  A way to preserve the human species, a final desperate measure.”

“And all of a sudden it’s back on the table?” Marco demands.

The Ellimist nods, or maybe he’s just bowing his head in grief.

They look around at each other, needing no words to communicate their thoughts.

They were so young, the last time they had this offer, Rachel thinks now.  She was just a little girl, too caught up in worrying about being in love with a nothlit and disappointing her father to understand what was really at stake.  She missed it entirely, the reason Jake and Marco were the ones to hesitate and grieve.  They’d both lost loved ones to the yeerks already.  They’d known what was at stake, the way that the little girl she’d been at the time could not have known.

Now she understands.  Now, I can bring your families back isn’t abstract or principled.  It’s real down to her gut, down to her pores.  Now she understands, as do they all, just how much war can take.  They’re adults.  This time, their eyes are open.  Their decision is informed.

This time, Jake doesn’t hesitate when he speaks for them all.  “Go fuck yourself,” he says.  “It’s our planet, and we’ll fight for it to the very last man.”

[monstersdownthepath]

Unusual Bogeymen

Everyone knows about the bogeyman–the nasty monster that gobbles up disobedient children. Every culture in the world has them, in so many shapes and sizes that listing all of them would take a library and a half. Some families even have personal bogeymen, creatures made up on the spot by parents wanting their children to behave, which sometimes spread from the original family and into the population’s collective consciousness.

Like many things on Golarion and beyond, stories have a power all their own. The wild imaginations of young children are a potent source of fuel and fire for wild magic looking for a purpose, but especially the magic of the First World, where enough people believing something to be true makes it so. In areas of Golarion where the barrier between the Material Plane and the First World are thin, sometimes the stories of these bogeyman creep into the land of the fey and take on a life of their own as monstrous creatures, some of which even make it into the Material Plane from time to time.

Creatures like….

Lakanak, also known as Clack-Clack, the Lake Clacker, Snapper, and other such titles depending on the location. Stories of Lakanak first spread via secondhand ‘friend-of-a-friend’ tales regarding an incident in which a monstrous crab burst from a lake and devoured an unlucky traveler; horse, cart, and all. Lakanak quickly became a cautionary tale against going near deep waters while alone, and was used to scare children away from the shorelines... A little too effectively, as it turned out, and soon fishermen hoping for their children to learn their trade found the young’ns were too scared to, from their viewpoint, get within reach of the hungry crab’s claws. 

Eventually the story began to evolve, Lakanak becoming something of a coward. Used to being the biggest creature in the lakes or ponds it calls home, it becomes mortally terrified of any being larger than itself, with the parents of the lectured child confirming that they just so happen to be taller than the hungry creature. Thankfully, this more popular version of the legend was the one given life by the First World, and the CR 5 Lakanak is cursed with an unfortunate Fear of Giants, causing it to become increasingly panicked when confronted by anyone over 6 feet tall before eventually fleeing the area altogether.

Lakanak’s monstrous appetite can see it snapping up just about anything it can fit into its mouth, but it also means it can be easily tricked or bypassed with bribes of food. In one popular children’s story, a trio of young boys manages to escape an encounter with the ravenous crustacean by way of a Three Billy Goat’s Gruff charade, each one promising a greater and greater feast if only Lakanak would allow them to pass by. In some darker versions of the story, this is what eventually inspired the beast to devour an entire traveler’s cart, as the cart passed by just minutes after the boys did, and the true Lakanak cannot be tricked with promises of food to come... But it’s still ever the sucker for delicious treats that are already here and being offered to it, allowing even the plumpest of children to leave if it’s sufficiently appeased with easier, less-screamy meals.

Granny Nose, also known Granny Schnozz, Granny Mudfoot, the Hogmother, or simply Mudfoot, is one of many creatures used to spook lazy children into activity. Blind and deaf but tall as a tree and strong as an ox, Granny Nose’s most notable feature is her namesake sniffer, which is so comically enormous that she looks like a scythe if viewed from the side. One honking snort (sometimes exaggerated to the point of being strong enough to rip trees from their roots) lets her smell the whole area for miles around, a valuable tool for finding her “lost piggies.”

Clad in thoroughly-befouled burlap but for a wide-brimmed straw hat on her head, Granny Nose’s worn trappings are kept in place by countless ropes, each of which are connected to the necks of at least a dozen snuffling hogs that constantly churn the earth around her, coating her in dirt, mud, and muck. Ever hungry but never the smartest of women, Granny will wolf down entire swines whole and alive and then subsequently forget that she did so, and will embark on a quest to find her now “missing pig.” And guess what messy, filthy children who refuse their baths just so happen to smell like to the blind old crone, whose deaf ears can’t tell a child’s shouts of protest from the squealings of a runaway hog? In some versions of the legend, the Granny will use wicked magic to transmute filthy children into hogs to be eaten later, while sometimes it’s the ropes themselves with the magical polymorphing power. In still others, Granny Nose will simply tie the children to her, so tightly they can never break free, forced to live among the muddy, messy, snuffling pigs until Granny becomes hungry again.

Granny Nose is popular among produce farmers more than any other bogeymen, because as it turns out, it just so happens that Granny Nose cannot stand the smell of corn, or apples, or carrots, or whatever the current year’s crop is, prompting the young layabouts to help sew and care for the crops if only to keep the crone from drawing too closely. She also comes in handy for livestock farmers, especially with ones with hogs of their own, to explain to their too-young children just why some pigs went missing (”Granny thought they were hers”), at least until the child is old enough to see for themselves where the pigs are going. Even the wealthier areas of the world benefit from the tales of the Hogmother, who can apparently also be repelled by the smells of sweet and healthy flowers from the parent’s lovely garden that they so wish their child would help them care for, because it’s the only thing keeping that nasty crone at bay, you see...

The incarnated form of Granny Nose is a CR 9 encounter, a hag-like being with monstrous strength, an unbearably awful stink around her, and a crowd of hungry hogs that will eagerly nip and gnaw on anything that gets in reach of their mouths. Blind and deaf like her storybook counterpart, her sense of smell is so acute that it grants her an enormous blindsight radius that can grow even larger if she takes a round to sniff her surroundings, her tremendous inhalations and exhalations capable of imitating a few windy spells as she does so.

The Heckler, also known as Heckleton, Hackleton, Wraps, Bundler, or the Raggedy Man, is a horror sometimes whispered to be an unspeakably hideous being beneath the layers and layers and layers of filthy, bloodstained cloth that wrap endlessly around it. The Heckler sometimes carries a bloody sack slung over its shoulder, its free hand holding (or replaced by) a set of rusty but deadly sharp shears, shears sharp enough that they can slice bones like butter, and only get sharper with each use. And they get used a lot.

Heckleton collects fingers, you see, but not just any fingers; It desires only the softest, smoothest, most beautiful fingers for its grisly collection, and will gleefully snap them one by one from the layabouts with uncalloused hands that refuse to lift, move, or work anything. The Heckler is a popular bogeyman in towns where most of the jobs available are grueling manual labor, whose workers end up with worn down, scarred, and generally beaten up hands that the bogeyman despises so. Children are taught quickly to work ‘till they start getting blisters and callouses, as it’s surely the only way to disgust the shears-wielding psychopath. In gentler areas with less need for child labor, the Heckler still finds its place, though its desires completely switch and end up with it coming for hands and fingers that haven’t been properly washed, cared for, for fingers with untrimmed nails, or for hands that became too dirty when playing outside.

Rather than snipping all of them off at once, the Heckler will instead take them one at a time, coming back once each night to take a new finger, all the while chiding its victim with taunts of “lazy, lazy, laaaaazy” in a voice that sounds just as rusty and horrible as its shears. Often, adults who’ve indeed lost fingers to the perils of their work will claim to have been visited by the Heckler in their youth and immediately changed their ways. Such lies are awfully cruel, but the true Heckler, a CR 10 Fey-Aberration horror armed with a set of +1 Cruel (of course) Ominous Shears, is even crueler. Due to the paradox inherent in the “farmlands” Heckler desiring soft, clean fingers and the “city” Heckler desiring scarred, dirty ones, the incarnated Heckler desires all fingers, and will cut them from the corpses of victims it manages to scare to death, either through its frightening aura or showing off the unfathomably terrifying visage hidden beneath its rags.

The Plucker, sometimes known as Pucker, is a warning against wandering eyes. There’s nothing the Plucker craves more than wandering eyes, eyes which have seen things they shouldn’t, eyes that have read things they shouldn’t, and hunts them down like a dog chasing a squirrel. The Plucker’s secondary name comes from its most common appearance, as a painfully gaunt, human-shaped aberration with its lips drawn into a comically intense pucker. The Plucker has no eyes of its own, having long since torn them out and eaten them after reading from a wicked book (some parents will mention specific books, but it’s generally left ambiguous), its intense pucker the result of the force it expended swallowing down everything it had seen.

Though, in some more gruesome tales, the Pucker’s pucker isn’t a true pucker at all, but only looks like it. The reality is that its mouth is surrounded by fingers or even tentacles that it keeps partially tucked in its throat, their curled form making it seem like a pucker, up until it needs to scoop some eyes from some heads.

The Plucker began as a tale to warn children away from curiously perusing wicked literature sometimes placed before them by mischief-making fiends, but in some parts of the world it’s used to scare children away from any literature at all, save for ones their parents (or the local church) allow. In still others, it’s used as a more generalized bogeyman that hunts peeping children at night, going after the foolish waifs who’ve stayed up past their bedtime and plucking out their eyes if it finds them. In its stories, the Plucker can sometimes be confounded simply by keeping one’s eyes closed, but in others, the additional security of a blanket is needed to perplex the blind horror, who can see through the eyes of others and is easily thwarted if its victim simply covers their eyes in some fashion, both re-blinding the creature and stopping it from taking their eyes.

The incarnated Plucker is not fooled by blankets. It is a CR 13 nightmare that wields considerable occult power collected from all over the world. In addition to its fearsome spellcasting, the Plucker is supernaturally terrifying to all who see its pale, emaciated form, inducing an intense terror that only grows worse when it unfolds the nightmarish tendrils from its mouth or feeds on an unlucky victim. Its latching claws are laced with a paralytic poison that renders its victims unable to resist as it gulps down their eyes, and it can smell “forbidden” knowledge lurking in the eyes of those who’ve seen too much, allowing it to track specific prey even if they know to shut their eyes and make both themselves and the horror blind to one another. What “forbidden” knowledge the Plucker hungers for, exactly, is generally up to the DM, but it usually entails knowledge of the lower planes that can only be found in obscure tomes one needs a hefty bribe to even know about, let alone see... Though, in general, the Plucker will take any eyes it can get its facial tendrils around, only seeking out specific, especially-delicious, especially-tainted eyes if the opportunity arises. Regardless of if they’re tainted with horrible knowledge or not, any eye the Plucker consumes restores a portion of its expended spells for the day, though tainted eyes restore considerably more.  

Bitter Beans, also known as Uncle or Aunt Bitters, is the least of the bogeymen, among the most harmless and humorous, though it’s not exactly funny for the children tormented by the creature. Standing at two feet in height, Bitter Beans has a body made of gnarled, ugly wood, with a gnarled, ugly face (the gender varies from region to region), and a single, large hole in its backside. In polite society, the hole is instead on the back of its head, opposite to its face.

The stories of Bitter Beans originated from a small island where they do, indeed, grow pungent, black beans that taste incredibly foul if eaten directly, but make for a fine coffee. Bitter Beans was invented to punish children who never cleaned their plates, the nasty little fey inviting itself into people’s homes and eating all the leftovers before leaving behind a mass of... Er, bitter beans, fresh from the hole on its rear (or the back of its head, as mentioned). Bitter Beans would quickly begin to eat the food of the ungrateful child before it even got to the table, leaving behind nothing but a plate of steaming, foul-smelling, incredibly bitter beans for the child to stare at, the parents “none the wiser” to the foul switch until it gets explicitly pointed out.

In areas of the world where Bitter Beans’ namesake beans aren’t common enough to punish children with, the fey is instead referred to as Aunt or Uncle Bitters, and its leavings are always the grossest, most undesirable portions of whatever it got to eat before. A child didn’t eat their broccoli one night? Well, such a shame, because “we’re having steak tonight... And oops, it looks like Uncle Bitters got to it first, leaving you with nothing but the fat and some bones.” At least once Bitter Beans eats its fill of one meal, it’s full for a full day and a half, giving the child another chance to clean their plate the night after their skipped dinner so Bitter Beans has nothing to eat and leaves.

The incarnated Bitter Beans is a lowly CR 2 monster that forces its way into people’s homes and squats there until chased out, harmless aside from its ability to project various nauseating odors, and the Filth Fever that can result from getting pelted with its bitter beans. It is, though, obnoxiously swift and has the ability to turn invisible a few times a day in order to sneak food right off of people’s plates or escape a confrontation. Above all that, Bitter Beans a coward and a glutton, and will always choose to flee from a fight than risk harm. There are always easier houses to prey on, filled with uncleaned plates and delicious next-day dinners.

[shantalangel]

Stories written on the wall of one of the rooms in the game Armikrog.

It’s about everything happened before the game, P’s parents life, how they met and how she appeared.

Reading sequence:

The Blank Miner. Part 1

The Blank Miner. Part 2

Tools, Weapons, Food, Plants, Medicine, Magic and Pets

A Meeting in the Woods

Punishment and Crime. Part 1

Punishment and Crime. Part 2

Punishment and Crime. Part 3

Desperation

Tools, Weapons, Food, Plants, Medicine, Magic and Pets

I found myself on a military base. The surface design was stark and open, leaving me few places to hide. The suns were just starting to rise, and with the forest over a mile away in any direction, I had no choice but to find a quiet building in which to hide and perhaps, get some sleep.

There were over fifty buildings, some teeming with activity, and others unused. I cracked the door of the closest building that seemed unoccupied, and went inside. The interior was dark. The room had row upon row of shelving; the only light came in through the opaque windows that let in a faint orange haze from the rising suns. Nobody could see through those windows.

I smelled food! This was not the mere gruel we were served in the blank mines; these were special items that were probably reserved for top-ranking military personnel.

I found the makings for a Chip-butty on the shelf. There were slices of bread, scrap gleaned from a fryer and deep-fried roots, ready to be combined. There were slices of dried, degreased cheese backed on flattened dough. It was stored on top of a big bowl of Kompot smothered in Camonadiac Curry. There was a bowl of guacamole made of Manocado and the usual boxes of Wexarodujo, and someone’s dried pet Benjamin Bango.

A tin can sported a green beard. I put this can in my pocket. When steeped properly, dried Spykle’s Beard mold makes an excellent tea. There was a slight glow cast across the shelf by Frotz-o-matic Elixir of Self-Illumination. I did not want to glow in the dark, so I left that on the shelf. I also chose to leave the gavno untouched. It is always good not to touch gavno, especially when it is cold.

A medicine cabinet held Groboh Juice, and while I could use some short term invisibility just about now, it was against my code of conduct to use a product created by the Groboh regime. I picked up a bottle of Minocent’s Majesty but it was empty. Just my luck. I placed a NummyNum towel on my forehead to quickly bring a little peace and comfort to my nerves. When I leaned my head against the shelf, I knocked over a potion of Palinka. Not really my thing, so I left the bottle where it fell. I took some Kayla medicine that helped my aching feet.

Further into the building, I heard the scuttle of animals in cages. Each animal had wires protruding from their body. At the time I didn't know why, but I'm sure now the wires were probably used to harvest the diverse animal energy. There was a Denrus, a Feure Katze (an orange, cat, useful for distraction in battle), a mated pair of Gelletsaur, and a Jivtone. A Novimus (also known as Novi) looked cuddly enough but didn’t trust me enough to let me pet it. One cage held a tiny, three eared rabbit and it was labeled Johnny Horse. A rusty cage held a Hungry Grumplin, and an elusive white-tufted bed devil. A wiry, dog-sized Soph-Soph ran in circles in his cage while a Flat Faced Tentacle Mane Cephala Kraken blinked his lazy eye. A spring-powered servant, called Judith Butler fed the inhabitants of the cages.

One animal was labeled Artimenius, and there were burn marks along the door of its enclosure. Next to it was a caged feral moon cat, who kept howling, "I am Oscarina!" There was a neglected cage of animals called Shtutnik, Waga Shnaga and Ramy. They looked malnourished, so I threw handfuls of food in with them.

I realized how bright the room had grown with the rising of the suns. If anyone came into this building, it would be hard to hide. I needed to find a place to hide, and sleep until nightfall. I pulled down a painting of a black hole, and set it on a Magnificently Monotone Mandolin. When I lifted the painting the triple M was gone. But there was enough space cleared on the shelf for me to lay down. I squeezed onto the shelf. A tool belt hung down hiding me. It had a Cheesefork, a Koolspott, an Eye of Asterion, an old Hobbyhox, two MacGuffins, an Oily Flogskin Croak and a Panic Button.

My eyes drooped closed, and I dreamed of a digital Renzim Set. In my dreams, I could see a floating Spatlas. Space never looked more broad and full of adventure than in that deep sleep-state. It was as if I was l looking at the altered light of an R.G. Ba’bomb. I found a pile of dirt and started digging with a Tectonic Universal Extractor (T.U.E.). Though I was speaking, my words were not being heard by anyone. It was like I was speaking into a Talebox, or perhaps I had been hit with a Procrastinator Ray. My hands were as cold as the Seventh Ring of Eureka, so I used a Tinderkrog to warm them. A Zugguz took me back in time thirty seconds, but I was just back to digging in the dirt . Something came down on my head with a loud SNAP! I reached out my dream hand and stopped a stick from hitting me again. I read the carving in the stick’s bark, "Derpal the Oddly Shaped Stick of 823 3/7 Whacks." This was weird because it only hit me once, and it did not appear to be very oddly shaped. This was turning into a less than stellar dream. I used an Ellerd to smack myself in the face and wake up.

When I awoke from my blissful slumber, the suns were going down. The room was taking on a cooler hue. I crawled out from the shelf. I reached into my pocket and felt the sock with The Abominate’s finger. I considered taking more weapons from the building. There were Karschtongs, a Marader (my axe fighting is terrible), a Novus Shield, an Obsrigillaton, a Sandwich Bazooka (I will regret not picking this up if I ever need to kill a sandwich), The Repulsive Shield and a Yarborough. None of these weapons could do what The Abominate’s severed finger could do in an instant.

Under cover of darkness, I left the warehouse, running from building to building toward the woods. Soldiers came in by hovercraft, then left again. The air was abuzz with frustration and panic. What they were looking for was missing. I knew this because what they were looking for was in my helmet.

Alone on the Outside

At the outskirts of the base, there were guards at one hundred foot intervals. Some had needle weapons strapped to their hands; others had rifles. There was no way I could make it around them without a confrontation. I gripped the sock housing The Abominate’s finger, and walked casually up to the closest guard. When he saw me, he leveled his rifle at me.

"Do not come any closer." He grunted.

"I have orders from Jockson Reckson." I said, holding up my hands.

The other guards turned to see what the commotion was about.

The guard didn't believe me, but it was as good of an excuse as I could think of on such short notice. I could see the woods just beyond. It would be the perfect place to hide. If I could make it into the woods, I would be free.

I yelled at him, "You must listen to me right now!" A bluff only works if you're completely committed to it.

The guard shined a bright light on my face, "You’re a miner? I need to see your identification."

I threw the finger sock to him and he caught it.

"What is this?"

"My identification." I replied.

He opened the sock and stuck his hand inside. I was already running toward him when he went limp and fell to the ground. The surrounding guards were confused at the moment so I scooped up the finger sock and ran for the trees.

The rest of the guards snapped into action. Bullets and darts shot past me, but their hesitation was enough for me to reach the tree line before any of them could take good aim. I reached the first tree and slid into the perfect darkness of its shadow.

"Fan out! After him!"

I pressed deeper into the woods, switching my headlamp on to light my way, then off to hide. Behind me, I could hear the soldiers coming.

I ran into a clearing, and nearly over the edge of a deep ravine. At its edge, I skidded to a stop. Behind me, there was already the sound of the soldiers approaching. I pulled the purple fuzz-ball, still beating, from my helmet and tucked it into my pocket. Then I threw the headlamp off the cliff and into the ravine. It was far enough down that the light was just visible, but the helmet itself could not be seen.

I ran to the left, along the ravine’s edge, over waist high scrub brush, and a few boulders. Most of our people were right handed. We wrote from left to right, so I hoped the soldiers would think I went to the right. Without the headlamp, I could easily have fallen into another ravine, but I was counting on luck this time. I only had a few seconds before the guards would come into the clearing, and I would have to move in silence.

Two guards broke into the clearing, and I dropped to the ground. I froze on all fours, watching them stop at the ravine’s edge and look over the side at the helmet lamp’s light below. My lungs were dying for air, but I had to breath slowly to keep from being heard. The first one said, "Did he fall? That light’s not moving."

I was crawling away from them as the second guard said, "He either fell or he’s trying to get us to think he fell."

They decided that if I fell, I would be too injured to get away. So they fanned out to search the area in case I had not fallen. The soldiers may not have been fooled by my trick but they didn’t have the confidence of their convictions on their hunt. They did not confirm that I did not fall, yet it gnawed in the back of their mind that I might yet be down there. Still, they had lamps and I did not. They split up, the first guard heading away from me to their left, the second right toward me.

On my belly, in the grass, I waited for the second guard to pass by. As he clunked through the grass he scared up insects and chipmunks who ran ahead of him. Just as he passed me, I hopped up and touched the back of his neck with the finger. He dropped silently to the ground. I stayed down low hoping to get out of the clearing and back into the cover of wood. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and it was practically bright compared to the darkness I was used to in the mines.

In the silence of those woods, every tree creak, every blade of grass that turned in a slight breeze could be heard. Yet I did not hear the hoof beats of the hulking white stag that stood before me! Jockson Reckson described this beast as a monster. It was The Eelk, a mythical creature that has evaded hunters for a generation. He had a huge rack of horns but he did not have fur like other Eelk. He had shiny, scaled skin that made him repulsive to his own kind. There is some supernatural way inside him that produces bolts of electricity when he finds another of his kind that he likes. Therfore, he cannot find love. He cannot find friendship. His family had to abandon him. He was the great symbol of broken hearts and by the looks of him, was a powerful creature not to be trifled with.

The Eelk bowed his head to me. The horns came down to my face and I could see tiny pops and ripples of electricity web between the spikes. I can’t explain how I knew this, but he was seeking revenge on Jockson Reckson. He intended to break the heart of my ex-boss. The Eelk turned and lept into the woods as if to have me follow. As soon as he disappeared into the dark I could hear the clamoring of more guards enter the clearing behind me.

There were three guards, they ran to the ravine, then fanned out. One tripped on the body of the first guard and called out to the others. I dove into a pile of leaves, burying myself in them. It would have been a terrible hiding place in the daylight, but in the darkness of night it would suffice. They all took off in the wrong direction, assuming they were on my trail.

Once the sound of their receding footsteps grew silent, I crawled out of the pile of leaves and continued to the right, after The Eelk, deeper into the woods.

It was then, in that darkness, that I was seized by a terrible loneliness. Truly, I was no more free stumbling through those woods than I had been in the mine. The image of Meva came back to me, but it was not a comfort to me. My heart was sick. Nobody loved me and I loved no one. I had seen hog-dogs that were more loved than I.

Would I ever know love?

Someone save me. Find me. Love me.