A very large skitter came into my sight. The size of one of the pools dotted the edge of my sight. Most skitters were the size of a human's forearm, but this thing was about the length of a small building from wall to wall. It crawled towards me slowly, allowing me to see it in better detail. It had plates that covered its underside until it reached its legs, where 3 long, segmented pairs of legs helped it walk across the sand. Where its legs meet is a small hole where the shadow controls everything. Skitter bodies were wide and flat, but this thing was narrower, as if the plates had curved in fusing. The front third of the large skitter where its legs were was one large plate while the rest was several plates that moved separately from the rest like a tail. In the front of the skitter were several plated segmented tendrils that moved through the mist in front of it and moved following my sight as if they could see where I was looking.
As it got closer to the pillar, I could feel that its plates were filled with imp essence, potent imp essence. Well, that's a good sign, as it means that this skitter ate the imps that were left behind. It may have eaten that massive imp left behind when they attacked, though it may have just eaten the one I killed. If it had eaten both of them, it would be more like them.
Smaller skitters that got in its path were stabbed by its legs as the plate opened up below the segmented tendrils, wisps of shadow left the hole in the plating and the skitters were shoved in. It closed as the sound of scrapping could be heard from inside of the large skitter. The plates on its tail lengthened after eating a few small skitters slightly. The medium-sized skitters seemed aware enough to avoid the large skitter, but the small ones kept walking in front of it randomly.
The sand had skitters scattered about of varying sizes that were wandering around or had made holes in the sand where multiple skitters of similar sizes were doing nothing. Most of these skitters were around the smaller pools around the edge of my sight, but the larger skitters were closer to the pillar but avoided the larger pools. It was as if there was a circle around me that they refused to pass except for the large skitter that had passed through it. The large skitter was too different compared to the rest of the skitters, so I will call it a crawler.
The crawler slowed down its walk toward me as I noticed the sand shift under it slightly. Under the sand, I saw massive worms that moved slightly as the crawler walked above them. These worms must have grown fat from all the corpses that were left behind from the invasion, as they were even larger than the crawler. I don’t understand how they got so big since worms became pools once they reached a certain size, so these worms must be different from the old worms. Despite the crawler’s slow pace, it finally reached my pillar. Its tendrils swiped the air as it started to crawl up the pillar. I watched it move up the pillar, its legs digging into the rock with each step.
It stopped at the halfway point of the pillar, where only a layer of rock and a thin layer of shadow stone separated us. It pressed itself against the pillar and just stayed there. A tendril of liquid shadow left me and passed through the shadow stone and rock as if they weren’t there, reaching into the hole at the base of its legs. It didn’t react to me until I was already inside of it; it squirmed slightly as I spread myself through inside of it. Memories and feelings flowed back to me as I explored the shade that made up the inside of the crawler.
-
Skitter legs cut and dug into a very large imp that thrashed and crushed skitters in its hands, slowly melting away. Worms wrapped around the imp’s feet and slowly dragged it down into the black sand. The flesh around where the worms wrapped around bubbled and melted as the imp fought to keep its footing. Around it, the leftover army of imps was being cut open, crushed, or dragged down. The sand is soaked in the remains of worms and skitters as the imps try to run as the very ground saps their strength and melts their flesh.
I watched its back as I crushed a smaller imp’s head by wrapping myself around it. The blood and heat fed me as my plates grew. Its back had already been torn into by other skitters, revealing bones that were slowly being covered over by new muscle and meat. I pulled fragments of plates that littered the sand under me as I waited for an opening.
Memories of imps being paralyzed by stabbing the line of bones that goes down their backs. I don’t know where these memories came from, but this large imp should be the same. While one hand was trying to pry off a large worm from its leg, and the other had a skitter I pounced on the middle of its back. I stabbed fragments into the gaps between bones as I dug my feet into the meat. It yelled as the fragments melted flesh, and I left the safety of my plates, stretching myself and burrowing myself in its flesh like the worms through the sand.
It dropped the skitter in its hand as it tried to reach for me, but the worms were dragging more of it under the sand, and I could taste imp in the air. I got close to a beating muscle that held so much energy, but before I could rip it apart, I felt heat pulse out of the imp. I quickly retreated to my plates and fell off its back as memories of balls of fire passed my mind.
I skittered back to the imp I had killed as I felt light burn me. I quickly dug under the sand as the area around the imp was filled with terrible flames that burned any skitters and worms that were above. All was still under the sand as the heat from above faded away. The first to move were worms that charged the thrashing imp. Other skitters surfaced, probably to eat scraps or attack the imp, but I waited as I felt a burst of heat burn the surface again. The heat was far less than the first, and weaker bursts followed it.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Eventually, I surfaced and saw the imp covered in blue flames, melting the flesh off its bones. One of its arms was missing, and everything below its knees was gone as it thrashed on its back. The skitters ate the melted-off flesh while the worms squirmed under the sand where the imp originally was probably eating the missing parts of the legs.
The thrashing imp barely had any meat left on its bones, but the fact it was still alive was proof enough that its heart still beat within its chest. I crawled close to the imp as I waited for it to stop its thrashing. The flames that burned it carried little light that made my plates itch but nothing more.
I watched and attacked any skitters that got close guarding my meal, a flame shot out of the miasma and stopped overhead. A fur-covered demon covered in green flames floated above the soaked black sand, looking down on the imp.
“What a waste. You should have been able to deal with these weaklings before they surrounded you. Your kind always rely on your strength and end up like this. We don’t need such weakness among our ranks.” The demon said before gathering a ball of green flame in its hand and launching it at the imp’s head. The force crushed the remains of the head, and green flames scattered across the sand, quickly being snuffed out by blue flames that sprung out from the sand.
The demon looked around, seeing its flames be consumed by the blue flames. It mumbled something to itself as it shot toward the pillar of flame disappearing in the distance. I waited for a bit, as the light of that green flame wasn’t as bad as the imp’s, but it still made my plates burn from its exposure. The pillar of flame suddenly disappeared, and I felt myself sag as the pain of its light, even though it was far away, faded.
I slowly crawled over to the remains of the imp as blue flames melted the remains, leaving behind bones. Entering its chest, finding its heart burned slowly, still beating. I pulled out the heart from the last few strings of meat that it was still connected to and devoured it. I could feel power flow through me as I curled into a ball, and my plates grow and change.
-
I pulled away from the rest of the memories of the crawler as I had found my answer. The geitlan demon was the only one that managed to escape while the rest died and were eaten by my worms and skitters. That explains the large worms and the different sizes of skitters, though I don’t know how so many skitters were going around. There were only a few skitters before the fight, and several died, so there shouldn’t be this many crawling around. Curiosity quickly faded as all the immediate threats were removed.
The geitlan had escaped and the twisted ball should still be where I found it. While the imps could have killed it during their invasion, they came from the opposite direction, and I didn’t see any going around my miasma.
Thoughts and memories swirled through me as I lost myself before being snapped back to the feeling the crawler was trying to pull away. Detaching and letting go of it, it crawled back down the pillar.
Tendrils snaked into the shadow stone around me as I siphoned more stone into me. Several minds raged or fled my touch, but in the end, it meant nothing. Their struggle was nearly enough for me to leave the pillar's core and try to eat the ceiling. I felt ripples of joy, but the desire faded as the minds fled the nearby stone.
Time passed, and I felt nothing. The liquid that makes up my new body ripples as stray thoughts and memories fade in and out of my mind. Delving deeper into myself to find the source of these thoughts, returning to the ocean of nothingness.
Floating around limbs and parts of Rat’s soul, the skinned koboled remains are yellowish brown with specks of black. From those specks, cracks slowly grew, separating a finger from his hand, causing a ripple through the nothingness. Smaller parts broke off only to fade away, causing smaller ripples. Only Rat’s remains were here; no imps or lactera parts floated around. The pieces held memories, feelings, and urges, but the more I focused on them, the faster the cracks formed.
Inspecting the remains of Rat’s head that had been broken into pieces gave me an idea leading me out of the ocean. Back inside the pillar, I send a tendril down the pillar, hunting down a mind. It tried to flee, but it was too slow, letting me drag it out of the stone into my tendrils. I followed it as it flowed back to me, ignoring the happiness I felt as it slipped into my center. Finding no trace of the mind left, I entered the nothingness to find a small greyish black rock quickly cracking and fading into the nothingness.
Before it all faded away, I focused on the last few fragments that were filled with urges and instincts; fear, interlocked, fighting for space, and copying. These surged out of the fragments but quickly faded before I could understand them. More thoughts surged out, only to be cut short. Looking back at the remains of Rat, the part I had focused on was gone. The upper left of his head was gone, dissolved into the nothingness, leaving only 5 more pieces of his head.
Thoughts and interest faded with the fragment as ripples stopped. I could feel those old ripples fade away as thoughts to consume the remains to keep on the line of thoughts I had found, but I resisted. The thought of Rat being consumed completely seemed like a bad idea that overpowered the desire to destroy him.
Leaving the nothingness back to the pillar, tendrils left the liquid worming into the nearby shadow stone, waiting for more minds to grow and come. Focusing beyond the pillar, I noticed several worms moving closer to the pillar from under the sand. Several of the larger worms were missing, and now the smaller worms have moved in to take their space. I could see no trace of those massive worms, and there were fewer skitters than before. Several holes that were filled with skitters were nearly empty, and the crawler was missing. Curiosity rippled through me, but it was too dull for me to act on.
Time moved as I struggled to force myself to do anything. ‘That geitlan will bring even a larger force and power next time. The skitters seemed to be good enough to deal with the imps and, in high numbers, could even deal with those large imps, but if it wasn’t for the fragments and the dead worms that stained the sand, they would have been burned away before they could do anything.’ I thought as the memories of the crawler floated about in my mind.
‘Imps, large imps, fire imps, and now these other demons that had powers beyond just fire are trying to take over this layer. From what I could remember from the memories of the fire imp their home is mostly fire so where do these demons fit in all of this? Why can’t I remember those memories or even the name of that fire imp?’ I resisted the urge to eat more of Rat to find the answer.
‘The answer won’t help me. Maybe the crawler could fight a fire imp, but there is an entire army of them. The miasma hindered them, but the geitlan found a way around it, and I have no way to spread it beyond the reach of the shadow stone. I have lost control over the stone as the minds that fill it pull away from me, and they are too slow to rely on them to grow. I have no way to attack, and my only protection is useless against the geitlan. I can’t hide as they would just burn the layer until I’m dead, and I can’t fight them myself.’ I thought as I imagined a way to survive this. They had the numbers and power, while I only had the fragments of the ground below the sand.
‘Maybe I could dig under the layer and just let the imp tak-’ My thoughts stopped as searing pain rang through me. Words burn into my mind, 5 years of stopping the imps from taking over this layer. Less than a year is left on the contract, I just need to survive until then.
