No doubt obscured from the mage’s view by the blinding inferno raging out from his wand-tip, the charred and heavy corpse of the giant cave centipede sailed through the gap in his shield while he remained none the wiser.

With a quiet ‘smack,’ the chitinous corpse collided with his wand-wielding arm and subsequently his body.

What happened next spanned a window of time no longer than a few seconds; the insane mage dropped his wand and stumbled backward from the impact. Next, the still-living centipedes and goliath2 beetles began to rip into the shield, followed closely by the hordes of giant leafcutter ants no longer held back by the heat.

The shield fell.

Before I had the chance to recall my troops in order to initiate a non-lethal capture, the man quickly picked his wand back up and began to unleash his flames on my inhabitants once more.

This is getting too dangerous. I can’t risk pulling my punches, who knows what this mage has up his sleeve?

I command everything to converge on him at once.

…

In the end, it was a few archer beetle stings that did him in.

I’m a killer.

That’s all there is to it, there’s no ‘aha’ moment, no psychological ‘click.’ I simply killed the man.

That’s not to say that I don’t feel guilty, I do. But my reaction is subdued.

I’m numb.

I’m sure it’ll hit me when things calm down.

But I’m not out of the woods yet.

You see, the other tribals stuck around…

But they don’t seem willing to enter my dungeon.

What I’m about to do is probably exceedingly stupid…

The tribals are still standing in the entrance of the lava tube leading away from my cavern. Most likely they’re waiting for the old mage to come back. And I don’t blame them, I wouldn’t want to venture through the underground without a capable fighter either, it’s a dangerous world out there.

Spreading my domain over their location, I execute the idea that I’m most likely going to regret later…

I initiate a telepathic link with each and every present tribal, all 21 of them.

“Why did he attack me? I only ever wanted to live in peace,” I said resignedly, with my emotions evident over the link.

Just as I expected, they didn’t respond, but instead turned tail and fled down the passage, out of my sight.

I’m going to need some time to come to terms with today’s events…

--------------------

They ran. Past the ravine. Over the river. Down the great tree. Through the jagged lands. They ran as far as their legs would carry them.

Finnikin ran the fastest of all.

The first priority of all Feeders is the preservation of their own lives. Second to that is the protection of their fellows.

They’d abandoned Hinds.

The Seed would forgive them; they’d made the right decision.

The Imposter had awakened.

Jangin called out to the group of seedfolk, who, for the most part, had stuck together during their retreat, “We’ve run far enough, let’s rest here.”

Everyone halted, the truth was, they’d only ran so far because no one else had stopped and they didn’t want to be left behind. Every Feeder present was secretly thankful that Jangin decided to bring up the suggestion at all, who knows how long they would’ve continued otherwise.

Traveling recklessly through the Outside is unsafe, they could’ve easily attracted the ire of some forgotten beast, Others, or any number of different dangers.

They’d come to rest in one of the innumerable expansive caverns dotted across the Outside. Jangin figured this’d be a better place to regain their stamina as the wildlife in this region was primarily jagged and thus uninterested in softs like themselves.

The cavern in question is, all told, a brilliantly stunning expanse. This region experiences plenty of water flow; several large fast-moving rivers converge here and spill into the tall chamber via cascading waterfalls. Furthermore, countless brooks and rivulets seep through the porous stone and trickle across a network of intentions recessed into the floor. All the water moving through the poked rock here has resulted in the growth of countless constantly dripping stalactites, and their respective stalagmites, covering the landscape.

Every surface is encrusted with strange glittering shards which closely resemble some of the inorganic crystals or gemstones that the seedfolk understood many Others coveted. What sets these mineral growths apart, however, is their lifelike characteristics; each shard is laced with tiny veins filled with a briny liquid and grows in regular, yet complex patterns.

Some of the so-scalled “jagged-type” flora coat boulders in thin mats of shiny and oft-glowing rainbow-colored and sharp mineral-esque jagged “leaves” mounted upon short stalks while others grew many hundreds of hands tall from the floor or ceiling. And yet, still more different varieties could be found, such as those porous variants who so loved to span across any fast moving body of water in order to capture sediments for some unknown purpose, or even ones who housed more familiar soft species such as leafy plants or fungi in special capsules, for whatever reason. Indeed, some jagged-type ‘trees’ included hollow, yet sealed, cavities within their bodies that are seemingly home to forever-trapped miniature ecosystems of soft-type terrestrial and/or aquatic flora and fauna.

And all of this alien crystalline flora coexisted with such common soft-type flora as trees, vines, mosses, giant fungi, and more.

Though by no means the rule, most jagged wildlife is, at least as the seedfolk know it, to some degree transparent, putting the tiny branching veins and other mysterious organs on display. Complementing the jagged flora are countless varieties of jagged animals filling every niche, displaying a diversity which is in no way inferior to that of soft dominated ecosystems. Yet entirely alien. Sure, there is tiny jagged fauna filling the same roles as insects, for example, but any observant person would realize that jagged ‘insects’ are not at all related to soft insects. Of course, that isn’t to say there aren’t also insects present; the different groups of life easily coexist in each other’s presence, generally only competing for space and water, not food.

From the truly titanic to the minuscule, multicolored creatures composed of the aforementioned living minerals munched on the likewise crystalline plant life, while predators clad in endless variations of mineral exoskeletons went about their business of procuring nutritious food. While some hybrid soft-jagged predators do employ the use of natural scythes, thorns, or other sharp body features to take down soft and jagged prey alike, in this predominantly jagged ecosystem, corrosive chemicals, hammers, and other bludgeons are the most common biological weapons employed by the fauna. Many jagged creatures exhibit complex behaviors; with species who might form herds, lie in ambush, build nests or traps, form colonies, or any other familiar activity. Indeed, while not in this region of the wilderness, the seedfolk have had run-ins with civilized jagged-type Others.

Jangin thought the duality was majestic, Finnikin abhorrently disagreed.

Though they didn’t understand why such strange jagged species tended to flourish in these conditions, the seedfolk have still come to learn that the hard, crystalline flora and fauna often proliferated in areas touched by rapidly flowing rivers and soft chalky stone. They were considered relatively safe spaces as fully jagged predators don’t have much of a taste for softs such as themselves.

Of course, there’re exceptions, hybrid species aren’t entirely uncommon, especially in regions where the environmental conditions are optimal for both groups of life.

The seedfolk made their home deep in the jagged lands. While this means they’re relatively safe from the hordes of predators that prefer softs, it also forces them to send Feeders far into the Outside in search of edible soft-type food. It’s no trouble though, it’s what they’ve always done.

…

The Feeders traveled the rest of the way to their home with their more usual caution. After all, just because they were in the jagged lands didn’t mean they would let their guards down. In the Outside, there are dangers everywhere. Indeed, they knew their current location to be infested with pestle worms, a particularly territorial jagged predator with green-tinted transparent biocrystalline exoskeletons. Pestle worms do not emit light, as they are ambush hunters who rely on stealth. The giant spiny worm-like creatures hide in long burrows carved directly into the stone walls or floor of a cavern, waiting to snatch up any unsuspecting prey passing by their holes.

The seedfolk had to pay attention to their surroundings as the back of a pestle worm’s head is a solid plate covered in camouflaging stone. By tucking their heads into their burrows while hiding, the worms become difficult to distinguish from natural stone. Especially because the local flora has no trouble spreading over the camouflaging stone plates of a pestle worm.

If an unlucky seedfolk passed too close to a pestle worm’s nest, the obscured beast would extend its body outwards and rear back its head to expose four bone shattering clubs which it would then use to deliver a lethal blow in the blink of an eye.

As full-jagged creatures, generally speaking, they wouldn’t consume the flesh of a soft. That said, the corpse would eventually attract soft-jagged hybrid scavengers, which the worms would be entirely willing to kill and eat. In fact, the pestle worm gets its name from the rock-solid grinding radula it uses to pulverize its prey’s bodies for consumption.

Finnikin was the group’s keenest pestle worm spotter…other than Hinds. But, well, Hinds wasn’t exactly available…

“Did I ever tell y’all about the time I saw a centuries worm? Its body was as wide as this chasm!” said Jangin.

Finnikin liked Jangin, most people did, he was an honest, kind, and talkative fella. But Finnikin really didn’t need the distraction right now, he was trying to focus on spotting suspicious terrain mismatches in the walls and floor of the chasm they were traveling across the bottom of. While sometimes quite faint, the boundary between the edge of a pestle worm’s head plate, and the flush floor or ceiling would often be devoid of large plants, jagged or otherwise. Consider that any large plant would be uprooted every time the pestle worm shifted its head. That leaves behind clear evidence of pestle traps.

Still, as much as he shouldn’t be making conversation right now, Finn just had to say something.

Finnikin said, “You have, and I still don’t believe any of that bunkum.”

While it was common knowledge that pestle worms, like many other fully jagged organisms, could continue to grow indefinitely, there’s a practical limit on their size due to the limited availability of food and the harmfully disproportionate scaling of metabolic requirements. To say nothing of the fact that such a beast would attract the attention of the ravenous granuldite swarms.

The bottom of the chasm they were carefully treading through was lined with such a robust population of pestle worms precisely because it’s the preferred migratory path of countless animals. It’s a natural local choke point.

Backing up Jangin, someone else added, “I was there myself; we really did see a centuries worm! We spotted it under the cascade, the titanic beastie wasn’t even bothering to hide in a burrow!”

Finn said, “That’s insane, how could it possibly find enough food?”

After a moment of silence, Jangin shrugged his shoulders and coldly said, “Look, I know what I saw. You don’t have to believe me.”

Finnikin was visibly hurt, he hadn’t expected his acquaintance to turn so serious.

Before Finn got the chance to alleviate the sudden tension, Grinkef, a quiet yet ambitious Feeder who wished to one day leave the Seed temporarily to learn the ways of mages, weighed in, “Perhaps it’s a tamed individual? If there are Others feeding it, then I don’t see why it couldn’t attain the size you claim it to be Jangin.”

Everyone pondered his words.

If Grinkef was correct, that’d be a potential danger to the seedfolk. Sure, their neighbors were mostly passive, however, Others with access to a gargantuan pestle worm could potentially shatter the status quo. Especially if it was in the hands of a hostile group.

Pestle worms are highly adaptive and much more intelligent than one would expect of a sessile ambush predator, as such, they are relatively easy to “domesticate.” Even the seedfolk had used them for excavation purposes; the beasts secrete a corrosive fluid that, with the help of a mysterious arcane ability they have, helps them more easily tunnel through the chalky stone of the jagged lands.

Now seriously considering the validity of Jangin’s fish tale, Finn started to worry. An invasion could be upon their community. Heck, it could even explain the erratic movements of the siegelings! Someone could be displacing them!