There was a flaw in my previous designs for warfare. My lemurs had been valiant swordsman, and my hawk well suited to aerial combat with his blinding tactics. The crow had, even before his transformation, been able to harass and distract the enemy with his poison spurs

But they had all played fair.

The creatures I had made this time suffered no such honor.

A pack of tall, thin-legged gazelles galloped through the desert, their coats sleek and bone-white save for the black markings beneath their eyes. They had doubled pupils, hourglasses of black in their pale yellow eyes. Straight horns extended up from their skulls, their bodies hardened with muscle and slimmed down to an equine kind of grace with a swelling chest and a thinning belly. Each breath made their lustrous fur pull down against the shape of their ribs and the muscles of their legs.

Followed behind was the bounding stride of a night-black leopard, its whole body extending with feline grace in the moments between its huge claw paws striking the earth, its whole body curling like a spring and throwing it into the next leap, a sinuous feline grace to the way it thundered across the earth. It had been changed far more. I’d given it the curled tail of a scorpion lifting above its back in a trail of glossy dark armors, the barb curled down to strike. Luminous glands implanted along its flanks and on the tip of its tail took from the hawk’s success, glowing a dull gold but ready to flare and open a fatal window of blindness in the foe.

They were prey and predators in another life. I thought they complimented each other beautifully, their adaptations mirroring each other, the hunter perfectly suited to the hunt. All that was needed was my teaching them to work together.

Arcadian Gazelle

[ Unranked ]

Kingdom Animalia

Age - 7 Years

Physique - Bronze

Arcana - Null

Psyche - Unranked

Diet - Grass

Biome - Savanna

Cycle - Diurnal Swift and agile, the gazelle is a herd beast with a skittish nature, evading its predators by sheer feats of speed that bring it along the savannah grass like a bolt of lightning. While usually only able to run for a short time, an exposure to Mana infused flora has slowly built the resilience for days-long marathons while sharpening their minds. No longer happy to flee from danger, the herd charges into battle. Born from the Oasis Dungeon.

Notable Features - Leaping stride, supernatural stamina, symbiosis.

Alabtret Chimera

[ Silver ]

Kingdom Animalia

Age - 4 Years

Physique - Silver

Arcana - Null

Psyche - Bronze

Diet - Grazing Animals

Biome - Savanna

Cycle - Flexible

The colors of its hide inverted to specks of gold on night-black fur, this large hunting cat bears itself with pride. Possessing the deadly sting of a scorpion, the rending claws of a great cat, and the stealth of both predators, this chimera represents an apex among the creatures who gather to drink from the desert's scarce water. Adapted with luminous markings that can flare to disorient foes, it relies on a mix of decisive pounces and slow creeping poison that make it a flexible predator equally able to hunt swift prey or wear down larger foes. Born from the Oasis Dungeon.

Notable Features - Paralytic poison, luminous glands, symbiosis.

And I’d added one more thing to the pack. The gazelle’s backs were thick with layers of curling thin vines, dotted with pale blue carnation-like blossoms tinged white at their edges. The color of open sky. The candied fragrance of pollen was born from their skin as they galloped, and curving black thorns made them unappetizing to predators. I’d worked from that thing I’d found in Redmouth Canyon to build a less invasive form, turning it from a blood-drinking pest to a symbiote. Now the marshy, soft-furred vines were peaceably entangled to their flesh to form a layer of armor - and a deadly offense, laden with small closed buds that would burst open to deliver a deadly form of that nectar-sweet pollen, with vines that would whip out to defend the host at the slightest provocation.

The panther bore his own symbiote, this one darker and more suited for stealth that decoration. The blossoms were a thin black fringed with veins of purple, and the thorns had faint hints of red where they hid in his fur. A daylit garden and a nightshade garden.

Paradise Blood-Lily

[ Bronze ]

Kingdom Plantae

Age - 1 Day

Physique - Bronze

Arcana - Null

Psyche - Null

Diet - Living Blood

Biome - Watering Hole

Cycle - Diurnal Digging into the flesh of living creatures and forming a layer of vines across their skin, this symbiote delivers a calming, sweet narcotic that dulls pain and fear while it attaches to a new host and spreads its honeyed flowers. Despite this grisly nature, the thorns provide a protective coat, and the immature buds can explode with disorienting poison to confuse predators, making the relationship beneficial. Mature specimens may even lash out with thorny vines in defense of their host. Born from the Oasis Dungeon.

Notable Features - Narcotic pollen, hallucinogenic pollen, symbiosis.

Shine-Catch rode alongside them on a larger gazelle with curling horns and a lack of symbiont matter, one I’d designed as a beast of burden by adding heavier muscles. It huffed as it carried her along, irritated by the way she insisted on using its horns to guide it through the desert. I slid into its mind, cloaking myself in the visceral, heavy experience of material life; for a moment I was deaf beneath the drumbeat of its heart and blind underneath the glow of the sun.

Then I broke through, focusing, and the world was sweet and rich with experience. The beast’s muscles ached with a good, heartfelt exertion, the exhilarating feeling of the world blurring underfoot.

Ahead I could feel the edge of the divine protection. It was such an everpresent thing I barely noticed, but where it stopped the world grew cold and the magic lurking in the air gained a certain violent chaos. The scent of Arak’s essence - or the beast within him - was thick.

The caravan was already under siege as we reached the edge and burst through into the savanna grasslands.

Black-furred wolves moved like mist-formed phantoms, their bodies dissolving to smoke and reforming with alarming speed. They had skinless heads, the flesh raw and red, pale veins of fat and straining pink sinews visible atop the barely-covered curve of their skulls. The cloaked caravaneers were fighting desperately, swords and shields raised, spears jabbing out, but their formation couldn’t hold against against the shifting tide of enemies.

As I watched a wolf dissolved in the moment before a spear took it in the chest, its flaming eyes moving on a tide of smoke to slide around the spearman’s back in a heartbeat, and reformed above its foe, falling downwards with its jaws open and ready to seize the warrior’s arm.

A bolt of corroding blue energy shattered its skull and burned the fragments to nothing as they flew through the air, the body slamming into the spearman and throwing him to the ground.

A pair of mages stood in the encirclement, the air around their hand shuddering with unsteady, hastily made runes of power that flickered in and out of existence. Each letter of the arcane language looked like a strange butterfly as it flew from their hands, their gloved fingers twisting to make new signs.

All around them the warriors strained to rip the wolves away from each other, but one by one they fell, too wounded to fight, too living for their companions to abandon them. The beasts were clever enough to avoid killing outright.

They wanted to wound enough of their foe that the others couldn’t bear to run and leave them behind.

The huge packbeast lizard kicked violently, lashing out with their tall legs. One managed to connect and break a wolf’s spine with a sickening crack, but their backs were undefended, and the wolves vaulted through the air in rivers of smoke to bring one down. It twisted against the yoke and reins as it fell, and the whole caravan began to tip.

“YAH!” The crystal spear whipped through the air with a trail of violet sparks, and the gazelle herd, a dozen swift bodies, slammed into the fray. I’d given them powerful reinforced legs, and they kicked out lightning-swift, landing stunning blows that sent wolves scattering to the ground in the first moments of confusion. Shine-Catch’s spear swept out and sent a beast flying with a sharp crack of lightning.

It was a less a killing maneuver than a delaying one. As we thundered past the wolf pack we forced them to break from their prey and beat them into confusion with the fury of a charge, with the lashing limbs, the thunderous sound, and the slowly settling cloud of drifting pollen that sweetened the air.

One of the wolves went mad. It was sprawled against the ground, and as another wolf tried to step past, it exploded up. Those deadly jaws flashed open and shut, and the attacked wolf dissolved away-

But when it reformed its neck was torn open, a gaping wound dripping gore across its forepaws as they trembled, and gave up. The beast collapsed.

All around, as the caravaneers held positon in shock, the wolves began to sway drunkenly and lash out in blind violence. The pollen was rage-inducing and hallucinogenic. Meant to turn an enemy against itself as the panther, slowly, crept at the edges, waiting for the perfect moment to break them apart with a single deadly ambush.

We turned as we made it past the pack, a cloud of dust billowing under the legs of the gazelles as they made a broad wheel to come in for another foray.

The caravaneers were calling, the eight-foot giant who led them bellowing and waving his sword as he tried to muster together his ragged troops to stand fast. The wolves were shaking, howling, snarling at one another, the pack broken by mistrust.

A cloud seethed up from the earth. It was like the black mist of the wolves in their smoke form, but as I watched, it took no shape of its own. Instead it reached out tendrils of mist and took the wolves by their heads, seeping into their eyes, the holes where their ears should be. Tiny sparks of cinder flared on their bared inner flesh as the cloud took them over.

They shook off the pollen, their movements jerking and unnatural. Like mannequins. With an eerie precision they lifted their heads to the sky and howled a singular warcry.