A World of Monsters. (An Encyclopedia on the creatures of the world of Null, Original Writing.)

[TripleMRed]

Entry 2

I've met plenty of people from all places and species over my life, and made many of them my friends. So, I thought if I'm doing this journal, why not talk about some of those people? Along the way, I've come to become familiar with a number of the cousin races for us Oros. Let's start wiiiiith-

Magna! I've met plenty of Chimera before in my time before coming to Dreamhold, including some who became family, but most of them had the stereotypical jobs you'd expect from their species. Doctors, chemists, biologists, huntresses, that sort of thing. When I moved to Dreamhold and started working on the vehicles at the military post here, Magna surprised me. Most Chimera prefer to move on their own two feet, sticking with their own agility, but ol' Auerilia here has a thing for hover bikes.

Lots of folks have hovers, but the military has found a special place for them as rapid response and scouting units. The standard civilian hoverbike has all kinds of models, each with their own quirks and brand aesthetics, but the standardized one for the military is the V-12 Bullet Sparrow, named after these awesome little birds that can turn themselves into living missiles! Anyway, while civilian hovers are disarmed for obvious reasons in the Great Walled Cities, military bikes are armed to the teeth. Specifics vary based on mission and model, but the V-12 in particular is often armed with duel heavy Slugger machine guns and a pair of self guided missile mortar launchers for dealing with heavier stuff.

Magna is part of the Dreamhold 11th Scout Cavalry, who are mostly armed with V-12's for their job of recon and support fighting. Due to her size compared to most Oros, her specific ride [She named it Golden Shot because of the filigree she convinced me to add to it] is the V-12b model, up sized for larger folks like Warrior Body Types and, well, Chimera. Most of the action she sees when trouble comes is to provide ground side recon and harassment operations when Spider-Ants start building up to be a threat, but she's also gotten to fight Dream Lotus and Dark Spirit incursions. The thing is, as a Chimera, she has a built in bio-chemical launching system in her tail. So on top of her bike's weapons, each pass she makes she can spray down everything from acid mist to defoliation streams to stuff I didn't even think you could make outside of a lab!

Anyway, I met her when I first got here for my new job when she was coming in from a pretty rough raid on some Ants, and she's been coming to me to give her bike tune ups ever since. She even comes to me to tune up her civilian model she uses for courier jobs,, which is practically free money my way compared to fixing up military stuff. I don't know if we're that big of friends, but we hang out every now and again when we're both on break at the base. She's pretty relaxed, all things considered, even when she becomes a total beast when riding. She offered to teach me to ride one, but I think I'll stick to a nice, heavily armored truck. Plus, I can't exactly bring lots of friends with me on a bike when me and the housemates leave for something, now can I?

Most Chimera I've met are pretty analytical and science minded. They're essentially living bio-chemical analysis and fabrication systems, so everything biology and chemical stuff comes naturally to them. As a Normal Body Type Oros myself, I get it: I've got a biological ballistics super computer running at all times in the back of my head, so all kinds of math stuff just comes naturally to me without even trying. Magna, though, is all about riding with the wind against her face, the freedom that only a super fast hoverbike can give its rider. I'd even say it's more freedom than true flying in a VTOL, because you can actually ride with your features exposed.

She just comes alive with this big old smile when she's able to just ride freely. It's like when I'm working on a vehicle or a suit of PA, I get in the zone and everything else just melts away. Every year, she joins up in the annual Median Knight's Great Walled City Hover-Bike Racing Circuit Grand Tournament, which sees the best Hoverbike Cavalry units race around the parameter of the Great Walls. Big charity event, with a shiny prize for the top winners. Magna never really seems to be trying to win, though, I think she legitimately just likes the chance to ride alongside so many at once. In it for the experience instead of the prize.

There is one part of Chimera tradition she keeps alive. She is a devout Dominan, the old Chimera religion directly worshiping our sun, Dominus Astra. The Ambaric Church actually has its main symbol, the Maker Star, be directly descended from the old Dominan Star of Devotion. Not that surprising, many religions across many worlds often share, appropriate, or inherit symbols from other near by or older faiths. Anyway, they don't really have big churches or temples, at least any more, and most of their worship practices are done in places with lots of open space with the sun overhead, so it's common to see them going through their motions in parks and the like. It's quite the sight, it's like this mixture of prayer, choreographed dance, and spiritual exercise routine. As an Ambaric myself, I never join, but it's always so cool to see them do their thing!

Like us Oros, Chimera are born with twins, though where we have it as 'often', they have it as 'always'. They have a lot of control over their own biology, and it's been tradition since forever to always generate twins to ensure at least one survives into adulthood. Magna is actually younger than I am, which surprised me! Young enough in fact that both her and her sister survived into adulthood thanks to being in the late stages of city development a century or two before the Great Walled Cities started cropping up for real. Never met her sister personally, though. Like me and my brother, they drifted apart, and so now she's here in Dreamhold living the dream as a Hover Cavalry Knight, while her sister Mori is living waaaaay off on the other side of the continent over in the Sundom. I've never been there personally myself, but if it's anything like the movies and shows paint it to be, it must be fantastic to live even if you aren't a doctor like she is!

There's plenty more about her, like how her favorite ice cream flavor is candy bacon, or how she has a pet mini armored cave pig named Shortrib, buuuuut if I ever do decide to make this public, I don't think she'd appreciate me sharing those other details in depth, hehe. Note to self: Set up a meeting with her and Hanek, I bet they'd have plenty to talk about if they got the chance to meet face to face!

 

[TripleMRed]

Log 3

You know, big families are a pretty normal thing. How long they stay big varies wildly, but every family has at least one or two spots in their history where enough of them are alive to be notable. I'm happy to report that my family is pretty huge. Lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, from all corners of the Median. One of our most recent additions to be married in, meanwhile, is good ol' Auntie Mira!

Auntie Mira's an Empusa, and a pretty old one at that. A thousand years and she's still kicking all kinds of tail, mostly in the accounting field at the company she works for. She married into the family about 5 years after me and Hanek were born, got together with our blood aunt Hama. They've been together ever since, and have had like a dozen kids thanks to Mira being an Empusa and having the equipment to get it done.

A number of folks have always wondered what Oros-Empusa hybrids look like, but since species is passed down by the mom, they're all Oros like us and auntie Hama. Though, they do have traits from Mira: Some mild gem like structures around the ears, her eyes, ect ect. Us Oros have a sex determination process that causes us to be conceived as the sex we're born as, so that lack of 'crossover' with stuff like the X-Y chromosome of some Displaced doesn't happen with us. As it turns out, however, if we reproduce with someone who is naturally intersex like the hermaphroditic Empusa, the kids have a chance of being born intersex too. It's not really a mixing of our sex determination genes like some would think, but rather adding in a other possibilities to the selection process. Like my cousin's Stella, Blanc or Rorio, for example.

Anyway, Mira's all kinds of cool. She's got this serious, 'don't mess with me' 'tude to her, the kind only old Empusa like her get by surviving as long as they do, and she's always got something snippy to say like everything annoys her. But she shows how much she cares by helping out anyway, and lots of financial stuff we've had to do in the past got handled, like helping me with my tuition or the delivery company Blanc works with with their budget. And that's just what she does on the side, she's a big name in the accounting division of Genesong Biomedical!

As an Empusa, she has the same tail as her larger Chimera cousins, complete with the whole bio-chemical processing and analysis systems. However, Empusa have the gift of geomancy, particularly with crystalline structures. If it's a crystal and she knows the molecular structure of it, she can make it with her own two hands. Empusa like her are major players in the energy industry as a result, because while they can't make stuff like adamantium and mythril that we still need to mine and refine, they can effectively be an infinite source of Solarite and Fulgerite when enough of them put in the time and effort to make the stuff in bulk. She actually used to work as a Gemcrafter before she got into accounting, using her skills at making gems by hand to help pay her way through school to become one! She even used her old skills to make the rings for her and auntie Hama's wedding, which is just the best thing ever. (Note to self, ask her to make the rings for my own wedding if I ever find 'the one' for me.)

Of course, it hasn't all been fun and games with her in her life. Due to their relatively small sizes and fragility compared to the other Orosoid races like, well, us Oros or the Chimera and Cerberi, the Empusa have it kinda rough. It's why they have their signature attitudes, a lot of them lose friends and family at a young age even by the standards of our world. When your kids and other loved ones have such a high mortality rate, it's no wonder you get so aggressive as a defense mechanism. She's been a fighter all her life: Any and every time there's been a call put out for combatants here in Byr, she's jumped at the call. And since she managed to survive so long, she got reeeeally good at staying alive, and making sure the enemy doesn't.

Empusa may not be the fastest, the toughest, the strongest, but what they are is the most vicious. In a fight, they don't 'fight dirty', because that implies they fight clean at all. Weak spots, the belly, private parts, they go after those as much as to make a point of not messing with them as they do to end things as fast as possible. While plenty of younger Empusa who were born in the Great Walled Cities are pretty relaxed and cheerful compared to their older generations, even they are taught to go for the throat as an opening move. Okay, that's factually incorrect. The opening move of any Empusa fight is to use their geomancy to pin the enemy to the ground with a crystalline cage to skewer or otherwise immobilize their feet, before they even begin to get in close to start doing horror movie stuff to the enemy. Auntie Mira refuses to get passed Sergeant in the Militia because she knows how much more useful she is on the ground, and like, I've seen the combat footage. Slowing down an entire horde of incoming Spider Ants with a gem-mine field? Brutal.

She's actually the one who taught me and my brother to fight, Empusa style! Well, as much as she could anyway. There's only so much we can learn to imitate when we fundamentally lack the gem growing necessary to make the most of it, though I have to admit, shoving your fist into an enemy's belly and then exploding your crystal gauntlet into a gem grenade is pretty nasty stuff. Wouldn't be Auntie Mira if she didn't try to get us to imitate it with actual grenades, though! Not much use for me, since I'm not all that much of a fighter and just stick with fixing stuff, but Hanek sure knows how to use it! He killed a Spider Ant Tanker by force feeding it an entire belt of grenades once. Didn't even do it as a last resort, he just snatched a belt from a box, climbed on its back when it was distracted, and shoved them into its maw with all of them active before it even realized what was going on. The results weren't as spectacular or messy as the movies make it seem, but like, it was half dead and puking up its half pulped insides before someone finished it off with an AT missile to the head. Didn't even do any damage except for the wall it busted in through!

We both owe her a lot, and I don't know what we can do to repay her, but knowing her, she'd refuse it on principle. 'We're family', she'd used to say when someone in the family tried to pay her back, 'We help each other when we need it. Now shove off with the money before I shove it down your throat!' Ah, good ol' Auntie Mira.

[The Anniversary Updates will be happening throughout this month, featuring some art of older creatures and new in-universe lore, with some surprises in store! Amazing art courtesy of @Jen!]

 

[TripleMRed]

Log 4

Dogs, right? Us Oros are dogs, which is cool, there's a bunch of dog species we keep as pets, and there's several canine species related to us over on the other side of the continent. However, there is only one other sapient species of dog people who live alongside us here in our homelands that have been with us since the start-

The Cerberi! Got more than a few friends and family who are members of their species, but I'd like to highlight one I know from work since they are pretty cool with helping us out. Dari Meti-Leti-Heti, construction workers extraordinaire! Even with the advances in auto-construction over the centuries, there is always work for super strong folks like Cerberi, Warrior Body Type Oros, and Erui Tiger Spirits. A whole team working together can set up a whole house in no time at all, and they're just as useful on reconstruction of military facilities as anyone. Not sure if they do it because it's cheaper or not, but it's not uncommon to subcontract out construction of military vehicles and heavy equipment to folks like them when auto-fab facilities aren't available.

The Dari sisters (From right to left, Meti, Leti, and Heti) are common sight thanks to Rain-Aki Heavy Fabrications being one of Dreamhold's main go-tos for reconstruction and repair of the Great Walls. I meet them a lot due to them also having a contract to help with repairs and fabrication of the heavy vehicle bays, as we're still stuck with older model equipment that is all finicky and temperamental. They're rolling out upgrades to all the defense bases around Dreamhold, but we still haven't had our turn yet. But hey, what can you do, some sectors have higher priority due to higher threat levels, you know?

Anyway, the Daris remind me of one of my aunts despite no relation. Cerberi personalities vary between sisters, and the range vary between Cerberi bodies. Meti, the right head, is calm and analytical, while Leti, the dominant central head, is peppy and friendly, with Heti the left head being a bit grouchy. Not that you'd know when they're on the clock. When these girls punch in, they're the utmost epitome of professionalism, which makes their quirks showing up off the clock all the more surprising. They've been working at this job for some five centuries by this point, which seems hard to believe due to how few scars they have. It's not all that surprising when you consider how good Cerberus regen is. Takes a lot more to scar them up, with even their scales healing up without scratches after a while. Or do they shed the scales and replace them with new ones? Even with Cerberus aunties, I never got the chance to get that one cleared up.

Despite being into construction, the Daris are also experts at black smithing and rune working. Not that surprising. According to the old legends, the first Mortal race that the Great Tiger Spirit of Black Smithing discovered was the Cerberi, who he taught the basics of forging to give them a leg up. The Cerberi, being the big lovable ladies they are, immediately used their new skills to help out the rest of us, and civilization got a big boost in technological advancement early on. Regardless of how true the legend is, it's a cultural staple for Cerberi to learn at least the basics of smith and rune work in their youths to carry them into their adulthood. Even Cerberi who are the least skilled at smithing can do decent upkeep and basic repair jobs on armor and gear, and even know how to etch in some basic runes, making them excellent sources for cheap start up equipment for those of us who are still young and starting out.

As for the Dari's themselves, they come around here enough times that they've started offering to pay for after work drinks for the crew. Needless to say, this has made them very popular here in the engineering segment I work at. They got the rusty red fur and accent that indicates they're from the Firebrand Nation, so it's been something of a matter of national pride that me and the other Stonecutters challenge them to drinking contests. I'm usually the last one standing up against them, but it usually ends in a tie anyway as we all just collapse before a real winner can be selected. But hey, free drinks, can't complain about that! [Unless it's a warm liquor challenge. Who does those when it's not even winter!?]

Dari's been good to us, so we here have been good to their in return. I don't know all that much about the Cerberi's main religion to be honest, something about fist-fight God? Either way, we help keep their PA and weaponry in tip top shape whenever they go out to their equivalent of services. Update: Apparently, if what I heard is right, it involves finding the ancient divine nature beasts they worship and trying to kill them so they come back stronger? It's summed up in a really old koan of theirs: 'Do you love God enough to kill Them?' Which like, does make me think on it.

They also are part of the Militia, the unofficial reserve forces of the Median military whose job is to act as the rapid response forces among the civilian population. Thankfully, all of us here at Dreamhold who are part of that don't have to see action often, but there's been a couple of Spider Ant wars that were big enough that we've had to call in everyone to fight. I remember the last time that happened, 20 years ago. Swarm billions big, managed to get who knows how many hundreds of thousands into the city's streets before the shields could be brought up. Thankfully, we were coordinated well that time, and were able to kill off the Ants with minimal casualties and collateral damage. That time at least....

With folks like Dari helping keep Dreamhold up and running and protected, though, I'm not too worried about our continued safety in the future. It'll take way more than Ants to knock us down! Especially when some of the defenders have freaking flamethrower tails! That's sure to cook whatever's dumb enough to come after us!

[The Anniversary Updates will be happening throughout this month, featuring some art of older creatures and new in-universe lore, with some surprises in store! Amazing art courtesy of @Jen!]

 

[TripleMRed]

Log 1

Got a new journal today. Old one was burnt away in a fire. Last Spider Ant attack had a fair number of Burn Bugs in it, so that was pleasant as always. Anyway, I figured I'd use the opportunity to get my personal thoughts down and get some experiences logged away for future reference. Not the best Knight in the Median, but I've done my fair share of time.

This is my sister, Hildra, and me, Hanek. Figured I'd start here so if anyone finds this, they know who to turn this into if I go out unexpectedly. Anyway, we're on the younger end of the Bergentruckung family line. Yep. That one. Ol' Great Granny Alyxia really made a name for herself in the Unification War, so anyone carrying her family name is bound to get some looks unless we keep it quiet. Neither of us go around telling people we're from that Bergentruckung line, there's enough families with that name that you don't get yapped at about it back in Stonecutter territory. Out here in Dreamhold? Eeeeh, more likely to be asked directly.

As of the time of me writing this new journal, we had just celebrated our 230th birthdays a couple of months back. 230 Years old. I'll be honest, given Hildra's run in with that damn monster as a kid, I took that and the loss of gran and gramps as a sign that we weren't going to last long. I guess we got lucky to make it all the way to these new 'Great Walled Cities', but its hard to feel lucky when so many of our buddies growing up didn't make it to where we are now.
Still, it's not all bad. Animal attacks and Spider Ant invasions have gone from periodic major threats to, well, still big problems, but the number of losses has dropped dramatically with each one. Hell, the only time you hear of losses from a normal animal assault is in the towns and villages that still have people living in them that have yet to move in to these new places. I mean, I get it. There's history there, tradition, ect ect. But I don't know, way I see it there's only so many times you have to count the number of neighbors and their kids who didn't make it before you realize it's just not working anymore. They'll come around, eventually. Or die out. Either/or, whichever comes first.

As for me and Hildra, we're 'living our best lives', as she likes to put it. She works with tech in the engineering corp here in Dreamhold, fixing up everything from PA to tanks to automated defenses, and me? Well, while Hildra knew she wanted to be a tech head growing up, I did a lot of wandering. Dropped out of Magi training when I heard about Hildra, wanted to be there to help keep her and everyone else safe. I know, pretty dumb idea since I could have done way more if I had completed the training, but nobody said kids are smart at that age.

Especially one as dumb as me. Tore out my own eye when I heard what happened to Hil. I remember my reasoning was that I didn't want her to be alone with her own lost eye, so I did it out of solidarity? Like I said, kids are dumb. I think she appreciated it though, the two of us growing up with Seeing-Eye Patches, so I can't say I actually regret it. Plus, these things have nifty features to them I've come to appreciate in my line of work. Thought of getting an upgrade, but never found the time for the recoup period needed after doing that, so still on the same model as Hil.

Anyway, I was able to get enough training to pick up a few powers as a Magi. None of the real fancy stuff, obviously, but you'd be surprised just how useful a kinetic blast or light telekinetic abilities have proven to be over the years. Like I said, Hildra became a tech head, but me? Wanted to keep the family safe, and so logically that meant going into the Hunting business. Lots of stories from that time, too many to fit on here, but more than enough to sprinkle in when I get around to remaking the log entries for the creatures I've seen and faced. And right after I got out of Hunting, I almost immediately went into the military proper, became a Knight. Even more stories from that, especially since I stuck around long enough to become a Specialist in two whole different fields. I'm no tank surgeon, but I've found the skills I picked up useful in my current work as a Handyman, heh.

Lots of work here in Dreamhold. Us Handymen are functionally free agents, picking up any job that has an opening in need of our skills, so I've been all over the place. Some calls it's something as simple as a mom-and-pop shop needing some fuse boxes worked on that's beyond their skill level but not so bad as to need a dedicated professional. Sometimes you get an alert on the system we're linked to of someone needing assistance moving things or getting some professional cleaning done in your immediate areas. However, the best paying jobs is when the Hunters or Knights offer you a mission because your existing skill and experience before hand makes you perfect for it. Got a fair share of those, my days clearing out Spider Ant nests or dealing with a rowdy animal have yet to truly end. But hey, can't complain about the money, I actually like living comfy.

Got new friends, lots of clients, plenty of stuff to keep you busy. Though, I will say one thing I don't particularly like about Dreamhold, it's how....empty this place is. Dreamhold was one of the first GWC's to start construction, and was one of the last to finish, and yet only roughly a quarter of its intended habitation is actually used, here in the west side of the city. The entire east quadrant is dedicated to weapons testing and training exercises, but I can't say that's why so few people live here. Nobody alive on this planet hasn't not had to learn how to sleep through ongoing bombardments and gunfire in the distance. North and South Quadrants are only partially built up, but apart from some small townships they're basically ghost towns, save the Pond we use as the equivalent of a beach in the South side. Lots of people live in the underground portions, but again, mostly centered around the primary inhabited portions here in the West side.

When you're here, it's fine, but when you're going to Southside for a trip to the pond or North for some folk festivals, you pass by a lot of empty, partially built city-scape. Normally they're supposed to be done, pre-planning even with a low population for the future, but the actual total population here in Dreamhold is so small, it's all either in the West Side or its tied up in the central arcology sprouting out the center. And even then, there's enough empty space in both that it'll be a while before we have enough people to need to build up North and South. Eerie. Still, I most of my personal work is Arcology, West Side, outside, or the occasional weapons testing jobs over East Side. So at least I don't have to stick around the dead cities too often. And hey, who knows, maybe we'll get people moving in to justify finishing up North and South side, make them less empty, you know? Who knows how long that'll be though.

-Update: Was in the middle of a job today when the team I was on got called in for an all-hands-on-deck assignment from the Dreamhold military contingent. I don't know how it happened, but what we found was the single largest arrival of Displaced in modern history. There had to be millions of people, easily. If Dreamhold ever had a reason to finish up North and South side, this is definitely it...

 

[TripleMRed]

So. Dogs. We love 'em. I am one. Sometimes you got to fight them out there. And no two species are more emblematic of this dichotomy than

Wolf Hounds and Wolf Tigers. I've heard canines are common in many worlds out there, going by the Displaced I've talked to, but not many out there are related to their canines the way us Oros are. There is this one common species that keeps cropping up across multiple realities. Humans, I believe they're called. Not many of their kind show up here, relatively speaking, even thought you could say we have our own version with the Humes over in the Sundom. Anyway, Humans are apes, and they often have relatives of other primate species that are not on their level of evolutionary development but are distinctly genetically related, cousin species that branched off eons prior.

Same thing here, with our canine relatives and us.

Wolf Hounds and Wolf Tigers are the two most common species of feral canid, though there's also Shade Jackals and Shade Foxes you don't see too much of due to keeping to themselves mostly. Let's start with Wolf Hounds: They are extremely sociable creatures, forming massive packs dozens strong at the low end, with the biggest packs growing to be hundreds spread across a shared territory. There's even some old legends that tell of massive packs of these Swarm Dogs that were in the thousands of individuals, though how true that is I can't say as we have no concrete records to corroborate. Never seen a pack bigger than a 100 in my own, personal Hunting experience anyway.

Our relationship with them is complex: They were the first animals we managed to tame, Orosian's best friend. And they're also one of our biggest competitors in the regions we call home, at least if you go back far enough. Tall tales abound about how in the old days, when we were still Hunter Gatherers, our biggest rivals for hunting rights were packs of Wolf Hounds who would try to steal our food from successful hunts, and us doing that right back to them as pay back. Unlike the thousand strong stories, there's actually evidence to support this one going by anthropological digsite findings.

Even to this day, these things cause us no end of trouble. Hunters are often called in to break up and run off Packs that have started to cause trouble on farms, and on a good day we can do it without having to kill them. Show of force and not taking their pissing around. But it's more than often we have to put some down before they decide to cut their losses. Shame it comes to that, but it's how it is out there.

As our first domesticated species, the Wolf-Hounds have since become the progenitors of the modern day Wolf-Dogs our people keep as pets. From the small, pest chasing rattlers, to the big burly Mastiffs, there's a dog for any occasion. Of course, with how smart and sociable they are, we still have mostly unchanged Wolf-Hounds getting taken in. There's this one I see in the Hunter's Guild outpost here in Dreamhold, this doofy thing called Mincy. Third generation Hunter assistance hound, has a fascination with butterflies and watching you eat to steal your food when you get distracted. She bites, a lot, but it's mostly affectionate. Mostly because it's hard to tell when she's biting you for real, because she's learned to apply just the right amount of pressure to hurt without breaking skin and getting a tongue full of reactive blood that would ruin her day.

Of course, Wolf Hounds aren't as dangerous individually as their bigger cousins.

Wolf Tigers are a whole different beast. A Wolf-Hound is about 6 feet long, not counting the tail, while Wolf-Tigers an average of 8 feet before factoring in those long, club tipped tails, and they're a hell of a lot bigger and bulkier. When they have proper footing, they can easily wrestle a Normal Body Type in Powered Armor to the ground, or toss them over a dozen meters away if they manage to get some leverage and a wind up. Over a half ton of armored military grade armor and training, thrown with the same casualness as a child's toy being tossed across a room. It is....humbling.

I know from experience. I was just starting out as a Hunter, and I thought having some Aetherwork powers on my side would help make the whole thing easy, right? First major job we got as a new unit, reports of a Wolf-Tiger harassing traders on what was supposed to be a relatively safe road. Tracking it was easy, it left a lot of marks for us to follow.

Turns out, it was a trap.

The damn thing had left marks to strategically trick Hunters who didn't know better into a preplanned kill zone. As soon as we stepped in, it jumped down from its hiding spot and went to town. Luckily, we were well versed in fighting and so were able to get out of that without any casualties, but I got my ego brought down a notch. Tried to use a kinetic blast on it, only for it to grab my arm in ts jaws and proceed to use me like a living battering ram against my teammates. It got away that day, but we'd get another chance to go after it. That, however, is a story for another time.

Anyway, they're not quite as sociable, but Wolf-Tigers are still canines and ones we learned to tame and eventually domesticate. There's this one in the K9 unit in the precinct near where I live, Geoth. He looks like a wild one, but he's from a family line that's been domesticated for centuries by this point. Very big, very strong, very disciplined. Well, mostly. There's this one couch in the precinct's break room he seems to like a lot. Just flops onto it and doesn't even bother growling if you try to push him off. Just silently kicks you away and stays lounging on there, the lazy bastard.

So yeah, dogs. Love them even when they're pains in the neck. Sometimes literally, given how often Geoth aims for the neck with his club. But we got this far with them by our side, and I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world. Still, I think if I ever do get a pet, I'll take something with less 'personality'. Like a fish. Or Bark Bug. Yeah, those things are scavengers, but you'd be surprised at how affectionate they are, plus all you need to feed them is some bark and fungi and you're set.

 

[TripleMRed]

You know, when I got this new journal, I actually had a plan in place for how I wanted to get all my thoughts down. I knew what order I wanted to put my notes in place, what creatures I wanted to talk about before and after each one, all of that. But earlier this week, I got called up for a job I've always hated having to do and just got done spending three whole days getting it done: Clearing a Spider-Ant outpost.

So, you know what? The old order can get janked, I'm talking about those things here and now.

Where to even begin with these damn things? Maybe the part where they're smart enough to strategize and plan complex maneuvers and tactics in wars against us? Or the part where they are physically incapable of empathy and are unable to be reasoned with? Or maybe the part where not only have these things gotten tougher like everything else over the years, but their numbers have ballooned exponentially too, like they're double-compensating for our newer, more advanced weapon systems?

What can I say about these things that you can't find in stuff like the Encyclopedia? I can give you an on the ground view of what it's like. I can't speak of what it was like in the 1400's or so years ago. If we go by the records, Spider Ant assaults back then were hundreds of thousands, sometimes single millions strong, when the most common infantry weapon were lever and bolt actions. Now? Imagine, if you will, a carpet, a living sea of bodies, millions at the low end, coming at you with their expendable fodder up front, their elites held in reserve or to siege weak points, while digging creatures try to go under, living artillery pieces having duels with our own artillery pieces, all the while they are supported by an inverse rain of their Hellhawk Hornet relatives swarming in clouds so thick, day becomes night.

This is what an average Spider Ant assault looks like these days, billions of creatures besieging our cities with one, and only one, purpose: To kill us all. Why? Why do this? Why waste billions of their own lives for a fight they are almost certain to lose, with a counter-attack that lasts months to annihilate their hives down to the last, never once the thought of diplomacy, or negotiation, or even trying to cow us into submission? Why waste time building up forces for another similar assault every 30 or so odd years like some demented clock work?

Because they can't. They don't see us as people. Some hear 'they don't have empathy' and think it's just fluff, but no. All other creatures I've fought on this world, even theoretically, are capable of empathy. Because even a Jaco Killer or a Bloodsucker has mirror neurons, they can come to see us as people if the stars align and the universe blinks in a moment of lucidity on this hellscape.

But I mean this genuinely, Spider-Ants physically cant be reasoned with. The 'they lack mirror neurons' isn't some propagandized spin to justify everything, I've seen it. I've felt it. I may not be the most advanced Magi, but I can still sense emotion. I may not be a biologist, but I still know enough to know what to look for. I've sensed these things while they're alive. I've touched their minds. I've cracked open their skulls and sifted through their brains to find something, anything, and you know what I found?

There's nothing there. These things are more machine than actual literal ants are, there is a physical lack of the capacity to feel anything about other life forms than themselves beyond 'useful' and 'not-useful', a binary of 'kill' or 'don't kill'. And they decided we have to go. Why? Who even knows anymore, it's been going on so long that for all we know, the first fight between us Civilized Species and the Spider Ants was an accident in ancient cave people times, but regardless of the 'why', something happened that had us labeled as a rival to be destroyed, and now there's no going back.

It boggles my mind how a life form like this can even exist. Ants are the most ruthless species I'm aware of in the natural world, and even they can have moments of understanding with other life forms to coexist peacefully. 'Don't mess with us, we won't mess with you'. But these things just.....I called them machine-like, and there's always theories in the scientific community. We know for a fact these things are not true natives to Null, but placed here, possibly by Uplifters, to fill an ecological niche in the system of this world.

But if that's the case, if these are truly alien beings, who have been here so long and yet have not adapted to such fundamental processes as Nullian life form ways of thinking, it begs the question: How is this possible? Why is this possible? Everyone knows the story of the Ogra, I had an Ogra teacher in my high school biology class explain his own species evolutionary history during a fundamentals class. They were literally built for war, blood lust encoded in their genome, and yet even they have adapted and outgrown their old programming. So what is the difference here?

Current theory is that the Spider Ants are not a naturally occurring species, but rather some higher civilization's biological weapon experiment, one that got samples stolen and tossed into our neck of the woods. Which, if true, would explain a whole lot about them. I've been fighting these things all of my life. I survived my first Spider Ant war when I was still just a teenager, killed my first one, a Scrapper, with my first combat knife as it was trying to melt down the door for raw materials. Every combat related job I've had, be it Hunter, Knight, or freelancer has seen me fight these things. I've killed every basic unit, from dog sized Workers and Scrappers, to Warriors who don't have to raise themselves up to look me dead in the eye, as well as all the fancier stuff like the various Scorpion classes or the incendiary Burn Bugs, the living battering rams that are Crushers, or their psionic Neuroculus sub commanders.

If there's one thing I've gotten good at fighting, it's them. So, in the event someone else in my family gets my notes one day, I might as well give in some tips and tricks I learned.

1. Scrappers and Workers are always the most common units in any Spider Ant engagement. Even when you stumble upon an outpost they set up, there's always these two identical creatures scurrying around, bringing in resources or using those resources to build whatever structures they need. They are cannon fodder, the single most expendable life form in their roster despite their importance in creating their tunnels and networks and gathering resources. Kill one, ten, a hundred even, they'll always have more to replace them without issue. It is for this reason, however, that they are inversely some of the most dangerous as a whole. While any other individual life form they can produce is pound-for-pound more dangerous and a bigger individual threat, the sheer weight of numbers and their infrastructure damaging capabilities of Scrappers in particular means ignoring them is not an option. As such, if you are fighting Spider Ants alone or in a small group, your threat assessment must be in constant flux, deciding between the fodder and the larger, more dangerous creatures constantly

2. The 'War' Class such as Warriors, Scorpions and more each have their own distinct roles that make them each a unique threat in combat. Warriors are physically imposing and dangerous in melee with a medium range bioplasma attack, with their Spiker variants having longer range, and accurate, toxin covered spikes that can pierce armor weak-points. Scorpions come in newer, sleeker, front-line variants with a bioplasma thrower on their tail, while the older, larger versions act as living artillery, both excellent anti-armor units in combat for different ranges. The Burn Bug generates burning acid sprays and clouds, the Spine Slasher is a living one creature ambush that hides under the ground before springing out its blade tipped tendrils, the Psych-Out has rudimentary psionic abilities to disorient and confuse enemy combatants, ect ect. The one unifying feature of them all is a thick armored carapace, barring weak points, that can eat direct hits from normal Slugger rounds. They'll even ping off glancing blows from rail weapon shots, so picking your ammo or your shots is crucial to fighting them.

3. The 'Beast' Class is all of the big, heavy stuff. Crushers are living battering rams, while Earth Movers are massive, semi-worm like tunnelers that make breaches for large scale invasion forces to enter through, and the Tankers are a very rough analog to, well, a battle tank, complete with a symbiotic organism on its back that acts like a highly pressurized water cutter cannon, but with acid. And those are just the basic stuff. They are the things you bring anti tank munitions out for, or just say 'fuck it' and haul out the tanks to fight them. One on one, any Median tank can trounce these things no problem. But it's never one on one with the Ants, and economically it's better to save those for major engagements while just handing anti tank cannons and rockers to kill teams to hunt these things down. Someone had the bright idea to try and feed a Tanker a grenade belt, but all it did was piss it off. I got desperate and tried the same trick but with anti-armor grenades meant for Warriors, and that stunned one long enough for a heavy weapons team to finish it off. Tough bastards, the lot of them. Wait for back up if you don't have AT weapons, or just focus on escaping and surviving if you don't have support coming.

4. The 'Leader' Class is everything that, well, leads. Soldiers are advanced forms of Warriors with advanced pheromone and psionic abilities that allow them to coordinate on the front lines like an officer class, while doubling as elite infantry units. The Neuroculus are mostly held in reserve unless we set up radio jammers. Spider Ants use high band radio frequencies to communicate with one another over long distances, and jamming that causes them to berserk and loose cohension until a Psi commander takes over. This actually makes them more dangerous, coordination wise, but the amount of resources for a dedicated psi-commander means they're held in reserve until absolutely necessary. The Mind Eater class is one psi-class that is purpose built for combat, however: Heavily armored and with the most powerful psionics outside a King or Queen, they psychically tear apart their enemies both with mental assaults and with more tangible esoteric powers. Kings are the 'generals' of an war, and finding and taking it out is crucial to disorienting the swarm's more complex maneuvers and coordination. Finding and killing a Queen, meanwhile, is the death knell of a Hive, though there's smart enough to keep back up 'princesses' in reserve, so finding and killing those is important to stop a hive from resurging.

5. There's many different Hives, each with their own distinct identifying markers. The ones pictured above is the Hive nearest to Dreamhold in the wider region, the 'Crescent Head' Hive, so named after their, well, you can see. They're not all that special in terms of specialization or tactics, and they lack more unique units some Hives have developed in other regions, but they're absolute pains in the neck to deal with due to their incredible reproductive rates even by Spider Ant standards. We've depopulated the region of them more times than I can keep count over the centuries, but they always come back, always having some hidden underground nursery they hid away just for the occasion and always ballooning back to invasion sizes in a few decades time.

6. Spider Ant invasions always leads to a lot of dead Ants. And this is both a good and bad thing. Good news, their bodies make excellent fertilizer both for food production and for the wilds. Bad news, it means a boom in plant growth which needs to be tended to lest that causes its own set of problems. So post-Spider Ant War clean up is always a whole thing.

7. This is a big one: Never underestimate the Ants intelligence. They're as close to machine like as a living thing can get, which makes them predictable in a lot of ways, but also deprives them of one of intelligence's biggest stumbling points: They're ironically too stupid to make mistakes. Very clinical, machine precision, they don't do fuck ups the same way sapient creatures do, so as predictable as they are, do not think you can trick them the same way you could trick most other life forms.

I've got plenty of other tips and tricks, but this entry is getting pretty big at this point and I've got plenty of other things I want to stuff this journal with. Lots of knowledge to get down.

I will say this much, however: While is likely the only way the Spider Ant wars will stop is with one side fully dead, we here at the Median are always looking for work arounds and solutions to problems that seem unsolvable. I've got this job, guard work in the labs here at Dreamhold, and while I can't say much even here in this journal, at least not until I can make sure I can keep it nice and hidden away, I can say this much: There's all kinds of experiments they're trying to force a peaceful solution to this blunt force equation.

One team is trying to see that if Spider-Ants don't have mirror neurons naturally, if they can't add some in. Another is working for a special project called 'Beastlord'. Saying any more than the name is unwise, but what they're cooking up is extra special. Will take time for anything to come out of that, though. Don't even know if it'll work, but hey, you can always hope, you know?

 

[TripleMRed]

I've seen plenty of creatures in my time alive on this world of ours, from the most majestic of Great Rohk's to the smugest of Mofu. I've had enough near brushes with death to make me respect any and all things that can remain alive to reach adulthood, and respect those that fail because they at least died trying. I've fought things that haunt my thoughts and stalk my nightmares. But if there is one specific animal I find personally creepy?

The Slaughtering Shrike. Many things take joy in killing, which to be a little fair we all need hobbies in this hellhole. But few things go out of their way to keep their prey alive as the Slaughtering Shrike does. The Encyclopedia says they have an extreme preference for live prey, ignoring dead meat, and this is mostly true in the wild. Tests showed that, if starved for two weeks, they would feed on dead flesh, but when free in the wilds, as soon as their prey expires, they leave them to rot and go in search of new prey.

These little savages will hunt anything their size or smaller. Flittermice are not exactly the 'preferred' prey, but their commonality and relatively large size makes them common sights to be stuck on spikes and spines. Poor little critters, nothing deserves that fate, much less these little guys. Still, at least the paralytic anesthesia leaves them mostly drugged out of their minds. They at least have that going for them. They don't really have a preferred prey, they'll eat anything as long as they can stick them to a thorn, to be honest. Bugs, mammals, amphibians, if they can carry it and it can be stuck in, they'll eat it. All with the caveat that they will only do so while they're alive. Don't even get me started on their wastefully disturbing mating dance practices.

Having said all that, you'd think such little beasts would be woefully unpopular but they've actually got a place in society. See, some people keep them as pets, living pest control methods to keep gardens and yards clear of unwanted things that would eat their garden crops and the like. However, even before the time of the Great Walled Cities, it wasn't like gardens were being invaded 30/7 every week, so how'd they keep these little guys fed when the pickings were slim?

Well, as it turns out, there is in fact a major exception to these picky eaters and their 'will only eat live meat' shtick. See, if there's something they love more than live meat, it's actually cooked meat. Yeah, the little bastards absolutely love barbecue, which was almost not surprising. Don't know anyone who doesn't love some nice medium rare steak or fried Mofu Meat Wool Balls. As one of the few dedicated carnivores on this world, this little discovery makes keeping them as pets much easier, especially with how quick they are to learn tricks for a treat like some jerky. Should note, they'll eat any cooked meat, but have a preference for freshly cooked and still warm, so keep that in mind.

Anyway, ever since the first person learned that little trick and started keeping these little hellions around, we've been able to get a lot of research done on them and their abilities. Particularly their paralytic spit. It has little effect on us in the doses they use, but after we cracked the chemical sequence for it and started producing it artificially in the labs, Median medicine took a big leap forward. It's safe, non-addictive, and easy to apply. Every combat medic keeps some of this 'Sealing Salve' on them to close up wounds for the occasion that something does damage that turns off regen to a localized region, and hospitals like to use a streamlined version for anesthesia when prepping for surgery and other procedures.

Honestly, other than seeing them out in the wild on branches or as someone's pet, there's not much I can say about these things combat wise. They don't really fight you, unless you give them a reason to attack like threatening them or their nest, so otherwise there's no reason to try and kill them. Well, maybe if they try and snatch up your Aleph-Xara scribe, but they just size shift to a larger scale and handle it themselves. Besides, at their size, what kind of 'fight' is it even? Especially in power armor, I just give them a swat and they just dizzily fly away. Overall, they're a far greater threat to the small scale creatures of the world than anything else.

Having said that, they do occasionally serve as a snack on the food chain. I know Shinooks and sometimes Crash-Drakes like to chomp down on these things, and it almost seems to calm them down a bit. I think the anesthetic they use acts like a calming agent for them when they are stressed or otherwise moody, which even I can't help but find darkly funny. The most brutal small bird on our world, and it's little more than an over the counter medicine for bigger, stronger creatures. Maybe there's something poetic or a lesson to be learned from that, but I don't stick living things onto tree branches to act as a living snack dispenser, so I'm clearly not the target audience in need of that lesson.

I know of somethings that could use some knowledge like that, however. More than a few things, but if there's one thing remotely similar to the Shrikes modus operandi, it's the Jaco Killers. Now those things I'm saving for their own spot when I get to them next, but I can already say here that there's few things as viscerally unpleasant to deal with as them. Maybe this is what it's like to feel like a Flitter Mouse against one of these slaughter birds? Piss, maybe there is still a lesson to be learned here for me...