Chaos in the spawning pits! Violence running amok! Sostroki dying by the dozens!

That was an example of just another ordinary day on the Paleblade Slopes. What was actually unusual was the human woman killing sostroki in the spawning pits themselves.

… Was she human? She certainly thought of herself that way. She looked mostly human too, albeit one with a few monstrous features. If a random passerby were to put the question to her (of course assuming said passerby could speak her language, not get mauled by the surrounding spawn, and a number of other survival related necessities) she would insist that she was obviously human, and anyone who disagreed would find themselves prompted by a pair of definitely human pincers into reevaluating their disagreement. 'Oh yes miss. Human as they come.'

These were a small but significant part of the thoughts that had led to Kola's primarily rage-fuelled attempt to exterminate the local population. The fact that the spires showed no signs of ceasing their spawning of said local population made this a bit tricky. Still, the young woman(?) found mindless slaughter to be both enjoyable and thought consuming. It became harder to think about anything other than combat, the next opponent, and whether or not to eat the sostroki she had just killed.

Over the next ten minutes Kola scythed through the swarm of newly spawned sostroki. They were effectively helpless before her, natural weapons not suited to this, or any, type of combat. Oh, certainly they injured her. Their randomly placed blades scored hits against her lower legs enough to completely whittle away the flesh there, but that wasn't enough. Her legs would continue to function perfectly as long as they remained connected. Was there really nothing the poor murderous monsters could do? If they could cut her enough to score through the bone. If her feet were not impervious to their blades. If they could just stop her from moving about, say, by pushing her over? Hey! That one was actually working!

For the first time in their (admittedly very short) life the sostroki felt something that, if they survived long enough, would eventually be understood as triumph. Together they had toppled a great foe, and now felt a kinship to each other. Kola escaping through use of whatever had allowed her to launch herself down the slope didn't so much as dampen their mood. The sostroki that had bonded turned on the outer edges of the swarm that they didn't care for, some arbitrary limitation deciding those monsters weren't good enough for the creature clique. They ignored the woman hanging from a spire branch above.

- - - - - - -

Kola was pretty happy with her attempt at stress relief. Sure, she almost died, but so much of the frustration and anger from losing Las twice now had just… evaporated. Actually, it was much the same with the other issues she had been repressing. They were still there, but it just didn't hurt as much. Where eating the monsters was to enjoy the best meal she could imagine and experience an almost physical pleasure, fighting was more like riding a wave of happiness and satisfaction even after the fight itself. Just like a wave it would continue on eternally and not suddenly crash her into her repressed emotion. Kola giggled at Future Kola's future problem.

The once pacifistic (by circumstance, not intention) woman briefly wondered if she would have enjoyed combat before all this happened, but decided to just put her current enjoyment down to the changes wrought from consuming the flesh of her pathetic victims.

That brought up the issue of reviewing her changes, and with the whole "happiness wave" it was probably a good time for it. Kola tried to pull herself up onto the branch, but found it to be too thin. After a minute of looking for a safe place to begin her self examination she gave up. The panels that hung from the ends of each spire branch were all vertical, no branch was thick enough to sit on, and the ground was occupied by the swarm that had begun hunting down its newly spawned kin. Instead she just continued to hang there. It's not like she got tired anymore apparently. That, at least, was a welcome discovery. It also explained why running down the slope hadn't turned Kola, a woman who preferred television and snacking to exercise and healthy food choices, into a gasping mess so slick with sweat that she could pass for a sostroki without its armour.

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After a few minutes of shifting on the branch to get her feet around it for inspection, Kola discovered that she could just stand on the edges of the panel where it connected to the branch. She did not feel silly whatsoever for missing that earlier.

Before she actively avoided looking at them her feet had been mostly human with claws on the end. Now they were more like bulky, oversized, three-toed raptor feet as inflexible as rock. The toes were shaped in a Y, with two pointing forward and one back. Where a bird's talons would be, instead grew what were essentially shortswords with a slight downward curl at each end. The now taller woman noted with satisfaction that they added 11cm to her height. Their toughness was proven by the sostroki swarm's blades having removed most of the flesh where her calves had been while leaving her changed flesh only scratched. Like her previous podal claws the entire thing was pale pink.

Being able to see the bones in that area allowed her to confirm that the sostroki blade once embedded in her right calf had melded into her bone, though it had at some point lost two-thirds of its original length, leaving behind about 5cm.

Where gravel had similarly been embedded in her soles, now instead were… short curled ribbons? They were made from the same material as her pincers, talons, and… the spires. Kola decided to revisit her similarities to a monster-birthing landform in a minute or so, and returned to looking over the ribbons. She found that they were (for a change) very flexible and could twist around themselves into a spiral, or curl up like fabric around a dowel. The limit to this flexibility was an inability for the ribbon to fold over itself. She determined that they were responsible for her vastly improved jumping (after a few false starts) by curling them up as tightly as possible, placing one foot against the panel surface, and flicking them against said panel. The result of this was Kola launching herself into a (luckily) flat part of the spire hard enough to crack bones.

Having succeeded in podiatric inspection without being distracted, despite her brief stint as a crash test dummy, Kola turned her attention to the materials that made up her hands and feet. Her pincers, talons, foot ribbons, and calf blade looked to be of the same material as the spires: polished stone coloured in pale pink, green, or blue (the calf blade being a swirling mix of all three). In terms of durability though there was a clear hierarchy. The spire was completely impervious to any attempt Kola made to damage it, the pincers, talons, and ribbons could be chipped if their edge was sawn at, and the the calf blade didn't seem to have become any more durable than when it was part of the sostroki. She could probably snap that last one if she tried hard enough.

Her feet, and what remained of her hands, were no longer coated in human skin. Instead they were covered with what felt like rough, thick rock. It could be pierced using her pincers with enough effort, but seemed mostly impervious to being cut by the same. Due to her leg injuries, Kola could actually see the flesh of her new feet where it would have connected to her now cut away calf flesh. It looked disturbingly similar to what was inside the sostroki: bone and muscle. No tendons, no fat, not even blood vessels. Just bone, muscle, and black blood that oozed from the muscle itself, apparently not caring about normal sanguine placement.

One other change was how every fragment of gravel that had become embedded in her skin had melded into it like the calf blade, but they were so small that they barely warranted mentioning.

'Now' Kola mentally sighed 'for my injuries'. She could feel her fighting high coming down and wanted to finish with the examination and go back to fighting before it completely ended.

Ever since the ketrokoa, she had been bleeding from her perforated torso. This seemed to still be the case, but less so. The stab wounds had actually healed somewhat. Properly paying attention to her wounds for the first time in a while she noticed the flesh slowly regenerating, sedately filling the many holes in her torso. That was nice, as was the fact that she had clearly lost a significant amount of her now black blood without any issues. It reminded her of how the sostroki had to be bisected before they would properly die. When fighting the swarm she had seen even decapitated sostroki continue failing to kill her with just as much competency as one that still had its head. Next time she got her hands… pincers on one she'd have to see if it even had a brain. Actually, testing one for weak spots was probably a good idea.

Wait. Did that mean she could survive without her head?

After a few seconds of imagining running about headless, Kola moved on to her mostly missing calves. From a couple of centimetres below her knees to just above her ankles where the rock skin started all that could be seen was bone with a few scraps of flesh. It showed no signs of regeneration. She wondered if she had to do something to start the process.

That was when her fighting high completely left her and Kola was hit with everything she had bottled up.