The Cenus Tauman Trap was not a plant construct native to Nomachiato in nature - that is to say that it originally hailed from somewhere across the cosmos. Not many people knew where exactly, but one person did.
His name was Dr. Kruhumbhuncle, and he was an acclaimed wizard - wizard, not mage, and anyone who got that wrong would only succeed in making him quite cross - known for, among many other things, constantly staring up at the sky in wonder and amazement.
Dr. Kruhumbhuncle had lived for about five and a half centuries total - part of this, of course, was thanks to his long tauman life, however part of it still was also that Dr. Kruhumbhuncle used a wizardry technique that allowed him the ability to rebirth himself as a middle aged adult tauman. So, he would go from the bright eyes and bushy tail of a middle aged adult to the crotchety curmudgeon of a two hundred and twenty year old, and then the cycle would repeat. Generally, it was a pretty sweet gig - Dr. Kruhumbhuncle just had to make sure nobody killed him and he would keep on living. Which was ideal for someone who basically just enjoyed being shut in his tall tower of a home and staring out at the stars and performing sickening experiments on small insects.
And so it was that one day, when he was about one hundred and twenty for the first time - that is to say, he had not yet reverted to a youthful age of about forty six or so - that Dr. Kruhumbhuncle was staring into his sky peeper, as he liked to call it. He was hunkered down, covered in ten different holy blankets. These were not Theseosian blankets, they just had lots of tears and gaps in the fabric. But he was staring out at the sky, this was again about five centuries prior to the present day, and he saw something completely bizarre. Well, that is to say, he saw something totally bizarre other than the walking stick insect that he had grafted onto six different flies to create... well, to create a twelve eyed monstrosity.
He saw pods sailing through the sky, slinging through the galatmosphere on their long, spindly vines almost like spiders slinging on webs. It was hard to believe, and yet there it was for him to behold through said sky peeper.
Immediately, Dr. Kruhumbhuncle did the most wizardly thing he could think to do - that is to say, he got out his universal rhythmic windchimes. These chimes were special in that they were not at all windchimes. Now, that's not to say that they didn't chime - for they certainly did. Instead, the thing of it is is that they didn't chime because of the wind. They chimed because of something else, something far different indeed. They chimed due to currents in the universal anathema, the space time discontinuum, as wizards often referred to it as.
And so Dr. Kruhumbhuncle sensed from the beautiful tunes ringing out of his universal rhythmic windchimes that something indeed was happening, that something was sending waves of energy throughout the space time discontinuum, but he just wasn't sure what it was. Or, what it wasn't - there was always a bit of subterranean interference going on in the universe.
Eventually, Dr. Kruhumbhuncle was able to define the properties of the Cenus Tauman Trap, which of course was the vile creature that he was observing flying through the sky towards Nomachiato, through minute observations of changes within his chimes. This was a tedious process that involved writing a lot of numbers and odd symbols down and extrapolating them against standardized readings from Dr. Kruhumbhuncles' room that he referred to as 'Room Notes.' All that said, doing this was a huge pain in the ass, and eventually led to Dr. Kruhumbhuncle devising an [enchantment] for a net that would reach any undefined distance, the idea being that he could fish for things such as samples of a Cenus Tauman Trap from the sanctity of his high bedroom window, never having to venture away from the comfort of his home. But that is not as immediately relevant as what he managed to find out about the Cenus Tauman Trap from his chime readings.
The Cenus Tauman Trap, predictably, hailed from a planet named Cenus 69-420, which Dr. Kruhumbhuncle non-coincidentally discovered soon after learning of the Cenus Tauman Trap. He submitted all of his findings by sending conch so that he didn't have to interact with anyone face to face, and indeed Cenus 69-420 was added into the lexicon of wider taumanity as the place where the dreadful plant monsters came from.
Cenus 69-420 was a planet know for its incredibly thick galatmosphere. Why was the galatmosphere so thick? Why, because its air was not the same air that pervaded Nomachiato - the air in Cenus 69-420 was formulated of the very same chemical components that made up tauman beings. That is to say that Cenus Tauman Traps were not necessarily carnivorous plant monsters on their home planet - instead, they were simply plant constructs that fed off the air in the natural home.
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So, what had changed?
Well, this part was quite difficult for Dr. Kruhumbhuncle to surmize. It took him thrice as long as it did for him to understand how the Cenus Tauman Trap consumed the tauman-esque air of its homeworld to find out why the Cenus Tauman Traps had left their home and decided that they ought to instead try and eat solid taumans in Nomachiato.
Eventually, though, he did get confirmation on what exactly it was that was causing these oddities. See, a strange, looming entity had imparted itself over the land of Cenus 69-420 at the start of the century of about five centuries prior. This entity was tall, tall as the sky itself if the readings were to be believed, and it seemed to have a sort of rhythmic angst that was almost unmatched. It stormed over the lands of Cenus 69-420, wrecking the place like some sort of belligerant drunkard that some people would sometimes make xenophobic comments regarding. Sickeningly, this enormous entity and its even bigger ego went around, slamming the planet to bits all while blaming it on the poor Cenus Tauman Traps. Soon enough, the construct absolutely had to leave their homeworld, because it had been absolutely trashed, and the taumanic air had been all but replaced with a painful void. Yes - that is to say that the entire planet had been gouged out by consumers, of which Dr. Kruhumbhuncle was deathly familiar with. It was his understanding that the enormous entity that originally visited the planet had unleashed the consumers on its denziens.
Regardless, the Cenus Tauman Traps had landed in Nomachiato, and they were a threat, a danger to wider taumanity. They were not benevolent victims here, they were the invaders, not too much unlike the entity that had wrecked their homeworld. With that, Dr. Kruhumbhuncle also studied them with a grant from the Upper Echelon - yes, the Upper Echelon was already quite well established at this time - and eventually noted three things that could be considered weaknesses about Cenus Tauman Traps.
The first weakness Cenus Tauman Traps had, according to Dr. Kruhumbhuncle's universal windchimes, was that they absolutely loved to debate. They would debate anything with anyone for any reason. Sometimes, they'd even look for reasons to debate. That is to say that Cenus Tauman Traps were surprisingly articulate, in fact some might say they were occasionally more articulate than certain taumans. All that said, any and every debate that Cenus Tauman Traps got into would eventually devolve into a concept that they as a species were just totally obsessed with - and that subject was soil quality. Cenus Tauman Traps could talk about soil nutrients, about runoff water, about erosion and about just about anything else ecological in nature at all, and oh they would. They would look for excuses to, in fact.
The second weakness Cenus Tauman Traps had was that they were allergic to tamavens. Indeed, tamavens, those pesky little birds that found themselves flying all over Nomachiato, more often than not with bales of hay in tow for one reason or another, and often working in cahoots in order to commit all sorts of shady dealings, promoted extreme allergic responses in Cenus Tauman Traps. By extreme, it is meant that the mere presence of a singular tamaven within a thirty foot radius of a Cenus Tauman Trap would cause all the planty beast's rows of teeth to melt for at least an hour, it would bleed out acid that was oft rumored to be an aphrodisiac, and it would get extremely dry, wilted, and itchy, bursting out in pus filled hives all over its green skin.
And then there was of course the third weakness. That third weakness was its tongue. See, on Cenus 69-420 it was customary that the Cenus Tauman Traps would feed off the taumanic properties of the air with their tongue. In order to properly ingest the air with their tongues, however, they had to house many a vital organ within said tongue. The effect of this was that Cenus Tauman Traps could almost predictably always be killed by strong blows to the tongue, often immediately on impact.
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Kahli had never heard of Dr. Kruhumbhuncle and she knew next to nothing about Cenus Tauman Traps save for the bad arthouse movie she'd watched regarding them. However, there was one point of that movie that stuck out to her in her mind as she watched Sahdi prepare to be devoured. She remembered that the tongue of a Cenus Tauman Trap was often described as a weak point. This had been explained in the terrible film she'd seen by a newscaster.
With that, Kahli figured she'd operate on the assumption that maybe, just maybe, that awful show had carried with it an ounce of truth. She summoned up a big rock and kicked it away from the Cenus Tauman Trap.
"Hurry, Kahli, hurry!" cried Sahdi with nervousness.
But of course that was easy for Kahli to do now. She used her new [Time Manipulator] [attribute] [SPEE] to quickly speed up the traveling of her big rock, and soon enough it slammed right into the tongue of the Cenus Tauman Trap.
[Critical hit]
The beast let loose a terrible sound.
[Cenus Tauman Trap is dead]
Its horrible vines quickly withered, releasing Sahdi in a flash. She ran over to greet Kahli with a smile and a hug.
"You saved me, Kahli," Sahdi said, leaning in close. "You're amazing."
Kahli felt a strange, tight nervousness in her chest.