There were folk tales in Nomachiato of Consumers, strange creatures, devilish fiends without a natural form that feasted chiefly on taumans - both physically and psychically. These tales originated in the lands of Blandia about five centuries prior to the present era, back when the Currdling was in full swing and everyone was getting absolutely eviscerated by that foul, mysterious disease that slowly but surely turned people into mathematics. A lot was said about consumers, and indeed a lot was argued about Consumers.

The first recorded case of a Consumer being spotted - which of course was difficult to come by considering their nature as formless beings - was by a woman by the name of Scarlita Johnsonson. Johnsonson had been, it was written in the scrolls of history, edging the side of her small plot of land where it met the cobblestone with a tiny scythe. She recounted how she'd been remarking on the scythe, and how inconvenient it was to edge with, and on how much easier it might have been to edge around the cobblestone with a larger instrument. Regardless, all her faculties were arrested when she saw a large frog - a frog the size of tauman being - hopping down the cobblestone, and then stop to look at stare at her with strange, glowing eyes that looked almost tauman. She then fainted on the spot, and when she awoke, she'd aged ten years. Nobody had believed her, but they had seen her - and the bark of the living wood on her face had indeed chipped away and grown thicker as if indeed she really had aged. Of course, there were plenty of folks who debated the validity of this, some even said she was just trying to get her age lowered on her identification scrollwork - which of course made no sense, because all of that scrollwork had been finalized far before she'd had years of her life stolen - or consumed.

The second recorded case of a Consumer did not include anything being seen at all, which further complicated things. An older tauman had gone out with his brother and sister on a hunting trip - this was a common practice, and what's more they were all air elementals, which made them especially adept not only at crafting and firing bows and arrows with which to take down their quarries but also at killing small creatures on the spot by whisking the wind right out of them - a technique that was employed more often than the one that involved projectiles not only because it was seen as more taumane to cause an immediate death, but indeed also it removed the risk of arrowheads being found in the meat. Regardless, while they were off hunting, the older tauman sat down by a tree trunk to rest his weary legs - and immediately fell into the tree trunk as if it were some sort of bottomless pit. He disappeared, phasing immediately into the tree. His family members went up to the tree, trying to feel for it, only to notice that the tree itself was gone. This was enough to strike fear in everyone' heart, but, even worse, a loud burping noise echoed through the woods. They never found the tauman's body. This event, and the burp, were where the name Consumer came from.

However, it was the third case that really sealed the deal, as well as what tied together two seemingly strange yet unconnected events vis a vis the large, life sucking frog and the tauman eating tree. There had been a tauman driving a horse and buggy down their home street, minding their own business, when a strange shadow figure had suddenly appeared in the seats behind them. The figure would try to speak to them in strange tones, a form of mental communication that seemed not to be anything except startling and obtuse. This had been a little off-putting, but it became even more off-putting when the tauman noticed that if they tried to observe the figure in any way, it would almost dissipate, and if not dissipate, it would become impossibly blurry and fuzzy. Some strange impossibility was warping around the tauman's observable reality, because soon after this they found themselves staring straight at the road and gasping at the sight of a large, oiled up purpose laying in the middle of the road in a pile of pepperwater arfing like it was in heat. Of course, the tauman veered off the rode and crashed both their horse and their buggy. The horse, having broken its leg, immediately self destructed in a plume of flame, as horses often did when faced with a major injury. This managed to catch the tauman's buggy on fire, which they barely escaped with their life - had they not been a minor fire elemental, they surely would've perished, but they made it out with a few cuts and a rash. However, they noticed several things on emerging from their busted buggy. One was that they, too, had aged - though it seemed like the bark on their face, when ripped off to observe within it the small ringlets that would form, only indicated about a five years' difference. The other thing that this tauman noticed was that their horse's exploded corpse had disappeared. This was uncommon, as usually the explosions horses experienced when facing minor injuries served to incinerate their bodies and end their consciousness, but not to completely obliterate their corporeal form - indeed, there were not even bones left. The third thing was a characteristic burp echoing through the air, which was seemingly connected to nothing. Now, at first, this tauman was under the serious conviction that they'd encountered a mallard daemon - something only the wildest sects of Theseosism took seriously, a legend of a sinister, shapeshifting spirit that often took the form of a large duck. However, when they contacted local Blandian authorities, the local Blandian authorities soon found themselves being contacted by someone in a sparkling unitard referring to themselves as 'Agent 23.' Agent 23 went on to espouse that the mallard daemon was not, in fact, a mallard daemon, but instead an entity that other folks around Nomachiato had begun calling a Consumer. And, Agent 23 added with shock, the tauman's story unknowingly corroborated two other stories that had previously been thought of as unrelated - that is to say, this third story was the backbone of the legend of the Consumer.

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Now, there were countless other Consumer stories. Some of those stories even purported that they did have corporeal forms, and others still that they would walk among tauman kind unbeknownst to them by taking control of others' bodies. There were stories of them causing mass hallucinations. There were even rumors that Consumers were entities that crawled out of some sort of other type perforation. That is, there were rumors that, as there were perforations between the lands of the spirits and lands of the living, there too were perforations between other dimensions, points of interests that opened seals to other realms of being too wild to comprehend, and it was from one of these that Consumers came from. There were other rumors, too. There were rumors that Consumers were the same as other mysterious beasts, beasts rumored to dwell upon the world of Nomachiato only in times of torment and strife - that is to say, not that the first sighting of Consumers came five centuries prior were because that was when they first started preying on tauman beings, but more that it was one of the first times that Consumers felt bold enough to do so in a way that was sloppy and detectable. There were rumors that Cosumers had been living among taumans for a terribly long, both unseen and otherwise, perhaps since the beginning of life on Nomachiato itself.

But Gehaffrey did not have a moment to think about any of these things.

No, Gehaffrey had never even taken them seriously for a moment. Gehaffrey had always considered tales like this, and strange creatures like Consumers, to be nothing more than myth, legend, and heresay. To him, a Consumer was just a strange little bogeyman, a cryptid, a nonexistent thing that was not ever to be take seriously. And so, he'd never seriously considered them or their existence, and indeed, even if he had a moment to think of any of these things, it would've taken far more than a moment for him to realistically consider it as a actual possibility, as a viable explanation for what he was about to experience.

Regardless, so it was that the voice that presently inhabited Frank's undead skeleton body was standing there, staring at Gehaffrey.

"Frank? Seriously, Frank, people are going to freak out if they see you. Especially with other undead coming out and wrecking town like I've just seen. You need to get back to your study before somebody sees you, gets suspicious, and lops your head off!"

But all Frank's body did was stand there, and point a stiff, boney finger at Gehaffrey. Then, his jaws popped open, and out of them echoed a deep, wretched cacophony of laughter that sounded like a thousand evil voices all at once.

"What the fuck is this, Frank? Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?" Gehaffrey looked annoyed more than anything. He couldn't believe this stupid skeleton was wasting his time with weird undead magic tricks instead of scurrying back to the basement where it belonged.

Frank just kept laughing and laughing. It was dreadful, and indeed, it started to make Gehaffrey feel reather nauseated.

"What the hell are you doing to me, Frank?" Gehaffrey said with a hack. Suddenly, he noticed that he could't move, save for his eyes and mouth - and even those were starting to feel heavy. He looked at his claw hands, and noted that their living wood was aging. "What the fuck is this, Frank?!"

"Frank is gone, Gehaff," replied the voice. And this time, Gehaffrey recognized the voice.

"Oh my gods. No. What? What in the fuck are you?" Gehaffrey said as his mouth finally grew too heavy to move. His eyes were stuck staring at the skeleton as it pointed at him horribly.

"I'm none of your fucking business, Gehaff," spat the voice. Then, Gehaffrey felt all the pain in the world in every fiber of his being as his body started to warp, and to liquify. He was dissimilating, he was becoming a soupy mess of stuff that was quickly swirling into Frank's open jaw as if he were but a bundle of noodles. Frank's jaw snapped shut, and there was no Gehaffrey left. "Delicious," said the voice with a chuckle and a burp.

"Hey, Gehaff, I finally found Philh, and-"

Frank's skeletal head turned to look as Brahdley entered the restaurant. He saw that the tauman was struggling due to his missing feet. "Oh, hey, Frank. What's up? Where's Gehaff?"

"Gehaff... Um, he said he left on sabbatical," replied Frank's voice with a cough.

"A sabbatical? Fucking really?" said Philhip, who hobbled in after Brahdley.

"Yes, a sabbatical," replied Frank's voice with a skeletal nod. "And, he said that the two of you are now co-managers of the restaurant. So, if I were you, I'd get to work. It might seem like the apocalypse out there, but believe you me, there will be customers sooner or later... Gehaffrey said that himself, too. He, uh, he told me to tell you that."

"Oh, great," said Brahdley and Philhip in unison. "Do we get a raise?"

"No."

"Oh." They hung their heads low.

The voice walked Frank's body over to the front door.

"Where are you going, Frank?" asked Brahdley.

"Out there, Brahd. I'm going out in the world?"

"Why?" asked Philhip. "It's, like, totally apocalyptic out there."

Frank's head shook. "Apocalyptic, shmapocalyptic. I'm going out there and I'm going to live." He took a proud step foreward.

"Aren't you, like, undead, though?" asked Brahdley.

The voice grinded Frank's teerth. One more smart remark and he'd immolate these fools, regardless of the fact that they weren't altogether appetizing. "Whatever. I'm going out there and I'm going to afterlive, then."

And out he stepped, into the world. Ready to tear it all apart.