– Inspecting –

Tria Morsu Saurian

A powerful creature blending traits of marsupials and reptiles, bred exclusively for warfare. Its jaw is capable of snapping through common metals with the razor cutting pressure of its iron beak.

Level 5.

Relevant Traits:

Bite Strength: 72 Mpa

Beaked Jaws: Level 3

Iron Keratin: Level 3

Armored Scales: Level 2

Regeneration: Level 5

Advanced Intelligence: Level 3

Secondary Heart: Level 2

Prehensile Tail: Level 2

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Cost: 324 iota.

In the middle of the beach, Kamahune met my new creation head on. They slammed together, the force of impact sending sand cascading into the air as their feet dug in, pushing against the soft earth to try and force the other back.

My saurian gripped Kamahune’s tusks, grasping them like handles. One had forced its way through the saurian’s thick, armored scales and pierced my creation’s flesh, digging in against the bone of the shoulder. With each motion, Kamahune jostled and pushed to drive the saber-curved tusk deeper, trying to crackopen the bone and ruin the limb.

Four legs against one, Kamahune was pushing the saurian back, gaining ground…

And then the saurian’s head snapped forward, jaw erupting open. In one sharp bite– the tusk was severed, splintering with a thunderous crack. Kamahune’s legs stumbled as he was suddenly unbalanced, and the saurian kicked hard in his side, further sending him off-balance.

The saurian ripped the broken tusk from her side, and drove it into Kamahune’s neck as a weapon. A violent squeal erupted from the pig as blood washed into the sand and surf–

And fire exploded from its mouth. A brilliant blue-white jet of flame spat across the saurian’s chest, sending it stumbling back. Fire and smoke confused the world– the saurian screamed and Kamahune bucked forward, twisting its remaining tusk free. The point ripped across the saurian’s chest and drove in as Kamahune slammed her into the ground.

Again, his drooling maw opened and he spat flame. Pinned to the earth the saurian was washed with searing fire and her lungs filled with choking smoke.

She swung desperately, smashing her closed fist against Kamahune’s skull. Each blow shook him from head to toe, rattling his brain in the cage of his skull– she swung again and again and again, each weaker than the last, and finally something broke.

Kamahune stumbled back. Embers and blood dripped from his teeth– his fire was exhausted.

The saurian rolled and tried to come back up. Her arms were trembling, chest heaving as she tried to spit out the smoke clogging her lungs.

Kamahune lunged forward, tusk ripping through the ground as he prepared one rising, deadly thrust to stab through her skull–

She flung herself aside and the tusk struck her in the chest instead, slashing a second line open to cross the first. The saurian was sent flying, tumbling back. Without her scales she would be in pieces now. Blood and ripped up earth covered the beach.

Again, she started to rise. Kamahune lunged forward, venting smoke from his nostrils to cover him as he charged.

This time she moved in time to catch him. She was weak, but he had sustained his own share of wounds. In the instant before impact, she threw herself into a shoulder-check, meeting him head-on and evading the killing blow. The collision sent her rolling away, coming back onto all fours with a massive cut across her belly that wept an apron of blood down her legs. She turned and ran as the boar wheeled about, a red-eyed phantom within the cloud of smoke.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

As Kamahune charged once more she flung herself onto a coastal rock, rising up above the tide.

Kamahune cared not one bit– he struck the stone head on and shattered it to flying blades of rubble.

But she was already leaping aside before the impact, once he’d committed to the charge. The saurian landed on another rock and nearly slipped, her claws raking against the slippery, salt-stung surface in a desperate grip. She climbed up and flung herself forward to safety as Kamahune demolished that one too– he was unstoppable, impact after impact failing to dent his thick skull.

And there were only so many rocks to leap to.

Jump by jump, my creation was running out of time. The lemur’s eyes saw all in a wash of blurred color– the fiery red and gray of Kamahune, the green of the saurian’s scales, the sea a brilliant azure static washing over them all and sending fragments of white foam clinging to their frames

Relentless, Kamahune struck and thrashed until he was belly-deep in the sea, fragments of stone having left countless bloody marks across his face. Embers wept from the edges of his eyes in molten trails.

The saurian was cornered on the last stone.

Kamahune rushed forward and she leapt one final time– up.

As he crashed into the stone and tore it by the roots from the earth, breaking it against his sole tusk, there was a split instant where he was slowed and staggered by impact. In that moment she dropped, crashing her weight against his back and driving his legs into the soft mud of the seashore. Her claws grasped at his leathery belly, folding around his back. Her tail coiled around him. Her head shot forward–

– and ripped back, one of his eyes crushed to pulp in the grip of her jaws.

Kamahune screamed an ear-splitting pig-wail and bucked up onto his back legs, trying to drive the curve of his tusk up into her skull. She slid down his back, hoisted at his belly, and ripped him up off the ground and over her shoulder.

A wave crashed over my view of the scene as she flung him back down into the sea and the surf. Bubbles clung to their thrashing bodies as she held him down, keeping him from bringing his fire to bear. Her wounds had healed as she led him on the fool’s chase. Now she had both arms, and the remaining gouges on her flesh were shallow and filling in. Her strength was at its peak– he was exhausted and weak.

His hooves flailed at the air, one smashing against her face. She grasped the broken tusk in his throat and pulled it free. Blood sprayed out into the air from the jugular wound and she stabbed down again and again and again until the sea all around them was thick with red.

It was over.

— — —

As the saurian returned with Kamahune’s body cast over her shoulder, my cuckoos flew in the air around his flock, using the calls of beasts and boars to drive the pregnant sows forward in a great stampeding mass. Panicked, they were easily corralled into my domain and down into a valley by the stream, where they soon turned the ground to torn-up mud in their searching for tubers and roots.

There were many of them. Twenty-seven in all, and eighteen piglets running alongside their mothers chasing the teat.

I would have many warm bodies to feed on when I awoke.

But for now I was deep in dream, experiencing the world from the distance of dreams.

From the moment I plunged into torpor I felt all concerns, all weights, stripped from my soul. A waking core was nothing but choices– we weighed, considered, and decided. Now there were no decisions. I was passive, drifting between the perspectives of my creations. I existed as a passenger and a witness.

I could rouse myself from slumber, but it was a slow thing.

For instance– I forced myself awake just long enough to devour Kamahune’s body, leaving only the skull behind. With the quest complete I sank back into dreams, grateful to leave the world to my creations for a while.

Happy to appreciate, without words or worries, the world itself…

The descending sun beamed down on tropical leaves, glad to receive it through the warm happy hungriness of photosynthesis. The wind brushed the fur of the lemurs who swung through the trees, reaching for high-up fruits and picking beetles from the bark. The taste of pork and blood dripped from my saurian’s mouth as she ripped apart one of Kamahune’s daughters. The smell of the sea washed in from the distant shoreline, meeting the humid, primeval sweat of the jungle. Birdsong echoed among the trees….

But there was more. More than humans would ever know.

Honeybees had sensitive, electrosensitive hairs that felt electricity as a tickling wash of magnetic fields around each body. Spiders could feel the moisture in the air, the coming of a storm. My sloths smelled a depth of aroma, a saturating mingle of thousands of flavors born from the fragrant rot of the forest, that put human senses ot shame. I was divided between all these bright sensory moments…

A night sky, each star a point of sensation.

It was calming. Cooling. My worries washed away.

I thought very little, in that state. One gift of dreaming for a core was self-reflection. Now I could see myself clearly, experiencing my actions and domain through the many minds joined to mine.

Was I a cruel and terrible tyrant? To the humans I had maybe shown such a face. But to Kahula's simple view I was all-knowing and wise. To Mele I was furious and just– a god that delivered vengeance to a world cruel by nature. Flowers, trees, and moss knew me as a distant sun, a source of nourishment. The bees knew me as the gateway to heaven, the reason they must gather endless honey.

Ahe thought of me as a philosopher-king, a fellow seeker of knowledge. Not a god, not a spirit, but simply another mind, one given authority over this earthly realm. His affection for me was close to brotherly…

As for Iokua, I'm not sure he thought of me at all. Amusingly, the little creature always seemed flustered and annoyed by my commands, although he was bound to obey. If the greatest of gods spoke to him I had no doubt he would feel the same– like they had no right to demand his inconvenience.

My kingdom grew.

I trusted them all to keep the peace as I sank into slumber, Kamahune’s body consumed down to the bones. There were strange runic markings on his skull– but the desire to examine them was far away compared to the peaceful waters of dream offering me a weightless rest.

Yes, I would trust my creations…

And sleep for a little while.