Amber light filtered through the canopy as dusk fell in the moors. As beautiful as the sight was, Aldier had little attention to admire it.

No, they were far more interested in what the time meant for their crepuscular quarry. Their eyes remained unfocused, their view allowed to encompass both the subtle path below and the marshland as a whole.

The path was clearly the regular root taken by one or more pill beasts. The evenly stomped down reeds would have made that evident enough. The way all foliage between a foot to four feet above the waterline had been completely stripped along the path was only confirmation.

Drawing the tiniest thread of essence from their spiral, Aldier activated the first pattern any gam hatchling was taught. Their essence sight flared to life.

The pattern had little use for a lone hunter. No, it was the first thing a gam formed within themselves, after their spiral, because it was vital for hunting parties.

Despite their camouflage, a figure came into view in the lower branches. Much closer to the pill beast path, Orthis would be the one to drop onto its armored back when it passed under.

If all went well, they would return with a great contribution to the morning’s festival. The eggs they had lain together before the hunt would be broken open.

The shells would be carved into cups, beads and ornaments to trade with the outlanders. Even the yolks would be mixed with mashed roots to make bait for future hunts. If things did not go well, then the village would have two new hatchlings running around in a few months.

Confirming that Orthis was in place, Aldier let their unfocused vision narrow. Their eyes drifted, noting the way Orthis’ position splayed across several branches highlighted their figure.

Trailing down the curve of their back, Aldier appreciated the lean muscle leading to what they personally considered a perfect ass. They glanced at the sickle handled blade Orthis held in their tail. Now, there were definitely better things that tail could be doing.

If Aldier thought about it, making a few more eggs after they killed the beast would not be unreasonable. After all, what if they died on the way back?

Honestly, they could even do it before the quarry showed up. It was only barely twilight. What were the odds of it appearing now? You could never be too prepared.

“Are you piercing my concealment, just to get an eyeful?” The faint voice next to Aldier’s pointed ear sounded equal parts amused and exasperated.

The corner of their lip turned up. “You haven’t seen the view from here. You would be doing the same if so.” They whispered back.

The pin piercing a dreadlock that hung by their ear would pick up the minute sound and repeat it from Orthis’ pin. The outlanders might be strange, and worse than hatchlings at staying alive, but the things they traded were truly remarkable.

No rebuttal came, and it was quickly apparent why. Movement far to the right caught Aldier’s attention. A lumbering form three times the height of a gam came into view.

The pill beast was best described as a stubby tube. It had no discernible head. The only way to even define a front was by the direction it chose to amble.

A line of grasping tentacles ran along each side. They felt blindly for any vegetation that the teeth running along their tips could scrape off before dropping in the long slash of a mouth central on its back.

The creature was not actually blind. Many beady eyes studded its surface seemingly at random. Neither was there a point in scavenging a path already stripped.

The tentacles in truth had their own very rudimentary intelligence, the main body having little control over them. Its only real purpose was to find new food sources and send the tentacles into a panic when it spotted danger.

The creature had likely created this path to move safely between the territories of two or more predators. That was good because it let the hunters predict its movements. It was bad because the creature would be wary of the predators it was sneaking past.

The pill beast’s dozens of stubby feet carried it across the shallow marsh. Soon it would come under Orthis and their attack would begin.

Pill beast’s were almost entirely immune to toxins. Even the few substances capable of harming the gam, most of which less poisoned than melted flesh, would have no meaningful effect.

Its immunity let it eat the flora of the moors with impunity, something that would be a death sentence to nearly any other creature. It also meant they could not use poisons to kill it

Instead, Orthis would drop down onto the creature’s back and target the inside of its mouth. That was the only part of its body not protected by thick hide.

Aldier’s job would be to distract the tentacles, so they would not realize Orthis was killing the main body. Each tentacle had some ability to track where the others were attacking.

If Aldier kept attacking a few of them, the rest would also try to strike where the attacks were coming from. All they had to do was circle around and strike until Orthis took it down.

Orthis dropped the moment their quarry plodded into position. Simultaneously, Aldier dropped from their own perch.

Essence flowed into their muscles. The quarry’s eyes found them the moment they landed. Not that it mattered.

Its rows of tentacles went into a frenzy. They clung with four limbs, while their tail rapidly flashed down.

With each strike, the thin blade punctured one of the creature’s arteries. The pill beast was in a minority within the moors. It could die from blood loss alone. Even so, it would require extensive damage to bring their quarry down.

Aldier’s own tail flicked down to their ankle. It rapped the hilt of a blade sheathed there.

Simultaneously, a dagger found its way in to each hand. All they had to do was keep the tentacles from discovering the real threat.

Overdrawing their essence, they dashed into range. Daggers slashed aside any tentacle that drew close.

The real attacks came from the blade held by their tail. Aldier’s tail flashed out in rapid strikes before instantly retreating.

The tentacles near each attack frantically whipped in Aldier’s direction. They could not aim perfectly, but their numbers posed a legitimate danger.

Aldier wove between the attacks with essence fueled speed. Nicks and cuts appeared across their flesh as toothed tentacles came close to causing true damage.

Aldier circled the beast. New punctures attracted the ire of new clusters of tentacles, distracting from Orthis.

Aldier almost lost focus when an errant tentacle drifted towards Orthis’ perch. Without thinking, they sent even more essence into the patterns woven throughout their legs. They vertically leapt.

Their tail whipped out and two tentacles from the offender’s cluster were cleanly severed. The tentacle drifting towards Orthis snapped back towards the attack.

Unable to maneuver effectively in midair, there was no way to avoid the attack. The toothed tentacle pierced their left lung.

The injury was inconsequential. The village healers could patch it up well enough for them to speak.

A few days of recovery, and the injury would be gone. No, the real danger was to come.

Affixed in their chest, the tentacle snapped back. Aldier was pulled against thrashing tentacles.

Tentacles found their body and bored into flesh. They felt their shoulder joint pierced and wrenched. Their arm was jaggedly severed.

They tried to pull away and gain the distance needed to fight back. Tentacles inside their body fought their attempts, pulling them against the beast’s thick hide.

Aldier could feel the writhing within them slowing. The beast was dying. It was just a question of wether it would bleed out in time.

As if knowing the end was near, the tentacles redoubled their attempts to rip Aldier apart. They could feel their carefully cultivated essence pathways straining under the physical trauma.

As long as their essence network did not collapse, they would survive. It would take months to regrow their arm if the healers could not reattach it. At the moment, a few months lounging around the village sounded pretty appealing.

A blade slashed down from above. Aldier pulled away from the pill beast as half the tentacles holding them were severed.

They could see Orthis leaning down far enough to cut the tentacles grappling Aldier. That was a stupid move.

Attacking the tentacles just led them to focus on Orthis as a threat. That did not mean Aldier was not grateful.

Using the space created, they chopped at the remaining tentacles holding them. The appendages carved more away. Yet, it was worthwhile to get free.

Kicking off, they were flung outside the creature’s range. The shallow water splashed around them.

A few moments later, the pill beast collapsed. It fell toward Aldier, and Orthis used the momentum to leap off and land behind Aldier.

“That could have gone better.” Orthis commented upon standing. Aldier’s laugh was damp and almost unrecognizable.

“Yes… It could…” They wheezed out. The words were likely unintelligible, but the sentiment was clear.

A proffered hand helped Aldier to unsteady feet. They proved unable to stand on their own, leaning on Orthis just to remain upright.

“Should we get you back before harvesting?” The concern in Orthis’ voice helped to highlight just how bad they must have looked.

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Aldier opted not to try speaking again. A shake of their head was enough.

Orthis helped them lean up against a sapling. Aldier watched as they returned to the beast’s corpse.

They bent down to retrieve Aldier severed arm. Aldier absently considered how unfortunate it was. After all, they felt far too shitty to appreciate the view.

There was no warning as a creature no larger than a gam burst from the beast’s corpse in a localized explosion of gore. Aldier saw arachnoid limbs joined by a body reminiscent of a tumorous growth.

Each spindly limb ended in a sickle blade of bone. The fragile appearance was shattered as a limb batted Orthis aside.

They were sent flying, black ichor trailing behind. The creature payed them no mind and lunged toward the already injured prey before it.

Aldier felt the gut spider’s bladed limbs sever their head from their shoulders. Their essence network strained and snapped as they rolled away.

Consciousness faded, nothing but murky water in their failing sight. As Aldier joined their ancestors, they absently wondered what Orthis and their hatchlings would be like.

I felt a new spark of consciousness appear within my void. Of course, it was not much of a void anymore.

The empty place of self I had originated from long ago now contained several thousand glimmering specks. Each was a slumbering consciousness.

I stroked my awareness against the newest. Glimpses from their dreaming mind bled into my awareness.

I saw a broken replay of the events that lead to their death. The images were distorted by the illogical workings of the unconscious mind.

A gut spider’s limbs stuck out of the limp body of their mate as it chased them through a tangled marshland. No matter how far they ran, they never escaped. They were not caught either, but their dreaming state could not discern such a rational thing.

Gently, I calmed their frantic mind. A sliver of my will guided away the memories of death and trauma. I pulled forwards new memories.

An adolescent memory of celebration came to the surface. It was the return of the first great hunt since their hatching.

Each hatchling was given a cup of freshly drained blood from the great serpent that had been carried back to the village. The rich taste of a powerful creature’s blood remained sharp in their memory even decades later.

The snake’s body, thicker around than a gam was tall, had been an incredible sight as it was carried into the village. No less incredible was the tracker’s retelling of the hunt.

The tracker seemed to dance as they retold the battle with exaggerated pantomimes, jumping around the roof of the hut they mounted for the retelling. All the while, the village circled around below.

The adults had smiled and the other hunters had laughed at the interpretation. But in the eyes of the hatchlings, the snake redoubled in size and ferocity.

The serpent became a towering foe that toppled trees with every strike. The hunters became great heroes whose every blow made the ground shutter.

That memory had been one of the seeds that lead them to become a hunter. It planted a desire for adventure, and later to bring such joy back to the village.

That seed was not dampened by the tracker’s humorous narrative of how a fellow hunter had been flung so hard by the thrashing snake that they were driven head first into the bog.

The miming of frantically kicking legs sticking straight up out of the mud made everyone laugh. Even the hunter in question grimaced good-naturedly.

Other memories came to follow. I saw them, older and entering sexual maturity.

Another of their generation who they seemed close with pulled them into an empty storage hut. With the excitement of reporting a new discovery, their friend told them what they learned from one of the village healers.

What began as an intrigued explanation of where eggs came from evolved into tentative experimentation. The same healer who had instigated the whole thing later had to explain what to due with their eggs.

Many more memories came. I saw the nerves of their first hunt and victorious joy after returning. I saw the first time they met the gam from a neighboring village that would become their partner.

I even saw how much of a fool of themselves they made, in their own eyes, in that first meeting. I was sure the attempt to trade crafted poisons for unprocessed hides with the charming traveler had gone perfectly fine.

However, in their mind, it was an awkward mess of stumbled wording where no posture they took seemed natural. It must have either been in their head or not mattered, because the traveler had become a close friend when they returned and settled down a decade later.

The dreaming mind finally settled on a memory. It was not one that appeared of any note at first.

They sat on the great branch of a tree near their village. It had been a lookout point cycled between the village hunters.

After a time on duty, they noticed the approach of another gam. They quickly recognized it to be the traveler I had seen in their other memories.

That traveler had settled in their village, and was now their partner and mate. With ease, they climbed up to their perch and settled in next to them.

They asked their mate why they came. The response was simple.

I could not recognize the words, the memory to abstract for such things. Instead, there was only the sentiment that this was where they wished to spend their time.

The memory contained little more in the way of events. No enemy was fought. No discovery was made. No great choice taken.

All they did was sit together and watch the night slowly come. With this memory found, I let the speck go.

Like all the others within me, it radiated a sense of peace that filled my void with a sort of pleasant harmony. I had done everything I could.

My eyes opened. I sat cross legged on a woven mat within a small tree hut. I had been using this as my de facto base for the last several years.

I leaned forwards and back, before rolling my upper body in a full circle to stretch out. I was not materially strained. Even so, stretching after meditation had a certain appeal.

No gam had a need for sleep, or even the ability to do so. However, many found meditation helpful for clearing their mind and replenishing their essence.

I was no exception. I also preferred to be somewhere comfortable when doing so.

I stood and glanced to the stones I had charged with essence at sunset. They were just ordinary rocks plucked from the marsh and given a bit of my essence.

That essence had no direction beyond staying in the stone and seeping out at a consistent rate. The amount remaining quickly told me I should be heading to the nearest village.

I did not normally meet up with my descendants on a prescheduled basis. In fact, I had been almost entirely secluded for several decades now.

It had not always been like that. Way back when I had snuck past a sleeping flesh-crafted tarrasque and into the moors, I had been functionally incapable of survival.

I could not count the number of times the flora or fauna had dismembered, eaten or captured me. The ones that captured their prey were the worst.

It was fine if they ripped pieces off me and left with them. Even being swallowed whole just meant waiting to reach the other end.

No, the ones that trapped and ate me slowly were the biggest pain. It was boring and I would have to escape or wait for the creature to die on its own.

I was both weak and ignorant of the moors and their inhabitants. But, I had one thing that, eventually, overcame everything. I could not die.

At first, I did not understand enough of how living creatures were meant to work. I thought I could just repair myself faster than others.

It was not until a few months of observation that I realized most things simply die when truly damaged. I was the strange one, because I could not.

For the first few years, I just went from the prey of one predator to another. My crude attempts at hiding or building shelters were easily seen through.

The eggs I lay during that time faired even worse than me. Either I would leave them behind for scavengers to eat or take them with me to be eaten when something caught me.

It was not until I got skilled enough to build a shelter in a place few predators would find that I kept a few fertilized eggs around the three months needed for them to hatch. The results had proven enlightening.

The hatchlings were like me in almost every way. They looked like versions of me only a hand tall, hatched with language and implicit knowledge like I possessed and shared my constitution.

No need to eat, drink or sleep. Temperature could not harm them and only the most aggressive toxins the moors could offer had an effect.

In a year’s time, four of them were almost as big as me. The other two did not survive that first year.

And that was the key thing. I could not die. My children could. Over the decades, that came to mean many things.

For those who lived, we discovered a year from hatching was all that was needed to reach sexual maturity and make hatchlings of their own. Still, it took over a decade for them to reach adulthood and stop developing.

Many of us died in that time as we tried to understand how to survive and eventually thrive in the moors. The ability to inherit basic knowledge from our parents and our prodigious rate of reproduction aided greatly at that stage.

Over the next century, we established ourselves as a people. The moors’ secrets were clawed from the land at the cost of our stygian blood.

All the while, I remained. I was the only one of what became the gam unable to fall. And as my descendants did, they returned to me. Because they were me.

I could feel a tiny sliver of myself within every one of them. It did not give me any control over them. It did not even give me knowledge about them.

All it did was let me know they were part of me in some way. That, and bring them back to the absent place within me when they died.

When a gam passed on, they passed into me and became a slumbering mind floating in my void. I could not wake them or give them life again.

All I could do was help them rest easier. For those who had trauma and fears, I lead their minds away from such things and towards what they cherished in life.

It was not a lot, really. But, it was all I was capable of. Yet, maybe that would not always be the case.

Before passing through the woven reeds that served as a door, I mentally checked my surroundings. The eyes of dozens of tiny insects showed me the currently empty area around my shelter.

Knowing that was as confident as I could be, I passed by the few jars and boxes that composed my personal belongings and slipped outside. I was mostly relying on the safety of my location.

Few mobile predators wander this close to my tree hut. That was partially due to the lack of large game. It was more due to the carnivorous vines that kept that game away.

The only major predators that would hunt here were a species of giant spider called vine striders. They had exceptionally long legs that ended in narrow points.

With them, they could step between the vine’s latticework of feelers and avoid detection. I was safe from them because they were four times my height and could not hide from my insects.

I directed essence towards one of the few patterns I had constructed within myself. Essence was the name my descendants had given to my profoundly terrible animus imitation.

Instead of the souls every other creature seemed to have, gam hatched with essence sustaining them. The name came from the fact learning to use it was considered essential for survival.

The more I studied the animus and souls of other creatures, the more I realized how wrong essence was. That did not mean it was in any way inferior.

The illusion of tanned hide covering my back parted as thin arachnoid limbs sprouted. They grew far out of proportion to my body, reaching the length of a real vine strider.

It had taken me centuries of trial and error to create an essence pattern capable of free form shapeshifting. I did not form most of the physical enhancing patterns hunters loved so much.

The majority of my essence network was devoted to the adaptable shaping of material. More commonly known as magic.

I still was not that strong. Even after almost seven centuries of life, my essence capacity had barely grown beyond what it did in the first few decades.

My control and understanding still improved. That made wasting my capacity on patterns for strength and resilience foolish.

Instead, I relied on my experience and only constructed patterns to help my magic. Still, shapeshifting was just too useful to not cultivate.

Spider limbs found purchase across the branches and lifted me into the air. I skittered across the canopy, flies leaving their hiding places to trail in my wake.