'The weak must be recycled to fuel the strong, it is survival of the fittest.'

The young fat boggard watched the culling with fascination. Soror-Reed snatched a spawn, and ate it.

In the pool, one spawn, much larger than the rest, appeared to be protecting another weaker spawn from her kin; it looked hungry. Boophis called the big one Pudgy.

'Hmm,' Soror-Reed noticed, ‘just guarding prey, wasting energy, her brother is too weak to survive.’

Soror-Reed plucked the weakling out with his grown-up fingers, and swallowed it. Pudgy shielded another smaller one of her kin, this time around six of her siblings were trying to get to this weakling, but Pudgy was fending them all off by herself.

Soror-Reed made a face, then went away for a moment. Boophis saw he was talking to Breviceps about something. They both approached.

'Which one is it?' Asked Boophis's father.

Soror-Reed pointed, Breviceps leaned over, plucked pudgy out, and gulped her down. The rest of the spawn dined down on the small spawn Pudgy was guarding.

'Why!?’ Boophis shot up defiantly, ‘she was so strong!’

Breviceps struck Boophis back to the ground, towering over the small juvenile, 'yes,’ his lecture began, ‘but she was stupid. All her energy, spent protecting prey, instead of feeding herself. She would have died, and so would the one she guarded. But not only that, those she fought would have died too, they were too focussed on the weak and easy prey.’

‘I…’ Boophis turned up to face his father, trying to show no weakness, ‘they are more… stupid, they will die later… trying to get easy prey…’

Breviceps leaned down close, with an intense look in his eyes, ‘if you are going to die, Boophis, you die like a Boggard.’

Bull lay on his back, two arrows had pierced his chest, blood pulsed from his wounds and mouth while his body spasmed on the ground. A third arrow cracked Fallax’s chest shell, a barbed arrowhead fragment struck across his cheek, but he was still standing.

Boophis’s head snapped round to look, three archers? No, all arrows were loosed from the same bow, one of the Rovagug hunters had pursued him, walking slowly towards them from the trees. 

Their flesh was purple and languid, and a cloak of dark, murky reeds covered up their boar-hide vest. Their left eye was tattooed with strange segmented wavy lines, which made the pupil look like the core of a black star. They blinked, revealing a gaping maw inked on their eyelid that gave the impression of the star being devoured, in an oddly playful manner. Boophis quickly scanned the figure for any more weapons. The bark on the bow indicated crude design, even for a Boggard, and their cloak concealed the quiver, making it hard to tell how many arrows they had left. They also had stowed a sidearm, a morningstar crafted from branches and sea urchin’s. But it was their eyes that posed the deepest threat—no emotion, no hatred, just concentration, that of a hunter marking their prey.
Without warning, the figure reached behind them, drew three arrows divided between three webbed fingers, and with three quick successive jolts, launched all arrows towards Boophis. The Fat Boggard staggered backwards as the tip of an arrow pierced right between his eyes. Everything went dark. 

Boophis felt warm rain on his face. He opened his eyes, and rubbed his forehead, something sharp was lodged in there, stone - a fragment of some kind. The visage of dark fire slowly filled his blurry vision, a battle must have been raging up ahead. He could faintly hear Fallax's voice over the sound of the flames, in his haze, he could see Bull’s body next to him.
This is a sign from Gogunta! I have survived a fatal strike! She has blessed me with one second chance to defeat this heretic! Boophis’s vision focussed with new-found divine guidance, but what he saw in the clearing was anything but divine.

Both Fallax's axes were wreathed in black, flaming necrotic energy. The rain was not putting it out, but instead evaporated.  The turtle-clad Boggard roared, then brought his weapons down, and a cone of this evil fire spewed out towards the Rovagug Hunter. The flames quickly spread, and sapped life from everything it washed over, like a hundred years of decay passed in an instant. The Hunter leaped backwards away, and loosed three arrows, they splintered and rotted as they passed through the flames, then broke upon contact with Fallax's armour, the fragmentation made superficial cuts into Fallax’s flesh. The Hunter shouldered their bow over their left arm, and drew their morningstar with their right, slowly approaching as the flames burned themselves out. 

‘What have you been hiding from us, brother?’ Muttered Boophis, mesmerised by this clearly heretical display of sorcery.

Blood was trickling down slowly onto Fallax’s fractured armour, and being washed away. He was visibly winded - yet still refused to back down. Fallax hopped straight towards his foe, making a cross slash, his axes burning through the air like fireballs. The Hunter stepped aside as the slash passed by him, Fallax landed in the muck shoulder first, rolled, and redirected his momentum. He struck again with a flourish. The Hunter just stepped back again, so Fallax pressed on, a flurry of strikes burned through the air, keeping the pressure on the Hunter, who still kept backing up - in a circular pattern, so as to not get pinned against a tree. One of the blows actually struck the Hunter’s cape, carving out a patch large enough to reveal his quiver. The Hunter retaliated finally, with their knee. It sprang straight into Fallax’s exposed gut, folding him, and launching him a couple feet into the air. The Hunter followed up with a downward morningstar strike to the back of Fallax’s helmet, shattering it, and slamming him to the ground with a slosh. The flames around Fallax’s axes dissipated and he lay face-down in the sod, motionless.

The Hunter suddenly became enveloped in a cutting ray of frost, flinching as patches of his flesh peeled off, they looked towards the new challenger with ire. Boophis realised it was he, who made the attack.

The Hunter deftly stowed their side-arm and reached into their quiver, but a long tongue lashed out from the treeline behind them and tugged theri arm backwards - before quickly retracting to its source. The arrows fell into the sludge - but the hunter managed to grab hold of one, knocking it, drawing, twisting and firing behind them in one smooth motion. The arrow crunched gorily into whatever just saved Boophis, he could not see what it was, and did not care what it was. He needed to act, now. The Fat Boggard realised he’d finally bitten off more than he could chew… that was when he remembered Gogunta’s second blessing.

Boophis carved off a chunk of Bull’s flesh with his Blatt-knife, and stuffed it in his gullet. The Chonker drew his wand into the air, and muttered out an incantation. The flesh liquified, sliding down his throat, and the pulse of his heartbeat intensified. Like a sonar - each pulse passed through every Boggard in the area, he could feel their strength being drained and added to his. The Aura of Cannibalism artificially scabbed over his wounds and bolstered his power, Bull’s body seemed to visibly thin, and a short final breath left his brother’s corpse. The Hunter coughed a spray of blood on top of Fallax’s weakening body, then focussed on Boophis. The Hunter tossed aside his bow and lunged towards the Priest, charging on all fours like a boar, Boophis let out one last Ray of Frost, the Hunter ducked underneath the frozen wave and closed the gap. Their morningstar struck across Boophis’s face, scraping off the scabbing built up by the Aura and staggering the Fat Boggard. Frustrated, the Hunter tossed the morningstar aside - Boophis swung at him with his knife, but a swift punch to the Fat Boggard’s throat disarmed him, and winded him. The Hunter grabbed hold of Boophis’s head, forced him down, and stuck both their thumbs into his eyes. The Aura did nothing to aid in the pain, all he could see was red, his vision was being shoved back into his brain. No amount of faith in the Mother could stop Boophis from screaming in between futile gasps for air. He could feel the thumbs trying to pierce through his sphenoid bone, he would surely be dead if it were not for the spell. He could even feel the grip of their fingers on the back of his head compressing his skull. Boophis grabbed onto their arms, he could feel his spell withering his assailants flesh, but not quickly enough. Desperately Boophis kicked at this Monster, but it would not yield its death vice. Boophis truly began to die, he could hear the Song of the Swamp, it was deafening. 

A hypersonic screech ripped through Boophis’s body and ruptured his tympanum - all sound replaced with a high-pitch ringing. The Monster released his grip, leaving the deaf-blind Boggard to spasm around in the cold muck, while the aura scabbed over his injuries.  A few moments passed, the ringing began to dissipate, and as it did, an alien screech faded into clarity, echoing throughout the swamp. Then, the muffled sounds of rapid sludge steps, followed by utter silence.

‘Am I… dead?’ Boophis asked silently under his breath, he could feel his extra skin and flesh peeling away, the spell had finished.

Boophis heard chatter, a muffled voice issuing instructions, was this Gogunta? She was asking him to open his eyes. He assented, slowly, nothing could be seen out of his left eye, and the right had only partial vision, with a new crimson filter to accompany the intense pain he could feel all around his head. It was not Gogunta, it was just Zimmeri, he could barely hear her, but she was clutching his shoulder, yelling something. It did not make it easier to hear her, it just intensified the pain. She was missing her right arm, it was bleeding profusely.

‘Let… go of me,’ Boophis’s pride and adrenaline helped him to his feet, ‘didn’t you hear, that frog monster scared the Hunter off, it’s coming here.’

‘N-... I-... Me…’ was all Boophis could hear in his left tympanum while he limped his way over to Fallax. His brother lay dying in the dirt, the blood drained slowly from his withering flesh, Boophis’s own spell had taken too much of a toll on his brothers body.

Zimmeri hoisted Fallax up and propped him against her body, she attempted to carry him off somewhere.

‘No!’ Boophis snatched Fallax and threw him back to the bloody sod, ‘you are insane! Leave him, tend to your own wound! If you do not, you will both die!’

She did not listen. She picked him up, and carried him off again, away from the river.

Boophis watched, with partial vision, as the spawn protected her clutch-brother, Boophis knew what he had to do.