Passage from Archmage Vildius’s textbook “Monsters that Will Kill You After You Kill Them” - A Calamity level threat, an Aberrant Swarm, so named because it is under the leadership of an Aberrant member, is regarded as a highest level threat because of the unkillable* Aberrant. Due to the interconnected nature of Hive Minds, a Mind can place the consciousness of an Aberrant into a new vessel when it is slain. It is unknown if there is a standard for how long this process takes, but upon its rebirth, an Aberrant generally has evolved to resist the means in which it died previously. Despite being effectively immortal, Aberrants are known to hunt down and kill those who have slain them before, a petty act for beings who are essentially immortal.

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Darkness. I am scared and confused. I only see darkness. I cannot feel my legs. Who am I? I have a headache. I can’t seem to remember who I am. Wait, I am human. Was human. I think. I died. As a monster. A Stupid Voice commanded me to!

“Awaken, break through!” the Stupid Voice commands.

Wow, Déjà vu. Somehow I am alive. Maybe this new egg thing is like a healing vat of some kind. Maybe I did not actually die. 

“BREAK OUT!” The Voice commands.

Ok, ok. What happened to injured patients needing to rest? I at least know what to do this time, and I press my forelegs against the edge of the shell, piercing through it like a knife through soft butter. Didn’t I have claws before? Now I just have limbs that resemble swords. 

I climb out of the egg. Yes, an egg. I know it is one since I am in the same giant cavern watching another spawning of young monstrosities, yet this time is slightly different. I am different. More precisely, I am much taller than I was before. How do I know? Well, you see, I am now the same height as those soldiers before, maybe a little taller. And the rest of the young monstrosities? They never looked so small. A rather terrifying comparison given that my evaluation of my previous form was already nightmare fuel. (Foot tall, four feet leg span, terrifying maw, armored spider crab things in case anyone forgot. Nightmare fuel indeed.) 

Now the question is, how am I back? And a soldier this time? My vision blanks and I see myself looking upon the broken form of my previous body collapsed next to the hobgoblin from 60+ angles. I feel waves of satisfaction come from The Voice as a minor worker was able to hold off so long, and win against an enemy that should’ve killed it effortlessly. I sense it capture the idea of my consciousness, which had returned to the chorus of The Voice yet stood separate, a distinct entity, and place it in a new, more powerful vessel. 

I gasp, realizing how horrifying a concept I just witnessed. There was no healing, no recovery.  I did die, and The Voice somehow took ME and placed ME into a new body. Wow, this does give proof to the belief that all people have a soul. But wow does this scare me. The Voice, as intellectually inept as it is, had the power to reincarnate me. Now, I know some people would be happy that they can be reborn if killed, effectively gaining immortality. I am not. Who would be, when you learn that your fucking soul is forced to reincarnate into a fucking monster no matter how many times you die. 

“See.” The Voice declares. 

The scene changes, and I see a massacre being enacted upon the goblins. The soldiers sent to reinforce me scurry down the tunnel to a primitive village with huts made of mud and stone centered around a glowing blue rock. The same type of rock I died defending. The soldiers slaughter the remaining goblins and secure the cavern’s other two entrances. Workers stream in and start breaking up the rock, ferrying both rock and goblin back to the Origin (the giant flesh monster we feed glowing rocks to). Some soldiers are sent to scout the tunnel in search of more villages like this one. 

The Collective made a mistake. The two tunnels led to death. Fortified goblin villages lay at the end of each one, with decent stone walls, but more importantly, magic casters. As the soldiers tried to scale the walls, a rain of glowing arrows fell upon the soldiers, each arrow tearing holes in their armor. As if that wasn’t enough, giant chunks of stone ripped free from the surroundings and hurled at the soldiers, crushing some and crippling others. But merely fending off The Collective was not enough, they wanted to reclaim their outpost. They marched through the tunnels, the mages strategically collapsing and restoring the tunnel to kill and soldiers who would step through. Now goblin soldiers guard the blue stone, and the only reason they did not follow us further was because our entrance to their territory is a hole on a cavern ceiling. Now there is constant fighting in that abandoned village as both forces try to secure it, the goblins with superior firepower, and us, with countless numbers.

My vision shifts again. This time to a tunnel where soldiers suicidely charge what looks like two giant termites. The termites rear their heads and shoot a stream of liquid at the soldiers. The forward soldiers fall to the ground, their bodies struggling to function, the liquid, no, acid rapidly dissolving their heads. More soldiers suicidily charge towards the acid sprayers, stepping over the bodies of their dead companions, for each death was another yard gained towards the enemy. Yet even then, the acid left on the ground damages their scythe like limbs. Finally, after a corridor of sacrifices, the frontmost soldiers clamp their chainsaw mandibles around the acid spitters, easily sawing through and decapitating it. But that was not the end. The headless body explodes into more acid, making everything in this cavern unsalvageable, wasted biomass. The surviving soldiers make it to the end of the corridor only to see another, with two more acid spitters at the end.

“Choose your war” The Voice orders. 

One enemy new, one enemy old. No wonder we didn’t just swarm the goblins, we are fighting two wars at the same time! Well, though the goblins are new, we can still reclaim the dead, so nothing is wasted. The acid spitters on the other hand are destructive, wasteful. Everything they touch is unusable, unable to sate our HUNGER. 

WHAT? When did my thoughts become so in tune with these monsters? Was it because I died? This is disturbing. I do not want to lose who I am, or what little remains of what I was. That's it, it has to be the acid spitters. I do not want to see myself eating anything that is humanoid, I don’t even want the voice to have a chance to command me to. At least for now, while I have some semblance of identity from my old life.

“I will take care of the spitters” I tell The Voice. New knowledge of how to get to the contested tunnels appears in my brain, and I head off leading a new team of soldiers. Now how to deal with the acid...

Astrocat

Sorry for the lack of updates, I will try to do once a week or more again. I used to brainstorm ideas while at the gym, and with COVID, that's not really a possibility...