Bestiary
in World Encyclopedia“It may look like a heap of junk, but let me tell you—and you’d best heed this warning—there’s danger amid that scrap. That metal’s stronger than anything on the planet, and you’re sure as dead if you ever need to fight something made of the stuff. And that’ll happen more often than you’d imagine, broken looking metal people standing up without warning and coming at you, angry that you woke them from their long sleep. If they even sleep. And that’s saying nothing of the weird creatures that make their nests and burrows in these ruins. Tentacled things, and things with too many eyes. Stuff that can’t be from here. Then again, if they gotta be from anywhere, it might as well be this blasted place. I certainly don’t know of anywhere weirder.”— Gillima Targenda, veteran scrapper, to her newest apprentice
AS WE TRAVELED THE ROCKY BADLANDS, WE KEPT HEARING A DRONING SOUND. GALUNE SWORE IT WAS A LARGE INSECT, OR MAYBE A SWARM OF INSECTS, AND CONSIDERING HIS FEAR OF BUGS, HE KEPT LOOKING OVER HIS SHOULDER EVERY FEW MINUTES. THE SOUND WOULD FADE AWAY ALMOST AS SOON AS WE HEARD IT, AND WE ALL HAD THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED. ON THE THIRD DAY OF OUR TRAVELS, WE DISCOVERED THE SOURCE. A STRANGE MACHINE HOVERED INTO VIEW FROM ATOP THE RIDGE, GRACEFULLY SWOOPING LOW AND NEARLY GRAZING OUR HEADS. IN A FLASH, THE THING TARGETED GALUNE WITH SOME MANNER OF WEAPON AND HE FELL TO THE GROUND AS WE RAN FOR COVER. BEFORE I COULD GET TO HIM, THE MACHINE PICKED HIM UP AND HOVERED OUT OF OUR REACH. OUR CROSSBOW BOLTS BOUNCED OFF ITS METALLIC SKIN, AND ALL OUR EFFORTS TO SAVE OUR KIDNAPPED FRIEND PROVED FRUITLESS.”—MUSHA KRINGLIM, ADVENTURER