We never saw them but we heard them out there sometimes, calling out to one another in a most peculiar way. They almost make recognisable vowel sounds punctuated by something akin to consonants. It had the character of language, yet half of the sounds are... felt, rather than heard by the ear.— Mercer Hatherton, writing on the Axthet Expedition.
The Glossolisk is a species of
Cryptidae Reptile that is occasionally encountered by expeditions into the
Axthet jungles beyond the
Black Cliffs.
The species is known only by the strange sounding vocalisations they produce, and has not yet been visually described or identified. It is assumed that like other Morning Shores reptiles their hide is covered by a mix of feathers and scales in unknown proportions, and that they possess two pairs of eyes. Tracks found left in mud in the vicinity of where a Glossolisk calls from suggest that they are in a similar size range to humans, with a bipedal gait similar to several known Archaeoform reptiles.
Their vocalisations have been described as "peculiar and irreplicable by any human tongue". Nobody who has heard it has been able to accurately reproduce or even describe any of the more exotic vowel sounds. Some expert physicians maintain that the impossible nature of these "complex vowels" means that they are entirely imaginary, that hearing them is the symptom of a group hysteria brought on by an unreported tropical malady, and that the Glossolisk does not actually exist at all.
Attempts have been made by a handful of expeditions to capture a live Glossolisk. However despite the infinite ingenuity of trappers, not a single Glossolisk has been captured. Upon returning to animal traps laid near to where Glossolisk calls have been heard, it is routinely discovered that they have been sprung by branches thrust into them, or that the snares have been cut away by something sharp. In a single instance, it was reported that a trap had been neatly dismantled. Despite their loud calls, the Glossolisk remains elusive.
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