Post by The Hive on Mar 15, 2008 22:33:10 GMT -5
Life energy streaked across the sky in a golden flare of brilliance that briefly erased the gloomy desolation of the shattered City of Shadows. Its impact into the center of the city caused no physical harm to the ruins, but left a residue of Life energy that caused plants and moss to accelerate their growth, making th city look like it had been in this state for several years as opposed to only a few hours. The few survivors of the apocalyptic fate of the City fled at the impact of the Life energy, finally deciding that anywhere on the planet had to be better than here.
The major affect of the Life energy however came about in the creation of five massive house sized creatures, each one with multiple beak like heads slowly surveying the demolished ruins as they rose up to tower above the debris. Their hulking bodies moved through the rubble destroying the few standing buildings in their path as they searched the ruins, they were moving closer and closer to the Arc of Earth, drawn to it by the massive amount of energy it was emitting. Once they closed around Zinerva's corpse one lowered the massive trunk of its body and closed one of its mouths around the Artifact, within a second it had ingested the Arc of Earth. All five creatures skin abruptly rippled, becoming harder, more like rocky stone but retaining the malleability of flesh.
They stopped moving for a full minute, none making any motions, almost as though some form of communication were going on, and then they began to move about Cyrida once more. As they crawled through the city they left behind them hundreds of small white crystalline spheres, that appeared to be made of some kind of precious gem like material. After about an hour of this they gathered once more at the center of the City and seemed to sink into the ground, abilities of the Arc of Earth manifesting and allowing the huge Hive Slivers to meld with the earth.
They sank low into the caverns beneath the city, almost a mile deep into the Earth. Once in a suitably large open cavern, that was fed from an abundant underground spring, the Hive Sliver that had ingested the Arc of Earth regurgitated it and the other Four settled in to Make a massive nest around it.
On the surface within two hours of being laid the crystalline spheres began to crack, small blade like appendages thrusting out from them, and pulling the drone slivers out of the Eggs. Their skins already had the stone like texture absorbed by the Hive from the Arc of Earth, and these new drones had the ability to move through rock and earth at will as well. They spent approximately three hours moving around the city of Cyrida learning the basics of walking running and hunting, during which time they each grew to the size of a small wolf, or medium sized dog. Once they reached this size all but 20 left the city, moving at astonishing speeds they skittered off into the Wood of the Dryads, in search of prey.
The 20 that stayed behind began to skitter through the ruins of the city searching for relics and artifacts, looking for anything with innate powers to bring back to the nest to help increase the Hives abilities. They skittered through buildings, and over piles of rubble, anything of relative use they found was brought down through the Earth to the Hive, before these drones returned to the surface to continue the search. They worked in unison, searching the city in a grid patterned each drone aware of everything every other drone was aware of thus not needing to cover the same ground twice.
The several hundred that entered the Wood moved with the grace and confidence of born hunters. In no time they had brought down over 50 deer. With the first to fall the Slivers legs developed more powerful muscles, and soon the could run faster than the deer they were chasing, and they moved on to bigger prey.
The major affect of the Life energy however came about in the creation of five massive house sized creatures, each one with multiple beak like heads slowly surveying the demolished ruins as they rose up to tower above the debris. Their hulking bodies moved through the rubble destroying the few standing buildings in their path as they searched the ruins, they were moving closer and closer to the Arc of Earth, drawn to it by the massive amount of energy it was emitting. Once they closed around Zinerva's corpse one lowered the massive trunk of its body and closed one of its mouths around the Artifact, within a second it had ingested the Arc of Earth. All five creatures skin abruptly rippled, becoming harder, more like rocky stone but retaining the malleability of flesh.
They stopped moving for a full minute, none making any motions, almost as though some form of communication were going on, and then they began to move about Cyrida once more. As they crawled through the city they left behind them hundreds of small white crystalline spheres, that appeared to be made of some kind of precious gem like material. After about an hour of this they gathered once more at the center of the City and seemed to sink into the ground, abilities of the Arc of Earth manifesting and allowing the huge Hive Slivers to meld with the earth.
They sank low into the caverns beneath the city, almost a mile deep into the Earth. Once in a suitably large open cavern, that was fed from an abundant underground spring, the Hive Sliver that had ingested the Arc of Earth regurgitated it and the other Four settled in to Make a massive nest around it.
On the surface within two hours of being laid the crystalline spheres began to crack, small blade like appendages thrusting out from them, and pulling the drone slivers out of the Eggs. Their skins already had the stone like texture absorbed by the Hive from the Arc of Earth, and these new drones had the ability to move through rock and earth at will as well. They spent approximately three hours moving around the city of Cyrida learning the basics of walking running and hunting, during which time they each grew to the size of a small wolf, or medium sized dog. Once they reached this size all but 20 left the city, moving at astonishing speeds they skittered off into the Wood of the Dryads, in search of prey.
The 20 that stayed behind began to skitter through the ruins of the city searching for relics and artifacts, looking for anything with innate powers to bring back to the nest to help increase the Hives abilities. They skittered through buildings, and over piles of rubble, anything of relative use they found was brought down through the Earth to the Hive, before these drones returned to the surface to continue the search. They worked in unison, searching the city in a grid patterned each drone aware of everything every other drone was aware of thus not needing to cover the same ground twice.
The several hundred that entered the Wood moved with the grace and confidence of born hunters. In no time they had brought down over 50 deer. With the first to fall the Slivers legs developed more powerful muscles, and soon the could run faster than the deer they were chasing, and they moved on to bigger prey.