Hidden Beast Profile: "Thrytec"

THRYTEC

“NECROPOLIS MNEMONITEKTON”

Etymology: “Memory-Builder of the City of Death”, from the Greek “Necropolis” (City of the Dead, City of Death) “Mnemonic” (Memory) and “Tekton” (Builder, Artisan, Craftsman).

       These ones are no more dangerous than any other kind of animal – however, their nature is rather depressing by default.

       Thrytec walk on three-toed feet, something like that of an ostrich or Cassowary in the slender kinds. They can mangle their hands into strange structures on their four three-clawed arms, making them blunt, hammering tools or stone-cutting blades or long, fiddling artisan’s hands. Their eyes are white and luminescent, and whenever they walk about they speak amongst themselves in a low, hooting and whistling tongue or a repetitive, rhythmic humming. To me, it seems likely that this is not a language, but instead some kind of thought-cancelling chaunt to prevent themselves from realizing that all their work is in vain.

       These Ruin-Makers go about their entire lives, toiling and slaving towards building vast cities adorned with tiki and Gargoyle-like artifacts, monolithic pillars with but a single inhabitable room, gargantuan Ziggurats for some insane purpose or other and numerous other, pre-ordained structures that may resemble monoliths, obelisks or cavernous dwellings much like the Anasazi Indians built. All of their structures are pale-colored, marked with intricate petroglyphs that depict what life must have been like for their dead master. Many creatures present in this book, as well as what appear to be narratives and primitive mythologies, appear to be told in the dead language that the Thrytec leave embedded within their futile Necropolis.

       Thrytec, like ants and bees and mole rats, are organized by ‘tiers’ with specialized body parts for specific tasks. Some have massive feet for stomping straw into a substance that can be molded into bricks, tikis and war-spikes. Some have huge claws for digging moats and waterways. Others, still, fly about, lifting bricks and other such structures to the tops of others to built adornments. They move only at night, like ghosts, their Contrathermic metabolisms keeping them fleet-footed and mobile. Some are bulky, rounded; others are slim and walk on all six limbs. Some are hairy, shaggy with the same silvery coat of the Somnivores; others are leathery, hairless, as they work in the higher areas or go about acquiring bones, blood, and animal hides to adorn their tenantless temples and shrines. Even more are skinless, slick and sheen like the Chaurines; it is this lower tier that works with the mud and water and clay. Some have no eyes, and go about work deep within the tunnels, cabins and subterranean labyrinths that may have once been sewer systems, or hiding places. No doubt, they did not protect their masters from whatever cataclysm annihilated them, all those ages ago. Some eat through rock with grinding jaws harder than any of the metals, while others still vomit stomach acids that dissolve caverns and catacombs for any structural or aesthetic purposes. Wickedly stupid ones lumber about doing whatever they are told by ones with massive brains. These ones possess similar pores to those of sharks and Gynomorves, likely to the same purpose. Though intelligent, they are apparently incapable of self-awareness or creativity. This tier simply orchestrates the construction of the deathly, gloomy ruins until they die and are replaced by another thinking individual. Others, with a similar such telepathic ability, detect water streams underground for well-digging. Other telepaths, still, detect animal herds for killing and utilizing as food or for aesthetic purposes. They are able to control the animals directly with their minds, and mobilize them over cliffs or into rivers to kill them easily. One final tier is capable of detecting star locations for the building of strange monuments. I can only assume these constructs are somehow related to the Astrology or Religious Practices of the pre-human culture. Femurs are tied up together in long ropes, supports are made from skulls and spines and hollowed tree-trunks are made for sitting in and observing only the select stars directly above.

       Many work themselves to death, and are commemorated by being buried or built into the ruins they make. They never sleep, they never stop. Fallen members not commemorated are cannibalized. They continue until they are dead, like ants slaving and toiling about endlessly, unaware that the queen of their hive is tens of millennia vanished, never to return.

       I presume, from their actions, that they must be the builders of the preceding human society’s architecture. The perfect slaves, their brains must produce whatever it is that generates love – only their love is directed, tirelessly, towards the construction of homes for their fallen masters. Upon seeing humans, they simple stop and stare; their glowing, white eyes seemingly stunned with reverence or awe. They make a single, vibrating hum that is at once both relaxing and, to the modern eye, eerie and unnerving. They do not harm humans who come through their ruins, and indeed many squatters have found homes amongst their mausoleums. Attempts to communicate, or to keep them from moving on to build further cities, are always futile.

Maybe both the lives of our races are better left this way.

       Should you pass a group of Thrytec, simply keep walking. They shouldn’t bother you. Simply hope that their suffering ends soon, and that they, on some level, remember the distant cause of their endless construction. Perhaps, after they are done, they can admire their hard work in some way. Perhaps they feel fulfilled even as they move onwards; leaving their haunted monuments cold and unknown, the mourning cries of their fallen masters unheard down the countless centuries through endless time.