Every Dredge Aberration (2024), Part 9

Every Dredge Aberration (2024), Part 9

Ruptured Vessel

Encyclopedia #155

Aberrant form of giant amphipod

Description:

Willing host, or sacrificial receptacle?

Comment: I'm going to go with the latter; although, the bigger question may be to what this creature served to hatch. Whatever the answer, it apparently fetches a nice price to the traveling merchant, relative to cargo space it takes.

How to catch: This crustacean is one of a couple of trickier finds in the Stellar Basin. Deeper than deep, they are only able to be angled up from the hadal zone. Pursuing amphipods generally will require an advanced upgrade along to the abyssal-suited rod line, as well as story progression through the way of operating the generator at the abandoned research outpost. Be wary of those limited windows of safety its pulse will provide. Thankfully, amphipod presence is not determined by night or day.

Perished Loosejaw

Encyclopedia #121

Aberrant form of Loosejaw

Description:

A few ragged scraps of skin hang like cobwebs from its fins. Its exposed muscles are riddled with small white worms.

Comment: Why the fish markets will accept one of these at the price they do is beyond the scope of my own comprehension. A shudder rolls through my body to consider the fishmonger scraping this morsel’s bones for the tainted scraps he seeks.

How to catch: Haul up from the inky depths of the abyssal zone. Circling the Stellar basin should reveal the glowing “stoplights” of their shoals before long.

Calcified Snailfish

Encyclopedia #157

Aberrant form of Snailfish

Description:

Waiting in dormancy for its moment to arrive.

Comment: Even at the bottom of the world, this vessel found no respite from the hook to hide its transformation from the light. Appearing as a fossil, but functioning as a calcium chrysalis. Few could truly appreciate the metamorphosis taking place within- just as the caterpillar that is unmade and rebuilt for a new purpose, its fate belongs to a new cycle.

How to catch: Sailfish are a bottommost inhabitant of the hadal zone, only hooked from the treacherous core of the Stellar basin. Narrative progression is the pathway to accessing these few harvesting spots. Ensure it is safe to do so before fishing for this.

Seizing Snailfish

Encyclopedia #158

Aberrant form of snailfish

Description:

Fingers of flesh hold teeth on their tips, a grasping grip that feels through the dark depths.

Comment: It may be a further leap of logic to guess that this is the matured form where the previous aberration is the pupa, but it is a tempting consideration. At least, it is a superior form to the merchant’s appraisal.

How to catch: ^^^

Consumed Grouper

Encyclopedia #159

Aberrant form of coral grouper

Description:

Once dazzling skin now bleached and eroded. It barely resists, relieved at a final end.

Comment: Another reminder that the Deep’s influence is partial and without compassion. It knows nothing of worthiness, and less of mercy. There are simply those it gifts, and from those it takes. Without rhyme. Without reason.

How to catch: Haul by sunlight, only in the shallow waters about the Basin’s reefs.

Actually, it kinda is! Now, I'm less expert than you, but as far as I'm aware- throat soreness as per the cause of an ick bug kinda depends on the specific cause but for the MOST part it's just plain old inflammation. Same reason a healing ankle or eye giving an allergic response can be really sore. Inflammation is like the main item in the bod's toolbox for responding to stimuli it sees as harmful: injury, allergens, and pathogens. It's a really big, flawed hammer, ergo everything can be a nail. Inflammation's painful because it's literally tissues swelling up on the micro level and the process can push up against a lot of sensitive things. I had a long battle for a while with tendinitis (literally inflammation of the tendons) in the hands a couple years back, not fun. Makes you learn real quickly how little room there actually is in your joints for things to balloon up when you think about it. But yeah infections and physical damage just tend to trigger inflammation at the site no matter where in/on the body. Unless it's so bad that it's closing off an airway, it's usually a good thing in the sense that it's the body trying to rush extra bloodflow to the area to get more white blood cells and antibodies on the frontline against the cause of the problem. The tenderness is just an unfortunate side effect. Obvs I'm way simplifying all of this, but I hope I got the gist down. Evolution never made a perfectly comfortable machine, just one that stays alive a bit longer than the others.

sore throats might be the stupidest response to illness i've ever experienced. oh you want to eat? drink?? breathe air??? TEN THOUSAND KNIVES ATTACK

Skool field trip moment

Tenement - Kitty Horrorshow, Haunted Cities Vol. 4

one of my favourite games of all time. be sure to check the readme that comes with the files, you'll need it

TRUUUUUU

total mystery box world! Uncharted territory! The backwoods freaking space boonies!

You know all those ways we talk about inhabitable planets to freak each other out? Like how it’s a noteworthy fact that there are worlds out there surrounded in a cloud of boiling acid fog or ones where it rains molten iron? I’ve been thinking a lot about all the weird information Zim has and could be sharing about the disturbing alien rock he’s getting by on.

• The environmental water is so contaminated by toxic pollutants that it dissolves your skin on contact. It also sometimes just pours right out of the sky in wide showers, maybe even for hours.

• The dominant native species is a race of simian-descent bipeds, and are braindead primitives. Literally still a type 0 civilization and completely fractured into hundreds of incompetent countries where the stupid lead the dumb. They do shit like throwing themselves down a hill after a roll of curdled bovine secretions and call it a sport. They burn plants and inhale the combustion fumes knowing that they are damaging their fragile organs in ways their medicine still cannot hope to reverse. Despite all of this, they’re…. Tall.

• The polar ends of the world are frigid wastelands of ice and fathomless seas, where carnivorous megafauna sit at the top of the local food chain. To the North even live things such as moose, enormous horned beasts that are only hunted by humans and bears, and even these predators are occasionally killed by them.

• Speaking of the ocean, it’s like 70% of the whole planet’s surface and not even the humans have any idea wtf is down there really.

• Some plants have evolved fruiting bodies that, when eaten by mammals, simulate the sensation of burning alive to their taste receptors. Humans specifically breed some varieties of these crops to inflict even more simulated pain and inflammation when eaten… and then they eat them.

• Advanced Irken vehicles have a bizarre and currently unexplained terminal weakness to colliding with bees.

• Any prolonged eye contact with the closest star for more than a few seconds causes severe cornea burns and completely blinds a person.

• Because it is so undeveloped and teeming with off the rails organic diversity, it’s an unhygienic horror show at the micro level. Fungus. Parasites. Bacteria. Invisible and literally everywhere and anywhere: in the dirt, in the water, in the air, and on the animals- the humans alone are practically walking petri dishes loaded with trillions of germs. Their bodies might as well be more micro-biome than human cells and it’s impossible to forget the fact when they carry the stench of their personal teeny-zoos everywhere with them.

• So there’s this thing called rabies… it could make a formidable weapon against humans, but you gotta hear what this crazy shit does, my Tallest

Forgetting someone

Yeah, these threats come off as desperate raving on Zib's part, and largely they are, but also? Given the two guys he's a combination of, I actually don't doubt for a minute that Zib will eventually carve a way out, even if he has to tear a million different realities to ribbons to do it. All involved parties ought to be very, very concerned