THE ARTIFACT

Log 14, Necoats. While exploring the plateau the ice head, who I’ve named Georg, seemed agitated towards some of the bodies. I poked one of the corpses he was hissing at to show him that it was harmless when suddenly, it moved. Four red tentacles sprung out of the body and ran away, four other bodies did the same in reaction to it. After capturing one of these moving bodies I was able to study these grim puppeteers. A special species of cydropeds that I will call necoats use dead bodies to protect themselves from predators. They are the largest species of cydropeds I’ve seen so far. The bodies provide protection from predators and nutrients for the necoats. While necoats are skittish they do put up a fight against scavengers that wish to eat their deceased shell. By jumping towards scavengers and moving parts of their shell they are able to convince most scavengers that the prey they’re after is still alive and kicking. While it is sad to see the sheer amount of death in this area, it is nice to see that some use it to make a living. It’s a very strange and gruesome hopefulness.