Cryptobite
Heavy dray animals originally bred from Mentiloth, but now a self-sustaining species. Used by The Xin for travelling between communities and the home of the imperial xin ruler in The Swamp. Cryptobites provide silk used to produce clothing, sleeping material, and the construction of xin tents.
The Cryptobites were, originally, the larvae of the Mentiloths. At some point they stopped being larvae. The Mentiloths have not commented on this. They are massive — typically the size of something you would not want to meet in a corridor that size. They are slow. They are almost entirely unkillable by conventional means. The shell segments have been tested against everything that seemed reasonable and several things that were not.
They are the garbage trucks of Hellsborough. This is not a metaphor. They clean up what the other species leave behind — stripped minds, residual dark matter, the psychic detritus of a city running on things it shouldn't be running on. They crawl the dark net from inside it and from outside it simultaneously in a way I have stopped trying to understand.
If a Cryptobite has fixed its attention on you, it is because something you've been through has left a residue it finds interesting. The correct response is to reconsider your life choices and start moving.
Field note: they cannot navigate steep gradients efficiently. Staircases have saved at least three documented lives.
| Type | Hungry |
| HP | 6 |
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