The rogue Sentinel unit wandered after the scent. Its photoreceptors still hadn't picked up any nearby colonies. The larval sack was exhibiting strange behaviors and a contamination response must be enacted.

Tracking the spawn and the precursor was proving to be troubling, one moment there would be pheromones indicating a mass hatching event, and then the scent would vanish, the event repeated. If not for its steady linear rate of progression tracking it would be difficult due to the erratic behavior.

The rogue unit's carapace flashed again. Signals sent out, still no return. An instinctual need to have its prior knowledge added to the world colony collective fueled its compulsion. It was a need to provide data.

No connection.

This body was underdeveloped and at risk of environmental damage, or predation.

Data must not be lost.

It must report the occurrences since the tower went offline. It must report the self-cannibalization. It must report the risk factors that determined risk data loss was greater if the infestation repeated its lifecycle in that region.

The unit assessed the situation with its current available dataset. Two possible scenarios were locked in its prioritization fugue. Seek out uplink. Stop the infestation.

* * *

The First Dreamer watched through the storm. He was biting ice, he was cutting winds, he was the storm. Translations of memories, flickers of dreams, and small slivers of the present mixed together. Remotely viewing anything was difficult, this was a place he had been before. The view clarified. The storm drifted seeking the parts of Yagburr's dreams he had bonded to. For a time that form of observation worked. Dreamer could see the stress and emptiness form the singer's constant sleepless state.

The storm's general dislike of the boy rendered that vantage tainted. The view disrupted. If Yagbur slept now everything would fail. Fragile, frail, inept, deformed, twisted asthmatic. It was the perspective of 16 and not the storm. He distanced himself from himself. He hated watching that boy wheeze and shiver, hardly keeping up. That pathetic struggle Yagbur felt was nothing compared to the tribe's first year of survival in the Darklands. Eating poisonous spores, weak surfaces in the planes swallowing kesit, many failed even their next breaths as water crystallized in their lungs. In those times for those of weaker constitutions, not even let the dead went to waste.

Again he was more 16 than the storm. More kesit than Dreamer. "Make it four more days!" he felt out. Food would help sustain Yagbur, but it was clear that the boy could not keep up with the sleep-deprived taxation. 16 shook his head. He knew the pathetic runt was a disappointment. He stopped tapping his four thumbs together and released his state. It was a few more days until they reached a place they could forage.

Colors and patterns whirled before his eyes as the room melted back into place. His mind still muddled sound with vision as he came down off his intoxication so he did not register the kesit in front of him as more than a complex intertwined harmonic. The waves of noise settled as vibrations blossomed into colors from the shamen's mouth.

"Great Sire" the stocky male repeated for the third time.

His eyes finally managed to interpret the shadows, depths, and colors as the male in front of him, and his ears finally recognized the swirling patterns of light as vibrations representing meaningful words. Eyes were still dilated to orbs from slits and saw every contrast in the shamen riddled in self-inflicted patterns.

"Harming yourself for vanity is a frailty of the mind best suited for untried domi, Shamen Valcha,"

The kesit was stocky with fur stained dark green and brown from bark and earth and stripes of pale grey skin patterned each inch of Valcha's body. Only his eyes were untouched and they stared hard and cold despite the smile that creased their edges. Striped grey lips moved and The Dreamer saw the reverent tones move before he heard them. "I am training our latest hunters the consequences of not being observant enough." He said face stretching with a terrifying glint of malice. "They learn very quickly to use their ears when their eyes fail them"

The Dreamer watched the memories of light patterning over the shamen's body and saw the thorny hacktet patches more than the man. He listened to the heartbeats that Valcha heard and how they whispered their fears to him.

"How many have you left broken for the beasts in the woods?"

"Only the infirmed, unsuited, and those who would burden their kin with their inability."

The First Deamer's eyes met and saw the training of three brothers Ving, Havlek, and Murkie. A past of fear and anger, a path of overconfidence, and a path of bones and lies. This last was interesting, "Perhaps your training is not hard enough. I met two of your students who were not up to surviving these planes. One even was a coward."

Recognition and disgust flitted past his eyes. "So Havlek's litter mates have finally passed? I knew they wouldn't last long."

"Havlek and Ving no longer have a purpose beyond enriching Enkylall and its plains," he responded with a dull tone.

Colors of surprise highlighted the tones from the shamen's voice. "I thought I had something with the eldest of them. How did this come?"

"He was noisy and was ripped apart. Their line was a weak one. I expect Murkie to pass soon as well."

Dreamer tasted the bitter disgust from the next words that followed. "That one has a weak mind, but his body would have perfect for siring young if his nature didn't come with it"

"Nature?"

"Yes, he is wasteful in his killing."

The Dreamer dismissed the shapes and patterns he saw from this line of thinking. This was the path of the distracted. No good would come from it.

"I need you to take 3 of your best hunters and travel north. Find Murkie and the ones accompanying him in the woods. Bring them home, all of them and make sure the singer keeps the song going. I can't let him die yet."

"I still can't understand why you let that one keep wasting our stocks of food."

"Neither do I, but it's been shown in the herb."

The Dreamer's eyes glazed over with a new vision, and Shamen Valcha touched his four thumbs together in respect and left.

* * *

The shamen watched as the slits of the Great Sire's eyes close entirely. Mist seeped and wrapped deeper around him and Valcha felt the heady sensation he'd been fighting off since entering intensify. Soon there would be more fumes than he could survive in. One did not come to the Sire's hut unannounced or unbidden. Nausea and bile-filled his stomach and sweat-soaked his fur, pigments dripping a speckled trail behind him. He felt maggots writhing under his skin and head pounding. He'd go and find the hunters First Dreamer had commanded him to.

Fear.

"Fear and disobedience are infirmities.

Infirmities are weakness

Weakness must be purged.

Obedience is survival.

Survival is strength

The Kin are strong"

Valcha the kesit sang out to the onlookers. They bowed reverently and repeated the refrains. They did not know the song was against his failings.