• Published 1st Dec 2015
  • 1,474 Views, 73 Comments

The Void Rift Crisis - Visiden Visidane



A young alicorn seeks information on a world-changing event.

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The Hagunemnon - Aura Magnum

Aren't you a little old to still be frightened of the hagunemnon? They can't infiltrate the Herd, so relax. Here, let me put your mind at ease. Yes, it's true that they are unparalleled shape-shifters, but the likelihood of one of them suddenly getting the bright idea, and the means, to gate into our world is all but impossible. So don't believe the stories about how some alicorn you meet might be a hagunemnon luring you to a lonely spot so it can devour you.

There's a simple reason why they can't do that. The hagunemnon may be able to alter their forms as easily as you and I can breathe, and even mimic our innate abilities to some degree, but they are all afflicted by some sort of compulsion to keep shifting. The hagunemnon are cursed with inconsistency; they can't stay in one form for more than a few moments, and they never wholly copy one shape. They keep mixing and matching endlessly, eternally wandering Vestibulum as perpetual globs of transforming flesh. So, if you spot a two-headed alicorn with the lower half of a wolvenaar, then you might have found a hagunemnon, or an incorrigible prankster.

How do we know this? The same reason we have an approximation of their name. During the Fourth Cycle, a patrol of sentinels encountered one that had transformed into a creature coherent enough to speak in our language. During those brief moments, it explained itself as best it can. Afterwards, it went berserk, and they had to drive it away.

Feel better? Now, excuse me, I have--

Oh...that hagunemnon.

You could have interrupted, eh? Saved me some time and breath.

I did engage the hagunemnon that the Agamanthion summoned to defend itself. Me, and a lot of now-diminished comrades. Let me start off saying that it was not typical of its kind. This may not seem much from one who has only ever encountered a such a thing once aside from the Agamanthion's pet, but even our records will prove that this particular creature was larger, and more vicious than its brethren.

How the Sixth made contact with it is yet an unfathomable mystery. These creatures have an indecipherable babbling tongue, and show very little inclination to communicate.

The size may not seem to matter much for a creature that changes shape so easily. Perhaps not in terms of physical prowess, but the hagunemnon grow as they age, albeit very slowly. For this one to had gotten so big marked it as ancient, and that means it has had plenty of time to experience other creatures.

There is nothing quite like the madness of fighting a hagunemnon. It sprayed dozens of clawed limbs and tentacles at us as soon as we approached. It sprouted alicorn heads to hurl spells, then three sets of wings to take the fight to the skies. It lashed with tentacles bristling with the feelers of thorciasids, then grabbed whatever it paralyzed with three sets of wolvenaar jaws.

But there is more to these creatures than the fury of their transformations. Regardless of their shape, whether they rake you with a claw or bludgeon you with a hoof, the hagunemnon retain their one constant quality; their venom.

I was struck across the side during the fight, when I flew too close to one of its flailing claw-studded tentacles, or was that a fang-covered tongue? The wound, and the surrounding flesh, burned worse than any fire or acid. My muscles convulsed and twitched, and nearby bones felt softer and twisted.

I was lucky not to have received a more grievous wound. Luci Carcer was struck several times, and we could only watch as she melted into a puddle of clear goop before fading from existence. We call it venom out of convenience, but no substance actually enters the blood when a hagunemnon strikes, which is why even blunt strikes have the same effect. We can't be sure. I suspect that it is simply its unstable nature infecting the form of its victims. It took several restoration spells to heal my body after that scratch. I shudder to think how it must have felt for those who lost their lives fighting this monster.

I was just getting to that. Yes, we did slay it. The centimanus had enough sense to retreat when the battle turned against it, but the hagunemnon was far too frenzied to even consider that it was losing. To render it vulnerable, we had to lock it in a single form. We tried a binding circle, even if it meant hastily constructing one on the plain while being pestered by planar shadows, it accomplished nothing. We tried various transmutation spells to force it into a single form, but it easily shifted out of them in an instant when forcibly transformed.

Finally, in desperation, one of our healers struck it with a very powerful spell. Well, it was not merely desperation, I suppose. Argentum later explained that he was desperately trying to heal a friend, but aimed at the wrong creature. That clumsy oaf found the solution to the fight by accident, truly the wonders of the Herd never cease.

"Restoring" the creature locked its shape briefly. We descended upon it at once, cutting and burning until it was a great smear of smoldering gore across the plain. Much later, I discovered how hard it was to rid one's barding of the smell of its guts. May whatever essence residing in that thing be forever banished to the oblivion of its broken plane.

The accident has not been forgotten by our scholars. There is a theory going around that the hagunemnon are a race of some other creature cursed to be what they are now, that there might be a way to heal them permanently. There's talk of making contact to learn more of them. I for one will be happy not to see another one of them, especially when Aqua Malleus suggested that they can probably transform themselves into gray mist for a short period of time.