Boundless Evolution: The Summoning Beast

Ash angled his head toward her and let the cave's hush hold the space between words.

"How are you doing now?" he asked, voice a cave‑whisper, "Can you move yet?"

Veyra blinked up at the flowstone ribs and the thin blue wash of lichen, slowly attempting to feel and move her limbs.

But after a few seconds of tense slow movement, she turned back to him.

"Too hurt to move, even less to be in combat," she said, a dry breath of a laugh that wasn't a laugh, "If I try now, I'll probably tear something we can't mend."

"Hm…" Ash hummed as he observed her body, clearly weary and still far from being operable, "That's not good…"

"Anything you can use to heal?" he asked.

She shifted, winced, and slid a palm to her sternum.

"I do," she said, "But it's been a while since I've been this injured."

"Do it," Ash said, dipping his muzzle, "We'll need you in fighting condition as soon as possible."

Nod…

Veyra closed her eyes and cupped both hands over her ribs. She breathed to the drip—in for three, hold one, out for five—and on the third cycle a narrow fen‑green thread kindled beneath her palms.

Murkfen Knit!

The glow stitched along the bruise in thin, deliberate lines, cooling the heat, tamping the ache, coaxing blood back where it belonged. A faint river‑blue ran under the skin like capillaries remembering their work. The scent of damp reed and mint rose and thinned as the knit took hold.

Ash watched the glow settle; bruised edges softened, shallow splits pinched closed, and the worst swelling eased as thin seams drew the torn places together.

He nodded once—approval without praise, "How long?"

"An hour before I can walk without undoing it," she said, the cadence of the magic in her voice, "and half a day before I'm truly myself."

Ash tilted his head, "Why? It looks like your cuts and bruises are healing fast."

"External wounds answer first," Veyra said, "The knit can close skin and cool bruises quickly; the inside hurts though—rib bruising, pulled muscle, breath‑pain—takes more time."

"All right. I'll scout the near routes alone first," he said. "You stay here and continue healing. I won't stray far enough to not be able to hear your voice should anything happen."

Seeing Ash begin to get up, she asked, "What about your injuries?"

"I've been through worse," he said, a low rumble that made no boast of it, "And if I can't, I have shadows. A clone can go where I shouldn't."

She absorbed that, then gave a short nod, "Go small. Come back whole."

Ash rose slowly from the stone, careful not to jar Veyra as he set each pad in turn until his weight held.

He began to move, letting the cave settle around his steps. The draft stroked his muzzle from the right- cool, clean, unbroken by a body's passage. He took the right-hand line and began to make his way.

Ash moved cautiously along the cave floor while the flowstone ribs shouldered close, turned away, and shouldered close again—the cave a slow breathing of bone. Ahead, the sound went thin, then fat, then thin; he let the returns map themselves inside his ears. A low alcove pulled at the inner wall like a tooth socket, stone blanched and pitted.

He tested the air—cold, clean. No fresh acid. No scrape. Even the draft smelled old, like rock kept shut for seasons.

Inside, instead of molt, lay worker craft: ambered beads of resin set to cure on smoothed stone; shallow cup‑marks where drips had pooled and hardened; parallel mandible‑scores cut like careful script along the wall.

Old patch‑plates of chitin were pressed flat with resin veins—repairs, not skins. Dust filmed everything; some beads were crazed with age‑lines, the cup‑rims wore pale calcite halos, and the scoring had softened at the edges as if years had breathed on it. A faint sap‑sweet lingered with a vinegar ghost where acid had once hissed and gone.

He fixed the details in memory—dust unmoved on the beads, calcite bloom on the cups, score‑edges dull, no fresh runnels, no recent scrape, no polish on the floor from passing carapace—

'Rarely used; as if no beetles have been working here for a long time,' he observed, 'That brings me questions about the beetle I killed before then...'

'From the amount of dust here, I don't think you'll find any other clues here,' Riven chimed in, causing Ash to take a final look at the room before deciding that he had finished looking into the room.

Before leaving, he nosed a larger shard free—broad enough to wedge a stone or bar a narrow mouth—and brought it back between his teeth, keeping it from clacking, making his way back to the tunnel, he set it on the cave floor as a place marker, a quiet promise on the rock.

'Quick back check,' he thought to himself as he turned around and padded back to where he could see the pale of her skin in the lichen glow and the steady rise under her palms as her eyes were closed in deep concentration on recovering.

'Phew... she's okay,' he thought with a relief before turning further towards the cave side that was unexplored, 'Let's go, Riven.'

He ranged farther—ten spans only—then another five when the dust and draft agreed.

Beyond, the floor opened into a shallow overlook that stared down into a tangle of the column‑forest. Resin touched his nose, faint and sweet.

Then, braided into the resin‑sweet, came a new sound.

Clicking.

First a scatter—thin feet on thin tasks—then the rhythm paired, measured and sure.

'There's no mistaking it…'

'Get to cover!'

Ash flattened, pressing his chest to the cold stone until his heartbeat stopped arguing with the cave. He slid behind the lee of a carapace, counted a breath, and edged his muzzle just high enough to see.

The sound of the clicking quickly began to ring closer and closer and after about half a minute of waiting, two Worker beetles trudged the gutter into Ash's view, pale resin lumps cradled between their mandibles.

Feelers stitched the air along the flowstone ribs, testing for the soft seam. They paused beneath the overhang and tasted the draft; dust motes spiraled from their joints, and old resin was crazed white along their carapace seams. One angled toward the notch—toward the place where Veyra was.

Then they kept moving—steady, work‑quiet—trundling resin along the gutter beneath the overhang. Feelers combed the air; the paired clicks drew a line downslope and away, tugged by the heavier underline below.

He did not like the line they were taking. It was too close to the notch where one wrong scuff would write names in dust, too near to Veyra.

He tasted options and let Riven's counsel sharpen them: mark the pair, count their load, map their route; kill on his terms, where stone eats sound.

'We need to take them out before they make it to Veyra,' Riven said, his voice strung with seriousness.

'I also need to go and check further into the cave to make sure that it is just these two beetles...' Ash thought, quickly coming up with a plan in his mind, 'Riven, take a clone and continue exploring while I go with the other.'

Shadows of the Pack!

Ash drew the dark into himself until the lichen‑wash thinned to a rim around his outline. It gathered at his pads first, cool as silt, then climbed his legs, ribs, and spine.

On his next breath the shadow unstitched in three places.

The first two shook free as true doubles—four‑beat stance, shoulder roll, the small tail‑flick he could never unlearn—each a smear darker than the cave but moving with weight where it mattered. Their paws kissed stone without a sound.

A third shape resolved with a different stillness: Riven's. Same build, same night‑hide, but the head‑tilt was his and the gaze went narrow with thought.

The clone's muzzle tipped, and Ash heard Riven's voice come from it instead of the back of his skull: "Careful. Keep the count. I'll take the high line. You test the near. Break if dust falls."

Ash dipped his muzzle. The other two shadows answered the gesture like ripples.

And at that moment, they split.

One double slid low along the gutter's parallel, a decoy path to keep eyes and feelers busy; the second flowed back toward the unexplored throat to map for seams and safe rungs; Riven's shade climbed the ribbed wall a span and ghosted across the higher traverse to watch for anything heavier than Workers.

The two beetles continued on their work‑quiet walk, trundling resin downslope, the paired clicks drawing a thin, patient line through the dark.

Then their antennae lifted as one—angled, tasting. The rhythm stuttered; resin knocked softly in their mandibles. They slowed, feelers sweeping toward the notch.

Ash's gut went cold. The shadow at his flank mirrored him and sank lower, shoulders tight.

Step by careful step the Workers crept, the clicks spacing out, the turn inevitable. One more angle and Veyra would be in their line.

Ash tapped two pads: ready. He and the double slid—silent—into position to strike.

'Now!'

They moved together.

The double slid first, skimming across the Workers' path on the far side of the mouth—close enough for feelers to twitch, far enough to keep Veyra outside their line. The nearer Worker checked, mandibles flexing around the resin lump; the pair's rhythm stuttered.

Ash went the other way, low and right. At the mouth of the turn before Veyra, he let Umbral Bind whisper up from the floor—only a breath—black threads licking the nearer Worker's forelegs just long enough to steal its first step.

He was already there when the threads touched.

Eclipsing Fang!

Jaws found the soft hinge behind the trapped mandibles. He bit inward and up. Cartilage cracked like wet reeds. The Worker's answering click jerked once and died under his weight. He rode the tremor, smothered the clatter with his chest, and pushed the body sideways.

The second Worker snapped at the double—teeth meeting nothing. The shadow let itself be bitten and slid backward without noise, drawing the beetle's head away from the hollow.

Ash sprang—Eclipsing Fang flared again along his muzzle like night, given an edge—and drove that edge down into the narrow seam where the thorax met neck. The cut was quick, a clean parting; the resin lump fell with it, dull and soft.

The Worker's legs threshed once. He crushed the sound against the floor until the twitch was only memory.

"Ash?" Veyra's voice came low from the hollow, thin but steady.

"I'm here," he murmured as he popped his head into Veyra's view, "Two Workers were angling toward you. It's handled."

He then went back and set his jaws to the first carcass and dragged it by spans, never scraping, legs tucked so they wouldn't knock stone. The second he caught by the hinge and hauled alongside, nudging the dropped resin ahead with a paw. He ferried them toward the tumble of cave‑in rubble and slid them into the deepest shadow, hiding them.