The sunken

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Appears in: Descent

The sunken are the animals of Calima taken over by the The black fluid. The name comes from the two specimens the crystal expedition brings back, logged as "sunken" 1 and 2.

In Descent (2258)

In the story

Spoilers for Descent

The first are a pair of Kutsanp at the The black pool: one drags the other into it and stares into the blackness until the other crawls out. When a guardian prods it, the first kills him with a tentacle from its guts; Kurt kills it by tearing it apart with the robot, and the expedition brings back both bodies and the guardian's. In the laboratory the living one attacks with tendrils, then the fluid withdraws inside it and it begins to walk against a wall, for hours. Kurt notices, without being able to explain it, that this began at about the time the energy transfer tests started.

That dusk the sunken attack the wreck: a possessed kutsanp at the research laboratory, then a creature over five metres tall, like a cross between a giraffe and a rhinoceros with the scales and shells of an insect or reptile, its roar a mixture of roar and hum. Kutsanps, geckos, karmabogs and a vaghadata hurl themselves at the defenders with no instinct for survival. They are driven off only when the trackers spread clouds of Nanomachines among them. Kurt later notes that they did not attack the cubicles where the crew slept.

Quotes

Spoilers for Descent

The investigation of the captured creatures, which were named "sunken" 1 and 2 respectively, detailed that remains of the material had been found in the preserved beast's corpse.

The next note was from several hours ago: the fluid had returned to the interior of the living animal and the deranged beast had begun to walk against a wall, just a few minutes after exhibiting its initial behavior; it went on like this until now.

The silhouette of a huge animal over 5 meters tall was drawn against the fading light of day and a horrifying yell, a mixture of roar and hum, covered the area.

Sources