Not so mighty anymore

The rain batters the canopy, providing some noisy cover and a break from the piercing silence that has recently befallen this fated forest.

The shadows stalk you, and you stalk the shadows, your blade clutched in hand and the faint glow of your comrades passing through the nearby brush. You see it. Its lumbering form is so distinct, so terrifying; the low thrum of the psionic energy that has filled this area fills you with a terror alien to you at any other time of year. Its dark scales cloak it from immediate detection under the cover of night, but when it turns its gaze upon you its bright white eyes will let you know that you are its quarry.

"Move, now," your ally commands. You slip through the brush quietly, trusting your compatriot's orders that the creature does not have eyes on you. It is a deadly and plodding game; at least one pair of eyes is kept on the stalking shadow, and through your mental channels you each direct each other around them and on to the next trial. This is the only way to escape them now—there is no combating them, no facing them directly, they will tear you apart if they catch a whiff of you.

As you scurry, you see it out of the corner of your eyes and you freeze. Its dripping, blaring white maw turns towards you like a floodlight in the night, illuminating the brutal rain pouring through. You go completely still, and even stop breathing, watching it slowly approach you. A beat passes, then another, and that aura of total terror becomes strangling. Its face comes near to you, and you watch it. . . sniffing.

Slowly, its maw opens. It clamps down on energy itself; you watch your connection with your allies, suddenly visible in bright blue and red light, torn out of the air. Your chest pounds and you are wracked by pain, sending you tumbling out of the brush and away from the creature. You scramble to your feet, disoriented and stunned by the strange effect of being suddenly and brutally cut off from your allies. You break into a full sprint, and you hear it throwing its massive weight over the brush and tearing through the briar with reckless abandon, not slowed in the least by any of the obstacles.

Even as fast as you are, you can hear it catching up, and so too are its friends. More of those horrifying, unslaked maws appear among the glows of this forest, aware of you even before you enter their vision. One of them positions itself behind a tree, and before you notice its umbral form merging with the dark of the tree trunk, it slams a hand into your skull, fracturing it and throwing you to the ground.

You turn onto your back, vision blurry, as the shadows clamber out from behind the trees and the brush and surround you. From behind, a pair of jaws seizes your skull between them.

. . .

It is the dark of night once more, centuries later. There is no rain this day; the moon hangs high and baleful over the landscape, and everything that could has carved out their hiding spaces. The forests are grimly silent, but for the occasional thump of Somnolent feet lumbering, strands of glowing drool pouring from their maws and leaving trails that stain the forest floors for days onward.

A Maw emerges from the forest, its hulking eight-foot form curiously gazing at the bright lights and brilliant colors of a towering Vigil city. Once, it remembers, the Lyxaris were prey. It slinks towards the city walls. A short alarm tolls and a clicking sound is heard. A laser indicator breaches the darkness between the city wall and the forest, and a short buzz of gunfire breaches the silence too.

Not so mighty anymore.