Illumantula Creature 25

Though it only recently appeared in the shattered red deserts of the planet Akiton, the so-called illumantula has already become the stuff of local legend and folklore. Emerging shortly after the crash of the mysterious First Ones vessel now only known as the Wreck of the Returned, the illumantula was so named by the shobhad desert guides who first encountered the creature and compared it to the deadly spiders of the Akitonian glaciers. Other Pact Worlds citizens have taken to the name, as the closest descriptive title for the being has simply been “a spider made of light.”

Content—for now—to spend its days wandering the Wreck of the Returned and the immediately surrounding area, the illumantula has only had a handful of meaningful engagements since its appearance. The first was against a group of Hellknights of the Order of the Eclipse, where the illumantula systematically unmade 80 of their best-trained troops in under two minutes. Only weeks after the engagement, a group of Stewards attempting to enter the Wreck of the Returned were discovered and engaged at the periphery of the illumantula's patrol path. Only two of 12 commandos managed to escape, and their accounts of the illumantula and its powers are contradictory, leaving the Stewards unable to make effective plans for further encounters.

A strict quarantine has been set up to match the illumantula's patrol path, as calculated by the meticulous anacites of Investigation Site A01. The Aballonian constructs know the being to be related to the First Ones and dedicate their time to finding a means of communicating with the swarm of technological bits that patrol the outer wastes of the crashed starship. So far, they've had no success, and they've sent out an urgent call for linguistics and computers experts from across the Pact Worlds to travel to Akiton and aid their research.

Where the anacites continue their experiments, scholars of Eloritu have uncovered a disturbing connection between the illumantula and the concept of alternate realities. Somehow, the actions of the illumantula produce fixed points in reality, where the unique powers of creatures with greater connections to the multiverse are somehow stymied or forced to adhere to the illumantula's will. The reason for this phenomenon remains a mystery, though one the anacites seem blissfully ignorant to explore.

The appearance of the illumantula has led to the belief that it's a protector for the ancient technology of the mysterious First Ones. Similarities between the illumantula's technological bits and extracted data from Aballon have all but confirmed this theory. However, the association begs the question: is there just one illumantula, or is it merely one of many such highly advanced guardian constructs for the First Ones, a species who might be beyond anything the Pact Worlds could contend with?