BY LETTER
Boneless
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| The Bonelesss imaged by an automatic trailcam shortly after a successful kill. | |
Despite being culturally pragmatic and philosophical, the colonists of this world had an urban legend or folktale about a nearly invisible shapeless monster that ate wanderers in remote districts. Even though some of these victims were wearing personal cam systems, the attacks occurred so rapidly that little data could be received by the local 'net, and all trace of the victims disappeared.
The people of De Bourgainville were resistant to ubiquitous surveillance, but using trailcams several clear recordings of a bear-sized, shapeless mass which seemed to melt into the soil or water after capturing prey. Mostly it attacked small mammals and reptiles, but on rare occasions would ambush a modosophont.
Research into Old Earth legends turned up a European folktale called Boneless, a creature often living near water or in dark forests that changed shape and crawled on the ground yet could rarely be seen. This creature displayed many of the characteristics of the Boneless myth; rapid attacks, shapelessness and bonelessness like something made of liquid, and complete disappearance afterwards.
An unknown alien species was suspected, nicknamed the Shoggoth by the local Audobon branch of Novamedia. Investigations of samples by the Eden institute of Xenoscience showed that the culprit was of Terragen origin, a swarm creature that normally inhabited the soil but which could emerge rapidly to digest animal tissue. This creature was created by accident when a virtual bear-like predator was encoded into a mass of biotech utility fluid, some of which escaped in the 3920s and began to self-replicate and grow among the artificial soil organisms of this small world.
This formless creature used organic compounds from animals and plants to maintain its own existence, but had no advanced intellect, so was not held to be morally responsible for the victims it had taken over the years.
Finally captured by an infiltration swarm, it was released in a specially prepared reserve in Attenbrough County, De Bourgainville, but a scheme to introduce a companion of similar design failed when one individual ate/assimilated the other.
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Development Notes
Text by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 14 December 2002.
Page uploaded 9 December 2002, last modified 27 June 2026
Inspired by the folktale 'The Boneless' collected by Briggs and Tongue, 1976
Initially published on 14 December 2002.
Page uploaded 9 December 2002, last modified 27 June 2026
Inspired by the folktale 'The Boneless' collected by Briggs and Tongue, 1976
