Mire-Things

Deep in the sludge ridden moors, far from civilisation, there are beasts of slime that play at being men. 

In elder days, a grand and decadent city stood where the moors would one day weep. Its people considered themselves immaculate, flawless, near-divine in their consummate perfection. An otherworldly being had visited their great city, and offered them many esoteric and obscene arts to purify themselves of any and all perceived flaws, that the people outwardly match their inward splendour. A red-hot knife, or an oiled razor blade would sheer off the imperfection without harm or blood, and the cut-off could be happily discarded without concern. Eventually, of course, some ancient and presumably long-prophesied doom came to the city, and they were destroyed. Only the ruins were left.

These days however, the Mire-Things ooze and undulate across the city’s ruins, leaving their feculent trails staining the old shattered streets. Scabrous shelters have been clumsily erected in the nooks and crannies, and cavities perhaps just large enough to hold a man, literally speaking, have been excavated in the rubble. They have claimed the city, and none would contest them for it. 

They stand perhaps two thirds the height of men, though some can be as tall as a man if it can maintain proper legs. They are lumpy and misshapen, comprised of gelatinous, carmine ooze-flesh that pulses and undulates obscenely. They can form any shape they wish, though imperfectly, but their favourite shape is that of man. Their chests are often curved when they ought be flat, and the Mire-Thing’s mastery of curves is also fragile at best. Fingers often run into each other, and joints can be found anywhere along their stumpy, graceless limbs.

The faces of the Mire-Things are perhaps the worst of all. Their eyes are hollow and wet, their mouths constantly mashing together, and their noses dribbling down their faces. They are like melons run over by a horse and then forced into the shape of a head, and they moan constantly. It is likely they do not even realise.

If disturbed, the Mire-Things will not attack at first, they will wait for others to arrive. Each Mire-Thing can feel through the thin film of muck they trail behind themselves, and they will often stick to the communal filth-film so that they form an almost rudimentary hive-awareness. The first Mire-Thing will wait, as still as can be, until from all around, others arrive, and the interloper is surrounded. Then they will strike. They will batter and smother. They will force themselves down their opponents throats, into their ears, their nostrils, their eye sockets.

When the melee is done, for better or worse, a few Mire-Things will emerge from hiding. They are very good at hiding, or more accurately, squeezing. The survivors will sculpt up the slopping remains of the destroyed and mashed into their old shapes again, as if nothing had happened. This can take some time, even to the poor standard they achieve. 

If they are victorious, however, they will carefully, and lovingly, skin their enemies.

Spotting a Mire-Thing in a skin-suit is something of a challenge from any sort of distance. Even close up, you would have to closely examine one to notice their slightly lumpen flesh and discoloured back-skin. They can even engage in conversation, slowly softening vocal chords suspended in the Mire-Thing’s jelly-neck, though their speech is slurred and gurgling, and if you’re close enough to talk to one, you will probably notice its vacant gaze and cock-eyed expressions. Long-term impersonation is not the goal, however. More than once, some decadent noble or soft-bellied pansy has been found suffocated, a stinking rotted skin discarded by their person. 

Perhaps the strangest tale told of the Mire-Things goes as a group of mercenary adventurers delved the streets of their city-lair, slew a great many of them, and escaped with great armfuls of riches. The following week, the town they returned to was obliterated, and the adventurers with it. Some few peasants who claim to have lived their once described a great, mishapen titan of mashed together ooze-men, gurgling and moaning heads sticking awkwardly out of arms and tiny helpless hands waving from the beast’ heaving chest as it rolled and smashed its way through the town.

These are of course, merely tales.