And the beggar capered before the appalled host and, displaying a mass of gum from which protruded but a single yellowed tooth, began to whisper in a voice that resembled the gurgle of mating grik-slugs. "Chernobog? Aye, lords and ladies, I know of Chernobog!" The guards moved to shoo away the unsightly wretch, but he eluded them with hell-borne speed.
"I was a member of the Lost Legion of Chernobog. I remember disembarking I remember the xok-trees that bent and audibly muttered Symbiot blasphemies I remember the evil birds that flocked and mocked, as if we were already carrion.
"We had been tutored by the most stalwart warriors and knew all there was to know about fighting under the jungle canopies. But to no avail! I remember the night half the company disappeared, and then returned changed! I remember the hungry stares from the undergrowth, the tendrils spraying from their mouths, the spiky bludgeons where faces had been!
"Aye, the Symbiots overwhelmed us that night! And I alone have returned to tell ye!" And, so finishing, the beggar shed his rags and his skin with one tentacular burst, and leapt shrieking among the company in a maelstrom of barbed palps and razored bone.
