The Origins of the Living Fields

The History of the Living Fields

The total biomass of the Living Fields is only five hundred years old, as the place where it resides in the Quattuckian plans was a grassy savanna interrupted only by the Illiu river. The region was home to various indigenous tribes of aboriginal humans who frequented the area to hunt game and catch fish.

These tribes used to set up their encampments on the banks of the river where they would throw the unwanted scraps of their kills into the water during the process of cleaning the carcasses. It is thought that this is what Pnueax used to create the Living Fields, as there are oral histories from the surviving remnants of these tribes that the Quattuckian plans became "cursed" as a fleshy and repulsive-looking biomass resembling an amalgamation of body parts had started growing out of the Illiu river onto the nearby banks. The aboriginal human tribes soon abandoned the Quattuckian plains, as the Living Fields seemed to grow larger with each passing year, and any attempt by the native tribes to cut it up and dispose of it by burning the remains proved to be ineffective as it would grow out of the river again within a few short months.

The biomass continued to spread until it covered a total land area of roughly six square kilometers. It consumed whatever vegetation within reach of it in the process, in addition to creating huge piles of excreted waste nearby it. While historical reports of the Living Fields tell of it originally looking like a random assortment of flesh and recognizable appendages, it has since changed radically in its appearance since then. As it continually alters itself by growing new biomass and reabsorbing or destroying existing structures, it is unknown what appearance its final form will take.

The Living Fields in Present Day

The Living Fields currently resembles something like a massive fleshy "sponge", as its exterior is covered in holes or caverns leading to the outside environment, ranging from very large ones over six meters in diameter to tiny ones that are a few centimeters across. The tissues on its exterior are heavily cornified and are yellowish-pink in color. There is also a very large plate of very hard tissue resembling bone that has grown on the exterior on the top of the Living Fields a century ago, and it appears to be covering more of its exterior every year, but the caverns remain open, as there are holes in the plate leading to the entrances of these caverns.

While the caverns leading into the Living Fields vary to a large degree in terms of size, they all have a similar structure, as the "walls" and "floors" of the caverns are lined with very tough and leathery tissue, almost resembling that of a giant callus. The bottoms of the caverns have a layer of fused bone plates underneath the callused tissue for extra reinforcement against the weight of being walked on by many beings. The walls themselves are also reinforced with ring-like bones that enclose the outside walls of the caverns of the Living Fields as their outlines can be seen underneath the overlying tissue layers. Manipulative appendages, bioluminescent organs, and stalked eyes hanging from the ceiling serving as "surveillance" stations are also a common sight. In addition, the Living Fields has also organized itself into different physiological "landscapes".

The Digestive Zone

There have been reports that the orifices that the Living Fields uses to ingest food and nutrients with all lead to a massive cavern which serves as the digestive tract for the entire Living Fields. Nobody has seen the full extent this place to observe it in detail and live to tell about it, but there are reports of hostile beings being dragged into openings into this area as a defensive measure. The main digestive area of the Living Fields can subdue and tear apart many things entering it due to both the "teeth" in the upper parts of its gullet as well as being crushed by its peristaltic muscular contractions. It is also theorized that the lower regions of the digestive tract of the Living Fields are filled with powerful digestive secretions and enzymes that would make short work of anything that survives the previous dental gauntlet.

Cardiovascular Zones

In some caverns of Living Fields, the network of arteries and veins becomes very thick to being as large in diameter as thirty-six cm across, and they can plainly be seen underneath the exterior tissues of the caverns of the Living Fields. These large blood vessels are also reinforced with cartilaginous rings in between the tissue layers in their exterior due to the intense pressures and volumes of blood that they carry. There is a large organ in these tunnels which pumps like a massive heart and up to seven of these areas have been seen, scattered at far flung locations of the Living Fields. It is not known how many "hearts" it has, as presumably some of them are in locations inaccessible to other beings. These hearts are encapsulated in a layer of connective tissue that prevents dehydration resulting from exposure to the outside environment.

Pulmonary Systems

The purpose of the smaller holes in the exterior of the Living Fields appear to be for respiration. These holes are connected to a pair of massive air sacs, which both connect to a "lung" essentially, a biological set-up similar to what is seen in birds due to the massive oxygen demands of the Living Fields. These are frequently seen on the walls in the largest caverns where the space of the cavern allows for the full expansion of these organs. Like the hearts of the Living Fields, they are encapsulated for both protection and dehydration.

The Nervous Corridor

This is an area that nobody has ever seen, as the largest cavern in the Living Fields leads to its very center, and right before its entrance are several ambulates defensively stationed that will indiscriminately attack any organism that attempts to pass by. Several large appendages embedded in the cavern of the Living Fields can also be found here, as well as a large "mouth" that can open up that is set into the floor of the cavern. Networks of yellowish-white cords of tissue can be seen further down this cavern past the guarded entrance which embed into the walls at various points and join into a larger "conduit" towards the top of the cavern. It is theorized that this is the central nervous system of the Living Fields and that at the end of this corridor is its presumably massive "brain". While the Living Fields is appears to only have the abstract reasoning abilities of a low-level animal in some regards, it does seem to have an instinctual understanding of its own physiology and the biology of other creatures. The raw processing power of its brain must also be enormous if it is able to coordinate and control so many aspects of its massive body simultaneously even if the Living Fields is extremely "stupid" when compared to many other animals in the animal kingdom.