On Ouroboros
Spawning season had started. To call it a 'season' was innacurate. Ouroboros spawned at inconsistent times and no clear pattern of weather, season or temperature seemed to be relevent.
When the sacks broke, it would be utter bloody chaos. Nobody seemed to know exactly how or when the sacks turned up, or how. Ouroboros were incredibly solitary among their own species and aggressively cannibalistic. Typical spawning events comprosed of twenty to fifty sacks, though one claim went as high as eighty.
When they begun to split, all nearby would react to an airborne chemical reaction and would cause a chain reaction. These creatures were the size of an average man at the point of spawn and would not change drastically.
Those that werent fully consumed before they reached the forest floor often decayed within hours, reducing to a thick, toxic pool. Samples have been incredibly difficult to collect as the area is extremely dangerous and the substance itself either dries or is absorbed by the forest floor within half a day. Notably, mushrooms appear to grow. It is unclear if the body of an Ouroboros contains any spores or similar substances, or if it is the broken down body that accelerates the growth of fungi.
-Fact or Fiction? Stories of the grotesques in the treetops
I have observed only two spawning events in my thirty-something years of research and I will not disclose my methods. Far too many have met a most gruesome fate by attempting to observe such events themselves and I do not wish to encourage.
The level of violence coupled with the short timeframe is a harrowing ordeal to observe. Ouroboros scream at one another, and learn their speech mimicing by first mimicing the cries of their dying clutch-mates. Those that do survive their slow descents from the forest canopy will wait until their clutch-mates reach terra firma with them and will attack. This continues until only one remains.
-Note: In my first observation, one Ouroboros did seem to escape as it had landed at the same time as another, though very quickly returned to the spawning site in an attempted ambush.
Their flesh appears transluscent as they descend as the fluid of their sack is drawn from their bodies. They range from a pale bone-white to a pinkish hue. This does not appear to change much after they have moved on from their spawning site. Their life expectancy is yet to be monitored and I hope to one day work this out with a new book within the next couple of decades.
Dear Reader.
If you happen to wander a particularly quiet forest, be sure to look skyward, for the beasts and birds will not remain in an area with such things for one reason or another. If you do find yourself in the unfortunate predicament of a spawning area, leave as quickly and as calmly and as silently as you can.
Senior Professor Albert Hoose-Hummer
Reasearcher at the Cathborough Institute of Fauna, Flora and Fungi.