Story Seed - Birth

Image Source: http://aldok.deviantart.com/art/Geode-495580083

"What do you think they are?" Girn asked, standing some distance away from the half buried spheres and keeping an eye out.

Jollo shrugged poking at one of the stone balls with his staff, "No clue."

"If you two could be quiet, I can investigate," Ipun retorted, irritated at his companions' banter.  The nano was crouched near the sphere farthest from the piled group of them.  He had a book open in one hand and was inspecting the thing with a magnifying glass, primitive, but it wouldn't deplete like some of the nicer alternatives.

Jollo and Girn exchanged exasperated looked and returned to poking the sphere with a stick and keeping watch, respectively. Ipun shook his head and flipped to a different section, comparing the swirling patterns on the rock to the notes in his book.  Nothing was matching, whatever these were he had no record of anything like it.  "Nothing," he muttered snapping the book shut.  "I'm going to try a Scan," he announced, "if that doesn't work let's just move on."

Reaching out with his mind Ipun tapped into the countless micro-machines in the air around him and tasked them with retrieving data about the sphere.  The others looked on as he reached out to the object, holding his hand out just above its surface.  After a moment he frowned, "It's alive?"

"That a question or a statement?" Girn asked, pointing his heavy crossbow at the rocky orb.

"Both," Girn replied back, "My scan tells me this is life, but my eyes and experience tell me it's a rock."

"Let's smash it open!" offered Jollo, already growing bored with this discovery.

"No!" the others said as one, evidence that on rare occasion they did both agree.  "What do you think Girn, is it some kind of egg?"

"Could be," the nano replied, "but I can't penetrate its shell with what I have here."  He tried to stand up but his knees were sore from the prolonged crouch and his balance tipped him forward.  His outstretched hand easily found the orb's surface, preventing him from toppling over.  "Ow!" he cried, tearing his hand away from the object and righting himself quickly, "Cut myself."  He looked at his hand, a small cut on the meat of his palm was bleeding.  He used a clean cloth to apply pressure and wrapped a length of cord around it.

"Let's go, we can check them out again on the way back," Jollo suggested.  The others agreed, they had little other options to investigate the stones anyways.

They were less than a dozen meters away when they heard the crack of stone breaking.  Looking back they saw the sphere broken, and a wet pink arm, reaching out toward the light. The head that followed it was Girn's spitting image.

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Summary - Not all life appears as we expect.  Three adventurers stop to investigate what seem to be stone balls only to find that they are a most peculiar form of life indeed.