The Immortal Naturalist's Guide to Cryptic Creatures: Grubber

This post is part of the Immortal Naturalist's Guide series. The explanation for that series can be found in this post.

    Sitting inside of a cave on the cliffs of Goldspire Island is a gigantic grub, known as Grubber. Grubber, although he is unknown to all but a few survivors, is able to extend the tentacles around his mouth up to a mile away while maintaining the strength needed to pick up a person and carry them back to the mouth to be consumed. Most victims never even see the tentacle before it is too late, and this tactic explains why most people are unaware that Grubber exists. The beast himself is almost forty feet long, although this is hard to observe since he never leaves his cave, and spends all of his waking hours with his tentacles extended in search of food. After carefully following a tentacle back to his cave, I was able to observe Grubber for quite some time. As it turns out, Grubber will eat virtually anything that he brings in with his tentacles, be it plant, animal, alive, or dead. All of it goes into Grubber's mouth.

    The extreme abilities of Grubber's tentacles to extend and maintain their strength over even a mile of distance is clearly the result of a magical ability. I also have reason to believe that these tentacles are even strong enough to move Grubber around, albeit slowly, should he ever need to move his massive body. Grubber does not seem to have very good eyesight despite his massive compound eyes, and so he relies on his sense of touch to catch things with his tentacles. To avoid Grubber is to always keep an eye out for his tentacles when you are nearby his cave. Although they can be hard to spot, they are mere flesh and Grubber will withdraw them if his tentacles are attacked.

    There is, however, reason to find Grubber's cave and climb the cliff face up there. Because he grabs people and other prey whole, Grubber has found himself in the possession of many rare and valuable items over the years. As far as I am aware, instead of tossing them back out into the ocean, Grubber will keep objects that give off a good shine or gleam with magical energy. Given how long Grubber has been around, there is no telling how large his hoard is, or what powerful artifacts he has.