False Sandstone
Geology
by Wordmate
© 05/23/07
(Unrestricted Club Use)
"Tyree Campbell’s fictional story ROCKHOUND was the inspiration for this piece. In the story ka sought stones for nourishment, but the nearest sandstone deposit was hours away. However, there are deposits known as false sandstone by the unwary rockhounds who have been caught by it. FALSE SANDSTONE bites back!"
It looks like sandstone; it feels like sandstone; it smells like…. By all that’s powerful, it smells like nothing you can imagine! Those rockhounds who have been caught by it claim that they believed the smell to be that of some large animal’s dung deposited nearby.
The color of the rock is golden – like sandstone. Its weight and hardness are exactly those of sandstone, and its composition is of sand-like granules.
All those features are enough to convince the unwary that this is indeed sandstone. There the resemblance to sandstone ends. It is unclear how false sandstone senses the approach of a rockhound, but scientists believe it responds to vibrations, however minute.
Any living creature coming within three nadas of the sandstone mass will cause fissures to open all over its surface and fine needle-like teeth to project in rows. The approaching creature will then find itself walking in a hypnotic state towards these projections. Ultimately the teeth will attack the first appendage which comes into their range.
Few creatures have survived an attack of false sandstone. It is only the approach of other creatures, supposedly setting up vibrations, which have caused the needle-lined fissures to reopen, releasing the captive and allowing it to escape.
Over a period of several danas, many scientists have attempted to capture a piece of false sandstone, but none have ever returned intact.
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