The air was stale. The wind was cold. The clouds were black and choking the sky, thundering low and shaking the air. Bolts of green lightning flashed from the thick angry clouds, lighting up the sky with brilliant lime-green, then disappearing as suddenly as they came. The storm was constant but with no rain falling from it, and the ground below was grey, dead,and robbed of life.

Across this land vast, strange forests stretched forth from the lifeless soil. Forests of dead trees, black and thin, shriveled to the point where they could barely qualify as trees, little more than sharp elongated sticks with branching edges, brittle and stiff, sticking up with jagged points to the sky. Why they did not blow down with every errant gust was a mystery. And what was more of a mystery was how they grew forth at all.

But in this forest of dead trees there were two that were large, strong, and very much alive. Though considering their trunks were made out of metal it was honestly a little hard to tell. These two trees stood across from each other, separated by only three or four yards, easily within one another's sight, if trees had eyes to see at least.

The first of these two trees was made of iron. Black and cracked, with lines of red appearing between the cracks, glowing out with heat. The branches that spread from it were sharp and jagged, and leaves of red flame clung to them, composed entirely of vicious raging fire. In the center of the tree, breaking through the black iron bark and bleeding out hot, flaming red sap onto the trunk was a red, burning six-pronged star, emblazoned against the tree, permanently alight with raging red fire.

The other seem to have grown of cold grey steel, frosted over in a thick sheet of ice. It's branches were long and just as sharp, with icicles hanging down, sharp and pointed. On the ends of the branches dark blue leaves grew out, seeming to be made of crystalline ice, bristling with sharp ice crystals, ready to puncture any who touched. And in the center of the trunk was a gash in the shape of a six-pronged star, filled in entirely with blue ice and leaking out a heavy white mist, pooling around the base of the tree and frosting the dead soil.

They were strange sights in any forest. But what might have been stranger was that in this forest, in this dead forest of dead trees with a storm raging overhead but not a drop of moisture in the ground, was a tiny sapling. Just barely poking out of the ground. A sapling with a little green stalk, and three tiny green leaves stretching out of it's top, the same color as the lightning. In any other setting, it could have been an innocuous and innocent little tree... but it wasn't. And here, it wouldn't be able to hide that.

The faint sound of hooves hitting against dirt filled the air, and a figure moved between the stick-thin trees... four hooves, hitting against the dirt. Attached to thick bones with scraps of rotten flesh and strips of decaying grey fur sticking to them. These leg bones went up to a torso that was also mostly bone, thick white skeletal pelvis and spine and rib-cage, with scraps of rotten flesh hanging from them, in thin strips, little patches of grey fur sticking. Despite it's lack of skin it was not entirely bereft of innards. A pair of black lungs, inflating and deflating with regularity were held by equally black muscle tissue in it's rib-cage, and above them was the heart, also large and black, held by muscle, and steadily pumping blood through fleshy black tubes into what little remained of the creature's internal organs.

At least one of the heart tubes extended up towards the neck, and through it, into a larger tube of black flesh that clung to the neck-bone, going up along the spine into the skeletal head of the... unknown thing that walked through the forest. The tube of flesh fed up into it's skull, very much equine shaped and skeletal, bone-white, and with a fully developed tongue and gums in it's mouth, both black. It's skull was devoid of any scraps of fur or flesh, but a thick, heavy length of black mane went from it's head and down the back of it's neck to just above the torso, very long luxurious black hairs falling from it's skeletal form down to the ground, stopping just a few inches above it's own hooves. It's eye-sockets were empty of eyes, but from both, a powerful green glow emitted, shining like light emitted from a jack-o'-lantern, high-beams of lime-green cutting through the dim.

Besides it's head, it had a pair of large bat-wings, stretching out from it's spine, thin but fully skinned unlike the rest of it's body, sheathed in a leathery dark-dark-grey covering, with pricking black talons at the ends of both ends on each wing. And finally it's tail, unlike anypony of equestrian, was made entirely of bone, without the sticking flesh and fur scraps of the other bones, stretching out far behind it, sharp and snake-like, serpentine, curling like a whip ready to lash out.

This strange creature continued it's walk through the dead forest, unhurried, unrushed, tail behind, and high-beam eyes forward... until it came to the plant. The green one. The young one. Growing in the lifeless dirt. It's high-beam eyes focused onto it, and gazed upon the amateur sapling for several seconds... And then it lifted it's vision up, up from the plant, and straight to you. It's mouth moved, it's jaw clacked and creaked, and it's tongue began to spasm in it's mouth, before a powerful, hollow, echoing voice sounded out from it.

"CHOOSE. SIX. ELEVEN MUTATIONS, THREE ADVANCEMENTS, FOURTEEN CHOICES. CHOOSE SIX OF THE FOURTEEN. TO EMPOWER. TO STRENGTHEN. TO FEED. CHOOSE."

It spoke, tongue rolling over it's teeth and lashing against it's mouth, in complete disassociation with the erratic movement of it's jaws and the actual words coming out, eyes never ceasing to glare into you...

Author's Notes:

You heard the eldritch abomination! The Star is finally ready to move on to it's second stage, and this nice abomination's going to help you direct it a bit more!

The gist of it is this. Six of the fourteen mutation pieces, full and upgrade, will be selected to automatically increase in time for the next Host Action chapter. What gets chosen here, will be applicable in the next chapter. Because of this, I may wait to update the character sheet until after this looks like it's done.

In practicality, you may discuss which to choose wherever you like. However here, put your top Six choices in the comments. And please be as CLEAR AS POSSIBLE about your selections. This will go more or less as straight up voting, though discussion and popular opinions may effect the exact natures of the upgrades somewhat. Ultimately though this will come down to numbers. And where there are ties in the votes, I will look to the character's major focuses to determine which one gets selected. If neither apply to that area, I'll just roll dice or something.

Three advancements, eleven mutations. Pick your favorites and watch the Star grow!