An explorer of the deep quietly moving through kelp forests might think they are safe but the most ignoble death of all might strike at any time. At any moment, there might be a sound of great whooshing and they could be sucked into the gaping maw of a vajareen. Like whales, the vajareen are gentle, toothless creatures. But their method of finding food is neither discerning nor subtle. They swallow everything - sucking in huge among of water which they filter through bristly baleen. Then, they expel the water, swallow the trapped solid matter and let their labyrinthine digestive system sort out the rest.
Make no mistake, it is not the swallowing that kills. And while the digestive acids are highly corrosive, it’s slow death and an enterprising explorer would probably to be able to extricate themselves, either back through the throat or *cough* the other way *cough*. What really kills our hypothetical intrepidaire is the stabbykriller.
Stabbykrillers are, as the name suggests, quite stabby. They are long worm-like parasites that build colonies in the gut of the vajareen. Having adapted to live amidst the acid and the methane, they live long and fruitful lives in this dark dank space. Groups of eager stabbykrillers wait just on the inside of the vajareen’s throat, brandishing knives with the tail-end of their wormy bodies, and if anything bigger than a fish comes through, they do what they do best - stab it and krill kill it.
If something too strong comes through, they retreat further into the gut and resort to methane traps and acid darts that they’ve built in preparation. If the colony is getting too large, threatening the health of their host, they might try to capture the creature and lay eggs inside it. Eggs that will hatch if the creature is ever swallowed by another vajareen. The eggs hatching usually kills the creature because of all the holes left behind when the little stabbykrillers exit the body. (The pattern can be quite aesthetic.)
Vajareen emit a weak anti-magic field, which aids the stabbykriller in their murderous lifestyle. While strong magics still work, most ordinary magical effects instantly fizzle out near vajareen which has led to them becoming a centre-piece of Obari tragicomedy. Many classic ballads have a scene where a vajareen passes somewhere near a magi at an inopportune time, ruining their carefully-constructed (and often villainous) plans.
But as the electric crackle of the anti-magic field can usually be felt long before the vajareen is actually seen, it is the best way that the wary intrepidaire can be forewarned. This field gets stronger when groups of vajareen gather together, most commonly during mating season. Then, strange resonances begin to emerge between the interplay of the fields that sometimes cause magic to not just fizzle but to spin out of control. The Obari are also careful about using salvage in these situations as they have a tendency to explode.
Obari warriors sometime launch raids into vajareen bellies in search of salvage or other treasures inadvertently sucked in and now hoarded by stabbykrillers. But eventually, just the sight of a well-armed Obari raiding party became enough for a stabbykriller colony to simply hand over whatever they had collected without violence. The Obari respected this gesture and left food in return. This eventually led to rudimentary trade agreements between specific stabbykriller and Obari communities. Obari communities mark "friendly" vajareen with symbols and, when they pass by, send a trading, rather than a raiding, party.