body armour?

For a while now, I've been aware of some small sunny boxes within the Giant's HQ. They light up during the day and become quite warm, appearing to contain some kind of tropical climate.

Well, I discovered today that there are inhabitants in these warm worlds! I met one the Giants call "Dax", he's an odd creature that seems to be able to cling to vertical surfaces, although he's quite fast across the slidey fake-wood floor, he's very good at skidding to a stop. I investigated with a lick or two, but he wears some kind of spiky body armour, it hurt my tongue. He was watching me with his beady eyes, and then he licked me back - from nearly a foot away?!

He ran and skidded across the floor, I wanted to play too, but I seemed to be pinned to the floor by my rear end, must be some side effect of the spikes or long tongue-lick? He returned across the room and climbed the wall back into his warm world, where he was fed some jumpy-things.

Now that I know he's in there, I can sit and watch him from in front of his world, he seems to want out to play, running back and forth in front of me, he waves at me a lot.