Galactic Dawn: Running Story of the Starcraft&Metroid Campaign, 2006.

Log 8: Shadow of the Alchemist Kings

Jargenduv could feel the splatter of drool from his mouth down to his chest as he awoke on a strange bed that felt all too familiar. Armor gone. Robot gone. White light everywhere peering into his eyes that only wanted to close. He never wanted to open his eyes again for fear that he would see more of the puzzles he had overcome in the past few hours. His recent memory included only a scrambled collage of bits of crossword arrayed in style like a ransom note; the price for him to free himself from a dimension of mental torture. Had any of it been real?

Dr. West: It is good to see you awake and in phase at last. You should know that your friends came by to see how you were doing. I alerted them to your arrival here and they came without delay even though most of them looked the worse for wear themselves after coming out of that sinkhole.
Jargenduv: Red...robot...
Dr. West: I suppose I shouldn't expect too much of you just yet. This has much to do with a study I once conducted about the effects of dimensional aphasia on plant matter. Did you know that your species is physiologically more closely related to animated plants than to most vertebrates?
Jargenduv: Yuri...Tam...
Dr. West: Yes, I'll tell them right away. I suspect you are malnourished as well. I can treat that in a few hours. Rest for now, and welcome back to Korhal.

At the mention of the word that was the planet's name, Jargenduv could remember how he had come to be in the care of Dr. West once again. He remembered the flash of light in the dungeon just before a sickly green glaive wurm hurtled toward him to deliver the killing blow. He had thought he had died. Given the circumstances, there was little evidence to convince him that he hadn't, although his spiritual death had come much before the Mutalisk attack when his robot minion had perished in a power surge. That's when he remembered the hatred and blame. That is when he regained lucidity.

Jargenduv: Dr. West? Why did I come here, or how?
Dr. West: I suspect it was because of some of the...more attractive temporal landscaping we do around here. This location was chosen carefully for such a purpose, and it doesn't surprise me that your otherworldly journey should also end nearby.
Jargenduv: You didn't find me in this bed?
Dr. West: No.
Jargenduv: Then where?
Dr. West: I have other work to attend to. I am pleased you are awake. If you feel up to it, you should walk around a little. No door is forbidden here that isn't locked.

Dr. West left the room, leaving Jargenduv still confused about his position. Pleased to be alive, however, he arose and began exploring, soon finding his SCV armor and other supplies. There was a kitchen nearby with some food to prepare. Another freezer in the kitchen had row after row of flask on ice filled with a blue-green liquid that flowed easily and gently around and around, light and viscous.

In a dark room in a secret wing of the facility, a comm signal on a secure channel opened to an agent of a large and powerful force.

Dark Voice: He has awakened, and it is likely that his experience is relevant to the project.
Agent: Is there a security risk?
Dark Voice: Possibly. He did mention a name when he awakened. Two actually, but I didn't hear the first.
Agent: Whom?
Dark Voice: Alexander Tam.

The call came at noontime to the team, who had been preparing for their voyage to Tallon V. They changed course and headed back to Korhal. Tam steadied the ship easily through the waters of space until an incoming target interrupted his calm. The signature came into focus as Terran make fighter craft operated by Intergalactapol, the police subsidiary of the League of Worlds (LoW). Tam decided that this would not be the time to bring the ship's weapons to bear on the bogies, and instead spooled down as the interceptors came abeam at port and stern. A Terran voice sounded over emergency channel:

TM87-C: I am officer TM87-C representing Intergalactapol. We have reason to suspect that an individual by the name of Alexander Tam is aboard your vessel.
Tam: Yeah, that's me. In fact I'm piloting right now.
TM87-C: Then have someone else take the helm. We request you accompany us to meet with Intergalactapol investigators who would very much like to have a talk with you.
Tam: Understood. Dock order set.

Tam's veneer of control went out along with the open comm channel. He turned to the crew after setting the dock maneuver with a look of pale terror on his face. Had this been about the grand larceny of BSL, or humane issues for working under them for so long, or for the installation of heavy arms on a ship rated as transport class, or any of a thousand associations that he would have rather not had, but feared for having no choice? Elric agreed to take the helm as Intergalactapol squad officers arrived on board and dropped out with Tam into one of the interceptors. Tam requested the team retrieve Jargenduv without him.

Elric: So, I guess we go?
Moltar: Yes. Nervous at the stick?
Elric: A little, I guess. More because of the police. Why did they come to get him?
Moltar: No way of knowing, for now let's honor his request as we would an order and go get Jargenduv.
Elric: Its so unfair, just as we were getting the team back together something has to happen. Are we going to be bouncing across the sectors saving each other for the rest of our lives?
Moltar: Maybe. Consider the alternative.
Elric: What's that?
Moltar: Leaving behind our own.

Elric became more comfortable with the controls after a few minutes, and had no problems shuttling to Korhal and landing outside of the mysterious southerly town that was home to Dr. West and a handful of guarded citizens whose formal duty was unclear. An eticoon in custom Terran battle armor met with the team and escorted them into the laboratory deep beneath the sands. They collected Jargenduv and his equipment and left without ceremony. Dr. West seemed more standoffish than before, but being a somewhat protracted character to begin with, none of the team was surprised.

Tam had lost track of the coordinate changes minutes before. His shuttle was dark and uncomfortable, probed periodically by tiny blue lights that would sweep across the deck. His mind was still racing with memory of his various possible sins in the eyes of Intergalactapol. After a few more minutes he was escorted onto an orbital platform whose make and carriage Tam had not before seen. It seemed entirely more clean than the average platform and more finely crafted. On into the facility and down a long hallway through guarded gates and turns and checkpoints, the guard finally tossed Tam in a pitch black room and left.
Tam hadn't remembered passing out, or being bound, or sitting down. The light over his aching head told him all of these. The door opened and a man entered, and Tam was reminded of the last time he had been interrogated on BSL headquarters over Tarsonis. His hopes sank even further. The man approached with a little bounce here and there as he walked, clearly very pleased to be doing his job. He announced himself in a voice that could easily be a commercial for feminine care products or advertisement for a sports event. Or maybe game show:

Reginald: Good evening Alexander Tam, my name is Reginald, and tonight I'll be your interrogator on behalf of Intergalactapol.
Tam: Uh...okay.
Reginald: Let's get started, shall we? What can you tell me about the substance known as "cereal"?
Tam: I don't remember any such thing.
Reginald: In your recent experience on the surface of Korhal, did you encounter anyone asking about this substance?
Tam: There was this one guy in a cloak, an eticoon, Faust or something, who kept asking one of my crew about it but I got him to beat it.
Reginald: Remember, Reginald hates liars.

The interview continued for thirty more minutes, and to Tam's surprise, Intergalactapol was unconcerned with the affairs of his largely rogue team in the abstract and more focused on some hidden series of events involving one simple chance encounter on Korhal's surface. What were these guys after anyway?

Reginald: Thanks for playing. We'll get you back to your team real soon.

The team had left Korhal and began to make their way back to Moria to regroup when a call came from Intergalactapol about Tam:

TM88-C: This is officer TM88-C of Intergalactapol. You may meet with your friend at the coordinates specified. Out.
Elric: Hey, wait!
Moltar: Damn. Already gone. Did he send us anything else?
Jargenduv: Nope, his signal is too damn clean.
Elric: What do we do?
Moltar: They probably mean to deposit him where they found him. I have heard of this tactic before. Intergalactapol does this to lure their targets into ambushes, us coming to them rather than them coming to us.
Laharl: Is it likely they will attack us?
Moltar: I don't know. We shall have to accept that as a possibility.
Elric: One way or another we'll get there. I hope there's no ambush...I haven't been over how to operate the weapon systems yet.
Moltar: If you don't remind Tam to cover that as your next lesson...
Moltar, Jargenduv, Laharl, T'Aiur, Maddocks, and Guay all at once: I will.

Elric shuttled the team easily to nearby the coordinates (in no particular part of the sector of interest) where Intergalactapol had siezed Tam, and there stood a beacon pulsing periodically with a pale blue light and signature of the police force. Tam was adrift in space in an orange prisoner's space suit next to the beacon, unconscious. Elric decided that lifting him aboard without him being prepared was risky, and instead steadied the ship abeam his floating corpse and dropped herself outside with a tether to grab him as she went. Having had some training at fighting in a zero-G environment, Elric snagged Tam's suit and guided him back with no problems. In another minute, both were aboard and Tam awoke in the suit coughing and taking in air as quickly as he could.

Tam: They don't give you much air in those things.
Moltar: Good to have you back, sir. Elric will finish taking us home.
Tam: No, that's alright. I see that you found Jargenduv as well, so we can proceed without delay to Tallon V. Commander Orson Elric was my friend, and every minute we waste is one where his trail grows colder.
Moltar: Understood. May I ask what they wanted from you?
Tam: I'm not really sure. They seem to think there's something important about Korhal that we overlooked.
Laharl: Aside, of course, from the narcissistic and ambitious emperor, the multiple zerg invasions and the suspected shifter presence?
Tam: Yes. Although they themselves are not concerned with the affairs of Mengsk's state, only the effect on macrosociety. Still, they have good sources, they seemed to know things I wouldn't have thought possible.
Laharl: A mind probe, perhaps?
Tam: I don't think so.
Moltar: Neither do I, only Archons have that particular skill, and their applications of it would not be for the benefit of macrosociety, but rather their own twisted ends.

The surface of Tallon V bore no markings of a living society. The team found an abandoned camp in a verdant jungle hillside as the sole artifacture on the planet, and swept in to investigate. The buildings were in style like Terran tactical command buildings often used in battle, only without the complete functionality of drive systems as to be transportable. Whoever had made the camp had wanted it built quickly but didn't want to be able to move it anywhere. After an exhaustive search that lasted most of the day, Laharl stumbled upon a message left by a familiar name. Septoth had been on the planet, and the note told about a struggle with hostile forces, and indicated where he may be found. Deciding that he would be as good a person to ask as any, and that this was their first piece of evidence that didn't involve drug-induced visions and vague memories, the team left the planet for Antiga Prime, where Septoth and the Kellar could be found.

A city called Umala on the surface of Antiga Prime stood as home to the Kellar as indicated by the note Septoth left for the team to discover. After some guarded questions, the concierge left the channel and Septoth's image appeared over the comm. He guided the team in through some of the natural defenses of the city, and in another few minutes they stood face to face.

Septoth: It is good to see you again.

Most of the team looked at each other quizzically as they had only heard about Septoth and not actually met him. Tam remembered, but was also perplexed himself, as Septoth's focus hadn't been on him.

Septoth: Ordinarily I would ask you to join us in our continuing battle with the forces of darkness, but I can see that today you have come with a purpose in mind, and I will not interrupt. This journey of yours will be, for the moment, more important to us than your assistance on the field of combat.
Elric: Wh-what do you mean? Why are you looking at me?
Septoth: You wear the suit of the forefathers as does the adopted daughter of my race. Your presence here is no coincidence, nor will be the next place you find. You must go to Antiga Prime and find the subterranean circus there. It used to belong to a great scientific organization, but is now derelict and, thankfully, masked beneath the surface.
Tam: What do you mean, Antiga, that's where we are now.
Septoth: My apologies, but my status and the status of the Kellar as a rogue group predicates that we take certain precautions about how we leave our clues. Your ship's sensors will return to normal once you are outside of this platform's masking field. I simply made you believe I was where you say, as I must to avoid the prying eyes of my enemies.
Elric: You called it a "circus."
Septoth: This organization was one of unique ideas even among the highly creative ranks of the sectors top scientists. It was called the circus because the overall layout is a circle and had many activities going on within. Perhaps it would be better known now as a hecatomb, but I did not want you to have that image in your head.
Elric: Oh. Thanks, I guess. Why are you doing all this?
Septoth: You look very like your father, I think.

Septoth turned and left, and one of his entourage escorted the team back to their ship, which soon left the facility and flew off what appeared to be the planet of Antiga Prime until reaching a modicum of distance. The ship's sensors reported a minor malfunction, and restarted to reveal their coordinates were actually roughly in the middle of nowhere. Tam plotted a course for Antiga Prime, and the team shuttled along.
The planet came into view in a few hours, and the tension level on the ship rose for the first time in weeks. Before, most of them had simply thought Yuki was having exaggerated separation anxiety, and why not? She had been through more turbulence than most women three times her age. Now that they could see the planet, the validation of what had before been her frenzied ideas struck them as a potent morning bell. Sonorous and shocking, the green continents of Antiga wrapped into one another through ocean and cloud as the team approached. Those who had known Orson Elric as commander remembered a staunch and impervious veneer. Those who hadn't known him felt chills at the realization of the dream of the man. Yuki herself felt wistful as ever, equally prepared to leap into her father's arms as hoist his corpse from the ground.

Antiga Prime closed in on the team through the portholes, and in minutes they were taking in the jungle heat on the upper hemisphere and peering through deep fog for clues to the location of the circus they had come to find. After a few moment's configuring, Jargenduv and Tam had the sensors equipment calibrated to the planet's magnetic field, and Septoth's coordinates shone clearly on the monitor, guiding the team to a clearing in the woods nearby. The tangle of jungle overhead gave off a feeling of danger, as though it were an ancient sleeping beast who had devoured the previous occupiers for their crimes. The nature of the beast and the crimes would come to bear on the team after only a few steps into the deep jungle primeval.
From above and far away, snapping sounds echoed and sang in a cadence. The sounds grew louder as the team walked on, until stopping, Laharl caught sight of a figure in the brush overhead who portended violence and anguish. The team readied themselves for the fight, but were cowed at the sight of the size of the Snatcher. The monster spanned the same planiform area as the team's dropship, and swooped and swung with arm-like appendages as long as constrictors. The mighty jungle trees would bend and list under the great weight of the monster, and make cracking noises as they did that reverberated through the forest with an air of doom: a chorus of pain arranged by Satan himself. Wasting no time, the team focused their fire upward, while others waiting until the Snatcher was close enough with an appendage to strike. Laharl and T'Aiur quickly found that ranged fire was not very effective against the beast, and the only body part that would get close enough as it leapt were the arms. Laharl acted on an idea, and waited for the beast to choose one of the smaller trees in the vicinity to jump to. As the tree snapped and shrugged under the monster's weight, Laharl struck at its base with his best charging slash. The tree and monster were felled, and crashed to the jungle floor with a boom and rattle. The Snatcher hurried to regain the cover of trees while the rest of the team shot and stabbed at his prone form. Affecting the trick once more, Laharl tripped the beast this time to its doom, as the sudden rise of the ground to meet it served sufficient for a killing blow.
The team carried on with less curiosity as to why the former sapient humanoid occupants had left this planet, although Tam for one was filled with new questions: how did this species originate, is it natural, why hadn't I seen it in biological manuals?

Elric: Look ahead, there's a cave entrace. Do you think that the circus is underground?
Jargenduv: It would explain why ship's sensors couldn't pick it up.
Laharl: An excellent choice for those who wished to remain unnoticed. Doubtless they laid traps for intruders as well.
Tam: Traps that are still active even though the facility is derelict? A bit over-cautious don't you think?
Laharl: Paranoia keeps men alive, Tam.
Tam: When in Rome...howabout you and Moltar go in first. You're the most discrete.
Moltar: Aye.
T'Aiur: I should accompany them.
Tam: I want you with us out here in case that...thing has a big brother.
Elric: Do you think it could fit in the cave?
Tam: What do you mean?
Elric: Just sayin'.

Laharl and Moltar crept into the cave with cloaks on and footfalls soft. After only a few paces the stony walls gave way to a familiar architecture of steel and circuit: a portal of Terran facility make. Laharl called clear over the comm and the rest of the team descended. Jargenduv skillfully manipulated the electrical locking apparatus and the portal swept open into a long, dimly-lit corridor. After a half hour of peering and marching and searching, the team found a floor plan for the facility that explained just how large the circus was. Deciding that an exhaustive search would be out of the question, Jargenduv found and highlighted areas of interest: the locked rooms marked as research areas run by familiar names: Orson Elric, Dargon Coull, and O-lcu.
Getting to the rooms required the careful dodging of a pit trap, and opening locked doors with finesse where appropriate, and force where not. The team stood at the entrance to what spread into four congruent corridors, with a sign above the threshold posted in an astylistic bronze plaque which read "Laboratories of the Alchemist Kings." Inside the anteroom, the four doors spread before them, each with an arcane symbol above the top. For whatever reason this palace of super-science had been constructed, the decorators had at least had a flair for ancient Terran symbolism.
A brief search revealed that each of these corridors had some theme in mind: wind, fire, water, and earth. At the end of the "fire" corridor, Elric noticed an impression in the door on the right hand side of the hall that matched the pendant she had been wearing.

Jargenduv: Where did you get that?
Elric: One of Septoth's men handed it to me before we left. He said it had been my father's.
Jargenduv: Your father had necklaces that could open any door? I like your father I think.

The room was derelict and looted. What cabinets remained were overturned or emptied. A single datapad left behind had lists of nonsensical code, likely from damage to the storage or power cells. Elric caught sight of a note left behind by the last person to use the room:

"The soul must burn in magnificence, until it shines as the perfect Silver."

She remembered the words, and looked once again at her pendant, which intoned them again in an inscription thereon.

Tam: Well, what do you make of all this?
Jargenduv: Its not very helpful. We already knew that he had left this place, even before he was our boss.
Moltar: Boss never did talk about his other jobs.
Jargenduv: Or his kid.

The three looked at Yuki who was sitting behind her father's desk staring at her pendant.

Tam: Maybe if we figured out what this is all about?
Jargenduv: You mean this datapad? Forget it. I've seen encryption and encryption and this isn't it.
Tam: There has to be something.
Jargenduv: You can help me with it in my lab on Moria maybe. I'm not going to field-strip this poor old junk.
Tam: Its just so frustrating to come so far and still not even learn what he was doing for a living here.
T'Aiur: Perhaps his friends were working on similar things. Let us explore the other corridors.

One by one, the team explored the remaining corridors for clues to the whereabouts of Orson Elric, or a description of the work that he had been doing. The wind corridor was uninteresting, and affected a mighty gust that prohibited entry once explored. The earth corridor was caved-in. The water corridor was flooded, but carrying on, the team found a most elaborate storage facility on the other end. The huge warehouse walls stretched as far as they could see beneath them, and a still-working terminal pleasantly awaited input to retrieve the contents of any of tens of thousands of lockers. A look-up indicated that one item of note appeared in many of the lockers, a substance called "secret sauce," that the team had been looking for. Laharl took eighteen small, sealed flasks of the substance, and the team made their way out of the corridor, but not before Jargenduv discovered another switch.

Jargenduv: Hey guys...I think this can clear up the cave-in.
Tam: Why do you think that?
Jargenduv: Just a hunch. No harm in throwing the switch, right?
Moltar: There was that pit trap from before.
T'Aiur: And the many alarms of that facility of Korhal.
Elric: Don't forget the shifter tank.
Moltar: Or the Ing-occupied Luminoth scientist.
Laharl: Or nearly the entirety of the Chozo ruins beneath the desert.
Jargenduv: Right, but I'm flipping the damn switch.

A sound echoed from the hallway and stopped. Pecking noises like the falling of gravels could be heard through the walls. The team found the path to the Earth area cleared and explored.

Tam: How did you know?
Jargenduv: The map says that Coull ran both of these wings, or at least helped. Also it was labelled.
Tam: Typical.

The storage facility in this new wing had a few large lockers instead of many small ones. Each housed a giant diorama, showcasing the events of a man's life:

The first showed a man on an operating table in the middle of a heart transplant. Several other human organs were nearby on a table.
The second showed that man giving a speech to an appreciative audience. A screen behind him demonstrated a business plan in flow-chart.
The third showed a huge battlefieldscape in miniature, with a single soldier in familiar looking Terran battle armor highlighted by a spot. The cherry-red gleam of the armor of Coull himself.
The fourth was locked tight and unviewable at first.
The fifth showed two men in casual dress a parlor. Coull was stabbing the other man with a combat knife.
The sixth had many pieces of a diorama and chunks of wax sitting around and was unfinished.
The seventh showed four shadowy figures meeting in a conference room. Coull and O-lcu were present. The other two had their backs to the front and could not be made out.
The eighth showed in perfect detail a funeral service for a man in an open casket: Dargon Coull.

Jargenduv: I've got this one open, you guys. Take a look.

The shielding slowly lifted on the fourth chamber, to reveal the model of a human hand soaked in shining red. The hand was clutching and raised upward. The words "The Future" stood behind it in red contrasted by hospital white.

Laharl: Who was this man?
Tam: I don't know, but if we find him then maybe we can find Elric.
Moltar: He's probably dead. He at least seemed to have plans for his own funeral.
Elric: He had plans for well after that. Just what the hell did all these guys do?
Laharl: Were that we could lay that question to rest, young Terran, we perhaps could lead more peaceful lives.
Elric: There's not going to be a peaceful way for me for a long time, is there?
Laharl: The challenge that the darkness brings to bear is how long men of virtue can live in the fog. It is warriors like we who lead both sides of life at once.
Elric: Uh...is that right?
Jargenduv: Besides, we're all in this together. Some of us want to see the boss again, you know.
Moltar: He was...an efficient commander.
Tam: He never lost a man under my watch. O-lcu seems to have had another room in this circus. Let's see if there's anything there before we leave.

The team walked through the massive facility through twisting hallways and forking rooms without difficulty. A room finally stood before them that read "Holotest Chamber," and was recorded as being operated by O-lcu, the mysterious Luminoth scientist from BSL.
The room stood mostly empty before them, taking a sharp decline to lead into a cubical room with walls aglow all over with dim blue panels outlined with seemingly random streaks of black. In the center stood a tall podium that projected an egg-shaped beacon into the room's heart. Every few seconds, an orange flash would sweep across the whole room, and for a moment, the team could see the image of some other place, but not for long enough to tell exactly where.

The team left the circus on Antiga to head back to Moria, cast in a pall by the shadows of the Alchemist Kings, whose purpose on the planet remained unclear. As the little ship streaked through the heavens to the womb of space, the team on board tried to piece together the events behind the men they had just met. Jargenduv regarded his acquisition once again in private: the armor of Dargon Coull and the message it bore:

"Only when Coull returns will the way be paved."

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