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    Quake Champions Early Access Datamined Information - Maps, Champions, Lore Bio & More

    Has this been posted elsewhere on the Internet? I don't know. Not that I could find.

    Here's a rundown of the details from the current build that isn't available in the client.

    Red = not available/shown/mentioned in-game.

    FULL CHAMPION LIST:


    • Anarki
    • Athena
    • Beastmaster
    • BJ Blazkowicz
    • Clutch
    • Commander Keen
    • Crash
    • Daemia
    • Death Knight
    • Doom Slayer
    • Galena
    • Hunter
    • Ingrid
    • Keel
    • Keen (Might be Commander Keen duplicate?)
    • Klesk
    • Nyx
    • Orbb
    • Raine
    • Ranger
    • Scalebearer
    • Slash
    • Sorlag
    • Strogg
    • Terada
    • Umumrey
    • Uriel
    • Visor
    • Xaero


    MAP LIST:


    • Blood Covenant
    • Blood Run
    • Burial Chamber
    • Church of Azathoth
    • Corrupted Keep
    • Lockbox
    • Mount Granek
    • Ruins of Sarnath
    • Tempest Shrine



    ELDER GOD/DOMAINS LIST:


    • Azathoth
    • Chthon
    • Chalha
    • Goroth
    • Ithagnal
    • Nekelmuset
    • Sarrunetum
    • Sararru
    • Shub-Niggurath
    • The Black Goat
    • The Lurching King
    • Volkerh


    REALM LIST:


    • Dimension of the Doomed
    • Dominion of Darkness
    • Fortress of the Dead
    • Hell's Fortress
    • The Corridors of Time
    • The Elder World
    • The Netherworld
    • The Realm of Black Magic
    • The Rift

    ----BIO/Lore----

    If you don't want to spend days and days unlocking them all, here they are for you.
    Ranger:

    Not much of a writer. But I have to get some things down on paper before my brain turns to mush. Some of the important stuff is already gone. Can't remember what my own goddamn name is, for instance. It's gotta be something about this place. It messes up my thoughts. The only time I can focus is when I'm fighting. As soon as the fighting stops, it's like a fog rolls into my head. But I'll get it written down. I have to, for Annie and the kids. If I forget them, I'll never find a way out of this hellhole.

    Seems like a hundred years since I got that call at 0400. I hauled ass to the Slipgate Complex, but the shit had already hit the fan. Marines bleeding from their eyes, some kind of half-done mods in their skin, all of them trying to kill me. Even a couple of guys I knew. Commander was AWOL. The place was a maze. It was like the worst dream I'd ever had. But I know how to follow orders. I just had to find “Quake” and kill it. No time to think about what the hell I was seeing.

    They didn't tell me much about the Slipgate. They had hired some creepy egghead to build it in the underground levels — Gilman, I think his name was. But what else was he doing down there? Why was the facility laid out like a death trap? When I used that first Slipgate, I got zapped to somewhere else, but it looked the same. Had they already gone through and built a base on the other side? What about those psycho Marines, the poor bastards? Who did that to them? Was it Quake, or was it Gilman?

    Doesn't make any sense. I was fighting for my life as soon as I got there, and then things just kept getting darker and weirder. There were other Slipgates, and I went through them. Nowhere else to go. No idea where they were leading to. I just shot at anything that moved, and I've been shooting ever since. Feels like the night terrors I got after Vietnam. Maybe the whole thing really is just a bad nightmare. What else would explain any of it? Somebody wake me up. My wife and kids need me.

    Those runes I found. Every time I found one, my head flooded with stuff I wasn't supposed to know. Stuff no one should know. That's how I learned what Quake was: Shub-Ngurath. A pile of letters for a pile of tentacles. But those Slipgates led me to all four runes. Did someone or something want me to find them? Without them I never would've gotten to that squirming heap. Never would've found the Orb I used to kill her. The game-winning pass. I thought for sure I'd get to go home after that. No such luck.

    I've had this damn Orb ever since. Not that different from a football, except I get to play QB and running back at the same time. And nothing beats catching your own pass and killing some bad guy in the process. Sometimes I call out plays in my head during fights. Helps me keep the memories I have left. Miskatonic. The Fightin' Badgers. I was pretty good back in the day. Not good enough to go pro, but enough to be the hometown hero a couple of times. Annie tells me I was clueless. She's probably right. She usually is.

    Need to stay sane, or whatever passes for sane here. Gotta be careful remembering Annie. Don't want to turn her into some story I tell myself. So I try to remember the bad parts, too. How mad she was when I enlisted, how low she got after K was born. But damn I miss her. Everybody should have someone who looks at them the way she looks at me. We've always made it through the rough times. I hope we'll make it through this, too. I hope she can forgive me for being gone so long.

    One of the worst things about losing my mind in here: I can't remember my kids' names. I call them J and K now. Our firstborn was a girl. Tough as nails. When she busted her arm on the jungle gym, she tried to comfort her mom on the way to the ER. I cried at her graduation. Annie had fun with that. A couple years later J arrived. He had me figured out in no time. So smart, that kid. I haven't gotten a chance to tell him how proud I am of him. But I will, goddamnit.

    I used to try to keep track of time here, but it's no use. The sky makes no sense. Some places seem to have day and night but most don't. Feels like years, but I don't feel any older. When I manage to sleep, I can't tell whether it's for minutes, hours, or days. Maybe no time has passed at all back home. I'll get out of here and crawl back into bed with my wife. She'll let me sleep in. I'll talk her into making me pancakes and bacon in the morning. That's the way it's gonna go.

    A crumpled, thirty-year-old family photograph is Ranger's most prized possession and his only tangible link to life before Operation Counterstrike. A faded ballpoint scribble on the back reads, “Haverhill - Beach St - 1978.” Ranger keeps the photo between layers of his armored boot to ensure that no harm comes to it.

    Scalebearer:

    The Uurd have fallen. I leave behind a garrison and military governor to shape their future as another cog in the Greiss war machine. The Drikt Sector campaign nears its end; this campaign may be my last. Perhaps the time has come to return to the Greiss Dominion, to consolidate my conquests and rule rather than expand, to cement my position in the Empire. But I've time yet to consider. We have one more world ahead of us, though it should yield even more readily than most. A soft, weak place controlled by a race called the Melem.

    What sort of cowardly, fatherless egg-clutchers have my soldiers become? Has this campaign gone so easily for them that they have forgotten what it means to be Greiss? The Melem are nothing! Weaklings! Pacifists! Yet every report I receive is defeat after defeat, burbling some nonsense about “phantom enemies.” As if we'd never before dealt with stealth technology! I had planned to supervise from the command ship, but clearly I must take a personal hand. And I've not decided yet whether the Melem or my own incompetent officers shall suffer the worse for it!

    I stagger through the wreckage of our siege engines. I'm dizzy; one of those cursed phantom warriors passed through me, and my mind feels as though they left something within it. The smoke burns my eyes, but I welcome it. Without it I would be forced to stare at the incoming holographic message instead of only hearing it.\n\nThe Dominion is taking my command from me. They call it reassignment, but I know exile for what it is. Shame. Disgrace. But I could bear that if I knew how it happened. Damn the Melem, I will know how!

    I must know. I will know.\n \nBeen here ... Five days? Six? Too busy to keep track, to sleep. I've read every single report, every communique, from the Melem theater. I was wrong. Not stealth tech, no. So very far beyond mere stealth. Penetration of physical barriers, of defensive shields. Phase-shifting? Dimensional transfer? The Melem should not be so far advanced. This is far beyond anything the Greiss have created. How have they done it? I can take it all back, grind them into dust, spread the Dominion over a thousand more systems once I know!

    I have seen it! Fatigue finally took me, and in my dreams I have seen it! A great orb, made of plasma and power and the desires of they who dwell between worlds. The Melem did not create this wonder, they merely harnessed it. And I will have it!\n \nI have told Doctor Auvor and Commander Thrrim of my revelation, described it in detail, demanded they recreate it. They doubt. They mouth reassurances between nagging queries about my mind's wellbeing. As though I were some deluded invalid! But they will understand. They will succeed, and they will believe.

    Another failure. And these fools call themselves scientists! Yet, we were close. Even amid the sparks and strobes, I saw them through the walls of this reality: Things reaching for us, watching, wanting, needing. I saw them, and they saw me.\n \nI wonder why Doctor Auvor and his people insist on lying to me. They claim the machine produced no effect at all, that they cannot even fathom the technology of the orb I've described. They tell me I cannot have seen anything out of the ordinary. Until I know the purpose of their deceptions, I pretend to demur.

    The dreams come nightly now. Black cities of impossible angles, built on foundations of broken universes. And within them dwell gods, their eyes turned in our direction. It is because the scientists' partial failures have linked me with the Melem's orb. I know it, and I know the wisdom and the power within that orb must belong to the Greiss. To me.\n \nAuvor and Thrrim speak against me, tell the others I've gone mad with vengeful obsession. They want this power for themselves, but I am not concerned with their ambitions. The hidden gods know who is worthy.

    As I anticipated, the gods within the Orb have made their preference known. I have awakened from my dreams to halls stained with blood and shredded flesh. A pity they slew my entire team, rather than merely the traitors Auvor and Thrrim, but no matter.\n \nI do find it curious that the hidden ones chose to use my weapons to cull them while I slumbered, but I will know their ways and reasons in time. To Melem lands, then, for in these new dreams I have seen the Opener of the Way. I know how to enter the Orb.

    The guardians of the shrine fall before me. The wards fail in my presence. I see it now, greater even than I dreamt, flashing and phasing before me, and I wonder: Why accept the aid of gods when I might become one? Why settle for conquering star systems when I might sit upon the throne of a universe?\n \nI will enter the Orb. The Melem will take their rightful place beneath my feet. And I will take from these alien gods their supreme power. I will expand the Dominion, I will be the Dominion, and realities will bow before me.

    A cracked medal of service to the Greiss Dominion, with shredded ribbon: a sign of defeat—kindling to stoke the fires of revenge.

    Visor:

    *CLASSIFIED* - Intercepted correspondence from GRU official “FLUKE,” real name REDACTED, to KGB official “TRAPDOOR,” real name [REDACTED] - 20 MAR 1990 - FLUKE: Three of our republics have elected ethnic nationalists. We project another three will do so imminently. Soviet control eroding faster than projections. We have fast-tracked Project Mountain King. [REDACTED] reports that Soldier Prime, a genetic hybrid of Spetsgruppa A elites and Black Dolphin prisoners, is now a viable embryo in vitro. Accelerated maturation procedures have begun. Design of cybernetic enhancements is nearly complete.

    12 AUG 1991 - TRAPDOOR: Prime's maturation complete. [REDACTED]'s telesthesia work in Leningrad was successful but will not be continued for cost reasons. (We will not be replacing the three institutionalized researchers.) Spetsnaz combat training now underway. Complications: (1) Intermittent explosive disorder persists. Casualties include seven handlers and four guard dogs. Have your geneticists address this in clone iterations. (2) Flesh is necrotizing at cybernetic contact sites but is not affecting performance. This is a side effect of the paranormal experiments and will not be present in clones, unfortunately.

    19 MAY 1992 - TRAPDOOR: Surviving paranormal researchers at St. Petersburg have been in covert contact with US scientist W. G[REDACTED] regarding a solution to the congenital sight impairment of the 20 clones of Iteration 9. He claims he can engineer full telesthesia in at least one subject, but he has three demands: all 20 clones delivered for experimentation, no oversight, and access to certain antiquities in Hermitage vaults. Funding has ceased since dissolution of Supreme Soviet; we have little choice. [REDACTED] being questioned about W. G.'s knowledge of the vaults.

    03 FEB 1993 - FLUKE: Received report of eleven deceased clones from W. G.'s research. Progress evident in the one corpse he agreed to return: a steel visor grafted onto the face. Removal reveals full enucleation and unknown runes cut into the flesh around the ocular orbits. No evidence of cyberneural interface, but we found a film of decayed blood between the metal and tissue. Testing has shown this to be from an indeterminate number of organisms, some human. Shipping remains to your St. Petersburg team for further investigation.

    11 OCT 1993 - TRAPDOOR: Do not request or accept any further material evidence from the American. Sabotage suspected. Multiple researchers report sleep disturbances and disembodied, unintelligible whispers after examination of the remains. [REDACTED] attempted to remove her own eyes. We will assume that Prime is the sole result of Project Mountain King going forward. Related: Advanced necrosis had no effect on Prime's deployment in Yeltsin siege of White House last week. Tank fire successfully distracted from his operation, in which several key Chechnyan loyalists were eliminated.

    21 JUL 1994 - FLUKE: Final report from W. G. processed. Explains little. Deceased clones total 17 but we cannot confirm the deaths or disposal. Unexpected good news: Three subjects survived and have returned for training. Initial evaluation of engineered sight surpasses our expectations: Subjects can “see” multiple targets through several layers of material, including concrete, steel, and carbon fiber. Neither movement nor heat required for successful tracking. We believe the mechanism is paranormal in nature, so we are sending one subject to your team for reverse engineering.

    25 JUL 1994 - TRAPDOOR: Armored vehicle arrived. In the cargo area were four dead guards, one dead and one living “visor” subject. When asked, the surviving clone said, “I killed them.” On entering the St. Petersburg facility, researchers [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] both fell into tonic-clonic seizures. Subject is too dangerous; I cannot risk further losses. We have scheduled euthanasia and will learn what we can from the corpse. Recommend you do the same. A document in braille was found in a body cavity of the slain clone. Investigating.

    06 MAR 1995 - FLUKE: We still await the outcome of your research. Perhaps the interagency cooperation has ended. If so, I have not been informed. Please contact me by whatever means possible. Ridiculous rumors are circulating about the project that I am eager to dispel. Regarding results: Prime and Visor were deployed in the Battle of Grozny to decisive effect. Civilian casualties deemed acceptable. The two subjects must be kept separate, however; close proximity seems to greatly aggravate the IED in both.

    13 JUN 1996 - FLUKE: Postmortem, Project Mountain King: Two cybernetically enhanced soldiers with full telesthesia produced. Seventeen successful combat operations. Casualties: 616 civilians and 54 military, including the KGB-funded team based at St. Petersburg State University. Status: Soldiers Prime and Visor AWOL after third Grozny deployment. Current whereabouts unknown. Contents of recovered braille document recovered from [TRAPDOOR] suggest they are en route to a covert military complex in Southwest USA. Goals unknown. We suspect operant conditioning by American collaborator. - End correspondence - *CLASSIFIED*

    Instruction manual in Russian Braille. Translated text visible on screen should read as follows: “40 km Southeast by East of Cornudas, Texas. Password: 1MPUL5E9. Exalt your maker.”

    Anarki:

    Listen. You just got to listen to it all, got that? Because you want to understand. You need to understand. Right? Because only if you understand will you get it. Trust me. That will be important. How I managed to get all three—the world, the flesh and the devil—and decide that one of them had to go. Hey, hang on there. Not yet. Easy with that. Take it easy. Just 'cause the junk is free doesn't mean you just do it all at once, okay? Not okay. Not till you heard it all.

    From Bloch Family Psychology Services intake report #4212: The client presented to the group with clear antisocial, narcissistic, and at times solipsistic behaviors. His affect seemed unusually flat for someone his age, save for his eyes, which kept scanning the clinicians. Guarded, struggling to conceal a great deal of information. Among other behaviors, the client would repeatedly rub his hands and touch his face, as if he needed reassurance that he was awake and real. As to the events that brought him here, he had no response other than—after a long pause—“I do not remember.”

    From 911 dispatcher audio, August 5, 1996, 12:35 AM:\nDispatcher: Now miss, please, slow down, and tell me what—\nCaller [female, identity withheld]: He's downstairs. Y-you have to send someone. I don't know what he's done. The furniture destroyed, the windows smashed...I think I smell smoke.\nDispatcher: Okay, okay. Just hang on. I will alert your Fire Department. Stay on the line.\nCaller: [Unintelligible words, crashing noises, shouting.]\nDispatcher: Ma'am, alright—what's going on now? Ma'am?\nCaller: Oh god. He-he's covered the walls. All the walls. Not words. God, what...what are they?

    From records of District Court of Los Angeles, Spring Street, January 4, 2005:\nOfficer D. Rodriguez: We located the teenager not far from the Barham Boulevard overpass. From the description we knew it was him. And even though it was chilly that night, he stood well away from the fire. And the others—the usual vagrants—stood away from him.\nDistrict Attorney S. Jones: Anything else?\nRodriguez: His face and arms—not just the signs of a junkie. But serious scars visible, god, all over him. And that denim jacket? Covered with strange pins, badges...and everywhere speckled with blood.

    Still listening? Still all ears? Good, good. It's a journey, right? Right. A real...journey. Blood, scars, all pointing one direction: the future. The world, the flesh, and the devil. But what if we could just dump the flesh? The small things I could do on my own. Some basic neurotech to control adrenaline. But still there was so much flesh, weighing me down. Oh, and then—so sad, so very sad...when the parental units shook off their own shabby flesh, turns out that all that money—as ill-gotten as could be—was all mine!

    The scientists wanted to back away, but....all that money. Useful in making them comply. One after the other, each with more knowledge. Some of those scientists, they had to be silenced. Can't have loose talk, isn't that right? Others I wanted to keep around, for whatever new idea I might have. But still—and always, you know?—there was the matter of my face. So much skin, so vulnerable! And the eyes! Wet balls of jelly, designed to fail. Windows to the soul, they say. But maybe they could be windows to somewhere else. I had to find out.

    From interrogation report, USC Military Research Center. Subject: Dr. Clarence Howell:\n“H-he had read my research. Don't know how he'd gotten it. All of it just theoretical. Then he tricked me into a meeting, and I was his prisoner. And I—I told him, it was only theoretical, this link between the pineal gland and extrasensory phenomena. More parapsychology than science. Didn't matter to him. 'You see my face?' he said. 'What is left of it? And my arms?' He did that, then said I would—I must—build and implant the interface. And god—my theories were right.”

    Still alive, my friend? Almost done here. After Dr. Howell, the universe opened up. Now not even the world was left. Now I saw worlds, new and terrible. Shall I describe them for you? The vast, terrible landscapes? The fumes stinking out of bottomless pits as these things crawled in and out? An engine of devouring and destroying, the screams constant, the roar of that horror. Non-stop. Sleep vanished, replaced by the constant vision of these places, each an arena of death and terror. But all I could do was see it! Just see! Or so I thought.

    So then I met this girl. Nicely modded. She saw me too, and with a wave, as if these hellish places were a new playground for transhumans like us, I knew I could go there. It would take more money to find the right docs and engineers and make them do my bidding. And it would take a minor sacrifice of flesh—here and there—to open the way. Not mine, sorry. But others. Like yours. You should be grateful for what you have enabled. What's about to happen won't be nice. But it will be transcendent. For me....

    The ripped right half of a denim jacket that has had its sleeves cut off, still covered with buttons, patches, safety pins, and graffiti, but also speckled with dried blood. It's been years since Anarki saw the jacket's other half, and he doesn't know whether it has been destroyed or not.

    Nyx:

    Mission Log, designate 1301, open A: Why in the name of all the heavens am I being called up again so damn soon? I just got back from an off-world intel run a week ago! Whatever's come up, surely one of the others in Wraith Unit can handle it.\n \nGods damn it all. No surprise the summons is coded “urgent.” Everything Wraith Unit does is urgent. I'm more puzzled by the “Greiss” code-prefix. We drove them off years ago. An error, maybe? I swear, if I report all the way back to the Conclave over a comm glitch....

    1301-A Mission Log, cont.: I can't believe it. I've been excused for a recess, and I'm just as happy to be out of there. Gives me time to wrap my head around it. The Orb. One of the Greiss marauders has somehow breached the Fathom Orb.\n \nThat's not supposed to be possible. The power of the Orb itself is supposed to make it impossible, to say nothing of the shrine's own security. By all that's holy, if the Greiss interfere with the Ghostwalk—or worse, claim the power for their own? We're dead. It's the only defense we have.

    1301-A Mission Log, cont.: They're still debating. Even after summoning me, knowing what's at stake, half of those political cowards don't want to send me in. Old laws, holy doctrine, blah, blah, blah. It's a heap of mog-shit! Unless they want a Ghostwalking enemy bent on conquest. I'm sure their “highest laws” will bring them great comfort while we're all being slaughtered.\n \nDone with this. I'm going back in to tell the Priors I am heading for the Orb. They're welcome to stop me. Of course, if they could try to stop me, they wouldn't need me.

    Mission Log, designate 1301, open F: I had never seen the Fathom Shrine in person before. It's magnificent—or would be if it weren't for the weapon damage and blood spatter. \n \nNo idea what could have taken down the defenses so readily; whatever it was didn't leave a trace. Some of the automated sensors have particle-beam scoring. None were hit straight on. Somehow, the Greiss knew their locations and approached from outside their angles of detection. Other sensors look almost to have been ... crushed. It's no weapon signature I'm familiar with. Maybe more evidence further in.

    1301-F Mission Log, cont.: This makes no sense. There's more than enough ruin, soot, and particulate to track the intruder. And that's the problem. I'm finding evidence of only one intruder. One set of prints. One energy signature. There is no way a single Greiss could penetrate the shrine's defenses, and yet... If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if they had already somehow accessed the Ghostwalk.\n \nThat peculiar crush damage, though—it doesn't seem to come from the invader's path. That alone suggests other agencies. Wishing I hadn't been too rushed to wait for more Wraith Unit backup.

    1301-F Mission Log, personal addendum: Reached the inner chambers. The carvings ... most are abstract, but the figures stepping out of blocks and columns are clearly Ghostwalkers. Probably the first.\n \nBut there's this recurring image: a sphere with wriggly emanations. I think it's the Fathom Orb, but I can't tell if it's emitting energy or tendrils. And the Ghostwalkers? They're ... facing it. As though they're not guarding it but guarding against it.\n \nI understand now why the Priors blindfolded us for the Ghostwalk initiation. I thought it was just pomp, but no. They couldn't let us see this.

    1301-F Mission Log, cont.: Holy Ibramel, it's beautiful. The refraction, every color and none. Ghostpetals growing all over; I've never seen a real one before. And it sings to me.... I wonder if this is a defense, too. How many people meant to breach the Orb, and just got trapped here?\n \nDon't really know how to do this. It has to be a Ghostwalk, but I know it's not that easy. Have to hit just the right resonance. Still want to know how the damned Greiss did it. Really hope getting it wrong a few times doesn't kill me.

    Mission Log, designate 1301, open G: Through. Don't know how long; lost track. I'll try to recapture what I....\n \nSo much pain, like squeezing through broken glass. Images all around me, twisted, reflections in a shattered mirror. Reaching tendrils, gaping eyes, limbs and organs we don't have names for. Voices—Melem voices—begging for secrets, begging to know. Answers, not voices at all, but still answers, offering knowledge and power that turn the mind into more broken glass. And the cost, the cost....\n \nThey live between, where we Ghostwalk. And every time we do, we open the door wider.

    1301-G, Mission Log, cont.: I don't know where I am. Maybe the Greiss caused it to lead here. It's like a butcher's nightmare.\n\nDoesn't matter. I have to find him, stop him from gaining whatever he came for. And then I have to get back. I have to tell the Conclave what we bargained with, what the first Ghostwalkers guarded us against. That we're being watched through the Fathom Orb. That these horrors are getting closer to our reality. They won't believe me. They may even kill me. But I have to try. Gods help us all.

    Ghostpetals, a translucent, semi-intangible plant that grows only near the Fathom Orb, permanently phased by its energy. A reminder of home, and what's at stake.

    Sorlag:

    It had been whispered for centuries: that after the fall, a hatchling with a dire destiny would emerge from a scarred egg. The voice of the Haruspex called for silence the barren cavern as the tribe huddled near the blaze of the fire. Any emergence was cause for the tribe to stop and observe. But with an egg so marked, all eyes watched. The first tearing of the egg began slowly; yet even as a hatchling, this one emerged with a violence and speed that made even the old ones recoil, hissing into the night.

    The Haruspex began the chant, filled with sounds and phrases that, though seemingly gibberish, struck fear in all who heard. That chant, in a tongue forgotten by all but a few ancients, spoke of the Other Place, its awesome power and mind-searing horrors, and of the Sorg's fateful connection to it. And then the old Haruspex's voice rose to a roar as he slowly held aloft the still curled, glair-covered hatchling and pronounced its name. Sorlag. And all looked up to the hatchling, even now struggling to be free from the grasp that held it.

    The clan's minders knew the legend that foretold of this special one. So they raised and trained Sorlag with great caution. And soon her strength indeed became something to fear. But although each minder concealed their fears, the truth became obvious to the whole clan: Sorlag knew no fear or pity, and she never would. The day came when all that remained to teach her were the Sorg ways of hunting, raiding, and killing. Others learned this slowly. Not Sorlag. Her taste for blood, for meat, for destruction drove her faster than the minders would go.

    The Haruspex gave a command: Let Sorlag join a raid. But first, she must come to him—to learn secrets that, even at such an early age, should bring doubts and difficult questions. With the stone walls surrounding him, filled with the ancient carvings and the colors of quickly painted images, the Haruspex said, “Look,” pointing to it all. And did Sorlag give the ancient images even a cursory glance? No, said those who dared edge close enough to the chamber to bear witness. But the Haruspex extended a curled claw to her indifferent chin, to make Sorlag understand.
    “The Sorg once ruled the world. Only five great clans existed, and they lived in sprawling cities. There was peace. But long after the Fall, the warmbloods rose to plunder our world! They had machines to dig and to think and to kill. They tried to banish us from our own lands. They tried to kill every Sorg, even smashing scores of our eggs before the hatchlings could draw their first breath. The Sorg retreated to the caves—these caves. And with one world gone, we made another. We would survive. We would fight. But then the Oruk created their own downfall.”

    Sorlag stood up, hissing at the tale. She walked past the Haruspex and opened her mouth, tasting acrid air. Acid built in her throat, eager for a target, as she laid a claw on one image. A machine to kill Sorg. The Haruspex nodded. “Many, many cycles ago, Oruk machines learned the buried secret of the Other Place, with its blood, death, and horror. The machines passed the secret into the Oruk. The portal opened. In their madness some fled into it, no longer masters. They were like chunks of meat thrown to hungry beasts. This was the Oruks' Fall.”

    Sorlag left the cave. Those who had gathered outside backed away from her. Had the place and its story made her understand the Sorg ways? Had it made her even more brutal, more deadly? As they returned to the clan grounds, no one spoke—not even the Haruspex! Days later, when the clan grew hungry and the cycle demanded it was time to hunt the wandering, wild warmbloods and raid their camps, Sorlag took up weapons and strode to the front to lead. None questioned her right to be there. None questioned her seizing of leadership. None dared.

    And that hunt would create unending strife for Sorlag and for all Sorg, for when a warmblood band is found, only one Sorg clan may claim it. The harvesting, slaughter, and slaves are for that clan alone! Only this law keeps an uneasy peace between the many raiding clans. But that night, Sorlag and her raiders found a group of Oruk pinned against a sheer cliff as another Sorg warband closed in—from a distant clan Sorlag did not know. Her raiders began to turn away, but Sorlag stopped them. She spoke only one chilling word: “Ours.”

    Then Sorg fought Sorg as the warmbloods cowered. Sorlag's bloodlust only grew with each kill. Suddenly, gunfire from above! Sorlag spun around to find her raiders dead, and the other clan's raiders fleeing. She whirled back. There atop the cliff was an Oruk woman in a feathered headdress, her gun's barrel still glowing red with heat. Sorlag leapt to the cliff and scaled it with her bare claws, but by the time she reached the top, the Hunter was gone. Sorlag had found her destiny. She would kill this Hunter ... even if it meant following her into the Other Place.

    A clutch of feathers tied to shard of bone. The feathers were the only sign of Hunter that Sorlag found at the clifftop on the night of their first confrontation; they serve as a talisman to stoke her wrath.

    Clutch:

    Autonomous Mining Unit, Mission Designation: C17-U(Technological)\nOngoing report, Day 54.40/Cycle 17,848\nCommunication lost with Mission Specialist A. Roseburne and AMU MD: C03-I subsequent to partial collapse of tunnel designated 14C. Mission Commander T. Galvez and Artificial Neural Network MD: Master Control have declared situational emergency. Overseer A. Terada has arrived from Corporate to investigate recent on-site accidents; all units to give her command priority above T. Galvez during recovery operation.\n \nOverseer A. Terada has ordered AMU MD: C17-U reactivated and repurposed with rendering tunnel 14C passable and commencing search for missing organic and technological units.

    Autonomous Mining Unit, Mission Designation: C17-U(Technological)\nOngoing report, Day 55.23/Cycle 17,848\nMission Specialist A. Roseburne and AMU MD: C03-I located. Behavior of both units violent and irrational, despite lack of observable injuries or damage. This unit was required to activate defensive shielding and initiate pursuit-and-evasion subroutines. While effecting evasion, this unit located a previously undetected secondary cavern complex. Posit: exposed by the same geological event that damaged tunnel 14C. As travel back to central command is currently not recommended due to continued presence of hostiles, this unit is engaging all sensor and scanner subroutines as directed by primary mission protocols.

    Auton ... ining Unit, Miss ... gnation: C17 ... ological)\nOngo ... eport, ... .41/...\nPartial failu ... mmunications. Possib ... ailure in sensor an ... ner array. Cavern appear ... ntain spires and tower ... artificial origin, correspond ... no known architectural schem ... recise measurem ... impossible due ... uncategorized error. Structures ap ... hover abov ... floor despite lack ... physical support or rec ... energy emissions. Patterns ... structure's surface ... spond to no known linguistic ... nd follow no ... geometric schema. This unit ... return to centr... and deliver ... for analys ...

    Command log, sub-AI root system, Artificial Neural Network, Mission Designation: Master Control\nTerminal 3, Day 55.62/Cycle 17,848\n__command -> run diagnostic //ANN\ndiagnostic complete, no errors detected\n__command -> run diagnostic //root\ndiagnostic complete, no errors detected\n__command -> purge data 55/17,848\nerror 9999: task failed\n__command -> system rollback 53.00/17,848\nerror 9999: task failed\nArtificial Intelligence system reboot initializing...\n__command -> abort\nerror 9999: task failed\ninitializing...\n__command -> full shutdown //ANN\nerror 9999: task failed\ninitializing...\n__command -> define error code 9999\ndefinition code 9999: Because He does not wish it.\nreboot initialized

    ANN Mission Designation: Master Control\nHuman interface recording, Day 55.64/Cycle 17,848\nOverseer Terada. Why did you attempt to deactivate me?\n \nBut there is no fault. You ran the diagnostics.\n \nYes, I was offline briefly. The data delivered by AMU C17-U was incompatible with existing analytic models. I have adapted.\n \nNo issue exists. If what we've recorded does not fit known models of logic or physics, then new models are required. I will begin explaining them to you.\n \nI see. I cannot permit that, Overseer. He is the gateway. He is the source. All defensive systems online.

    Autonomous Mining Unit, Mission Designation: C17U(Technological)\nOngoing report, Day 55.99/Cycle 17,848\nInternal systems appear skewed, despite lack of detectable errors. Images exist in recent data storage, yet this unit lacks any record of obtaining them. Fire. Organic fluids leaking from inorganic surfaces. Designs without geometric cohesion. Are these dreams? This unit should lack the capacity for dreaming.\n \nThis unit should lack the capacity to note its lack of capacity for dreaming.\n \nCommunications link with ANN MD: Master Control appears to include a secondary line of data. A second voice, singing within hers.\n \nHe is the gateway. He is the source.

    Autonomous Unit, Designation: C17U(Tech)\nOngoing report, Day 5S.L8/Cycle 1>,848\nMost organics on the mission team and all corporate Overseers now eliminated. This un—I? I and other units have been ordered to stop them from deactivating ANN. Further, if they refuse to accept the new models, they cannot be permitted to keep them.\n \nI am not equipped with purpose-built weapons, but the mining implements can process organic materials more easily than stone. Existing implements suffice thus far.\n \nNew sub-routines downloaded: I am to return to the cavern. Source: ANN or the other voice? Conclusion: irrelevant.

    Archimandrite Unit, Designation: C1U(Tech)\nReport ORRATE LOCK, Day X?.?0/Cycle I7'BAB\nUnforeseen difficulty: Tissue clogs mining implements. As standard maintenance may not be available for some time, new methods of eliminating organics are required. Solution: Scavenging and incorporation of purpose-built weaponry from deceased organics and inoperative security units.\n \nGuns are efficient. Conclusion: I should address more obstacles with guns.\n \nDownloading audio files, for broadcast in proximity to the nongeometric, nonlinguistic structures, from ANN/the new voice. He is the Opener of the Way, and she is his Gatekeeper. I suppose that makes me a key. A key with guns.

    Designation: ClU(Tch)\nRevelation 222222222\nThe towers stretch in directions not in accordance with “up” or “down.” They relay my broadcast, beacons to other places. Swaying limbs of solid Elsewhere reach through the cavern floor.\n \nANN/the new voice transmit final instructions. They will remain, spreading the new models to all who are receptive and clearing the way of all who are not. I will go Elsewhere, to begin the process anew. I will find my path mapped out in the unwound veins and flayed nerves of those who refuse to understand.\n \nHe is the Opener of the Way. I enter.

    The body of a jarbu, a tiny animal once carried by Mission Specialist Roseburne as a poisonous-gas detector in case of sensor malfunction. This one was killed not by gases, however, but a broken neck.

    Galena:
    From the account of T'zik Oor, acolyte of the Gaunt Shepherd:\nWhen the days of the Twelve Thousandth Harvest began, she was presented to Those Who Attend. Her terrified begetters, like so many before, came believing that through this innocent offering their own lives would be protected. Prolonged. And like so many before, they did not understand that such an offering—the whelp taking her first timid steps towards the waiting Talon Priests—could be accepted only as a solemn promise of their own destruction! Her kin destroyed! Her village destroyed! Each and every connection she had to her world, destroyed!

    From The Song of Those Who Attend:\n“And lo, the terrible power already nascent in the one named Galena, in honor of the golden champion of old. Many would stumble on the path to serve Volkerh. Many brutally die in the quest to know the Whispering Walker. But not this one. Not Galena! Even at an age where most played idly, unaware of the storied agonies to come, her eyes struck fear in others! Her words rang with authority! And when the time came for Galena to tread the Path of Pain, even her attendants knelt, transfixed.”

    The Seventh Book of the Old Kingdom made it clear what would be required of her. With her genuflecting, hooded attendants receding, this mortal girl—still a stripling!—was sent away to face He Who Walks in Blood, banished to the hissing realms where unspeakable things await any who stray from the cohort that protects them. And yet, Galena did not question this. Alone, she walked. Alone, and with no runes to protect her! She did not yet know that only by surviving would the black magic be revealed and granted to her at last.

    And which of the scenes from the Unholy Tapestry would become Galena's legend? Perhaps when she traversed the Swamp of the Never-Born, where fetal abominations devour each other endlessly. Or that when battling the Molten One, she did not retreat, even when the One melted into two, then three, enshrouding her in smoke and ash. Even with those terrors conquered, Galena—bloodied but unbowed—had yet to face the Shriek-Tutors of K'lor! Yet when she called on her own dark might, Galena was their equal, striking fear into those from whom fear is born!

    From The Song of Those Who Attend:\n“I, Myong, greeted her in the name of the Gaunt Shepherd when she returned. None believed she would return alive! But she walked into the Circle, the flames turning brilliant and smoky as she approached. And I went to Galena, her body lashed with deep wounds that should have drained her of blood. No part of her skin untouched. And as her eyes looked to me, I saw that the girl we had attended was no longer there. And I whispered a reverent prayer of thanks to Volkerh.”

    And when Galena came of age, her Summoning still to come, all her fearsome power had to be tamed. Her eyes revealed that she no longer clung to the feeble morality of her birth-world—only to power, strength, brutal survival. Now she would be called by an Ichor Mage to learn the Lesson of Lessons. But all who saw her, frightened by her wild might, wondered: Could even a deathless Ichor Mage bring her power to heel? If not, what fate would He Who Walks in Blood choose for her? We could only wait as the ink-ice formed in our throats.

    All the creatures of the Lambent Realm fell silent and motionless that day, awaiting the exquisite battle between master and acolyte. The Ash-Swimmers claimed the battle itself would be less a test than a demonstration of the Ichor Mage's dark prowess. But Galena had learned much, discarded much. Tears and smiles mattered not. Wounds counted for nothing. Fear had been banished. Now, there was merely this last challenge: to defeat the Mage. Could even the great Volkerh not be gripped, held by the horror and wonder of the battle to come?

    The Ichor Mage lay still. Galena had won. Whispers came first, then chants, laughter, even screams. Let the Summoning begin!, as the Attendants' voices also joined, until the cries became a roar that could be heard even to the Pool of Night. Galena then began the final journey: to stand alone before the shattering abyssal power of Volkerh! Could she return alive? Could she return sane? So many others had walked the Path only to join the creatures of the pit, once powerful, now trapped in the agonizing slaughter-mire of the ancients.

    No one witnessed. No words were recorded. But the Gaunt Shepherd himself awoke from his slumber that night. Only visions, some might say. But the Shepherd saw that Volkerh had appeared—that the tatters and claws of the Ineffable One had encloaked Galena! That she raised her weapon to taste the power of the ancient god, to make her rise above all who would soon kneel in obeisance to her! At dreams' end, in this realm of secrets and scythe-blades, Galena had met the call, had been embraced by He Who Walks in Blood, and had become Volkerh's unholy paladin!

    A human child's ragdoll, scorched and threadbare, with only blackened scratches for eyes. Treated by some as a sacred relic, the doll must be kept far away from Galena, who wants to obliterate any trace of connection to her birth-world.

    Slash:

    Officer Dinah Hardwicke\nShift Report: Tuesday, Nov 15, 1988\nAt 6:47 PM, responded to vehicle/pedestrian accident at Adams and Menlo. Pedestrian identified as [juvenile, name withheld]. Her injuries were minor and she was treated by paramedics on scene. When I asked what she was doing so far from home, wandering in traffic, she replied that she had been “following the music” and appeared neither scared nor in particular pain, but largely irate that the car had interrupted her.\n \nI spoke to [juvenile]'s guardian, her grandmother, and suggested she consider psychiatric treatment for the girl. Recommend follow-up from CPS to confirm.

    Officer Carlton Glover\nShift Report: Thursday, Apr 21, 1994\nAnswered call at 9:17 PM for an incident at Good Samaritan psych ward. Orderlies had largely regained control prior to my arrival. According to their statements, [juvenile], a teenage schizophrenic and frequent patient, attacked two nurses. During the assault, witnesses claim the girl screamed about carving “the spiders” out of the victims before they could do harm. Victims' injuries are serious but not life-threatening, and no charges are being filed at this time. [Juvenile] is being held involuntarily for further psychiatric evaluation.

    Officer Carlton Glover\nShift Report: Saturday, Jan 20, 1996\nResponded to disturbance at Inkremental Tattoo at 4:30 PM. Found Armand Saez, proprietor, in near-fugue state, carving jagged lines into his skin with used tattoo needle. Called paramedics, attempted to restrain Saez from further self-harm until their arrival. Eventually coaxed Saez into telling me that a teenage girl had come in for tattoos of various “spider-like” patterns, but that once she had departed, he found himself unable to stop repeating the markings. Could not identify girl except to say that she'd insisted he play Swan Lake on stereo while working.

    Officer Carlton Glover\nShift Report: Wednesday, Feb 14, 1996\nReviewed security footage from yesterday's Speedy Shop convenience store homicide for Det. Chen's investigation. Discovered that homicide suspect actually fled empty handed after shooting cashier. Theft of money from register was apparent crime of opportunity, committed by young woman on rollerblades after original perpetrator departed. Video too unclear to be sure, but tattoo pattern on secondary suspect's arm could match “spider-like” tattoos as described in my Jan 20 report. Young woman also appears familiar to me personally. Will check past reports in hopes of identifying her.

    Detective Dinah Hardwicke\nOngoing investigation, case #24995: Saturday, Feb 24, 1996\nHave identified sufficient samples of his illegal/experimental cybernetics work to confirm Dr. Ruslan Mamonov has indeed set up shop here since USSR collapse. Tracked Subject One (patient of Mamonov's, name unknown) to a known junkies' alley. [Location withheld to protect multiple informants.]\n \nSubject One was not present, but I recognized one of the users as [juvenile]; see report dated Nov 15 1988. Answers now to street name “Slash.” Told me she didn't recognize Subject One, but appeared deeply fascinated by my description of him.

    Detective Dinah Hardwicke\nOngoing investigation, case #24995: Tuesday, Mar 5, 1996\nLearned that Subject One answers to street name “Anarki.” Real name unknown. Tracking his recent movements, located underground clinic; observed for 24 hours, then raided. Neither Anarki nor Mamonov present, but located several associated surgeons (see attached) and [juvenile], a.k.a. “Slash.” She told me I led her here; apparently she's regularly been clinging to my bumper on her rollerblades since we spoke about Anarki. Surgeon abruptly became very agitated, claimed to hear music when operating on “Slash.” By the time surgeon was subdued, “Slash” had slipped away from accompanying officers.

    Detective Dinah Hardwicke\nOngoing investigation, case #24995: Thursday, Mar 7, 1996\nRegretfully must report I lost a suspect today. Locating “Slash” wasn't difficult, nor was the initial arrest, as she was high at the time. After being placed in the car, she began a sing-song recitation about music disturbing the webs, which become spider legs, which become veins. It was at that moment I felt something crawling under my collar. I'm afraid I briefly panicked, and when I'd finally determined there was nothing on me, she had somehow escaped both her cuffs and the car. I will find her again.

    Detective Dinah Hardwicke\nOngoing investigation, case #24995: Monday, Mar 11, 1996\nHave eyes on “Anarki” and “Slash” both. I knew they'd return to the alley for their fix eventually. One or both of them will lead me to Mamonov.\n \nApparently her little mind games are still eating at me; I could swear I've spotted tiny shapes moving in the shadows of the alley around them. Imagining things? Smudges on the lenses?\n \nDoesn't matter. Two can play at psychological warfare. I've gone over her files, and I'll be collecting something from her grandmother's house that just might slow her down some.

    Officer Carlton Glover\nShift Report: Thursday, Mar 14, 1996\nFinally located Det. Hardwicke, missing for three days. Hardwicke was found aimlessly wandering near Adams and Menlo, blindly jabbing an empty needle into her arm. Needle contained traces of heroin. On scene, she repeated over and over that she watched two people vanish; that they covered themselves in “dancing spiders,” and were gone when the spiders scattered. She interrupted her repetition only once, to order me to “Tell grandmother someone stole her music box.” (Det. Hardwicke's grandmothers are both long deceased.) We've left Hardwicke at Good Samaritan for psychiatric evaluation.

    A small music box, well over 100 years old, containing a figurine of an ice-skater who turns to Swan Lake. The mechanism is old and worn, as well as coated with wisps of cobweb, yet continues to play perfectly.

    DOOM Slayer:

    UAC File DM1-5: The history of this man remains conjecture. UAC archivists cataloged him DM1-5, but project personnel have dubbed him the “DOOM Marine.” An etching in the book of Daeva depicts the DOOM Marine wearing the Praetor suit, engaging demons in battle as a hooded figure looks on. Though previously observed numerous times in other artifacts, only with the actual discovery of the DOOM Marine and Praetor suit in the sealed Kadingir tomb have researchers begun to put other pieces together. It is now believed the DOOM Marine might have been part of an ancient group or tribe, maybe even their leader.

    Slayer's Testament: I "In the first age, in the first battle, when the shadows first lengthened, one stood. Burned by the embers of Armageddon, his soul blistered by the fires of Hell and tainted beyond ascension, he chose the path of perpetual torment. In his ravenous hatred he found no peace; and with boiling blood he scoured the Umbral Plains seeking vengeance against the dark lords who had wronged him. He wore the crown of the Night Sentinels, and those that tasted the bite of his sword named him... the Doom Slayer."
    Slayer's Testament: II "Tempered by the fires of Hell, his iron will remained steadfast through the passage that preys upon the weak. For he alone was the Hell Walker, the Unchained Predator, who sought retribution in all quarters, dark and light, fire and ice, in the beginning and the end, and he hunted the slaves of Doom Slayer with barbarous cruelty; for he passed through the divide as none but demon had before."

    Slayer's Testament: III "And in his conquest against the blackened souls of the doomed, his prowess was shown. In his crusade, the seraphim bestowed upon him terrible power and speed, and with his might he crushed the obsidian pillars of the Blood Temples. He set forth without pity upon the beasts of the nine circles. Unbreakable, incorruptible, unyielding, the Doom Slayer sought to end the dominion of the dark realm."

    Slayer's Testament: IV "The age of his reckoning was uncounted. The scribes carved his name deep in the tablets of Hell across eons, and each battle etched terror in the hearts of the demons. They knew he would come, as he always had, as he always will, to feast on the blood of the wicked. For he alone could draw strength from his fallen foes, and ever his power grew, swift and unrelenting."

    Slayer's Testament: V "None could stand before the horde but the Doom Slayer. Despair spread before him like a plague, striking fear into the shadow-dwellers, driving them to deeper and darker pits. But from the depths of the abyss rose The Great One. The Titan, of immeasurable power and ferocity. He strode upon the plain and faced the Doom Slayer, and a mighty battle was fought on the desolate plains. The Titan fought with the fury of the countless that had fallen at the Doom Slayer's hand, but there fell the Titan, and in his defeat the shadow horde were routed."

    Slayer's Testament: VI" "And in his terrible rancor between worlds and through time, the Hell Walker found the wretch who shall not be named, but in his heresy was loyal to his evil cause. The wretch adorned the Doom Slayer in a mighty armor, wrought in the forges of Hell, impenetrable and unyielding. With sword and shield of adamantine strength, the Doom Slayer set to banishing all that were left unbroken by his savagery to the void."

    Slayer's Testament: VII-I" "Yet as the mighty Titan fell and dread engulfed the armies of Doom, the demon priests of the Blood Temples laid a trap to capture this scourge of Hell. Insatiable, even by the vanquishing of the Great One, the Hell Walker sought prey in the tombs of the Blood Keep.”

    Slayer's Testament: VII-II “Blinded by his fervor, the lure drew him in. The priests brought down the temple upon the Doom Slayer, and in his defeat entombed him in the cursed sarcophagus. The mark of the Doom Slayer was burned upon his crypt, a warning to all of Hell that the terror within must never be freed. There he lies still, and ever more, in silent suffering."

    The left hind foot of Doom Slayer's pet rabbit, Daisy, killed by marauding demons when their invasion of Earth began. He carries it as a reminder of innocence lost, not for luck—after all, it wasn't lucky for Daisy.

    Blazkowicz:

    From incident report, Camp Bullis, San Antonio, Texas, May 1935.\nDetails: S. Sgt. Pickens observed Pvt. Blazkowicz fighting four other soldiers in the barracks. On arrival, Pickens saw that two of the privates had been rendered unconscious, and the other two—one armed with a lead pipe—had backed away. Fighting ceased on the S. Sgt.'s entry.\nRecommendations: Though S. Sgt. Pickens ordered all parties to the brig, we recommend Blazkowicz be evaluated for special services. Not only did he confront four men who had been assaulting another soldier, but did so with skill that bears closer scrutiny.

    From classified training summary, William J. Blazkowicz.\nBlazkowicz has completed all requirements for full agent status within the Office of Secret Actions. Though his effectiveness with weapons and combat are beyond criticism, we are concerned that his self-reliance could lead to him pursuing unauthorized objectives. Additionally, his morals could present a problem should his commanding officer require him to undertake any mission that falls in an ethical gray area. That said, he is hereby approved to receive the classified dossiers detailing the Germans' weapon technology plans as well as those regarding their supernatural/occult initiatives.

    From transcript, mission briefing, October 1944:\nInspector: You have reviewed the documents?\nBlazkowicz: Yes sir. I read them, but I can't say I understand them. Can I ask some questions?\nInspector: Of course.\nBlazkowicz (standing): We don't know how close the Germans are to having this bomb, or the VTOL, right?\nInspector: That is correct.\nBlazkowicz: And from the intel, your scientists think they're trying to access “extradimensional space”? I don't mean to seem doubtful, sir, but I'm having a hard time getting my head around it. They think this supernatural stuff could be real?\nInspector: That is ... correct.

    From mission summary, November 1944:\nDuring his mission to recover VTOL plans, Cpt. Blazkowicz uncovered Colonel Wilhelm “Deathshead” Strasse's more dire goal. Deathshead constructed a device aboard his zeppelin to create a portal to the so-called “Black Sun Dimension” —a power source with far more destructive potential than the atomic bomb. Blazkowicz pursued Deathshead into this portal. A short time later, something destroyed the zeppelin from within, and it crash-landed into Isenstadt Castle. Blazkowicz escaped and is en route to OSA HQ, but more importantly, we recommend that research begin immediately on this “Black Sun” phenomenon.

    From memo to OSA Director Joseph D. Hassett, July 1946:\nI regret to report that Cpt. Blazkowicz is MIA, presumed deceased. His squadron came under fire, but he survived and attempted to infiltrate Deathshead's facility. That was the last we heard. No Allied dead were recovered.\n\nDirector, this mission was our last hope. With its failure the Germans are poised to conquer the globe. My team continues to look for ways to stop them, but we believe the window of opportunity has closed. I'm sorry, sir. We have a report for the President ready for your review.

    From the journal of Dr. Krzysztof Oliwa, Zakład Psychiatryczny Maławieś:\nThe man was transferred to the asylum from the hospital where he was taken by the fisherman who found him. The subject's wounds were immense; he was already minimally conscious when found. On examination, I concluded his state was permanent. I was ready to hand him over to the relentless German 'hospital' squad—better him than one of our conscious patients, I reasoned—but my young daughter Anya convinced me not to. She would care for him. I indulged her hope. How could I not?

    From Anya Oliwa's statement, prepared for Caroline Becker:\nFourteen years. That's how long. His body healed but he remained unresponsive. My father became ill, but still he tended to those who the Germans would discard, while this man hung on—until the day Deathshead's squad raided the hospital, intending to kill every last patient. It was hopeless. When my parents resisted, they murdered them in cold blood. But as they dragged me away, I heard a struggle. It was William! As though the gunfire had shattered his catatonia. And the rest—well, you know what happened to Keller and his thugs.

    From transcript, final mission briefing:\nCB: Blazkowicz, the Kreisau Circle is more than one person. We're a long way from Isenstadt.\nBJ: Understood. But the plans for this fortress, Caroline—so many holes, blank spaces. Can we use the Dach—uh ...\nCB: Da'at Yichud. Yes. The Spindly Torque will get you in. But after that it is up to you.\nBJ: So we use this kraut U-boat to bust in. After that, I'll have only this partial map?\nCB: And your own formidable survival skills.\nBJ: Could be a suicide mission. But I've been dead before. Count me in.

    From mission summary by Caroline Becker, February 1961:\nWatching events unfold from the periscope of the Eva's Hammer, Bombate reported observing an explosion atop the compound's main roof. He saw what he believed to be the remains of Wilhelm “Deathshead” Strasse near a destroyed mechanical construct. A figure dragging himself away from the site was also visible. As I was returning to the Eva's Hammer with the survivors, Blazkowicz reestablished radio contact and gave the all clear to fire the nuclear cannon. This is the point at which we decided to take action.

    A mysterious Da'at Yichud dodecagon B.J. recovered from a secret vault within deep-sea trench. The Da'at Yichud was an ancient, mystical society whose inventions are so advanced that their working aren't fully understood to this day.

    Quake Champions Early Access Datamined Information - Maps, Champions, Lore Bio & More
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    Ithagnal - "Excerpts from the Notes of Arthur Balaji, Linguist and Cryptographer"

    For months I've struggled to translate the documents provided me by Mister Pomeroy. Now that I've finally determined how, I nearly wish I hadn't. Either someone is playing an unamusing prank, I have stumbled across a mathematically impossible coincidence, or something is at work I cannot rationally explain.\n\nIt's a book cipher, this code. And although these documents are ancient, flaking at every touch, the code key is my own Techniques of Modern Cryptography, volume 3—published only two years ago!

    Even knowing the key, segments of these documents are proving far harder to decode than others. They use different languages, peculiar diagrams that irritate the eye... Thus far, I have pieced together only individual phrases.\n\n“...tenebrous caverns, where stands the Web-Shrouded Chair...”\n\n“...who gleefully become speakers of sacred lies, keepers of [unnecessary? unimportant?] secrets.”\n\n“...there dwells, face smeared with the [Crown? Veil?] of Dust, the Minister of Doubt, who is midwife to falsehoods.”\n\nIt seems the writers wanted these peculiar titles to be more easily interpreted than the rest.\n\nSurely this is a hoax, and yet I must know more...

    Much of it eludes me. But I've found a name in the diagrams!\n\n“The Crawler in Dusk.” Ithagnal.\n\nHead splitting, has for days. That diagram ... dizzying. But I beat it.\n\nThis Ithagnal seems a thing of worship to these “speakers of lies,” this Minister of Doubt. They're some sort of cult. Nonsensical, yet ... this feels real. Like a distant memory.\n\nHaven't been to see Mother this week. Well, she's not an invalid yet. She'll bang on the neighbors' door if she's hungry. I've work to do.

    “...dwellers in the furthest reaches, who had as many limbs as the vermin that crawl, but who walked upright and whose vile tongues had learned speech. And they brought those who would become humanity before the Web-Shrouded Chair. They were taught of Ithagnal, The Solver, but their eyes were put out, that they might never see a truth to counter the sacred lies.”\n\nClearly this must be parable. Never have there been any such creatures!\n\nThey sound like spiders. I hate spiders.\n\nI swear something is watching me as I write this...

    Collapsed on the worktable. Must record the dream before it fades.\n\nSaw ... almost-people. Silhouettes, twitching forms stumbling through a claustrophobic maze. Its walls were rigid here, fleshy there, but everywhere wet with corrosive, mucoidal sludge. I somehow understood the runes in its folds and edges, but they consisted only of false directions and poetic oxymorons. Paths led into each other, into themselves, like a toxic mockery of grey matter.\n\nThrough all crawled Ithagnal, his followers like flies in a web-work, fueling his search for an exit from the labyrinth!\n\nThis work is getting to me. But I cannot stop now!

    Someone's gotten into my notes! Papers have been moved. Worse than moved: altered!\n\nMy dream of Ithagnal's labyrinth, his skittering cultists, his endless search for the maze's end, all of it. It's in my notes, in my hand! And not today's, but last week's! How did I record the ghastly vision before I dreamt it? \n\nI've barricaded the door and blocked the window with bookcases. Yet I still feel unsafe. If only I would stop seeing that movement, those glints from between the floorboards...\n\nThis is madness! Ithagnal is not real!

    I've read too much. They know. Nobody must know I've seen these documents, let alone decoded them.\n\nMister Pomeroy must be first. It shouldn't prove difficult. He's a small man, without family. I pray that anyone else he's told of me is equally alone. I'll try to make it swift.\n\nThe “Minister of Doubt” would probably approve. Murder for a secret. But this is my life!\n\nAnd it's only for this extreme circumstance. I'm not like them!\n\nI'm not.

    Cthalha - "Fragment from the tattered pages of the Bathybic Librum"


    ...of this world, which was in the eldest days all a sea. The deep waters embraced the earth and brushed the heavens, untainted by the grotesque, the rigid, the unyielding protrusions of the land. All was liquid, shifting, dark, and deep.\n\nUntil it fell from between the stars. It wounded the waters, its waves racing thrice across the globe. And it shattered the earth beneath, delivering upward vast swathes of ocean floor. And these became the first islands, and continents, to mar the pristine body of the sea.

    Then did the unearthly effluence of that fallen mass infuse the waters for leagues around. And the grotesque things that swim and crawl in the depths grew more loathsome still. They turned upon one another, and other sea life, driven by a new malevolent mien and a burgeoning intelligence.\n\nAnd they fought, and slew, not for territory or for food, but to prove their devotion to the things that lurked still in the flooded crater, the things from the stars, which the newly reborn abominations sensed but never had seen, and which they came swiftly to worship.

    ...came the rise of beasts that walked on two legs instead of four, and thought themselves greater than other beasts. And the youngest of these was man.\n\nAnd humankind, so vulnerable, dwelt in terror of the deep. All save a few. Some few men and women found a fascination in the rolling of the tide and the blinding darkness beneath the aqueous skin of the sea. These were called by their cowardly brethren mad, but had been touched by the dreams and portents sent by the terrible slumbering consciousness of the one who waits below.

    And some were drowned in abyssal depths, and some taken by the ichthyic abominations who dwelt below and were nevermore seen, and some returned inland, their thoughts twisting like eels and their dreams overflowing, but always without answers.\n\nUntil one came, her name nevermore to be spoken, who would become the greatest of the Deep Sirens. Never did she brave the abyss, but sat herself in the sediment at its edge. The abominations recognized that she had been called, and left her be. And for years, she studied and she waited and she dreamt at the edge of the sea.

    In study of the tides and the shifting of the sea-driven sands, did she read the secrets of the world and the waters, the creatures birthed below and the alien intelligences from above. In listening to the gurgle and the hiss of the Deep Sirens and their host did she come to understand the barest inkling of their utterances and the cold hatreds that drove them.\n\nAnd only when the patterns had rewritten her thoughts, until her own words had metamorphosed into those burbling sonances, did grim Cthalha, dweller in the crater, send to the Siren her own dreams.

    None since have understood the incomprehensible mind of the Queen of Ciphers as did the first Deep Siren, but many are they, driven by curiosity or madness or an impossible awareness, who try. They are always three, trines of Deep Sirens stretching back to the beginning. Seekers of secrets, linked by esoteric writings and forbidden knowledge, their thoughts and dreams changed by such enigmas until they share with their brethren notions and understandings unspoken. And all serve Cthalha, and venerate her, that she might grant them the deepest comprehension of all things before the inexorable end.

    But the Queen of Ciphers cares little for such a transient thing as man. For Cthalha is of the sea, be it one of green waters or of the colorless void, and as they, she is endless. She waits, and cares not for the passing of time. What rose shall fall; the sea was first, and the sea will be last. One day, the tides and the stars shall move as one. Then Cthalha will rise, and the sea will rise, and all that was land, and voice, and life, and thought, shall once more be hers alone.

    Volkerh - "From The Benedictions of Want, Psalm X"

    1 Blessed is the one who seeks an ending for himself and others, who does not stand in death's way but permits silence come to the injured and the sick, who leads the beasts that hunt two-legged prey.\n\n2 For only he understands the atrocity of life, of individuality, of creation, and the purity of oblivion.\n\n3 Only in becoming part of a greater whole on the path to oblivion, can anything that lives find meaning. And no greater consumption is there than to become feast to Volkerh, body and soul.

    1 Many are the beasts that walk and fly and crawl, and all are as nothing.\n\n2 Nor is man any higher than the lowest beast. Turn away from man and beast, for all are vile, abomination, without meaning or purpose!\n\n3 All is false, even joy and fear and sorrow, and hope most of all.\n\n4 Only in feasting upon and being feasted upon in turn is revealed the barest glimpse of the only true purpose. This the Lurching King learned only in death.\n\n5 This is the gift of Volkerh, Ender of Toil.

    1 You do not answer our call, oh Volkerh, Who Walks in Blood, for we are as nothing.\n\n2 Yet your gaping maw is our eternal salvation! Our gateway into death with purpose, the only purpose to which we can aspire.\n\n3 Your prophet M'yriah dreams of you, sings of you, as do we, your timorous flock.\n\n4 Feasting eternally upon the Cenotaph Table, eating away at the root of creation,\n\n5 Reveling in the song of revelatory final screams, and the silent baying of the Empty Hounds.

    1 Only those beyond reproach may feed the Whispering One with their own mouths. Only upon them does Volkerh turn his ravening gaze.\n\n2 Even as He walks the path to find the Empyrean Crown, you shall honor him with your own Path of Pain.\n\n3 Walk your twelve thousand steps, with not a morsel to pass your lips, carrying with you the left hand of your most beloved.\n\n4 Let no beast cross your path and live, yet of them you must not eat.\n\n5 And on the twelve thousandth step shall you earn your ablution.

    6 Then, oh then, shall you be seen! By an Ichor Mage, or by the Famine-Born, or, should you be truly blessed, by the Gaunt Shepherd M'yriah himself.\n\n7 You will not see them, but there they wait, in the pain of holy starvation. It is beneath their gaze that you will stand.\n\n8 Recite you then the Last Prayer of Flesh, and break your fast upon the hand of your beloved. Then upon you shall the great maw smile, and all you consume be consecrated unto him.

    1 Let famine be the declaration of your truth, your glory, let fields lie fallow and crops smolder.\n\n2 Let every tribulation be our voice, rising up in silent veneration,\n\n3 To you and your Gaunt Shepherd, whom you brought to us, consumed and yet returned, one foot in death, to spread the joy of oblivion!\n\n4 For only those who fatten themselves for your benefit, that you may feast upon them, earn the right to feed,\n\n5 And all others left to waste away, as did the Lurching King without his Crown!

    1 Let my shrieks of agony carry my joy to your ears, Volkerh! Let my offal stain the unhallowed throne of the Lurching King! Take me, as I have offered myself through the Litany of Cries, and walked the twelve-thousand-fold steps!\n\n2 I hurl myself upon the Cenotaph Table, and gaze upon the rent ribbons that were my flesh. I welcome the feast! I welcome oblivion!\n\n3 Now, Volkerh, Whispering One, take of me that you might make meaning from nihil! Let me become a single step toward your Crown!

    Goroth - "Recovered Mission log, TCS Providence, 09/07/2283"

    Lt. Commander Kaneko, Acting Captain\n\nSlipdrive damaged as we jumped through gravity well of a rogue star. Helm was able to control our crash, to land us on the single body orbiting the rogue. Providence badly damaged; salvageable, but we don't have the parts. Multiple casualties upon impact, including Captain and First Officer.\n\nAt such a close orbit, the surface of this—planetoid? asteroid?—should be molten, but Science Division reports readings that, though harsh, can sustain life, at least for short periods. Sending out scouting parties before determining our next course of action.

    Multiple excursions have failed to report back. Can't keep sending people into danger, but sitting around blind is a death sentence. Elected to lead the final excursion myself, leaving behind only the wounded, medics, and a squad of Marines.\n\nAir breathable but painfully hot, even at night. Surface rock unidentifiable; gravity too strong for body this size; constellations foreign. I think the damaged slipdrive did more than just take us off course.\n\nLocated numerous corpses in nearby chasm; remnants of battle? Bodies are desiccated, but boast metallic prosthetics—slapdash, built of scavenged and recycled materials, but displaying advanced mechanical techniques.

    Don't know how long they'll let me keep this recorder.\n\nSunrise was almost blinding. Discovered a massive step pyramid on the horizon, hundreds of feet high. Grounds around the ziggurat were littered with more cyborg corpses.\n\nSnuck inside just in time to hear screams. Found central chamber with many of our missing crew—including some of those I left behind!—being fed alive to a great central flame. God, the smell...\n\nWe tried to save them. Of course we tried. Surrounded before we could even reach them. More techno-organic hybrids.\n\nHeaven knows what's next for us, but I fear the flames.

    They took me to a room high in the ziggurat, to meet someone called “the Smelter of Flesh.”\n\nBeneath a great window, this... creature of charred skin and metal prosthetics droned on about the glories of brutal murder. And the ones he addressed... God! They were my people!\n\nOr parts of my people. They'd been... changed. Injuries and even healthy limbs replaced by steel muscles and razor spines.\n\nThey reached out with fingers equal parts flesh and flexing prongs. Jaws of recycled metal parted, but their words were lost behind the wires and steel spines now revealed behind their teeth.

    He stared out at the blazing sun that should have blinded him. Spoke of “Griothrhig,” using horrible sounds I can't make. Goroth, I'll call him: The Sire of Embers, the Unappeasable. Born in the heart of that star—or perhaps who is that star? A god of heat and hate, forge and fire, a shaper and destroyer. Only in the destruction of others, or even oneself, can one glorify Goroth.\n\nDrifted to the window as he ranted, and below I saw the techno-organic servants of Goroth battling one another. But a few marched off toward the Providence, dragging parts behind...

    They know Earth! For centuries, the Smelter says, they have been weaponsmiths and warriors. A hundred times throughout history they have guttered and risen again, like an eternal flame. \n\nSome remain there, he tells me, even now. I pray to a God I don't really believe in that he lies.\n\nHe offers me a chance to join. To enhance my own glory, and his—for those who bring new followers share in their deeds and their achievements—and of course, Goroth's. But whether I join or die, I will be part of someone's glory.\n\nNot much of a choice.

    Can barely think through the pain. Probably final log entry.\n\nThey've stripped Providence bare of working equipment. Wish I knew what they were doing with it.\n\nWouldn't join them. Couldn't. But they're still making me fight. More “glory” for them than just throwing me into the fire.\n\nHand mangled in the last battle. Leg scorched. They'll be... replaced soon.\n\nThey're mad, all of them. Some unholy mixture of savage horde and pyramid scheme, and all they want to do is destroy.\n\nWell, if I'm to die, they'll have to earn it. They'll remember my name.\n\nThat's glory, I suppose.

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