A Sinner's Eden

***Tirnanog, The Facility***

***The Designer***

Translated transcript: 02-05-3998 064

Designer’s Report_Log 34530-2349:

538 cycles since allowing intentional contamination of environment testing site 35-F-33.

Summary of findings and personal observations.

Please refer to the linked research results for details.

Current Situation:

The plague has managed to find a firm place within planet 35-F-33’s ecosystem despite our best efforts. Suitably adverse environments with hostile conditions have been developed to at least slow down the plague’s spread. Unfortunately, environments that stop the spread require conditions preventing other organic life from flourishing.

Plague-derived lifeforms are highly adaptable and will infiltrate existing fauna and flora given enough time. The only known environmental conditions ensuring prevention of plague infection are environmental temperatures above 44 grak and below -30 grak. Which is outside the operating range of carbon-based processes.

Any silicon-based life relying on carbon processes to function would be severely limited by such temperatures. So far, only the Creators are known to withstand such conditions – as they are energy-based entities.

As per mission profile, we report the state of the plague’s current iteration.

The plague has once again developed bipeds as its main host. The base-line form of these bipeds, imported from origin contamination world 46-E-19, is currently unable to survive permanently on the test planet’s surface, which can be seen as a partial success.

Unfortunately, the hosts quickly developed a method of rapid mutation by copying or mimicking established lifeforms. This rapid adaptation to the hostile environment is being enabled by a combined nanotech virus.

All attempts at using this virus against the plague’s hosts have been actively thwarted by their Gestalt and the virus's unique adaptation to the hosts' genome – preventing it from surviving outside the host.

Though the virus is not perfect. In some cases, hosts have devolved from their original form. So far, there is no known way to encourage the occurrence of this failure mechanism in order to favour harmful traits.

As for microbiological testing sites 234-234 and 346-743:

We have found some avenues of biological warfare working on smaller groups of hosts. The released biological agents dealt considerable damage before the rest of the population could adapt. The surviving individuals are expected to die out due to environmental hardship and the inability to increase their numbers.

However, this approach does not seem promising! As a result of their exposure, the surviving populations are now entirely immune to the used biological agents.

As in the past, the hosts' manifold immune system makes it impossible to attack the entire population at once.

Most of the other host populations are actively avoiding the testing sites. Yet we believe forced worldwide introduction of the used bio-agents to be inadvisable. We do not expect this method to work on a large population of hosts, as there would be enough survivors left to rebuild.

In the long run, attacks of this nature only strengthen the enemy as a whole.

At this point, we are inclined to conclude that any purely biological warfare against the plague is doomed to fail or backfire. Like the attempt to introduce a strain of flesh-eating bacteria only caused the plague to adapt the bacteria for its own purposes, incorporating it into the hosts’ immune system.

Trying to combat the plague on a biological micro-scale is not feasible.

We will nonetheless continue to explore our approach of macro-scale biological warfare.

Planet-wide sterilization remains the only reliable method of resetting the plague's evolution progress. Due to the plague's ability to penetrate deep into a planet's mantle with certain extremophile specimens, sterilization without complete destruction of the contaminated planet remains impossible. Even then parts of the plague will survive and possibly contaminate other planets unless all of the debris is taken care of. An undertaking that is almost impossible since a single spec of dust would be enough to carry the plague.

Complete extermination is still impossible with known methods, but by removing the plague's higher cognitive elements, permanent suppression might be feasible.

As a future avenue of research:

It has to be said that some of the environment’s inhabitants were corrupted by the plague and are now actively assisting the plague’s hosts. These cases of ‘taming’ creatures initially designed to kill the hosts are currently being researched. We are confident to remove this flaw from future iterations.

Current state of host population:

Due to their new adaptation method, the hosts currently inhabiting the planet have not developed a homogeneous genotype.

Yet, it can be noted that the new hosts are on average larger and physically more capable than their baseline variants. As with previous versions, their individual intelligence can be regarded as insignificant. However, some rare individuals are close to what is considered the galactic norm. We currently regard them as outliers.

Looking at the population as a whole, it seems like the plague prefers to operate on a system of specialists working together instead of granting its hosts widespread mental capabilities. Compared to other sentient races most of the plague’s individual hosts can be regarded as unfit for most intellectual tasks. Despite being insular talents in their singular respective fields.

As an example: No individual host possesses the ability to build a planet-wide environmental control system or understand more than the smallest magnitude of such an undertaking. They would be utterly out of their depth with a menial task which could be performed by most recognized higher species.

It can be said that the hosts’ requirement to work together and share information to achieve anything of note may be a reflection of how their Gestalt functions. Research in this field is dangerous since it requires direct interaction with the Gestalt, but we believe this research to be crucial to understanding the Gestalt and its weaknesses.

The Creators have tried for aeons to attack the hosts as a means of eliminating the Gestalt, but maybe we can deal with the Gestalt first by using the hosts against it.

While our newest approach looks promising, we still harbour doubts about using the hosts against the plague. Just as their individual limitations make it easy to infiltrate host sub-groups, these same limitations make it impossible to utilize them as a whole against the Gestalt.

We have to question whether the hosts' mental limitation is indeed a flaw – or by design.

***Tirnanog, The Mycelium***

***Thalia***

I huddled closer together with Mark, our wings wrapped around us to combat the wet cold creeping into our bones.

Ginevra and Thiago were out cold beneath their blankets. Hugging each other they slept like the dead despite lightning bolts coming down left and right around us while thunder threatened to shatter our eardrums.

How could they sleep with all this havoc going on around them? Weren't the two sensors supposed to be extra sensitive to noise? Wasn’t this why I had chosen to take them on this mission?

“I will give Astra a piece of my mind if we survive this,” I groused, knowing very well that scolding Magnus would be met with deaf ears. “Taking first watch my ass! Who takes the first watch and then summons a lightning storm around the camp!”

I screamed the last bit into the storm. They likely didn't hear me but it felt good to vent. It wasn't like they had cared about my complaints when I sent them through the UI's chat. Instead, they were just ignoring me!

“I prefer the lightning to the ‘white stalker’ coming back,” Mark admitted. “And I don't believe they are 'summoning' the storm. Influencing it is more likely.”

“I prefer sleeping above anything else. And maybe killing the night-terror and adding it to our mutation,” I replied. The whole reason why I was fire and flame for hooking up with Mark was because I wanted to catch up with Astra’s power.

Not that I didn’t like Mark for other reasons too, but now Astra had gone and added a whole new dimension to her abilities! It wasn’t fair!

“Is that safe if we don't know anything about it?” Mark asked. “What if it gives entirely different mutations compared to the one I ate.”

“It should be.” I shrugged. “There are documented cases of adding different sub-races of the same species to someone's mutation. The opportunity doesn't present itself often, but it worked out well in all cases. In fact, mutated versions of the normal specimen are a highly valued source of improved mutations. Most stratas are breeding the animals providing their main mutations in the hope of nurturing such specimens. Even if the animal in question is useless otherwise.”

We fell silent for a while and watched the duo through the crevice's exit as they danced like lunatics, lightning arcing in between and around them.

“Don't you find it concerning that they aren't paying much attention to their surroundings? The ground around them is completely scorched,” I mused. “Once they calm down, we have to look into their newest mutation. How did they even get the idea for it? It gives me the feeling they are on a sugar rush or something.”

Mark shook his head and pointed. “I don't know. But what I find more concerning is that their feet aren't touching the ground.”

***Tirnanog, The Mycelium***

***Astra***

We danced and for once I was laughing like mad together with Magnus. Where other creatures had to hide, the storm provided us with protection and power as we spun around each other in what felt like an eternal round dance.

The two of us were opposite poles who guided the storm as lightning bolt after lightning bolt went down to recharge our power. It was like the gods themselves were trying to smite us, but we had little care as we took their power for ourselves.

When Magnus took me out into the storm I had been dead tired, but now I felt revitalized, ready to take on whatever may lie ahead.

'We have to make this a regular thing!' I used the chat to be understood despite the storm.

'How would we even find ourselves a lightning storm if not by chance?' Magnus replied. 'Ready for the positively charged lightning bolt?'

'Always,' I shot back with a smirk and a twirl. 'The only thing which might be better than this is sex!'

'We have to try!'

'Are you nuts!? Thalia would get a stroke. She's already spamming the chat like some troll,' I retorted.

'Maybe some other time then.' Magnus smirked and twirled me around in the other direction with his magnetic field pushing against mine.

At this point we didn't even have to touch each other, so powerful were the forces dancing between us.

We continued the dance for a few more hours during which the storm slowly died down and fizzled out. I was a little sad when my feet touched the ground again, announcing the end of our playtime. Without the storm’s constant recharge, we couldn't continue what had become a little game of managing the energetic charges between us to attract as many lightning bolts as possible.

No longer able to agitate the weakening storm, we stopped and returned to the crevice where the others were already waiting for us in full gear.

I only now rationalized how long we had been out.

Before saying anything, Thalia pointed a threatening finger at me, but a small bolt of electricity zapped her when she came too close – totally unintentional.

“Ow! By Gaia's jiggling...!”

“I am so sorry!” I raised my hands apologetically and made sure to shut down my muscles, evening out the charge with my surroundings. “Static discharge! It should be fine now.”

“Astra, I am very upset!” Thalia continued after she composed herself. “You two were ignoring us and behaving like drug addicts! I couldn't sleep a second!”

“Oh...” I hesitated and thought about her words. “Will you survive a day without sleep?”

“Of course I will!”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Then it's fine.”

“I have a feeling you aren't taking me seriously, Astra!” Thalia crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at me. She only did that when she was truly upset.

“I am sorry, Thalia, but it was so much fun.” I gestured at the sky. “It was like truly drinking water for the first time after having survived on mere sips for my entire life! Even now I feel…” I searched for the appropriate word, but there wasn’t one, so I chose the closest approximation coming to mind. “… charged like never before.”

Thalia frowned. “Your new mutation is responsible for this? That’s something we have to talk about. You two are taking on new mutations way too fast. Normally, people consider the pros and cons for decades before taking a risk at your stage.”

I winced.

How could we possibly explain this situation without revealing Gaia? “We-”

Thankfully, Ginevra interrupted, “Give the two some slack and let us continue. Right after a storm like this, the area should be safer than ever. Most large creatures will have vacated the area or hidden themselves in a shelter. Every minute we waste now is unmolested travel time.”

Thalia grumbled and switched back to using the chat. ‘Fine, but I still want an explanation! And how could you two sleep through all the noise.’

She pointed at Ginevra and Thiago.

Magnus and I used the chance to escape and pick up our gear to get going.

Thiago shrugged. ‘We closed our ears.’

‘Closed your ears?’

Ginevra nodded. ‘Yes. Like other people can open and close their eyes, we can close our ears. With our sense of hearing, we would turn insane if we couldn’t.’

Fortunately, this was enough to keep Thalia’s attention for the next couple of minutes during which they kept arguing long after we were already back to travelling. By the time they switched topics again, Thalia didn’t take up the matter of our mutations again.

But knowing her, I couldn’t avoid the topic forever, so I had to come up with a convenient excuse for the next time.

It turned out that Ginevra had been right with her assumption and we made a lot of progress without encountering any predators.

About two hours into the journey, the two sensors informed us that our stalker was back, but the white night-terror didn’t come close enough for me to see it this time. It appeared like we had instilled some respect in the creature by thwarting its attack. We argued whether this was good or bad, but ultimately, the only thing we could do was to watch out in case our stalker tried to capitalize on our inattentiveness once more.

We marched on like this for another night, having decided that if the fog was thick enough for night-predators to come out during the day then the best we could do to reduce the danger was to reach our goal as quickly as possible.

On the third day, we had to run from something big.

It announced itself with the stomping sounds of feet before scythe-like appendages came down from the fog above. The attack came from an entirely unsuspected direction and was only thwarted because of Mark’s and Thalia’s precognition which allowed them to dodge the first stabbing appendage.

At which point we chose to flee without long discussions.

None of us was willing to fight a creature that likely rivalled a saherna in size. Whatever it was, it was too big and slow to move quickly, granting us the opportunity to escape. Though we heard its footsteps following us long after.

On the fourth day, we finally reached our goal with the white stalker still following us.

But our sensors knew it was falling further and further behind the closer we came to our destination. As if it was unwilling to come too close to the city which was built on the largest shroom-tree-thing I had ever seen. We only knew the city’s general layout because the soft breeze from the sea had cleared up the fog for a few precious minutes in the morning.

This close to the coast the fog apparently wasn’t a permanent thing.

The mushroom tree was growing in layers above layers with a central stem as thick as a skyscraper. The layers were getting smaller the higher it went and each layer was covered in rudimentary buildings which looked more rotten and decayed the closer to the bottom they were.

Our only justification for not turning around right then and there was the lights coming from the uppermost layers, hinting that some people were still trying to eke out a living despite their obviously failing settlement.

With our goal in sight, we hurried through an abandoned open gateway and down a central square leading up the city’s layers in a winding stairway. From the looks of it, it had been built when the inhabitants still had hope for their settlement, expecting it to turn into a flourishing home. The stairs and the pavement were made with stone, finely worked to outlast the houses around them.

Then we reached the uppermost layers and to our horror, we arrived at what looked like the final stage of a siege.

What could only be the city’s former inhabitants were swarming against an impressive wall, piling up atop each other while a single girl was throwing things at them from atop the balustrade. The townsfolk were no longer human!

Where their eyes and ears should be, multicoloured protrusions were growing out of them, though yellow and grey were the dominant colours. It was the final stage of the mycelia infection Thalia had warned us about.

I flash-stepped forward, unleashing a lightning arc at the zombified horde. Some fell, but the rest charged at me. Then Magnus was suddenly at my side and swung his spetum with enough force to cleave through the infected.

The horde was slow to turn their attention towards us, and so we used the chance to punch our way through the edge of the clump that had formed beneath the girl.

After our fight with the white stalker, these things felt like a cakewalk. They were slow to react and unorganized, their attention seemingly entirely on whatever the girl was throwing at them.

Except for a single violet variant which was a little faster than the others, but it too was no match for us and Magnus split it in twain from head to groin when it crossed our path. Working together, we quickly fought our way to the wall.

Ginevra and Thiago climbed up first, their hands seemingly sticking to the wall. Mark and Thalia flew up while Magnus and I simply flash-stepped the short distance to join the lone defender who was gaping at us with an open mouth.

Once we held the battlement and I had assured myself that the infected were too stupid to climb, I finally turned my attention to the girl who had been defending the wall.

She had green hair with what looked like roots woven in between and her skin had a somewhat leaf-ish texture. For a kid, she looked well protected with light-coloured wooden armour covering her entire body like a set of chain-mail. Her eyes were black orbs, having lost their white sclera for some reason. Lacking a better term, she looked like a little dryad with the plant-mutation theme she had going on.

I wrinkled my nose when I noticed the fist-sized grub wriggling in the girl’s hand.

Then she pointed an accusing finger at us. “You killed Vio!”