Guide

In southern part of Lazarin’s Laboratory, drink Untested Concoction.

Lorebook.

Map

Blighthaven

1.

Down the Jabbit Hole

Lore

[A dog-eared copy of an old children’s picture book popular among Mordesh, this copy is filled with notes that appear to have been scribbled by the original owner – Lucy Lazarin.]

DOWN THE JABBIT HOLE

By Levic Karel

Published per Premium Professional Press Publications
5656 Grismic Grove Gate, Grismaragrad, Grismarava, Grismara

Fourteenth Printing: 1632 G.E.

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[An illustration depicts what must be a pre-Contagion Mordesh girl wearing a simple,
old-fashioned dress. She holds a small, dead jabbit in her arms.]

This is Teya Trivic. Teya is dressed to the tens up for a tea party! But something happened to her friend, Jabbs the Jabbit.

What will Teya do now?

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[The next illustration shows Teya in a kid’s-style alchemy lab, pouring concoctions into beakers and injecting the dead jabbit with a huge hypodermic needle.]Good thinking, Teya! That shot of Vitalus serum will get Jabbs back in the pink in no time!

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[The next illustration shows Jabbs and Teya Trivic enjoying tea with other animals, none of which are known for enjoying tea within the scientific community.]

Teya and Jabbs sure are happy to have so many friends at their party! But what’s this?

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[The following page shows Jabbs leaping free of his seat while Teya Trivic is preoccupied speaking with such unworthy companions as Vic the Vind, Sammy Splorg, and Parsival P. Praxovic.]

Some of their friends don’t like tea?

Who do they think they are? Jabbs knows what to do!

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[The following page shows depicts the jabbit’s teeth, its terrible claws, and blood. The tea remains intact. Animal corpses lie everywhere.]

When friends are being rude, it’s time for new friends! Right, Jabbs?

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[The following page shows Jabbs and Teya Trivic, bloodied, unbowed, and happier than they have ever been as they gather
all the body parts together and haul them to Teya’s laboratory]

Jabbs and Teya know the best friends are the ones you make yourself. And nothing’s better than making best friends!

==================7

[The next page depicts a series of events – Teya and Jabbs dissecting the bodies, stitching together the usable parts into new bodies, and adding simple Mordesh implants. The end of the sequence depicts Vic the Vind’s corpse
beginning to inflate as the alchemy takes hold.]

Vic the Vind sure isn’t being a jerk now, is he? Good work, Teya and Jabbs!

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[The final page depicts Jabbs and Teya back at the tea party. Their new friends are equipped with alchemical and cybernetic implants, and together the group raises a cup of tea in salute to friendship.] To Friendship! The most powerful force in the universe!

Other than the Contagion.

THE END (?)

Guide

Map

Blighthaven

1.

Build Your Own Alchemy Lab in 12 E-Z Steps

Lore

[This how-to guide for the interested amateur lays out what every alchemist’s lab needs, and how to put it all together. This copy has lain idle long enough that the screen has frozen on the highlights page.]

Step 1.
Learn alchemy! People, I cannot stress this enough. If you cannot transmutate a simple chunk of carbinium ore into enough gold to afford the following steps, there is little I can do to help you.

Step 2.
Buy flame-retardant clothes. Also, acid-, gas-, ether-, plasma-, poison-,
anti-matter-, red-matter-, dark-matter-, ectoplasm-, and mutagen-retardant clothing.

Step 3.
Buy the best Philosopher’s Stone datachron program you can. Taking advice from a bargain basement Philosopher’s Stone is a rookie mistake and can lead to sub-optimal results. You may want to invest in humor and card-playing modules as well. It’ll help pass the long lonely hours you’ll be spending in your lab.

Step 4.
Glassware: test tubes, flasks, retorts, valves, coils and beakers are the heart of the
alchemical workspace. Most alchemical supply houses sell sets of glassware that fit the needs of beginner and master alike. I personally would advise not getting the “Super-Deluxe Lazarin Package.” Look where it got him… and us.

Step 5.
Determine the type of mad science you intend to pierce the veil of. Specialization provides focus and reduces waste of precious raw materials. For example, you don’t need a costly transmutation forge if all you intend to do is raise the dead…

[The rest of the text is corrupted, perhaps by the oily substance that appears to have seeped into the tablet.]

Guide

Map

Blighthaven

1.

Who or What Is Globellum?

Lore

[Professor Morrison’s analysis details most of what the XAS has been able to learn about Globellum so far. Unfortunately, it’s not much.]

This world always has another surprise around the corner, and then those surprises have their own surprises. Nothing’s easy about settling Nexus, that’s for sure. Least of all understanding it.

This psionically powerful entity called the Globellum is maybe the biggest surprise since the Strain showed up.
It’s a massive, colonial organism with a hive mind that only gets smarter the bigger the entire creature gets. Smarter, and more powerful. And it’s starting to take our people. Enslaving them with its mind, trapping them in force bubbles we can’t begin to crack – at least not with any kind of hope of surviving the effort. We’re scientists, not soldiers or heroes.

So where did this Globellum come from? Despite appearances, it has no connection to the Strain plaguing this landscape.
No genetic connection to any known creature at all, in fact. It’s completely new to the XAS, comprised of materials we’ve never seen, and has a unique primal pattern that seems to indicate it will absorb and transform any living thing it consumes. What few samples we’ve been able to analyze are baffling. Each cell is capable of breaking off, surviving, and splitting to create clones of itself.

None of which is going to help our people.
They never signed up to be mind-slaves to a monstrous brain-blob.

If help doesn’t arrive soon, I won’t have a choice. I’m going to lead a team out there and try to save as many people as I can. I don’t have much hope of succeeding, but it’s better than staying here and doing nothing.

With luck, it won’t quite come to that.

Guide

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Blighthaven

1.

Scientifically Accurate Amazing Stories of Science! Vol. 3

Lore

[Another volume of the popular educational series for Exiles, which features fictionalized mini-epics of scientific research and theoretical derring-do. The previous user appears to have been interrupted in mid-read, but you manage to decrypt a page’s worth of science adventure.]

JIMNAX’S LUCKY MISTAKE

Taking a bite of his spirovine sandwich, for science rarely allows time for a sit-down lunch, Jimnax nearly choked when he saw the data. The test group showed a 3% increase in acidity when
compared to the control group. Perhaps it wasn’t statistically significant but he was sure he was on the right track.

Charting the results, the ambitious Aurin vowed he’d show the Academy he could run a double-blind trial or his name wasn’t Jimnax Moonstriker!

Just then an alarm went off in the back of the lab. The test group was heating up! “Pinch my tail! That’s not supposed to happen.” Jimnax said out loud.

He rushed back to the tray of tissue samples
in their individual petri dishes. Not only were the samples heating up, but any cellular damage they had was healing at an incredible rate! Jimnax was baffled. He knew exposure to omni-plasm alone wouldn’t have this effect. Then he noticed something in the sample dishes. It looked like bits of spirovine from his sandwich had contaminated the test samples.

“By the Weave! That’s it! The omni-plasm catalyzed the spirovine’s primal life!” Jimnax shouted while jumping up and down in victory!

And thus the Medishot was born, boon to all who dare make Nexus their home. Jimnax was soon transferred to field research. His lax lab habits showed that double-blind studies really weren’t his thing.

Lore

[This frighteningly detailed analysis of the Strain is as disturbing as it is informative.]

Guide

Map

Blighthaven

1.

Uniblade Mechanics Quarterly #293

Lore

[An issue of a periodical quite popular among lowborn uniblade mechanics in the Dominion. This issue is open to a column from the magazine’s recently hired editor-in-chief.]

Oi! Watcha’! I’m the new lad in the shop, ain’t I? The high salt, the man behind the desk, if you know what I mean, and I’m not going to fanny about wit’cha. Old Uni-Mech’s up for some changes. We mean to take a new direction, return to basics old son!

Way back, when I was in knickers, I’d scope Uni-Mech for the technie,
wouldn’t I? It was where I learned the ways and means around a ‘blade’s go-go. Born wit’ a spanner in me hand, my dear old would say, and Uni-Mech was my daily bread. The geezers out there know what I’m talking about.

But look what she’s turned into. A second rate Lad Mag! There’s more ads for fancy togs than there are articles on reactors. Columns on how to spike yer hair just so, how to polish yer horns nice and gleaming-like, what color Uniblade goes wit’ yer fur. And don’t get me started on
all the pics of the pretty Bobs and Bettys in small clothes!

Well, that’s all done, innit?

Uni-Mech was a great mag for great mechs. As it was in the beginning, so it shall be again. I promise you words from the best and brightest ‘blade monkeys out there. I promise fair, in-depth reviews on parts and gear. Old son, I promise you’ll know more about unis when you put us down, than when you picked us up! And maybe, from time to time, a few lush tasties not wearin’ much.