Lore

Entry One

It works! Katja was right! We’ve folded space… entered a dimension that no one but Katja has ever dreamed of! Soon we will emerge, free from the tyranny of the Dominion and its accursed blockade.

Entry Two

The chronometers are not functioning. Time does not go by as it should. It seems as if days have passed, yet within this strange dimension we remain imprisoned. Katja says it is only a matter of time before the Shade will arrive at its destination.

For the sake of us all, I hope she is right.

Entry Three

Weeks of this purgatory have eaten away at my wits! I will not speak to her, for she knows as well as I that our days are numbered.

Ever was I a fool to listen to Katja! A fool!

Entry Four

The Vitalus reserves are gone. Already some of the crew are showing symptoms of the Contagion unchecked. Unless she finds a solution, the lot of us will be lost to mindless rage and animal instinct.

Entry Five

Katja has a plan. She always does, doesn’t she?

I will take no part in it, regardless of the cost. Our people, even those who have been overcome by the Contagion, are still Mordesh… are they not?

Yet she proposes to experiment on them… to take from them so that we may live for a time, free from the madness that inevitably claims us when the Vitalus runs dry.

Entry Six

The tell-tale warning lights shine, foretelling my doom.

I have, perhaps, two hours of Vitalus left to me. Two hours before madness takes me… two hours before I descend into cannibalism and prey upon my brothers and sisters.

Yet Katja calls to me over the intercom. She insists she has made progress, and has a solution to our plight. What can I do? I cannot ignore this chance. I must go to her!

If I do not return from the abattoir her laboratory has become… know that she is the cause of it all.

She needs healthy test subjects. So long as my warning lights shine true, I will be healthy… for at least another two hours.

We are, all of us, damned. I go to her now. Slim hope is better than no hope at all.

Lore

Here I am, and here I stay.

That which should not be, is. I fear I have had no small part in its creation. I can only hope that my attempts to assuage my own existence will succeed, for I cannot bear to languish in feral madness as the rest of the crew does.

The doors have been sealed, the defensive protocols have been applied. She cannot turn them off. In time, oblivion will take her.
Let us hope that this infernal conveyance remains in the nothingness of the void long enough to consign her to the fate which she most assuredly deserves.

For my part, I make no excuses. We began our flight in an attempt to flee from the Dominion’s blockade of our world. In that, our intentions were as pure as a eulogy. Yet things have gone awry as no one could conceive, and now we are locked in a prison of our own production.

The Vitalus in my reservoir depletes. Sanity will not avail me much longer. I will end it now – fire will be my undoing. Should any come here and find the remains of Zarkhov’s Shade, remember the name of Bolav Yaktin.

Lore

Entry #1, Date Unknown

Zarkhov intimated the transition would be quick. She said we would emerge in an instant, bypassing distance and time with equal measure.

She was wrong.

Now we are confined to a dimension where the passage of time is perceived only by our dwindling Vitalus reserves. The chronometers no longer function. Some of them even run backwards.

Entry #2, Date Unknown

Is it a quest for sanity that drives me to record this? Or has my mind already slipped away? I cannot say. I have naught else to do but sit, and wait, and watch my serum slowly spend itself.

Entry #3, Date Unknown

This place, wherever it is, is a home of horrors. Infernal figments flicker in and out of existence like pyreflies, and one of the crewmen has been killed. Perhaps it is only fitting.

Even in death he could not find peace. We survivors fought over his corpse like jackals, thirsty for what little Vitalus remained in his reservoirs.

Even I squabbled for my own meager share of his serum.

Entry #4, Date Unknown

Lack of Vitalus has begun to take its toll, and the sweet respite of death proves no cure for our condition. Whatever compels the Contagion is fortified by the alien dimension we find ourselves fenced within.

Those who have been physically killed soon rise from their repose, as ravenous for the blood of their brothers as those who are driven to depravity by the Contagion alone.

Soon it shall be my turn.

Entry #5, Date Unknown

The Vitalus is gone. So, too, are my chances. Even now I can feel the fetid fever as it fills my form with fatigue. Yet I am comforted, but by what… I know not.

I shall secret away this story of my time aboard Zarkhov’s Shade. If any should find it, they will know the horror that befell us…

Lore

Freedom, at any price, is cheaply bought.

It is with such thoughts that I set my designs in motion, creating the miraculous drive system that would serve as my race’s salvation. Yet despite our best efforts – nay, despite even our extraordinary successes! – we have been caught like vermin in a trap.

In our hubris, we have only traded one form of captivity for another.

I believe our time in transit will be short. To consider other alternatives is to walk the razor’s edge of insanity.
The crew is frightened – who can blame them? And yet…

My original calculations revealed the journey would be instantaneous. As we have yet to emerge from the void, I can only surmise that my calculations were incorrect.

It occurs to me now that perhaps time in the void does not pass in a manner similar to time in native space. If this is the case, there must be some conversion rate that will reveal how long our trip will last.

Nine months! Damn the unknown! Damn my naiveté!

Anything longer than three months is a death sentence, as our Vitalus supply was not intended to last more than a week or two. Though we have a full laboratory available aboard the Shade, we haven’t the raw materials to create the serum we will need.

I will not give up. I will find a way to survive.

Sacrifices must be made. Some of us will die… it is inevitable. Yet they should die so others can live. I take no pleasure in my butcher’s task, but I am comforted by the knowledge that history
will absolve me.

The ravenous are useless to me, as are the dead. Only those who still have some vestige of Vitalus in their systems can provide the essence I need to extend my viability.

I had thought to allow Bolav to join me, for I might have enough for the two of us… but no. He has grown soft and weak, shackled by his own conscience. I can see he plots against me, even though he maintains a facade of loyalty so perfect that it almost pains me to betray him in kind.

If I am the only one
to survive, then so be it. Many have died so that I might live to remember them.

My transformation will be a long, slow process. Fueled by the essence of my comrades and strengthened by the unknowable energies of the void, I will ascend beyond the frailties inflicted upon me by the Contagion.

Nine months will pass in the blink of an eye. I will give this painful gift to my people on Nexus, and they will kneel before me in gratitude. Such is my just reward for the sacrifices I have made.

Bolav has outwitted me. His containment procedures have guaranteed that I remain on the Shade’s bridge until such time as I can engineer my freedom. Ignorant of the timetable I have discovered, he took his own life before the last of his Vitalus could be spent. The poor fool.

I am given the benefit of time, for I can last many months here amidst the dead and the damned. So I will wait, and I will watch, and in time… I will be free.

Lore

00110100 00110100 00110100 00101110 00110101
00110010 00101110 00110111 00111001 00101110
00110001 00110010 00001101 00001010 01000100
01010101 00110010 00110011 00100000 01110011
01100001 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100101
00100000 01100001 01101110 01100001 01101100
01111001 01110011 01101001 01110011 00111010
00100000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01110101
01101100 01110100 01110011 00100000 01100011
01101111 01101101 01110000 01101001 01101100
01100101 01100100 00001101 00001010
01001101
01100111 00110100 00110110 00100101 00100000
01010100 01101001 00110001 00110101 00100101
00100000 01000011 01101111 00110001 00110011
00100101 00100000 01010111 00110001 00110000
00100101 00100000 01000001 01110101 00111000
00100101 00100000 01010000 01100010 00110101
00100101 00100000 01010101 00110011 00100101

00110100 00110100 00110100 00101110 00110101
00110100 00101110 00110100 00110010 00101110
00110001 00110110 00001101 00001010 01001001
01101110 01110100 01100101 01110010 01100001
01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110
00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000
00100000 01010011 01110101 01100010 01101010
01100101 01100011 01110100 00100000 00110000
00110100 00101100 00100000 01100100 01100101
01110011 01101001 01100111 01101110 01100001
01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110
00100000
01010100 01111001 01101110 01100101 01110011
00001101 00001010 01010011 01110000 01101111
01101011 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101111
01110010 00100000 00111001 00110011 00110110
00100000 01110011 01100101 01100011 01101111
01101110 01100100 01110011 00100000 01100011
01101111 01101110 01100011 01100101 01110010
01101110 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000
01101101 01101001 01101110 01100101 00101100
00100000 01111001 01101001 01100101 01101100
01100100 00101100 00100000
01100001 01101110
01100100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100
01101100 01101111 01101111 01101011 00001101
00001010 01001001 01101110 01100100 01101001
01100011 01100001 01110100 01100101 01100100
00100000 01000001 01111000 01101001 01101111
01101101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101
01101100 01100100 00100000 01100010 01100101
00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01110011
01110011 01101001 01100111 01101110 01100101
01100100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01101100
01101100 01101111
01110111 01101001 01101110
01100111 00100000 01000100 01010101 00110010
00110011 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101
01110000 01101100 01100101 01110100 01101001
01101111 01101110

Lore

00110100 00110100 00110100 00101110 00110101
00111000 00101110 00111000 00110111 00101110
00110001 00110001 00001101 00001010 01010011
01110101 01100010 01101010 01100101 01100011
01110100 00100000 00110000 00110100 00100000
01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100011
01110010 01100101 01110111 00100000 01100111
01101111 01101110 01100101 00111011 00100000
01010100 01111001 01101110 01100101 01110011
00100000 01101001 01101110 01100100 01101001
01100011 01100001 01110100 01100101
01110011
00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01110011
01110011 01101001 01100111 01101110 01101101
01100101 01101110 01110100 00100000 01101111
01100110 00100000 01000001 01111000 01101001
01101111 01101101 00100000 01110111 01101001
01101100 01101100 00100000 01101001 01101110
01100011 01101100 01110101 01100100 01100101
00100000 01101101 01100101 01101101 01101111
01110010 01111001 00100000 01100100 01100101
01101100 01100101 01110100 01101001 01101111
01101110 00001101 00001010
01000001 01110101
01110100 01101111 01101101 01100001 01110100
01100101 01100100 00100000 01101100 01100001
01100010 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101111
01110000 01100101 01110010 01100001 01110100
01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001
01110100 00100000 00111001 00111000 00100101
00001101 00001010 01000100 01110010 01101111
01101110 01100101 00100000 00110100 00110010
00111001 01100010 00100000 01101101 01100001
01101100 01100110 01110101 01101110 01100011
01110100 01101001
01101111 01101110 00111011
00100000 01100010 01110010 01101111 01101011
01100101 01101110 00100000 01100011 01100001
01101101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000
01100100 01110010 01101001 01101100 01101100
00100000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01100001
01110010 01100001 01110100 01110101 01110011
00111010 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110000
01101100 01100001 01100011 01100101 01101101
01100101 01101110 01110100 00100000 01110000
01100001 01110010 01110100 01110011 00100000
01110010
01100101 01110001 01110101 01100101
01110011 01110100 01100101 01100100