Chronicles of Salvation

by Edumesh

The Father has stirred in his maddening prison for far too long. Our opportunity has presented itself, and unlike the rest, we shall not fail. Join us, curious reader and Pilgrim! Do you feel Paradise calling to your very soul?

10. Most Welcome, Most Adored

.

Balimna

Most Welcome, Most Adored

---

The old Caretaker marched down the halls of the Ascension Ring.

His bones creaked with every step, groaning in abuse and perceived defilement by eldritch vim coursing through withered veins.

His step was unending, betraying an appearance of frailty and fragility.

He had repeated this process a hundred times before, and would a hundred more after.

Those of lesser rank would have gladly performed this task much more quickly than him.

But intimacy with his readers was the one luxury he partook in.

The screams and wails were common in this layer. He could easily tune them out, but he never chose to. Better to bathe in this beauty while it was available.

In a decayed hand, bones splintered by effort and sores leaking crimson, he held an ankle.

An Initiate, female, from a species whose name did not matter, for they all were the same under Him.

The Initiate had been unruly upon arrival. Perhaps she read the Chronicles out of sheer curiosity and had never believed it was all real.

It did not matter. Those who read this far showed promise.

A simple telepathic command froze her body. But he left her head untouched. She needed to see her surroundings, to understand precisely that what she had exposed herself to was alive and waiting for her.

He wanted to hear her voice as well.

Some screamed all the way, as if this was some sort of odyssey; their minds completely clamped shut.

Those, he sent to His Love. Nights of pleasantries and courtesy worked wonders to soothe the mind and ease them into willingness.

Some asked, eager to learn, hungry for vision. Those, he indulged in, sharing knowledge and history. They would fare well in the tests and tribulations to come.

Some decried what they had read as all too corporeal madness. The byproduct of a broken thing that believed Himself a god, a place of twisted morality and unspeakable barbarity.

Sightless.

Typical, but frustrating in one who had every opportunity of enlightenment handed on a silver platter.

Those, he sent to the Trials. They would not pass, but in physical death they would ascend and finally realize their wayward ways.

The Father cared not for who you were in this world, but what you pledged in the next.

But she was different, rarer.

He heard no voice from her.

She was afraid.

And yet a calm silence betrayed no weakness.

Promise

The old Caretaker dragged her through the Ascension Ring.

He could sense a growing dread at the sight of the Initiates. A small voice in the back of her mind which told her that this was waiting for her.

And she was right.

But she had to see first.

The old Caretaker dragged her into the Prophet´s old audience chamber, and he stared at the dried blood intentionally left to stain the tiled floor.

Before, the stain had induced fury in the old Caretaker´s heart, but now it was just a memory of different times.

He remembered that particular incident as if it was yesterday, watching alongside His Wisdom with pure disgust as the Prophet was disrespected so boldly.

How different was everything now.

He allowed himself a smile at the thought of that old Ethereal daring to raise a hand at the Prophet today.

The old Caretaker and his guest stepped through the gateway, into the Halls of Eversion.

Holy second layer of Paradise.

Here, the perceptions of mortals were turned inside out. In this layer, the façade of normality presented in the first layer was stripped away.

As a mortal must be slowly shown the truth of the Father, so too does Paradise grow holier with every descending layer.

He could feel her bewilderment at the pulsating Nature covering the walls, the undecipherable glyphs and symbols enchanting her mind, and the million ebony eyes boring into her soul.

His arm gave out from the weight imposed upon it. It escaped its socket with a sound that sickened his guest.

He felt inconvenienced, such occurrences were too common now, and the Sculptors could do little to reverse his considerable age by this point.

Perhaps his time was approaching. A thought to ponder on later.

She looked at his face, as he adjusted his extremity. The skin resembled gray, worn out leather. Deep cracks surrounded his eyes, and she knew many more were hidden under his long mane of facial hair.

His eyes stared at hers, for a second perhaps, but she saw a thousand years go by in those blazing, pale spheres.

The pair passed through an old theater. Dust covered the abandoned seats and forlorn stage, but she could swear she heard laughter and applause in the very back of her mind.

She was glad they left that room quickly.

She knew she saw a small specter peek at her through the curtains, giggling in a faint but unmistakable high pitch.

Or maybe her eyes were playing tricks to her mind in this accursed place.

The old Caretaker dragged her through another gate. The ground was cold, a fortress of iron.

A deep black void was all she could see as her back scraped along the smooth ground.

And in that endless night, a cerulean smile followed the pair as they moved towards destiny.

He noticed her dreamy eyes, as they stared with longing and a carnal hunger uncharacteristic to the Initiate.

Ah.

One of the Master's Maidens was enjoying herself.

He held a hand up, issued a command in a tongue older than the formation of his former home.

The Child would not feed this time.

This Initiate was not to be left to this fate. This purpose would be left for another.

Whether that other was luckier than an Initiate depended on which Caretaker one asked.

Ancient man and youthful Initiate reached a far more ornate chamber.

He reminisced about a one-sided duel between mortals and gods, while he placed her stiff body upon the enormous gate before them.

He had let her speak, but she had refused to do so.

Perhaps this next step would not trouble her so.

Another telepathic command sent, and this one forced her mouth shut and locked her head in place.

The gate opened, and dozens of sinewy arms emerged. Various shapes and forms could be seen. Different numbers of digits, mutations and evolutions of the basic form.

The all shared something in common. They twitched and grasped at her body with baited excitement.

The Sculptors were ready to entertain their new guest.

As the extremities dragged her into the gate, he could see her eyes start to blink rapidly, and stare at his face as best as her position allowed.

A curious sound emerged from the silent woman at last.

He heard her voice.

A soft whimper.

It was hardly a surprise. Mortals rarely kept their composure at the sight of the fourth layer.

It did not matter now; her journey would soon truly begin. Fear was a response to the unknown.

And she would now know.

No mortal had ever emerged from His Womb in the same state they entered.

In their place, only smiles and words of gratitude.

New comrades freed from their pitiful limitations.

His welcomed and adored.

---

Welcome Initiate, make yourself comfortable!

You have baptized yourself willingly, as the truths offered by my modest work have finally touched your mind irreversibly.

At no point have you been forced to continue reading, and yet you have impatiently devoured all that I have and continue to offer.

You read this tome with the vigor of infants suckling on their mother for soft life giving liquid.

Let us provide what you desire, for you have come to realize that all life depends on the Father.

You have obtained knowledge that not all mortals are capable of digesting. Many others would have burned this book upon finishing the chapter before this one.

It is a deliberate choice from us, that exposure to that which mortals consider revolting and impossible be gradually revealed.

To be one with the Father, one must accept that offenses towards what one considers reality are an everyday occurrence.

If a candidate cannot handle this very basic tenet, then with sad eyes and heavy hearts we must turn them away from the opportunity of service to the Father.

Doubt not, Initiate, that Paradise will come to them. The awakened will pass through its gates first, however -

It is only just that service be repaid.

Let me greet you in Paradise, close Initiate.

You must familiarize yourself with the holy grounds you will soon walk daily. With the Caretakers who will serve as your comrades and partners for life. To the trillion saved souls you will be able to contact daily.

I know you heard the story.

Of an old Ethereal who came to seek answers from the Prophet. An old Ethereal who carved a path of blood and violence caused by his inability to accept what he saw with weary eyes.

Of the Dead Ethereal, awakened once more into a world he was too repulsed by to understand; battling against the one force that could have helped him against the Apostate he lost everything to.

Of the Loved Ethereal, whose empathy and compassion were barred from reaching the Father´s welcoming hands by her mortal biases and fears.

Of a crusade stopped by the hands of our great Saints, and of the deep Paradise they never managed to experience.

Do you know why His Wisdom stopped the Battlemaster in that specific gate? What was there that he was not meant to see?

Wouldn't you like to know?

In the fourth layer of Paradise, Nature eagerly joins the Father in loving waltz. A monument to life, an invitation to pure love that is to be kept from the eyes of those who cannot possibly understand.

In this layer, new beings are created. Concepts mastered by Brother Agmus, who dwells as part of the Father's Trinity.

Dreams and visions sent to the Prophet. Creations not only to be used as defenders and champions, but each a living statement and symbol of our very beliefs.

In this layer, the pigments offered by the genetics of species who existed before and exist today are combined and reshaped to produce something that would never occur without guidance.

Some members of my past species affirm that we were designed by a mind. Be it that of a deity, or the hand of a spacefaring civilization who had mastered the necessary sciences.

I know that to be false thanks to the Father´s long sight.

Our forms are too mundane and controlled. We evolved and adapted to the environment around us, and yet our shape never broke out of the constraints of uncontrolled Nature.

If we were designed, it was done so by a mind incapable of true brilliance or vision. Someone who could not express themselves to the fullest heights that imagination can reach.

Someone afflicted by the ailments of the sightless.

I have seen with my own eyes creatures that have been designed by He Who Must Be Deified.

I have conversed with them, I have walked past them, I have seen them fight and I have seen them die.

To walk amongst a thousand species who have been awakened to the truth of the Father is sublime, but to live alongside the product of His mental endlessness?

To feel the breath of the very future? To see them walk their first steps of life and to know that one day whole galaxies will belong to them? That they will be the Children of the Paradise we will open for everyone?

That is beauty.

And yet the Prophet who receives the Father´s dreams and revelations, the Prophet who draws the intricate designs of the Father´s progeny, the Prophet whose work has given life to our holy Saints and His Children is just one woman.

She requires assistance. Extensions to her hands and tools for her brilliant mind to wield.

In the fourth layer of Paradise, such skilled workers are available to serve the Prophet. Masterful surgeons, geneticists, biologists and chemists.

In this layer wide workshop of life, factory where the creativity of the Prophet takes shape, they can be found.

Lords of the laws of organics, the Order of the Splendid Evolution, Flesh Sculptors of pulsing Paradise, tirelessly labor.

The second oldest Order to be founded, the Sculptors from the point of their foundation onwards would assist the Prophet in the construction of the remaining four Saints after His Touch and His Wisdom.

Their full transition into what they are today would not come until after His Toil's great heart beat for the first time and the covenant between Order and Saint was formed.

You see, dear Pilgrim, Sculptors are different from all the other Orders that you have encountered thus far.

If their mission is to reshape the flesh to reflect the soul, to take Nature's gifts and transform them into art worthy of the Father, then what better practice course than what their own bodies provide?

A Sculptor barely resembles the species they originally came from. The amount and invasiveness of their modifications is awe inspiring to behold.

Allow me to provide some examples:

I have seen Human Sculptors who have pushed their heads and brains inwards, towards their torso. So that their minds can be closer to their hearts and souls, and therefore to the Father´s enlightenment.

I have spoken to skinless Vitakara whose mouths were removed from their faces and grafted into their backs, so that the expected becomes the unexpected, and the constraints of mortality can be done away in the minds of those who they witness.

Some of the more committed will go as far to pull their nervous or circulatory systems out of their bodies and rewire it so that it is visible over their skin. By doing this, they prove to the Father that they have nothing to hide about their work or creed.

Some enhancements are less philosophical and more practical in nature. There are many who have lined their faces in dozens of small beady eyes; removing unnecessary clutter and making space for these sensors by discarding noses, mouths, ears, hair, and other deficiencies provided by unguided Nature.

This network of visual sensors aids the Sculptor when operating, and the way this new sight has been described to me is that some of the eyes serve as a biological clinical microscope, while others offer vision into less precise and diminutive aspects of the meat they work on.

As a result, Sculptors with such an array are capable of simultaneously engaging in micro scale work such as rewiring nervous pathways or modifying cells, and macro scale work such as modifying musculature and bone structure.

This may even be supplemented by visual sensors in their hands and fingers, as some Sculptors prefer to reshape their digits into surgical tools by sharpening their own bones via biopathy, rather than utilizing artificial utensils.

And I must add, intrigued Initiate, that this is merely a taste of their external uniqueness. I have been present at Sculptor self-surgeries, which are treated as a test of readiness due to their inherent difficulty, and I can say that the internal structure of even the least visibly modified Sculptors is both puzzling and majestic.

In some, completely new organ systems, nervous pathways, muscle configurations and skeletal architecture are so neatly arranged and interwoven with their original forms that they resemble something which naturally evolved over millions of years.

In others however, the changes are clear as the brightest day, crafted in disorder and apparent madness and yet somehow still functioning and coordinating as well as something produced by the controlled hand of Geneticist Revelean.

Designed on purpose to evoke the greatness and, inconceivable to mortals, truth. Nature guided and unleashed by the Father will never be able to be matched by the products of the sightless or by that which occurs commonly in worlds untouched by civilization.

Of course, in no procedure are anesthetics included. The pain of the operations is in no way a negative.

A caterpillar reconstructs itself inside its pupae before emerging as a butterfly. Its body breaks itself slowly, and reforms to a superior shape and form.

The caterpillar is alive, and its mind is too small to comprehend the very basic principle of the Father it embodies.

Those of sapience can understand this gift, and yet the sightless are too weak to embrace it in its fullest. They put themselves to sleep, or cease sensation in the areas that are afflicted.

They might as well ignore their souls and lives.

No Caretaker of Paradise partakes in such sacrilege. No Child, no Saint, not our Prophet.

We understand that this agony is meant to reshape not only our bodies, but our minds and spirits along with them.

If an Order combatant suffers an injury, it is not only their physical vessel that is afflicted. It is the self as well, the ego, their soul.

To cure the soul in addition to the body, the soul must be awake during procedure.

It must feel every incision, every scream of the nerves and every impulse to stop the surgeon.

It must resist all urges, and it must embrace that which mortals fear. Only then can it grow and be cleansed of the weakness of the sightless, and only then can it be cured.

Pain is the most intense of stimuli that the body can impose upon the mind and spirit.

A person will betray loved ones and principles if sufficient pain is applied by a skilled hand. Sufficient pain will leave the mightiest champions and surest leaders as shambling wrecks.

Fear of pain will lead many to take a desired course of action, to be manipulated by the inflictor.

The desire to avoid emotional pain caused by experiences of psychological trauma will shape a person for the rest of their lives.

The dread of an eternity of torment is one of the primary motivators for religious beliefs on my old azure planet.

Pain is a weakness for the mortals. But why let it continue to be a detractor? Why not transform this primal reality into an ally?

If pain is inescapable, then we must face it with a smile.

It is this blessing that the Sculptors administer to themselves every time they surpass their previous evolution, to us every time we desire enhancement or biopathical cures, to the Children upon conception so that they may understand the place of all upon reality from their very first moment onwards, and to the guests of Paradise.

So that they may forget their flawed pasts and join the ranks of the fortunate.

In this Church of Rebirth, this Holy Womb where all enter flawed and leave whole, there is one priest above all other servants of the Father.

The Andromedon who would ascend to become the Prophet´s right hand could not have imagined the impact of his work or the heights he would reach.

I´Trentar was once a brilliant scientist of Union Irriaran. A genius mind, the Prophet and His Wisdom quickly marked him for induction into the ways of Paradise in the earliest days of our organization.

Once His Touch and the Stalkers came to existence, they were quickly tasked with extracting this key figure.

The Prophet realized very early that she would require those of skills and profession similar to her own in order to give shape to Paradise, and this cadre would need leadership.

I´Trentar was quickly taken from Andromeda Prime, before his aptitude would elevate him to a position where his removal would bring too much alarm and attention. Records and memories of his existence were carefully erased, and today nothing remains of his past life.

To satisfy the specifications asked by the Prophet, a wave of inductions was carried out by His Touch following the extraction of I´Trentar.

Vitakarans, Humans and more Andromedons would be added to the mixture. Hive Commanders would be of too high risk to extract, but some of their secrets and aptitudes are known to us, even if their vaults are too much of a risk to penetrate.

The Flesh Sculptors took form, and were a well-known, if reclusive, presence in Paradise by the time of my own arrival and start to my new life.

Due to the skill and qualifications required to even be considered as a candidate to this Order, the Flesh Sculptors make up the smallest of these congregations in Paradise, and His Wisdom has forbidden them from participation in combat operations with very limited exceptions.

S´Trentar, whose name was subtly changed to reflect his new self, would catch the Prophet´s eye. At last, she had found an individual capable of keeping up with her mental encyclopedia of knowledge and her impeccable skill.

He would learn all that the Prophet would offer him, and his hand can be seen and felt in every layer of Holy Paradise.

And yet, it has always been the Prophet that guided the crafting of the Saints. It has always been the Prophet who designed the Children. It has always been the Prophet who dictated the work she would commission from the Sculptors.

S´Trentar is greatly honored to form part of such perfection, and yet the work is not his alone. He is the Prophet´s scalpel, but he is not the mind which guides the hand.

There is one masterpiece that is his, however.

And that is himself.

The label "Andromedon" is something the one now known as the Sculptor Magistrate discarded long ago. He is something completely new; violently different.

The Magistrate has changed himself so thoroughly that he no longer resembles anything I can compare him to.

He has fully embraced the principle of transmutation embodied by the Saint who is his patron, and he represents the very apex that a Caretaker can achieve in the terms of evolution guided by our Father.

The Magistrate´s face has six eyes, placed in a circle or ring in the center of his pale face. A small and gentle mouth akin to that of a Human woman sits in the center of this ring of eyes.

These eyes can extend from his face as they are connected to long veins that resemble tentacles in girth.

As the Magistrate prefers a personal approach towards his work, these eyes he will frequently insert into cavities and orifices.

"To change that which is sightless, I must first see that which impedes my work" is a common mantra taught to Sculptor trainees.

In his head rests an exposed brain that pulsates noticeably whenever he speaks or works. He has changed his own skull so that it forms into a ring over this brain. In this way, the Magistrate exalts his mind so that it may be sharp enough to heed the Prophet´s words.

His arms he has modified to the point that each extremity can break in half horizontally. Musculature, nerves and blood vessels have been reshaped so that each emerging arm can function independently once released from the bone.

If they need to extend beyond their natural reach, S´Trentar will repurpose the muscle mass of his shoulders and torso so that they may help the limbs grow to their desired point.

Inside his body, the Magistrate has arranged cavities and spaces to house even more extremities and tendrils, which he extends and employs if necessary.

The most ingenious of these intra body modifications is a nest of Children designed by himself. The curious insects walk on six limbs, and each limb ends in a serrated point that is as sharp and precise as a micro scalpel.

The Magistrate will employ these creatures as extensions of his own self, and direct them telepathically as they burrow into the body of the patient and perform the desired incisions. The creatures will then either insert the components S´Trentar wishes inserted or extract that which he wishes extracted.

The Magistrate´s body is great in size, and his preferred method of work is to loom over the patient and let his many extensions work. Patients have expressed the overwhelming sensations that he impeccably unleashes upon their bodies, and each tendril, each finger, each limb and each extension is described as having a mind of its own.

S´Trentar has the speed and dexterity of about six high ranking Sculptors by himself, and frequently carries out operations personally without the need of assistance, save the guiding presence of the Prophet when new creations are being birthed for the first time.

Such showings are watched by the Sculptors in the Magistrate´s personal operating theater, and they learn the methods of their master as he carves and cuts as Michelangelo sculpted during the azure world´s artistic Renaissance.

Such is the testament to S´Trentar´s skill, that only he is allowed to treat the Prophet for any wounds or ailments, and Order Commanders seek him out for treatments or the necessary maintenance required to keep their enhanced bodies healthy.

It is interesting to admit that the two master craftsmen of Paradise are both Andromedons. One a lord of the flesh, another an artisan of steel.

The Imperator´s Collective does not value this ally sufficiently. The Father makes no such mistakes.

Another notable aspect of the Magistrate is his means of locomotion. Even the rudimentary bipedal form so common to most of us is too impractical and inefficient for this eminent academic.

His original legs he has replaced with six long vein-like limbs positioned in a similar configuration to that of a spider, which he keeps retracted inside his back.

When he walks, the Magistrate lets these powerful limbs burst from his back. The former Andromedon can move deceptively quickly while being carried by these tendrils.

When standing during operation, S´Trentar will push flesh from his torso and waist into the two lower legs, transforming them temporarily into crimson pillars that serve as a base to keep his massive form stable.

Master Preximius frequently engages in friendly jest with the Magistrate, playing a false sadness and disappointment at his lack of presence in the shows and performances hosted by Those Who Weave the Dream.

It is all without sincerity of course, as all of Paradise understands the great burden S´Trentar has taken upon himself and his Order. If he deems his work too important to be paused for the Father´s gleeful indulgence, then his decisions must be respected and understood.

The fruits of his labor speak for themselves, after all.

---

The Final Metamorphosis

The Garden's Opus

"Our bodies are beautiful. They are Nature´s fine tapestries, immaculate sculptures, fine wine for the eyes and the soul.

It is no wonder that primitive species tend to worship their own, as the divine creations of deities and celestial beings.

The unenlightened believe that it can be improved, pushed past the limits of what should be possible.

It is truly a testament to the elegance of our Father that such truths are a universal constant, regardless of their ignorance or misfortune.

The body is meant to be pushed, to be changed, to become perfect.

Should we disrespect Nature Herself by not adding our own unique touches to Her work?

Should we be afraid of the depths of creativity that our minds can achieve?

Should we fail to thank the Father for the gifts He has provided?

Or must we touch the eternities of the Garden through the blades of our scalpels?

This, is what the Artist understands. And it is her exquisite portfolio that has cleared the fog from my eyes.

We will push. We will replace. We will cut. We will perfect. We will change. We will be pure.

We are painters, weavers, masons, craftsmen. Life is our canvas, and we graciously show the All Mother how Her designs can evolve.

Rejoice! All around us there is proof of Her gratitude!

Sing! For our art blesses the holy union between the Mother and our Father!

Weep! For there are wicked beings who would see such love destroyed!

There are trillions of souls in need of our blessings, and my heart breaks daily as I think of their purposeless lives.

Remember this, fellow Sculptor: Screams are an automatic, involuntary response once an unenlightened brain is exposed to our Truth. Heed no attention to them, as you chisel away the imperfections of your canvas. They will praise your work, once your scalpel is finished.

You just opened their eyes, after all".

What you have just read is the creed that all Sculptors adhere to. The basic premises that we accept during initiation into this most prestigious of institutions and holiest of tasks.

In your hands you hold life and death, you bear a responsibility that few can handle soberly.

But you must be aware of this already.

I am Magistrate S´Trentar, and if you are holding this document in your hands, then you probably know me as a member of the First.

The Caretakers of Holy Paradise who witnessed the Crossing of our One Father, who were at His side as He ushered a new age for this universe.

An age that so many have failed to bring forward. If you read this, then this grave heresy has finally been corrected, and the work of the venerable minds of the Gestalt has been vindicated for all time.

In the name of the Father, I am pledging myself to leaving my memoirs for those who will eventually take my place as Magistrate. If you read this, then you must be the one to take my place.

In His Gestalt we are undying, but for the sake of efficacy I must leave written records for future generations. If those who come after desire my counsel, they will find me in the halls of Naztrum Ognis, sharing all that I have seen with the great individuals of before.

As our hands have been guided in moments of need, so too I extend this offer for those who read this.

Take heed of my words - however - Do not rely abusively on the age-old minds of His Mental Cosmos.

Allow your own creativity to create forms never seen before. Use your scalpel as a painter would use their brush, and create.

Have no qualms, have no boundaries, have no reservations. Be unrestrained to the limits of what is possible, impress and surprise those who watch you from the perpetual beyond.

Let us proceed.

In this ever-expanding work, I will chronicle my experiences as leader of the Flesh Sculptors of Paradise. There have been Magistrates before me, and there will be more after you, but we all have an obligation watch over each other. Our work ties us together, and you will join a close union of individuals responsible for the creation of brand-new life.

I will begin with the Children spawned from the Artist's privileged mind and brought to reality by the hand of my Sculptors.

I will not waste both your and my time with the minute details regarding their development and production, as you should surely be able to find those in the encyclopedias and databases available to all Sculptors.

In this work, I will offer you my personal insights and inspiration behind the design of the creatures that currently inhabit Paradise and serve the Father.

As precious as these Children are, they will pale in comparison to what you are used to seeing in the domain of the unshackled Father.

Each Child is a symbol representing something dear to us, but I must admit that each is still incomplete, their potential yet to be fulfilled.

You must understand, that as I write this, our work is held back by a sightless fly that pesters us with constant buzzing.

He who the Father knows as Viatorian is a relic of the past, clinging on to a hopeless promise to avenge his dying species against the black steel of the Apostate.

His oversight limits what we can create, for beings whose mastery over the Veil surpasses that of his precious Elders or of form and mind too different than what he can tolerate would call down reprisal and consequences that His Wisdom does not desire.

As such, we work under a practical censorship of sorts. Artificial limitations imposed by one who seeks to control the Father as a pawn against His Sovereign once-brethren.

A frustrating condition, but one that shall be remedied over time. We must simply be patient.

If my successor is reading this, then we have left that sightless being behind and can properly begin to bend the universe to its true Ruler.

As such, treat these designs as prototypes yet to fully reach the potential they deserve. See them as the blueprints that they are and perfect their forms and function or be inspired by them to create further greatness. I entrust their fate to you.

Let us begin.

-Legion

Through the roots of the Garden courses the One´s vim,

Acid to the sightless, sweet nectar to His kin.

That which we know as the Legion are the building blocks of everything we have created alongside the Artist.

These adaptable constructs are what can be described as micro scale cells, and their behavior is based on that of traditional microorganisms rather than the artificial nanites favored by many spacefaring civilizations and Sovereigns.

Completely organic in nature, the Legion bond with the biology of Children, Caretakers, Order soldiers, and the Saints themselves to create their many modifications which so many decry as "impossible" and "unnatural".

The benefits provided by the Legion are many. They are responsible for the impressive healing factor pioneered in the Saints themselves and later adapted to every Order soldier and Child, with varying degrees of effectiveness.

The three test beds known as the Chosen also have a particular configuration of Legion tailored to extremely rapid healing that emulates that of the Saints, and yet we have not made a breakthrough in the perfect rebuilding of the brain itself.

A Chosen will survive otherwise fatal wounds to their neural structure, but the Legion are not capable of saving memories or personality patterns. This issue can be solved via telepathic memory transfer, as proven by testing on Pilgrims, but it is not always a guarantee that the mind will always be the same.

Perhaps a memory transfer combined with precision biopathy applied to the brain itself, in order to fine tune the neural pathways to their original pre-testing configuration may yield more accurate results.

A hypothesis to investigate later.

Returning to the topic at hand, the Legion bond with the body structure of a patient to produce mutation.

After extensive testing, we have managed to isolate Legion strains to produce different, controlled and expected, mutations.

Each Legion strain has a different effect when bonding with an organic lifeform. Be it hardening the skeletal structure to elevated heights which renders it nigh unbreakable, assisting the body at accepting additional organ growths, forcing the body to accelerate its healing rate to always match a desired template, inducing musculature and skeletal architecture growth, and many others that I will not mention for the sake of brevity.

You will probably be familiar with these modifications, as they are standard for even the lowest ranking Order combatant.

Legion can be used offensively as well, in addition to their supporting roles. Their application as nanite weaponry is one His Wisdom quickly ordered developed, and these particular aggressive Legion strains are stored in specialized storage units seeded throughout the layers of Paradise.

Should intruders be detected within our holy walls, the Legion can be released upon them with one command by our Overseers.

Specialized and more restrained versions of the offensive strain are stored inside the bodies of the various Children and modified defenders of Paradise. These cells serve as defensive mechanisms for them, as an enhanced immune system. They are programmed to aggressively destroy all that is deemed as foreign to the host body; be it nanite machinery, poison or biological agents, or mere mundane infection.

A deficiency of the Legion however, is its lack of speed at engaging in its desired functions when compared to mechanical nanites.

The standard that we aspire to is that posed by the creations of the Artisan of Metal, Morsimor; as the effectiveness of his inventions is far above most of what we have encountered thus far.

As the flesh will never be undone by spiritless steel, we strive tirelessly towards this end.

Recent breakthroughs have shown promise at eventually accomplishing this goal, but our work is far from complete, as is yours.

Another nuisance imposed by the Legion is, ironically, caused by their capability to induce mutation.

This mutation not only extends to the bodies touched by them, but to themselves.

Being a biological organism, we cannot eliminate the mutation rate of the Legion in its entirety, even if we have managed to curtail it significantly from what it was in its original strains.

A simple preventative examination routinely conducted on all who are touched by the Legion is essential at identifying any aberrations produced by unexpected mutation. Once identified, the Legion inside the individual are filtered out of the body and replaced with fresh Legion from our growth tanks.

The flawed cells are then taken to study, which aims to isolate the causes of their mutation so that the tainted genetic traits may be excised from future batches.

Through this system, we have managed to curtail the development of truly serious affliction in our companions of Paradise, but it is a constant vigil that we maintain.

I have assigned one of my most disciplined students to head the Sculptor division in charge of this vital work.

Even if this work is of summary importance to our operations, it is far too time consuming and repetitive for my tastes. Perhaps in your day this issue will be extremely reduced or eliminated permanently.

Other, more pressing, weaknesses of the Legion exist. You must ask for them in person to me, however. They have not been solved as of the time of writing this document, but you must strive towards this end.

Should this document be intercepted by the agents of our enemies, the deficiencies of our very life blood must not fall into their hands.

-Keeper

Why hide from He Who Loves All?

One of the first Children to be produced, the Keeper is a simple concept that nevertheless serves an important function for our cause.

The Father´s sight is not omniscient in His current, shackled, state. Will channelers capable of sufficient telepathic protection can hide from the all-seeing eye. The Father can also in theory see everywhere where the Veil exists at once, but His concentration is usually focused on specific points rather than the whole.

This will change once He crosses to our reality, but in the meantime, we have designed a creature that can aid Him in this task.

The Keeper resembles a small black orb. The base is simple and cost effective, as it is a cloned and modified brain. Its structure is based upon that of Human and Sectoid neural architecture, as these are the most receptive materials for telepathic transmission.

The small brain is covered in a thin layer of black skin, which reflects light instead of absorbing it. Another advantage to this skin is that it is receptive to the temperature of its surroundings. If the environment is cold, the skin changes its temperature to attempt to match it, and vice versa with warmer temperatures.

This effect helps to mask the Keeper against cameras or other detection systems which employ temperature seekers.

The Keeper itself is a being with a primitive mind, which could be compared to that of bacterium. Its is only programmed to linger in specific areas, and is outfitted with a small anti-gravity engine which produces almost no sound due to the light weight of the creature.

This is done on purpose, as the miniscule mind of the Keeper is noticeably difficult to detect for those who know of their presence and existence. For those ignorant to the fact that a Keeper is in the same room with them, they are almost impossible to detect.

Thus, we have a being that is effective at stealth, and this potential is used for a singular purpose. The Keeper is capable of only one simple Will channeling ability, and it is that of telepathic transmission. Everything that a Keeper sees or hears is automatically transmitted to the databases of the Overseers, as well as aid the Lurker class Children in their tasks.

The Keeper proved its usefulness in the Battlemaster´s incursion into our Holy Abode, as we managed to track the movements of his party easily during the initial stages of the assault.

One fault that was noted is the weakness of the Keeper against the fatal telepathic aura of the Dead Ethereal, who managed to destroy many by simply being near them, without even having to detect their presence.

Once this individual came into play, the Keepers lost their effectiveness, but thankfully the Father´s eye kept constant watch on these intruders once they reached the deeper layers.

Once the Crossing is complete, Keepers may be seeded throughout the worlds of species considered for assimilation, but against dangerous channelers of His Will like the Dead Ethereal, its effectiveness leaves much to be desired.

The Keeper is a tool to be utilized under certain circumstances, but this is not a creature that poses significant danger or combat effectiveness. Deploy them accordingly against those who cannot defend themselves from them, and produce them in the numbers permitted by their low resource and production cost.

A use that I can envision for this Child is to seed them by the millions in every world that we take as ours and colonize. Loyalty from our ranks is never doubted, but this will hamper any saboteurs or infiltrators that will undoubtedly attempt penetration.

It is true that the Father will keep constant watch over His thousands of worlds, but we must help to ease His burdens in any way we can.

A billion extra eyes will surely aid this mission.

-Corpus

The Pilgrim's mind pounded with every beat of Paradise´s soul.

Most Sovereigns utilize mechanical artifacts colloquially referred to by mortals as "Sovereign Orbs".

Uninspired name aside, these machines are very useful for a Sovereign when the time comes to keep watch, influence, or control over something that is desired. A Sovereign can remain hidden in the safety of their lair while observing the outer galaxy and keeping control over their agents or forces.

The Father employs a similar concept, even if the execution is unique to Him.

As we shun cold machinery whenever possible, the Corpus is a biological alternative to the tried and true concept of the Sovereign Orb.

The Corpus is an inanimate Child design that only performs a singular function, in a similar way to the Keeper class.

This creature serves as a small conduit through which the Father can interact in certain ways with the world outside the Veil.

Its design is derived from the Conduit through which He will cross, and as such this is a historic Child that has been with the Caretakers of Paradise since the inception of our organization eons ago.

The function has remained constant throughout the ages.

The Corpus emits a low range telepathic field that enhances His disciples in many ways. Increased concentration and ease at performing psionic feats, enhanced calmness, coordination, tolerance to pain, and resistance to telepathic attack are some of the positive effects a Corpus provides to allies in vicinity of the telepathic field.

The effects however are not drastic, and it is universally more effective for a powerful telepath to assist in the same way.

This is due to the fact that while the Corpus is a conduit through which the Father can interact directly with us, it is a significantly minor conduit that is in no way of the necessary caliber for a being of His magnitude to utilize efficiently.

The reason why the design of the Corpus has remained in such a state consistently throughout the many cycles of Caretakers is due to their low profile and low cost of resources.

Paradise has never been this close to succeeding at ensuring the Father crosses, and the amount of resources at our disposal has never been this great. Past Prophets had to keep Paradise hidden from the eyes of His enemies, and lacked the direction of His Wisdom.

We have kept the Corpus design without too many alterations due to the Imperator´s watch, and our focus is the main Conduit through which He will cross.

Once this is achieved, I will personally overhaul the design of this Child.

I will detail this is a different section, due to the differences between the original design and this planned future iteration.

A being constructed from the hearts of all species touched by the One deserves a grander role in what is to come.

-Lurker

Divine retribution may not be seen or heard.

The first Child on this list to be designed purely as a weapon.

Inspiration for the Lurker came to the Artist after a Human toddler named Olivia was inserted into His Toil´s cavities and transformed by the sacred energies within. The product from this experiment was a curious creature.

The young Human´s skin and hair were discarded inside the cavity, with the muscle underneath hardening and being strengthened considerably. The youngling´s eyes were extirpated from her face, and moved to her back instead. The spine was stretched, rendering the new creature elongated, with its limbs now being utilized for quadrupedal locomotion rather than the usual Human bipedal structure.

The mouth was enlarged considerably, leaving a massive grin covering most of the now featureless face.

Impressed as we were with the end product, we took the curious newborn and began testing her capabilities, and we found that due to her small size and unusual contortion capabilities she was adept at hiding inside ventilation shafts or under the furniture of Paradise, as well as climbing up walls and jumping large distances.

The little creature was also rather ravenous and full of energy, as is usually the case in Human younglings, and we allowed her to enjoy herself interacting with the Pilgrims of the Ascension Ring.

Better this than the trashing she gave to our laboratories and the disruption of our work. The Artist found it highly amusing, but I would have no such distractions.

It seems that the rest of our comrades did not find her irritating as I did, and joined the Artist in endearing themselves to her. Soon, the Artist announced that in order to celebrate the bright new star of Paradise, a new Child project would begin in her honor.

His Wisdom agreed to sanction the project only if it was given a tangible practical purpose, as at this time resources could not be spared on a simple diversion such as this.

The Lurker was born from Little Olivia, and I have to say that the original still roams the halls of Paradise, known and cared for by the Caretakers. She still somehow finds her way occasionally to my own personal study, and it is an annoyance than I have now accepted as yet another test that the Father has sent my way.

I will prove my worth to the Father, but to my dismay it seems that the lack of attention I give to this creature only seems to embolden her even further.

Perhaps Little Olivia will still be in this physical world by the time I am replaced as Magistrate. I hope she grows out of this immature behavior when your time to assume my mantle comes.

Back to the topic at hand, this Child class bears resemblance to the original form, with the differences being a much-improved musculature and increased body size. These alterations aid it when assaulting enemies, as the increased weight behind its lunges is much more effective for quick takedowns.

Other differences include the insertion of additional eyes in the back and abdomen of the creature, which allows for improved visual range. In the hands and feet of the Lurker we have added razor sharp talons lined in Legion cells which harden the bone to almost metal durability.

These talons are utilized by the Child for precision stabs meant to quickly end the life of prey, as weak points are favored by the creature when attacking.

As you may have guessed, the Lurker's predatory intelligence was exponentially developed, and it has produced a being that is both cunning and disciplined when in combat.

Due to us having included the same light refracting skin modification that is the mainstay of the Keeper class Child, the Lurker is capable of stealth. Combined with its astute mind, this stealth is deadly against most opponents.

A Lurker will always lie in wait, slowly stalking their victim while climbing up walls or ceilings, observing and studying their prey before finally making their move. They will always wait until the precise moment where the victim is distracted or otherwise lowers their guard, and will attempt an instantaneous kill rather than engage in a prolonged and animalistic battle.

Due to the Lurker being a much more active and corpulent being than the Keeper, its greater body temperature cannot be masked completely by the Child's skin, unlike with the Keeper. A way to circumvent this problem was developed.

The Lurker is capable of entering a semi-comatose state in order to completely hide itself from any kind of thermal sensors. When in this state, the being's metabolism slows down to almost a crawl, as well as blood circulation. An additional benefit is that the Lurker's mind is also in a state resembling death rather than sleep, which makes detection more difficult to telepaths.

In order to enter this state, the Overseers send a telepathic signal to them via the Keepers they are connected to. Lurkers are kept in this state when their intervention is not necessary. Once intruders are detected, these Children are let out of their enclosures and flood the many layers of Paradise.

As stated above, Lurkers are connected to Keepers telepathically. This is the Lurker's sole Will channeling ability, and we have kept this area of development to a minimum in this creature knowing that considerable capability to touch the Veil is easily detected and traced by enemy telepaths.

Due to their innate connection, a Lurker sees and hears all that the Keepers in their layer see. This concept proved its effectiveness during the Battlemaster's incursion into Paradise, as the creatures were able to constantly harass the then trio as they made their way through the first layer.

Had it not been for the presence of Sana'Ligna, the Battlemaster's Human disciple would have been gutted at their hands.

However, this strength also serves as a weakness. Lurkers can see without assistance, but should the Keepers in their vicinity be disabled or destroyed, the Child losses a considerable percentage of its effectiveness and speed of attack.

His Wisdom is currently satisfied with the Lurker project, but I have drafted detailed plans alongside the Artist for the upgrading of this Child once the Father crosses.

The most important improvement will be the doubling or even tripling in size of the brain. This is to transform the Child into a creature capable of complete sapience, and in turn of highly developed telepathic abilities and defense. This, naturally accompanying an exponential increase in size to accommodate a myriad of increases in additional modification.

Lining their skeletal structure and talons with Purified Steel will make them much deadlier to armored enemies, for example.

We are already conducting testing on the possibilities of this new Lurker employing telepathic abilities catered to stealth, in a similar fashion to the Ethereal Quisilia who erases himself from the perception of those around him, and His Touch who has an almost unfathomably small telepathic signal for a being of such power.

The addition of a developed telepathic sight will also allow the new Lurker to retain its high effectiveness without relying solely on the Keeper.

The connection to Keepers will not be eliminated however. You can imagine the effectiveness of the new Lurker should the battlefield be secretly seeded with hundreds of Keepers before their arrival.

This will result in a Child that cannot be mass produced in the same fashion as the current iteration, but will serve a much more elite role. The Umbra has already expressed interest in recruiting these highly developed beings for her Order once they begin production.

I cannot say what the future brings, but I can imagine that by the time you read this, all of the Father's planets and fortresses will be crawling with these unseen creatures, while most Orders will employ variations of the improved Lurker concept to great effect in the battlefields to come.

-Gatekeeper

A brief flicker of the Father separates the weak from the blessed.

The Gatekeeper is a Child class that many outside Paradise are familiar with, for it is the only Child design to be offered for service in the wars of the sightless.

In an effort to satisfy the Ethereals of the Imperator, we gifted several Gatekeeper class units to their armies, in the same way that the Chosen were disposed of once their purpose in Paradise was complete.

The fact that the Gatekeeper was a highly disturbing creation to the sightless who fielded them and the sightless who fought against them was very amusing to us. Unbeknownst to them, the Gatekeeper as they know it is a sanitized version of the real design we keep inside the deeper layers of our Holy Home.

The sterile, bland, mechanical shell covering the creature is a hideous stylistic concession that we were forced to make in order to present a creature that was minimally palatable for the perceptions and biases of fearful mortals.

If only they knew the beauty behind its creation.

Long ago, we were blessed with the honor of a full family of Dath'Haram arriving at the gates of Paradise, courtesy of His Touch and the Umbra's Stalkers.

This was a group of mortals with some of the tightest and warmest family relationships we have ever had the pleasure of seeing.

As an Andromedon, the importance of this concept was alien to me before the Father showed me the error of my ways. Upon witnessing this tender union, many Sectoids as well shed tears for having this aspect of life stolen from them by their callous leaders.

Paradise was enthralled by the new guests, and the Father decided that they deserved a special type of ascendance to commemorate the mortal preciousness they had touched us with.

In them, we would find an eternal reminder on why we struggle to save all mortals, despite their uninformed protests and their frequent denunciation.

And so, the family of Dath'Haram was granted the privilege of an audience with His Toil.

The Umbra was visibly ecstatic, and I suspect this was due to her past. She may not want to admit it, but if she and her deceased family were in the place of these individuals, she would have wept with joy.

I do not blame her. The fate of this family was truly glorious. An eternal monument to raw love and affection.

Once His Toil lovingly stripped away all that was non-essential, we were left with a sphere of flesh.

It seemed simple and mundane at first glance.

Upon closer inspection, we realized that the creature before us was much more than seemed to the eye.

His Toil had left a simple detail meant to tease our curiosity. A singular eye.

Not for the creature to see, but for us to peek inside and realize there was much more than we originally thought.

Once we opened it, we realized that His Toil wished to surprise us. A wrapped gift, a thoughtful delight.

For you see, inside that sphere, the family remained.

Their faces or body structures did not remain, His Toil had deemed these elements unnecessary to His art. Instead, all muscles, organs, veins, nerves and bones were rearranged on the inside of the sphere of flesh, lining the walls and placed to form certain patterns.

A spiral, where every ring held the essence of the people who had been blessed.

In the very center of this intriguing vortex, the brains of the family remained almost untouched. His Toil had intertwined these organs with their hearts, so that their minds and self would be forever tied to their souls.

A blooming rose of passion, if you need a more detailed mental image.

This was the first Gatekeeper. It remains in Paradise to this very day, and more fortunate families have followed the first to their eternal destiny.

These are the true Gatekeepers, unlike those sent to impure battlefields far away from Paradise.

Those are simple imitations. Automatons designed without the love put into the originals. The simple Ethereals of the Collective would have cried out in outrage should they ever witness our beautiful truth.

The process of creation is the same that is undertaken for the original Gatekeepers, but the intricacies of their insides are not included in these models.

Here, those who form the Imitation Gatekeeper are fused together, but are rendered a mixture of flesh that reveals nothing to the naked eye. This mixture is then imbued with neural genetic material from either Human or Sectoid origins, which allows the creature to generate basic Will channeling abilities.

However, we are not cruel or callous when it comes to these creations. They come from the Father after all, even if they could never realize their true potential from the very start of their lives.

To soothe their tragic existence and slavery at the hands of the sightless, the Father floods their minds in overwhelming sensations and euphoria.

From their birth inside His Toil, an Imitation Gatekeeper knows nothing except this state.

A gift, to those he was forced to abandon for the greater good.

The sounds that the False Gatekeepers emit due to these blessings are debilitating to those who can touch the Veil, as they cannot comprehend what they hear and simply believe it is a scream of sorrow and anguish.

Perhaps the Father has included unimaginable pain in the delectable cocktail that he has granted these Children, but as all who have been touched by Him understand, this is no curse.

But the most sought-after prize.

These False Gatekeepers have also been outfitted with unnecessary technology, which was needed to forge them into weapons which would be accepted by mortals.

They unfortunately lack any significant Will channeling abilities apart from their overwhelming telepathic presence and the crude application of destructive energies. This is due to the restrained production methods we have been forced to undertake for their creation.

The True Gatekeeper is something else to consider however.

Without the shackles of sightless eyes watching us work, these Children have developed much further than their counterparts.

The families making up each of them have fused their mind to create a greater being. They are capable of speech and sapience as they were before.

More complex feats which channel His Will have also been observed, such as levitating telekinetically without the assistance of an anti-gravitational engine, or much more developed telepathy and destructive applications of energy.

The "psionic scream", as is referred to by mortals, that False Gatekeepers possess has also remained here, although by testing on captured Human Will users we have determined that it is much more powerful and can permanently affect their psyche if exposed for too long.

It is also noteworthy to add that when asked, the Human guests described the sensation as not a scream, but a cacophony of emotions and sensations that was extremely difficult to resist due to its unpredictability and shifting nature.

Something curious that we determined, is that the Gatekeepers expressed a verbal desire to "become whole" by consuming the Human channelers we were utilizing for testing once we had gathered the desired information.

We could have let these beings simply devour the channelers, but we identified an opportunity to test the potential for modification that this design possessed.

With careful surgery, we extracted the brains of these channelers and grafted them to the cores of the Gatekeepers.

Upon awakening, the Gatekeepers expressed increased closeness to the Veil, and gained increased skill in the Will bearing aptitudes mastered by the test subjects.

The Children were thankful for what we had provided to them, but they still expressed a desire to devour the brainless bodies left behind by the Humans.

We provided a comprehensive course to teach the eager Gatekeepers the intricacies of biopathy, and with this new tool they managed to weave the meat and bone of the discarded bodies into themselves with respectable precision, even if there were deficiencies left afterwards which we had to erase.

It must be noted that we expected these beings to undergo a certain degree of difficulty while learning such a complex and difficult to master Will bearing ability.

However, much to our positive surprise, the addition of additional brains to their neural structure provided a significant increase to their intellectual potential, allowing them to quickly digest the knowledge we gifted them with.

The Gatekeepers were pleased, and mentioned that their family had gained a new member who would be loved and cared for.

It is always pleasant to see the creations of our Father realize His intent for all.

By feeding individuals to the Gatekeepers through this process, we found that they would also grow a certain size. This is probably due to the flesh added to the whole, and the oldest Gatekeepers now possess enormous tentacles and have used them to anchor themselves to the ground.

They resemble bulbs or yet to bloom flowers, and the original Gatekeeper is now enormous in size and has grown an impressive number of tentacles, even if its closeness to the Veil is lower than some of its peers, an example being Human based Gatekeepers.

It is theorized that these Children should become highly destructive weapons should they be allowed to assimilate sufficient Will channelers or Veil sensitive individuals.

However, due to our current position and resources, we have not fed them sufficiently for them to reach this hypothetical threshold.

Once the Father crosses, we will determine what the limits in growth and power for a Gatekeeper are, if any.

As of now, we consider them an investment-based unit. One that requires constant material and significant time to maintain and grow.

There are other Children who are effective since their conception and they make for much more cost-effective soldiers, which is a position maintained by His Wisdom, but we want to discover what the yet unseen fully developed Gatekeeper will be capable of.

By the time you read this, the answer will probably be obvious. Be sure to enhance them with sufficient genetic improvement before unleashing them upon our enemies. It would be a shame and a tragedy for them to be destroyed after such a long period of growing.

They also offer surprisingly good conversation. I advise you to develop a positive relationship with them.

They will thank you for the chance to grow their small communities.

-Acquitter

Release them from blindness in a chapel of screams.

The Acquitter is a concept derived from the False Gatekeeper described above, in the sense that both are levitating masses of flesh.

This is where similarities thankfully end.

Unlike with the False Gatekeepers, we have not been handicapped or had our creative control reigned in due to practical necessity.

As such, we have produced a being which embodies our very ideals and proves their veracity daily.

This Child class can be described as a mass of flesh. Unlike with the False Gatekeeper, the tentacles sported by the Acquitter are not so simple or cliché in appearance.

Several Sculptors had creative authority over this being, and we made it so that the extremities and tethers lining its outer body greatly resembles the many variations or configurations of limbs that we proudly wear ourselves.

On the outside, the Acquitter has multiple faces. Each of these Children has at least one face resembling that of a modern Caretaker race.

Unlike the False Gatekeeper, this design is fully sapient, with a highly developed network of brains located in the upper chambers of the sphere.

Each Acquitter understands that pain is a blessing to both mortals and the divine, as the knowledge and philosophies of Paradise have been uploaded to its mind during the growing process.

It is common to see the Acquitters praying to the Father when they are left on their own. The soft mumbles, silent tears, and screams of anguish at the fact that He has not crossed yet fill the air around these Children.

It is a truly inspiring sight, to see that a creature that has just been born understands our hardships and struggles.

The fact that most mortals refuse us with such fervor and fire in their hearts deeply saddens me, but in the Acquitter, I see a way to undo the sightless flaws which keep them away from us.

You see, the Acquitter's insides are spacious and cavernous. The space required for organs to allow this creature to sustain itself and live is present, but the Acquitter lives in excruciating state as their nerves are not protected from exposure and constant discomfort is felt due to organs being packed together closely.

This apparent negligence is by design, and the Acquitters constantly let us know their gratitude for being allowed to live in such unending enlightenment. As I have constantly professed, agony helps to sober the mind and soul, and if any further proof is needed, this Child is a living affirmation of this fact.

The hollowed-out insides of the creature serve a purpose. As of now space is sufficient to insert beings up to the width of Muton Praetorians and of the height of a modified Battlemaster class Ethereal.

This is because the Acquitter is meant to be utilized against mortal non-combatants.

What we have taught this Child to do, is to quickly rush enemies during combat. Initiates in the Ascension Ring of Paradise have described this design's nimble flight and speed unsettling due to its sheer size.

Once again, those touched by the One break the expectations of small minds.

After the Acquitter reaches its target, the many extensions and tendrils we have grafted to its outer layer will grasp the fortunate individual, pulling them towards one of the mouths of the Child's many faces.

Once inside, the Acquitter will let invasive nerve stimulators pierce the fortunate individual's body. As the name suggests, the tendrils will overstimulate the nervous system of the guest, which causes a succulent surge of overwhelming agony on the "victim".

While this occurs, the Acquitter's flesh hardens itself by touching the Veil, in a fashion inspired by His Toil's feats, and the Child anchors itself to the ground.

The pain inflicted on the captured is designed to quickly purify their souls and eliminate any mental resistance to absorption into the Gestalt.

Mortals, expectedly do not realize the great fate that awaits them, and tend to fight back conversion with all the strength their fearful hearts can muster.

The Acquitter lovingly swats these pitiful attempts to resist away. In a matter of seconds, the fortunate have joined the Gestalt, and their bodies are given a privileged opportunity of service as one of the Exalted hordes.

Due to the size of the Acquitter's insides, many mortals can fit one Acquitter simultaneously, although this is not possible with certain species of sufficient sizes.

There is the possibility of creating Acquitter's tailored to these species, but so far there has been no need.

The service that these Children provide is not exclusive to mortals. Caretakers who feel that they have erred or sinned have the liberty to seek these Children out for purification and penance.

This is a service that the creatures are willing to provide, and they have even requested to conduct demonstrations for the Pilgrims in the first layer of Paradise. As a result, this is a Child that most non-Caretakers who witness Paradise's first layer know.

Of course, there are avenues of enhancement to pursue in this design. For example, the Acquitter has a degree of telepathic strength and understanding that is required to transfer a mortal mind to the Gestalt.

The Child also possesses basic knowledge and mastery over the destructive potential of Will channeling, which it can utilize for self defense should it be necessary.

Telekinesis has also been developed more extensively than destructive Will applications, as it serves the Acquitter well when pulling the fortunate to its grasp.

This telekinesis can also be combined with their anti-gravitational engines, enhancing its already positive flying speed.

For further iterations of the Acquitter, vastly improving closeness to the Veil by enlarging its brains greatly and perfecting the Child's already existing Veil channeling affinities is recommended.

Further genetic enhancement is also never unwelcomed, and the Child's current advantage at regenerating from injuries should be further exploited.

Current tactics of deployment are being theorized by His Wisdom's war council. As of now, the Acquitter can be produced and deployed in large numbers.

Inserting them via teleportation behind enemy lines or in undefended population centers seems to be its current assigned roles, and with further development of this Child design, you will have a weapon that is both effective in harvesting minds for the Gestalt and which considerably demoralizes the enemy.

Be generous in granting freedom to the desperate mortals you will face.

-Apotheosis

A life of renown, a death of service.

As you know, a Caretaker is a small candle. The candle shines brightly when lit, but it will consume itself relatively quickly.

Caretakers accept this drawback to the abilities they wield, as every minute spent as a defender of Paradise is greater and more filled with purpose than their entire past lives.

Us Order members do not know the reality of the Caretakers, as we do not live it every day. As champions of Paradise, we are exhaustively enhanced, and we share a direct covenant to one of the Six.

These advantages, that we are lucky to enjoy, extend our lifespans far above that of a Caretaker, and our bodies are pristine compared to the steady march of decay that each of these venerable individuals knows is their final fate.

I greatly admire and respect the Caretakers, and I am sure that every single Order member does as well.

To tread on in this physical life without worry or despair, with the agony of a body that breaks itself down constantly pursuing you, and still serve the Father willingly and without question is an admirable trait.

I would even go as far to admit that many Order members have forgotten the sanctity of pain in their enhanced lives, while the Caretakers live it in every moment.

Once their physical shells give out, a Caretaker ascends to the Gestalt. Their ultimate reward for long service, and rest is finally gifted to them.

And yet some do not desire rest.

Some Caretakers desperately wish to serve beyond what their lifespan allows for. They wish to be of use to the Father, as they feel the debt owed by them to the One cannot be simply be repaid in the years they have been dealt.

We can reverse the aging of a Caretaker greatly at first. Biopathical treatments can force the cells and systems of a body to regenerate and repair degradation, but there comes a point where treatment simply does not work.

A Caretaker becomes closer to the Veil the more they age, and there comes a point where the vast amount of power ravages the body more swiftly than we can repair it. For individuals of such age we install nests of restorative Legion inside their body which can continuously repair the tissues and organs without rest, however even the Legion have limits, and a point when they are completely overwhelmed by their workload inevitably arrives.

What is to be done?

The answer came from the Artist.

During autopsies of Caretakers who had succumbed to age, we always discovered one particular trait in their cause of death.

The brain was always the most well-preserved organ of the entire body. This was logical, as elderly Caretakers retain all motor faculties and personality traits during their descent into age.

Caretakers are not as genetically enhanced as Order members, but the brain always requires care and the gentle touch of modification to render it receptive to the One's touch.

A fortunate side effect of the implants we introduce into every Caretaker's neural architecture, is that the valuable organ is shielded considerably from the surge of Will affecting the body. The brain is the gate that allows the energy to enter the body, but it is the body that bears the brunt of decay.

The Artist pointed out that this presented us with an opportunity.

For a Caretaker that is far too elderly to regenerate conventionally, but still wishes to serve, the brain can be salvaged from the doomed body.

What do we do with the brain then?

I hope my replacement as Magistrate is creative enough to know this answer already.

The Apotheosis is the opportunity for an old Caretaker to live on in physical Paradise.

It is a new opportunity to live and serve for those who cannot join an Order due to their decaying status.

It is a gift of gratitude to those who serve the Father in many more ways than elite combat.

Many of the very first Caretakers of this cycle have been preserved in this manner. Scholars, thinkers, philosophers, chroniclers, champions before the Orders.

The creation of one of these honored constructs is cause for celebration and fanfare in Holy Paradise.

First, the brain of the fortunate Caretaker is extracted from the failing body, to ensure that the death of the subject does not occur before the Apotheosis is complete.

Second, suitable candidates to form the Apotheosis are chosen from the flock of Pilgrims available to us in the first layer.

Sometimes, in order to meet the demanded quotas, we utilize grown clones instead.

It is imperative that the candidates are Will sensitive or capable of touching the Veil, and it is for this reason that Humans are favored.

Once chosen, the candidates are freed from their sightless shackles. Any fears, any reservations, any resentment for the trials they undergo in the first layer are removed and replaced with what we know is true.

Love, kinship, unity, peace.

The process to awaken a Pilgrim is usually a long one, but with these candidates we undergo an instant opening of their eyes. Preferably, we choose those who have potential to become Caretakers themselves, but there are cases where the flock is insufficient and we must utilize the unworthy or those grown in cloning chambers.

It matters not who they were before. Only their destiny is important to us.

Once the flock of candidates is sufficient and their minds have been tuned to the desired levels of acceptance, the operation begins.

As much as I prefer operations remain intimate between myself and my students, in these cases they become events attended by as many residents of Paradise as can fit in the operating chamber, with those who cannot be present watching telepathic real time recordings courtesy of His Love.

This is at the Prophet's insistence, as the benefits to morale and good will for the Caretakers is significant.

To watch a respected comrade ascend to such a higher state of being must be elevating, and I have come to see the benefits myself among my Sculptors.

The operation is a complicated and time consuming one, but there is little chance of error as we have performed it many times as of now.

The brain of the Caretaker is placed in a special chamber or protective organic covering. The chosen flock of Pilgrims are then sewn together to form the outline of a body around the brain of the Caretaker.

Before commencing this, the Pilgrims must be paralyzed telepathically to avoid any involuntary movements or unforeseen complications.

Once sewn together, we are left with an outline to work with. The next step is to begin grafting the candidates together.

Nervous systems are intertwined as one, brains are connected with each other, circulatory systems are transformed into a single one, unnecessary musculature and limbs are removed, while those desired are reshaped and enhanced to fit with the planned design.

Each candidate is transformed into a piece of a larger organism, with all connections tracing back to the brain now located in the center of this mass of meat and bone.

When the finished product is left before us, we stand in front of an enormous creature.

The Apotheosis resembles a tall biped, with long slender limbs and thin fingers which resemble that of His Touch.

The head includes a face with visible features. We have made a point to include no eyes in its face, as such are simply not needed. In such an elevated state, one can see the Father easily with their minds.

Due to the unique bond, the bodies that make the whole of the Apotheosis glow in arcane fire, in a similar nature to that of an Exalted in its final stages of life before decay.

And yet these bodies do not decay with the same speed as the Exalted.

The Apotheosis's mouth is lipless, and bears no teeth. It is a hollow cavity that can be opened if desired, but such is usually redundant for the being, as it can simply speak telepathically, or by using the mouths already present in its bodies.

When in motion, the Apotheosis clearly cannot efficiently walk. The movements are rumbling, the steps are broad and wobbly.

The being can also walk on all fours if desired, and scaling walls or quickly moving on the ground by inverting its limbs and walking on all fours is another in option in the realm of possibility.

Why the apparent flaws in the design?

The Apotheosis have much more relevance to the Father than is available at simple glance. This is much more than a way to extend the lifespan of a Caretaker.

This is a way of for us to worship the Father, to exalt that which He is.

The Father is a collection of uncountable numbers of beings, all held together by three unimaginably powerful core minds.

The whole is far greater than the collection of parts, and this is what has allowed Him to rise beyond the simple constraints of His Sovereign brethren.

The Apotheosis is our way to emulate this sacred concept, but of course, it would be folly to assume that we could recreate such a being flawlessly.

We cannot, because we are not Him. For all our expertise, for all our knowledge, for all our work, will never be as perfect as He.

And so, the Apotheosis is imperfect in a perfect way.

However, while the Apotheosis greatly extends the lifespan of a Caretaker, it is by no means a door to immortality.

We have prepared for the eventuality of the mind inside the body to finally die and pass on to the Gestalt.

His Wisdom demanded that such a high resource intensive being have a use beyond this expiration date, and we have designed a system that easily swaps minds when this happens.

Should the brain die, the Apotheosis will remain in a coma like state for some time before the bodies begin to decay.

In this short period of time, we have the opportunity to remove the deceased brain and replace it with a fresher one.

As a result of this, we have long waiting lines and lists consisting of the Caretakers wishing to become an Apotheosis.

Once the brain inside dies, we choose a new Caretaker to inhabit the Child from our waiting lists.

In terms of closeness to the Veil and control over His Will, the Apotheosis is one of the greatest Children we have produced. The fact that the mind piloting this body is that of an old Caretaker that has mastered that which the Veil offers greatly adds to this fact, and it is one of the reasons that we employ Human bodies that are sensitive to His Will.

The disciplines mastered by the Apotheosis depend on the skills of the Caretaker that is its core.

The great power of the being would make for a formidable force on the battlefields to come, but His Wisdom prefers they remain inside Paradise. Their presence as icons for the Caretakers and symbols to our facets of life hold a higher value to the Saint than simple combat potential, and we cannot argue with such logic.

There are other Children designed for these roles.

The Apotheosis is limited in number, and so far, only six exist, even if the number of minds hosted by these constructs is far greater.

One in my own layer has hosted the first Caretaker scientists of Paradise before my own coming to the station and the birth of the Sculptors. I keep her as an honorary member of the Order, and it is quite interesting to see the unique techniques that the old doctor brings to the operating table.

One in His Wisdom's Athenaeum, has hosted the greatest erudite minds in Paradise that could not become Overseers. This one can be classified as a counselor to the Saint and the Sentinel. I suspect Voice Inspirars may come to inhabit this body when the time comes.

One in His Love's Moonlight Cradle, has hosted the finest artisans and craftsmen in Paradise before the conception of the Weavers. A celebrity compared to the others, as Master Preximius enjoys making this Child the star of many high-profile performances along with his maidens.

One in His Fury's Fortress, has hosted the champions and strategists of Paradise before the conception of combat-oriented Orders and the Overseers. This Child has personally served in the Marshall's inner circle ever since his assumption of command.

One guarding the Artist's chambers, made from the very first of the Caretakers in her service. This particular mind is currently the oldest individual in Paradise barring the Artist herself, and we have taken great care and effort at keeping his life extended and maintained constantly.

Telepathic transmission from one grown brain to the next has served in this task.

And finally, one in the Halls of Eversion, made of the most beloved and respected Caretaker communal leaders who had never had the chance to join an Order due to the date of their coming to Paradise.

This one is the face that greets Initiates who survive the trials and arrive at the second layer to become Caretakers.

Be sure to maintain production of this design. The Caretakers should be commemorated for their service with trophies of this caliber.

Under Him, we are all equal, Order or not.

-Behemoth

The Lord´s Jaws fulfill an ancient revenge.

The first design commissioned by the Baptist Marshall himself for service in his Order, the Behemoth is a creature carefully built for combat.

Both he and I are aware of the potential that this design has not fulfilled as of now, and we expect that you will work to perfect this concept and bring to life a weapon worthy of His Fury's might.

The Behemoth is a Child meant to embody the ferocity of Nature's creations.

Most species to develop into spacefaring civilizations have had a primal past. In many cases, these species come to become the top of the food chain in their local ecosystem thanks to their sapient minds.

Intelligence, rationality, quick thinking. These are tools utilized to outplay feral predators and tame the wild in order to construct society.

An animal is relegated to its place in the pyramid of dominance due to its lack of intellect. Speed, strength, none of these advantages come close to a firearm.

In the Behemoth, we seek to take these two constantly competing forces and fuse them into one perfect being. Intelligence and brawn do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Predatory instinct, merciless bloodlust, civilized restraint, sapient awareness.

These are pigments that have stayed far away from each other except for rare cases such as some species observed in the inner reaches of the galaxy we currently reside in.

We seek to produce a being that is capable of all simultaneously. A creature that can mingle and live alongside the Caretakers of Paradise with no difficulty of integration, and can also compete with the Baptists in sheer intensity and rage when the time for combat arrives.

The Behemoth project has two key stages. The feral stage, and the sapient stage.

As of now, we have achieved promising results in the feral stage.

The current iteration of the Behemoth is a creature that is similar in structure to the great canines of planet Earth's past.

They are beings of pure muscle, with skin or fur being an inefficiency we soon removed from the original animal. Unlike the quadrupedal configuration that Nature assigned to the original creature, we have increased the amount of legs to six, with 3 on each side of the torso.

This is due to the weight and size of the being.

We could have chosen to keep the original number of legs, while tripling their bulk to better account for the weight in question, but testing revealed that six limbs allowed for faster speed and agility. A slight adjustment to the brain allowed the Behemoth to naturally stride with its two additional legs, and the cost of this improvement was outweighed by the benefits, justifying the change.

If you desire a more detailed physical description, I shall provide it so. The creature possesses six small crimson eyes, symmetrically positioned to the sides of its great maw. The color of its muscle is a dark grey, with bulging veins covering the, obscene to some, musculature of the being.

In addition to its sheer weight that combined with its speed can easily topple heavily armored opponents, the Behemoth is equipped with a jaw sporting deceptively powerful biting force.

One would not normally think that a bite would be able to tear armor, and the limbs underneath, clean off without significant difficulty, but the flesh aims to impress and surpass metal.

A Behemoth's teeth are made to be incredibly durable and sharp due to intensive genetic modification, and a common exercise employed by the Baptists to keep the beasts entertained is to throw them thick slabs of steel or Collective alloys for them to bite through and destroy.

One particularly eye-opening capability of the Behemoth was revealed when a Trusted Baptist came to Paradise to offer a demonstration of close quarters combat techniques without weapons or Will channeling abilities.

To showcase how superior physical strength can always be surpassed by calm thinking and trained skill, the colossal Trusted warrior chose a Behemoth as his sparring partner.

When the duel was completed as the Trusted champion subdued the beast, observation revealed that the Baptist's armor was visibly dented and even topically perforated in locations where the Behemoth had managed to clamp down its jaws.

However, the Behemoth's teeth fractured as a result of its attempts to attack the Trusted.

We are currently attempting to further improve the durability and lethality of these canines, and a current trial will soon be underway in which we will reinforce a Behemoth's fangs with the Purified Steel of Naztrum Ognis.

As Lord Z'Erstifex has flatly refused to donate a suit of armor similar in quality to that worn by the Trusted Baptist for testing purposes, we will have to make due with requested volunteers that will wish to see for themselves the new biting prowess of the prototype Behemoth.

I currently have compiled a list of Baptists that might wish to join such a test, and we await completion to commence.

The Behemoth on its current iteration is not mindless animal. The brain of each of these beasts is highly developed, and the Child can easily understand speech and complex commands. Its mind is not as cautious and patient as that of the Lurker, but while the Lurker excels at stealth and quick executions, the Behemoth far outclasses it when it comes to raw combat.

As you would expect of a Child whose destiny is to maul enemies in the frontlines, we have included significant modification on each of these creatures.

While the Behemoth's skin is as hard as any armor made of metal, save suits made of the Purified Steel, and the regeneration that this creature is fitted with allows for sustained damage without death, the Child must be deployed with care.

In combat trials run inside His Love's telepathic simulations, we have completed several combat operations stationed in the trenches of the current conflict on Earth.

Deploying Behemoths before the ADVENT trenches is not optimal. In sufficient numbers they are capable of surviving the storm of bullets thrown at them, and their great speed allows them to breach the trenches and begin mauling those inside, but inevitably their numbers are dwindled and their impact in the flow of battle is as well.

A far more effective, and more devastating and terrifying to the enemy, approach to pursue is to insert them via teleportation into enemy strongholds or the aforementioned trenches.

However, for all of our successes, there is one glaring omission in this design. It completely lacks any capability to touch the Veil.

This is where the second stage of the project comes into relevance.

The feral stage of the Behemoth project has left us with a creature that is a considerably effective physical weapon. We have produced a being whose strength matches many of the most enhanced Baptists of Paradise, and whose speed and intelligence quickly and brutally dispatches foes.

In the sapient stage, we will perfect the brain that this beast carries. The Behemoth will no longer be a beast, but a person.

The brain of the Behemoth will be greatly increased in both size and complexity. Will sensitivity will be finally included and be made into the focus of the design.

The now sapient levels of intellect will allow the Behemoth to touch the Veil in complex ways that a simple beast would never manage to safely conduct.

It comes without saying that we will also further increase the level of modification in order to elevate this Child to the standard of a Baptist or above. The long-term goal is to match the physical grandeur of the Trusted.

This will be a unit of great expense, but one whose expense is justified in what it can offer.

The second stage Behemoth will be able to stand and walk on its two rear legs if it desires it so, as well as to crouch down and engage in six-legged locomotion.

It will be highly skilled in the Will channeling arts, as well as close quarters combat with its massive physical mass. It will be able to outwit and match even the Trusted in tactics and discipline.

It will have a box of tools to pick and choose from when the time comes to dispatch an enemy. Perhaps it will be methodical and calculating, or perhaps it will satisfy its inner hunger and obliterate an unfortunate sightless in the unyielding vice that are its jaws.

In short, we will produce a being that embodies war, and war requires much more than simple might.

Power means nothing for those incapable of using it correctly.

Another possibility, still to be pursued with the Children belonging to other Orders, is to form a covenant between the finalized Behemoth and His Fury. Such a covenant would greatly increase the power and Will channeling understanding of the Behemoth, at the price that the Baptists currently pay.

The Behemoth's brain will have to be expertly crafted in order for the Child to resist the overwhelming urges that the Baptists accept as a reality of daily life, but this is a challenge that I welcome.

This is all in theory as of this moment, but soon the Artist and I will begin development on the first prototypes. I expect that by the time you read this, our enemies will learn to fear this being as a mainstay of our elite Orders.

The Marshall is highly anticipating this finalized design, and the Stormwalker is skeptical that such a creature can match the warriors she has so devotedly trained.

We aim to prove her wrong, and such is always a delight for both her and us. There is always room to improve, even when perfection seems to have been attained.

-Connoisseur

Little, young souls. Grasp the hands of His angels, and walk to the Garden of our God.

While the Marshall only requests Children created with practicality in mind, Preximius's commissions only pay secondary attention to such a purpose.

His Wisdom sees the use for these designs in Paradise, even if they are not created to defend the station or to be eventually wielded as arms against our enemies.

These Children serve the important task of entertaining the Caretakers of Paradise, and maintaining morale as high as it can be.

We dutifully serve the Father, and He offers a miniscule taste of the pleasures we will all indulge in once the gates of the Garden have been opened.

Three Children belong to his Order, with this being the simplest of the designs, and therefore the most common.

The Connoisseur, a name in a Human tongue particularly enjoyed by my fellow Order commander, is a creation whose main purpose is that of celebration and intoxicating pleasures.

I will state early into this entry that I find the Weaver Master's fascination with Human culture and concepts, particularly that of their Baroque age, to be both bizarre and mystifying. Perhaps Voice Inspirars can explain this in further detail, as the two are close friends.

This infatuation has produced a design for a being that he himself drew in his spare time.

From what he has told us, and from investigations I have conducted myself to scratch a growing curiosity, the Cherubim are a type of angel present in theology of the Christian religious belief.

Originally, they were beings whose form was incomprehensible to Humans, as to exemplify the unfathomable grandeur of their creator deity, but over time their appearance came to resemble that of a plump, jolly male infant.

In this new image, the Cherubim left behind their role as powerful enforcers of their deity, and became a symbol of peace and romantic love to be found eternally in their paradise.

I am sure that you can begin to see the stunning parables between this far flung religious belief that has sprung up in an unimportant corner of our universe, and our own Truth.

According to the Weaver Master, this is no coincidence.

The Saints deny that the Father is directly responsible for the birth of this religion, as T'Leth's presence on the planet remained a constant obstacle to overt influence, but Preximius firmly believes that the Father is so universal that His mere existence passively inspires mortals all throughout the universe to adopt His ideals without them ever realizing it.

Perhaps, in creating the Connoisseur, Preximius aims to guide the Cherubim away from the Eden which will never take shape, and into the Garden of Paradise that we will open for all mortals once we succeed.

I suspect that this is his way of reclaiming the concept from false religions, and giving them the shape and respect they deserve at our hands.

We aim to please, of course.

The Connoisseur is a being that is encompassed by a main head and many long legs, in similar nature to an arachnid.

The main head is modeled after the described Cherubim, with the skin designed to resemble flawless marble, with a precious sleeping expression.

We have created variants to represent both male and female Cherubim as well, as the Weaver Master desires variety to inject life into his performances and exhibitions.

The creature's limbs are all modeled after the arms of Human infants, with the width and length of an arachnid's extremities. They sport the same color and texture as its head.

My Sculptors aimed to impress Preximius, as he is known and admired throughout Paradise. I rarely see such enthusiasm in their faces, and I secretly desire that he commission more Children. It is refreshing to see productivity increase by such a wide margin.

Perhaps I should reorganize my schedule and attend one of his performances in Speculmnis. I have been too careless with his invitations and offers of friendship, and I know it will brighten his day to see me sitting in the specialized chair he always has reserved for me.

The Connoisseur's mind is not as developed as that of many of the Children you will encounter in this list. This is because this creature is meant to be a living instrument. Another set piece for Preximius's stage.

You see, the Connoisseur derives its name from its function. Two long antennae always lie retracted inside the Child's head. Their points are as sharp as needles made from the Purified Steel, and can easily puncture the thickest of skulls.

What does this Child sample? What is its desire?

The sweet tang of a fresh memory. The unique texture of a mind. The spectrum of flavor that is to be found in every different being. The spice of emotion as it fluctuates throughout life.

This is what the Connoisseur tastes.

This is what Preximius's audiences drink whenever these loved creatures set foot inside the stage.

Once a Connoisseur gets ahold of a fortunate individual, its antennae penetrate the person's head to reach the delectable mind hidden within. This mind is absorbed to the Gestalt in the very instant that the Child touches it, but the Connoisseur copies certain aspects of it before the transition.

Emotions, significant events, defining moments. The very essence of who this person was.

The now mindless body left behind is programmed telepathically to become a member of the Exalted hordes. Even in recreation, we use the resources we have been provided with.

This is the one Will channeling ability that is available to the Connoisseur. This, combined with its simple body and uncomplicated mind allows for mass production of the creature in numbers simply not possible for more complex and valuable Children.

The Connoisseur can release this mixture as a telepathic feast that can be sampled and consumed by the Caretakers around it.

It is common for Preximius to provide banquets courtesy of hundreds of Connoisseurs and their telepathic donors to the guests of the carnivals and festivals held inside Speculmnis.

Particularly impressive and unique blends are picked out by the Weaver Master and sent to be forever preserved in his "Soul of Mortality" exhibit in the Midnight Cradle.

Even the Connoisseurs themselves partake in the feasting, as their commonly somber and gentle expressions flare into a noticeable smile when they manage to hold a mind.

I tasted this blend while finalizing the Connoisseur's design before commencing mass production, and I can attest to the refreshing and revitalizing effect it has on the mind and body.

Addiction can sometimes be a concern, as some Caretakers rather indulge in this sweet fat rather than consume proper nourishment. It is nothing permanent however, and a simple visit to one of our biopaths can cure this ailment.

The shades inside the Gestalt belonging to those whose mortal lives have been ended by a Connoisseur are always thankful for the new life they have been given, and flattered by the sheer pleasure their memories and identities induce upon us.

Preximius's personal favorite is known to be the minds of Human toddlers like that belonging to the Human girl who was sampled in the presence of the Battlemaster.

Of course, mere mortals such as he could not comprehend the gift that was given to that girl in that moment. In the presence of the Father, life is celebrated, as it is never ended.

All who we "kill" in the eyes of mortals are merely freed from their physical shells and granted a new start inside the Mind Cosmos of the Father. Is it really a sin for Preximius to seek enjoyment in this holy task?

The minds of the Gestalt do not condemn the Weaver Master. They thank him for what he has given them, and in return only find it just that he and his audiences can find peace and pleasure in their lives.

I know from Voice Inspirars that Preximius even engages in frequent visits to Naztrum Ognis, in order to meet with the many infants and toddlers he has sent to the Gestalt in the name of the Father.

According to the old Voice, the boys and girls see Preximius as an old brother to play and enjoy themselves with. His arrival is usually followed by cheerful cries and warm embraces.

Do you see the beauty that our designs bring to Paradise and those inside it? The happiness of those freed from the prison of sightless flesh? The cries of joy and bonds of close friendship that form under His smile?

The Weaver Master does. I am sure he will request much more of you as well.

-Huntsman

To be marked is law. We only wait until their prey realizes it so.

This Child design is one of the deadliest at our disposal as of the time of writing this document.

Like the designs commissioned by the Marshall and the Weaver Master, the Huntsmen were birthed from the Umbra's creativity. She desired a being that could compete with her finest Stalkers in terms of intelligence and effectiveness in the art of assassination.

She could have crafted a design simple in form, maximizing utility, but like all who walk Paradise she has found value on expression accompanying function.

To further help crystalize this design in my mind, the Umbra confided in me a tale that has shaped her life for as long as she can remember.

Dath'Haram children are sometimes told myths and legends by their parents and families in order to affect their behavior in a certain way. This is not uncommon in species were infants are treasured and valued, such as the case of the Ethereal Dread Lord tale or the myriad of stories found throughout Human culture and history.

Small Sindierra was often told by her family that if she misbehaved, the shadow produced by her own body would grow conscious one day and drag her into oblivion while she slept.

A tale told in jest surely, but unbeknownst to her family, small Sindierra developed a phobia of darkness and silence as a result of this. As long as there was life around her, the gentle screeches of small animals, the voices of her brothers, the sound of music in the air, the shadow could never drag her away.

With a laugh, she recalled how she could not sleep for many nights after she first heard the story of the "evil shadow ghost that would spirit her away in the night". Only after she snuck away from her home one night and slept in the company of wildlife did she manage to finally find rest and peace.

I do wonder if this is the explanation behind her unusually extroverted personality. I imagine that very early during her mortal life, she came to realize that in order to eliminate the silence, she had to create situations where such would not be possible. Fortunately for her, the friend she has found in the Weaver Master always makes sure to keep her delighted with festivities.

I am sure you can see why the young Dath'Haram came to be known for her expeditions into the wild without a partner or any type of company once she became a Bladedancer.

You must have heard the story of how Sindierra came to awaken to Paradise after being extracted by His Touch during one of her routine patrols in the Dath'Haram lush.

The lesser known part of this tale is how she felt upon laying eyes on the eminent Saint for the first time.

Sindierra had always believed she had conquered her fears. She was a skilled warrior, cream of the top of the elite of her species. She was daring and brave, always heading out to the unknown and unseen dangers of the Dath'Haram lush by herself.

What was the darkness of the night to her? She relished in the after-day explorations and hunts. What was her own shadow to her? It was her sole companion during these expeditions.

What was silence to her? It was the perfect cover for her to draw her arrow softly, and extinguish a life in a mere breath.

She found out on that fateful day, that the phobias inside her were very real and alive.

The Umbra describes the event as a veil being cast over her. There was absolutely no sound around her. Not the air, not the creatures surrounding her, not her own now rapidly pounding heart. She tried to listen to her own voice, and there was absolutely nothing that came out of her mouth.

She had always feared losing her sense of hearing, even if such a disability would be temporary due to the advances in medical science ushered in by the Collective.

She calmed herself. If she had somehow gone deaf, she would make her way back home and head to the nearest medical clinic.

But she couldn't move.

Her mind began to panic inside its now unyielding prison, and she saw to her horror how the shadow which was supposedly surrounding her body was instead far away from her. From the shadow, His Touch slowly emerged. The Umbra recalled how the Saint deliberately took His time emerging from the abyss, first with His long fingers grasping the edges of the ground, with the rest of the body rising up. As if the Saint were pulling Himself out of a pool of water.

With a smile, the Umbra confided in me how she was sure she would collapse from the strain in her heart which now beat at a speed she didn't think possible, and how she shakily shouted commands and threats at the creature, now casually approaching her, to stay back even if her mouth produced no audible sound.

Her worst fears had materialized before her, and her mind scrambled trying to find a logical explanation for the unthinkable sight which tormented her. When the Saint placed a gentle hand in her shoulder and took her to Paradise, Sindierra realized that her fears were not an obstacle to shy away from, but to embrace fully.

According to her, the Saint had purposefully played to every expectation that her mind had produced to give shape to her phobias, and in doing so, subverted the fear and transformed it into a strength for the now Umbra.

The Saint taught her how to submerge herself fully to the inky void of concealment, and how to utilize silence and subtlety to impeccably complete objectives. He showed her great love and understanding, and in doing so shattered the image of trauma little Sindierra had nurtured.

According to her, the feelings of love and dread are two clashing titans in the mind of a mortal. They can coexist, but if one is cultivated far above the other it will reign supreme.

The proof for such creed and philosophy is herself, for if the Umbra cannot be called a creature of the night then I cannot call myself a Sculptor.

With the creation of the Huntsmen, the Umbra wanted to grant those who would fall by their blades the same awakening she had been gifted with by His Touch.

The physical design was inspired by a drawing she had produced as a toddler upon first hearing the story which traumatized her so fully.

A tall and slender creature with four arms, her young mind thinking that each hand would grasp her ankles and wrists to drag her away into oblivion. A head with no eyes, and the body covered by a long shawl, which she related to the cover of night.

Adapting the light reflecting skin of the Lurker and Keeper class Children is also a design choice meant to keep the being hidden from sight, to further give life to the invisible nightmare which plagued the Umbra's young mind.

It seems that Sindierra had a flare for the dramatic ever since her earliest years, and us Sculptors cannot help ourselves but celebrate the thought of a small girl producing a design to rival our own creations.

In terms of practicality, the Umbra wanted a design capable of the same strengths taught to her and subsequently her Order. Subtlety and silence.

The brain of each Huntsmen is a significant investment. Not only does this creature need to be fully sapient and highly intelligent in order to compete with a Stalker, but complex Will channeling aptitude was a parameter that the Umbra insisted on since the earliest stages of the project.

Our current results are promising.

The Huntsmen each possess three Will channeling capabilities. The first, and most significant, is the capability to reliably engage in quick teleportation. Most of our work on the design of a Huntsman's brain is reflected in this capability, as this discipline is extremely difficult to master even for those who have experience touching the Veil.

The speed and ease that a Huntsman showcases during teleportation is an achievement for us Sculptors, and the Umbra is most pleased with this result.

The second is that of telepathy. A Huntsman will not directly attack a target's mind in order to avoid being detected, and will instead track it and observe their target from long distances, studying their behavior to formulate a plan before finally making their move.

Once engaged in battle, if the enemy is not killed outright by the Child, it can choose to begin reading the target's mind with the intent of predicting moves and patterns.

The Umbra prefers that they do not engage in this however, as developing their capabilities and techniques is far more beneficial to them than relying on an ability that can be negated by certain enemies.

A byproduct of this telepathy, and one desired by the Umbra, is that each Huntsman can telepathically absorb the mind of a target on their dying moments and add it to the Father's Gestalt.

The final and least developed discipline is that of telekinesis. Each arm of a Huntsman ends in a bladed extension that is extremely sharp on its own. These Children are trained to quickly dispatch foes by targeting weak points in the body and armor, and a telekinetic boost to their stabs and strikes aids greatly in this task.

Due to the elevated resources required to produce each Huntsman, we have limited the number of these creatures to six, with each being assigned to an Order.

As much as the Umbra desires to hold command over all of them, the reality known by His Wisdom is that the Stalkers will not engage in extensive assassination and target removal operations until the Father crosses and we escape our current situation. As a result of this, each Huntsman has instead been provided with a role of defense in key installations watched by the Father.

An interesting detail that we have observed, is that every Order has decided to modify their Huntsman in a way that identifies them as belonging to each organization.

The Weaver Master has grafted his Huntsman with the face of an infant whose mind ascended to the Gestalt following one of his performances. Now, this Huntsman has become sort of a celebrity, introducing an element of surprise and unexpected happenings into many plays or events in Speculmnis organized by Preximius' Order.

Another example is the Marshall ordering his Huntsman to be heavily augmented in terms of physical strength. This particular individual as a result was proficient in duels and training exercises with many Baptists.

The Umbra is the only one who kept the original design of her creation, and we did not augment ours out of creative respect for her, even if she does not mind what the other Order commanders have done to theirs.

Even if this Child is complex and highly effective, it is still a design that is far from finalized, as shown in a past duel between two of the Huntsmen and an Agent of the Scourge of the Meek. The Agent dispatched our Children with ease, as Will users of such danger and expertise are difficult to match even for our elite Orders as of this moment.

Once the Father crosses, we will be free of the artificial constraints imposed by the Imperator. You must realize, that if he were to decide to inspect Paradise and found extremely powerful Will signals inside not belonging to the Saints, he would surely panic and impose even further harsh measures upon our station.

I ask you the following questions, upcoming Magistrate.

What is stopping us from producing a Huntsman with Veil touching capability to match the strongest Ethereals once we are free and have the required time and resources on our hands?

What denies us the opportunity to further enhance the members of our Orders so that each soldier has the power of an Agent of the Sovereign of War?

What prevents from transforming all of the combat-oriented Children in this list into Will bearing titans to match the legions of the Apostate?

I am sure that you know the answer.

There is no factor preventing this reality.

-Despoiler

The Father forgives and comforts. We are beholden to no such burdens.

The second Child design to be commissioned by the Marshall. The Despoiler is our current equivalent to a weapon of mass destruction.

The Marshall created a very detailed and fearsome design that we have brought to life with the approval of His Wisdom and excitement of the Artist.

According to the Marshall, Human mythology gave birth to a creature known as a "dragon". This monstrous beast was both regal in its stature and an unshackled force of nature which could easily ravage that which Humans had taken so long to build and create.

In the great torrents of fire spewed by its maw, Human civilization could very well collapse. Kings would fear the dragon, as all the power and riches held by them meant nothing under the gaze of a being which could turn their vast domains into ash if it so desired.

This serves as the basis of the Marshall's inspiration. A creature that handles itself in the regal glory of a Saint or the Father Himself, heralding unimaginable destruction and raining Veil storms of fire down to purify the wicked and sinful.

As you can imagine, this is a weapon meant to be utilized against the legions of the Apostate. No other enemy deserves a complete lack of mercy in the battlefield.

We expect mortals to oppose us out of fear and the biases told about us by others, and we intend to liberate them from such a pitiful state and welcome them in the Gestalt.

The Apostate and his aberrations have no place in Paradise. They are a tumor infecting our universe that must be extirpated. A pustule that deserves no consideration other than the most efficient way to burn it away.

To create a being capable of lighting this funerary pyre, we have engaged in a multi staged approach to the production of this being, in a similar way to the Behemoth.

The first approach was to produce a being of pure physical perfection. The Despoiler is a hulking bipedal beast possessing two powerful arms and legs. The mass on these extremities is such as to even make His Fury look small in comparison.

In addition to the four basic limbs, the Despoiler boasts six large tentacle-like extensions placed symmetrically along its body, with the largest one serving as a tail of sorts for the creature. The Despoiler can manipulate each of these tendrils as if they were extensions of its hands or additional fingers. That is to say, great dexterity.

Another feature of the Despoiler is the addition of two great membranous wings, which allow the creature to engage in fast, and surprisingly nimble due to the creature's size and weight, flight. All to add to the building image of an angel of destruction being unleashed upon the luckless by decree of the Father.

To finalize this intimidating visage, we finished the design with a skin of the darkest black, lined in crimson bulging veins. Several localized areas in the Despoiler's skin have also been made transparent, to show the pulsating muscles and organs, none vital of course, underneath.

A curious feature that the Marshall added to the already impressive prototype, was the inclusion of aquatic features. The Despoiler's head resembles that of a cephalopod, complete with six unblinking amber eyes placed on both sides of the head in sets of three. A clear tribute to the origins of our Father it would seem.

Rather than ending in a mass of tentacles, the Despoiler's face ends in a gaping cavity or maw filled with teeth. The Despoiler shares the lust for blood that many Baptists must control to remain effective and logical in the battlefield.

We have found during testing, that if little risk is presented, the Despoiler will consume its victims rather than simply tearing them apart. The victim is quickly inserted into the creature's mouth, where the rows of teeth work with the efficiency and speed of something the Marshall describes as a "chainsaw".

A Human instrument of torture perhaps? Such would not be surprising for a species capable of such cruelty and hunger for conflict.

I may research this concept in my spare time, but I admit that it has not piqued my interest as much as the fantastical creatures described in the various myths and legends of the Marshall´s species.

The result is that the victim is messily consumed in a matter of seconds, and the meal of blood and viscera has a positive psychological effect on the creature. We have programmed its mind to respond to such banquets in a similar way to how a mortal might react to a stimulant or performance altering drug.

To prevent addictions or other unforeseen irrational behavior, the Despoiler can be treated telepathically, which means that any concerns regarding this feature of the beast are null.

The physical strength of the Despoiler is so great that we have found it capable of easily bending and eventually crushing armor made of the Purified Steel of Naztrum Ognis either with its two hands or by ensnaring victims with its "tail".

These findings have even caused Lord Z'Erstifex to issue a warning regarding repairing and replacing of lost armor. Any Order soldier who desires to prove their prowess dueling such a creature does so on the risk of equipment being permanently damaged.

The Despoiler can be directed telepathically, but observers might not be able to stop the beast in time to save the fighter's armor or even physical life should the battle go exceptionally poorly.

What truly cements this being as a weapon to be utilized sparingly, is the enormous colonies of Legion cells living inside specialized organs lined throughout the Despoiler's interior. When in battle, the Despoiler discharges so many of these microscopic organisms as to form a mist around its vicinity.

Any victims consumed by the Despoiler are directly fed to the production plants of Legion inside it, volatizing the amount and intensity of the barrage spewed by the creature.

The Legion strain bound to a Despoiler is the most advanced and complex we have produced thus far.

We have managed to maximize the destructive potential of this Legion strain by investing heavily in their consuming speed and ravenous appetite. At the same time, we have programmed the cells to recognize the Despoiler's flesh as their host, similarly to how the regular Legion are programmed to not chew through their containment units.

The Despoiler lets loose this lethal wave through a small and simple telepathic command, and once it chooses to do so, the very ground the Despoiler walks is quickly stripped of life, hence the creature's name.

Due to these realities, only few Order members are allowed to interact and practice with the Despoilers, and even then, the creature must be directed to not utilize its Legion capabilities.

The few times that challengers have allowed the Child to utilize this ability, duels have ended poorly for the trained Order soldiers. Having to constantly maintain a psionic shield around their whole bodies for the entirety of the battle requires exertion and concentration which prevents them from effectively engaging the creature, who holds nothing back as its opponent is distracted and harassed by the microscopic death it exudes.

I would not describe the Despoiler as a creature of remarkable sapience. Unlike the Huntsman and the Virtuoso, the Despoiler is equipped with a more primal intelligence. This is not to mean that it is a simple being, as the cunning it has demonstrated in combat demonstrations and simulations has caught many a Baptist by surprise. Even Trusted adore engaging in lone combat against this creature, as it is currently the only Child that requires the full spectrum of their skills and aptitudes to conquer and subdue successfully.

I imagine that Z'Erstifex refusing to repair their top of the line armor should they falter serves as mighty motivation to execute such a fight perfectly.

Currently, the Despoiler employs simple Will bearing abilities. Its main aptitude is the destructive application of the forces of the Veil, as it is what the Marshall desired.

However, since it is extremely easy for an untrained or unintelligent user to destroy themselves as much as they destroy the enemy with this aptitude, we have included the minimum level of sapience that the Despoiler requires to handle itself safely.

Due to this, the Despoiler can only perform basic expressions of the offensive Will bearing nature, such as firing beams of pure energy from its orifices or spewing torrents of ghostly fire from its mouth.

Due to its closeness to the Veil however, even these simple skills are devastating to any who are caught in their wake.

Another reality explained to me by Order telepaths, is that the Despoiler's mind is completely alien to what they are accustomed to. A mortal usually thinks linearly, and this creates a pattern that can be exploited once the telepath in question becomes accustomed to it.

Even the Children, which are completely new creations, share certain patterns that can be compared to those of animals or rational mortals. A telepath may at first not understand the mind they are assaulting, but over time they come to understand what they deal with.

The Despoiler however, has never been properly understood by our telepaths. If one desires a duel with a Despoiler, there is always the risk that the beast will simply refuse commands to stop should the battle end unfavorably.

Biopaths are kept on standby should this occur, to force the creature's body to stop if telepathic commands are simply not enough. Telepaths of sufficient raw power can also engage in a brute force approach to completely dominate the mind of the creature if absolutely necessary, but it is difficult and time consuming to engage in.

What puzzles me however, is that we never intended for this to be a feature of this creature. Order telepaths usually congratulate us on the production of a mind so puzzling and new that even they cannot devise the best methods of manipulating it, and I have so far kept the deception alive by accepting the credit.

However, I have never heard such comments from Trusted Weavers, and so far, they have specifically avoided the subject.

During one of these duels, His Wisdom was present. Unfortunately, the duel ended badly for the Order warrior, and the Despoiler failed to acknowledge any commands issued by the Overseers.

His Wisdom stepped to the field unexpectedly.

Rather than subdue the creature with His vast skills and power, the Saint began speaking to it in a language no one in Paradise has heard before, as the Despoiler held the unfortunate Baptist in its claws. An intriguing mixture of flowing musical whispers, and deep reverberating echoes flowed from the Saint.

What was even more surprising, is that the Despoiler answered back. The capability of speech was always a feature for this being, but we had never taught it such a perplexing tongue.

After a long conversation, the Despoiler released the Baptist from its steely grasp and agreed to stand down.

I inquired afterwards to His Wisdom, and the Saint explained to me that He had reasoned with the Child and convinced it to stand down.

This is bizarre to me, as a Saint such as He is the absolute highest authority in Paradise alongside the Artist. Why would He need to speak to a lesser creation? Ordering the being to stand down should have been sufficient, and yet the Saint chose debate with it. Nevertheless, it is not my place to question His Wisdom's decisions.

Curiously, ever since this incident, unruliness by the part of our Despoilers has vanished completely. I intend to correct this mysterious issue that somehow evaded my quality control and standards in the second generation of Despoiler.

The second generation of Despoilers, to be pursued once we are free from the Collective, will boast a much more developed brain.

We have made great strides in its physical design, as currently the Despoiler has the hardest skin out of any Children produced, has organic armor protecting its exterior, sports incredible physical strength, impressive regenerative capability and redundant organ systems to further maximize durability.

The focus in this new version must be its mind. We intend to create a creature capable of complete sapience and brilliance.

Power must be wielded by those who know how to best utilize it. I will repeat this crucial sentence as I did with the Behemoth project.

Complex Will bearing abilities will be also made available to the creature. Powerful telepathic defense, unbreakable personal shields, teleportation, rifts and vortexes of destructive Will channeling energy, telekinetic vices which induce earthquakes on the battlefield and crush thousands to paste simultaneously.

You can begin to understand what we expect of this new version of the Child.

We intend to transform the Despoiler into a walking army that does not require support to effectively destroy the opposition.

In current combat simulations, the Despoiler is a nightmare for the sightless if supported by a team of Overseers and Trusted Weavers.

The Weavers to direct it telepathically and keep it focused on the objective, the Overseers to protect it with their shields.

The new Despoiler will need no such support, for it will be capable of sustaining itself on its own with ease. The surprising rebellious nature of the Child will also be quelled. We do not want a weapon that fires back at us as much as it fires against our enemies.

Currently, only two Despoilers exist. One inside the Fortress of the Baptists, locked away in the deepest and most secure chamber of the complex, which the Marshall has given the nickname of Apollyon.

After educating myself even further in Human mythology, I see this title as fitting to the beast, given what it embodies and represents.

Of the two, this one is the most experienced and well trained, as the Marshall allows the Trusted and upper echelons of the Baptists to train with it occasionally.

The second Despoiler is inside His Toil's cavities. This one we keep as a security mechanism, and should this layer ever be breached, this Child will be released upon the intruders, along with everything else at His Toil's disposal.

You can imagine the effectiveness of this Despoiler's Legion, as vast organic material to consume practically lines this entire layer of Paradise.

A third Despoiler was in the midst of development when the mysterious rebellious episode suffered by these Children commenced.

His Wisdom ordered production be halted immediately in order to identify the problem affecting them. It would be unwise to invest resources on a Child design which was fundamentally flawed, after all.

Unfortunately, this Despoiler was significantly stunted by the sudden halt in its growth cycle, and once completed it did not compare to its two brethren. Preximius expressed interest in adopting the flawed Child, and we gifted it to him for use in the cultural events carried out by his Order.

This Despoiler suffered a physical death at the hands of the Battlemaster's incursion party, but we intend to bring it back from the Gestalt when the design of the second generation of Despoiler is complete.

If successful, this Child will be given a chance to finally live up to its potential and expectations. If unsuccessful, at least we will gather data on the effects of an already formed mind being uploaded to a body with a vastly superior brain than it had originally.

This information will be crucial to the Bygone project, which I will detail alongside all future concepts and plans to come after we escape the Collective in a later section of this work.

-Anamnesis

Those first to be burned in the pyres of conquest live on in the Father's regrets.

A relatively new project that we have undertaken is the Anamnesis Directive.

Agmus, a member of the Trinity of Minds which serves as the Father's heart, could be considered the true patron of our Order.

His unconquerable drive to create led him and his sister to become masters of a peaceful galaxy populated by perfectly designed species. Such designs were destroyed upon the arrival of the Apostate, and could not be evacuated to the safety and eternity of the Gestalt due to the Father not existing by this primordial time.

It has always been a source of great sorrow to our patron Saint, and surely Agmus by extension, that these creations who had committed no sin or earned no genocide could never live to see Paradise.

If they loved their Sovereign masters before their exaltation, witnessing the savior that has risen from the ashes of their harvested bodies would surely silence their screams and bring smiles to their faces.

Only memories of these precursor races are left in the Mind Cosmos. Unclear shadows, moments of visions, distorted mirages. Unfortunately, no precise schematics exist. The Apostate made sure to leave no trace of the Trinity's selfless work, and the Father's characteristic perfect memory does not extend to the period before His apotheosis.

We know who Agmus, Omnima, and the Infant were because they still exist in the center of the Mind Cosmos as the three stars around which all minds orbit. We know their story because they remember it so, but many precise details have been muddled or otherwise lost.

We know the basic characteristics of the Trinity's Sovereign era. We know the names of their most memorable locations, of garden worlds and sites of titanic battles against the Apostate, events and happenings that left an impression on the Sovereign Masters.

We know the names of many of these precursor species, and certain identifying characteristics. Aesthetics, Agmus's inspirations and chosen themes around each work.

As Sculptors, we have inherited Agmus's drive and spirit to give shape to what Mother Nature provides to us, and with the approval of the Artist we have commenced the Anamnesis project.

If the precursor races can never be perfectly rebuilt and restored, then we will work with the unclear images available to study inside the Gestalt. We will craft a gift to the Father, we will create entire species to honor the fallen precursors and seek to soothe the wounds through which the Father has bled for silent eons.

The precursors are but a distant memory, this must be accepted, but their descendants will live forever. Agmus's peaceful creations sought a place in this universe and were coldly stamped out by the Apostate. The products of this project will serve as a protest to the Apostate's creed.

Life may be destroyed. It may be corrupted through profane machinery. It may be forced to turn on furthermore innocents. It will always flourish again, and it will defend itself.

We will craft species that are beautiful and majestic to the eye. Species that are based on the memories of old, and exalt their ideals. Species that will be ferocious when the time to battle against those who seek to destroy us arrives. Species that will be driven to white hot vengeance as the death rattle of the precursors is firmly present in their minds.

The first product of this directive is the rebirth of the Nalidus.

A particular detail regarding Agmus's tastes, was his fascination with insectile life. One of the many examples of species he created was known in these bygone ages as the Nalidus.

Unlike the common idea of creatures of this type and characteristics, Agmus did not seek to craft a coarse and brutish species like the Traveler's Adherents. Instead, the Nalidus were a refined people deeply attuned to the lush garden worlds gifted to them upon their conception.

In appearance, the Nalidus boasted regal and delicate features, with wings decorated in hypnotic patterns and dazzling color combinations. Similar modern creatures they could be compared to would be the Monarch Butterflies of Earth or the Mirage Pods of Vitakar.

In addition to their physical beauty, the Nalidus were famous throughout the Trinity's Galaxy for their tastes in the arts.

Great compositions to be played in cultural gatherings, paintings with minute details that could only be appreciated under the lens of a magnifying glass, dances legendary for their impossible to recreate movements and choreographies, landscaping which transformed the lush jungles and prairies of their worlds into vistas which would inspire the spirit of all who witnessed them.

It is no surprise that the physical and spiritual beauty of the Nalidus made them highly sought-after romantic partners for members of the many species inhabiting this galaxy, even if they were genetically incompatible and such unions could produce no offspring.

I must imagine Brother Agmus' pride in creating a species so perfect that they could override the primal reproductive instincts commonly present in mortals.

Unfortunately, we know the dark fate that befell the Nalidus and all other species in this doomed galaxy. Their attributes made for superb cultural icons, but one does not kill the monsters serving the Apostate with prose.

A particularly vivid image in Agmus's now transcended mind is the sight of the impeccable Nalidus worlds being bombarded with incendiary ordinance. The Apostate must have known the place this gentle species held in the Sovereign's heart, and must have devised a barbaric ploy to emotionally unbalance his prey with such a showing of annihilation.

Perhaps the Father chose to shape Naztrum Ognis in the image of the now destroyed garden worlds as a constant reminder of His failure to save His first creations.

Due to these reasons, this was the first species chosen by the Artist to be remade and presented to the Father.

However, first we had to include a new paradigm in the design of the Nalidus. For as sacred and as important as they are to the Father, we would not produce a species which would die once again to the Apostate.

The Nalidus had to be reborn in power. Power which we could impart through a mixture of Human and Ethereal neural tissue.

The Nalidus brain was easily the most time-consuming design phase in this undertaking, and we managed to create an exemplary brain which fused Human, Ethereal, and Insectoid traits seamlessly as if made by evolution itself.

The physical features of the Nalidus were easily recreated through a mixture of genetic material derived from insects available to us on various Collective member planets and covertly extracted from Earth.

We were also fortunate enough to be able to locate an intact Adherent specimen belonging to the top caste of the warrior elite through His Touch and the Stalkers. This would greatly speed the development phase of the project, as the Adherents were an insectile warrior race with remarkable closeness to the Veil and control over His Will.

The parallels to what we wanted the reborn Nalidus to be were striking. We would use many of the Adherent's specifications as starting points and further perfect them utilizing our own mastery and experience in the art of genetics, in particular the brain.

However, we desired to keep the original aesthetic design of Agmus' work. Combining this parameter with the combat proficiency and physical strength of the Adherents, as well as the increased head size due to a much-improved brain proved to be a challenge, but despite this we managed to produce two successful templates.

The two products of these efforts are the Consort and Palatine templates. Beings who combine the grace and delicate beauty of the Nalidus of old with the imposing bulk and size of a being made for war.

These are creatures which deceive the eye. They are of less raw muscle than a Muton, but can easily contend with our Apostle templates in contests of strength. One would think that they would be impeded in flight due to their increased size and weight, but their powerful wings allow them to fly with incredible speed and nimbleness that becomes breathtaking when aided by their own telekinetics.

One would not imagine that beings so pleasing to the eye and with such a gift for gallant speech could become monsters in the battlefield. The Marshall has told us that these creatures remind him of an old Human mythological being called a "Valkyrie", and after conducting research of my own I cannot help but agree.

If I can allow myself a moment of pride, I would even dare to say that we have surpassed Brother Agmus's original work.

His Love's presence and words of joy upon the birth of the first Nalidus Consort seems to validate this opinion. The Father is greatly pleased by our own touches to His original concept.

The Consort will be the base template for most of the reborn species.

Powerful enough in the arts of Will bearing to be more than a match for senior Order soldiers and make the Stormwalker consider admitting them into her Order; graceful and nimble enough in combat to impress the Umbra and the Marshall and elicit their desires to witness their combat performances; the lost beauty once again blessing this universe and captivating the Weaver Master's attention.

The Palatine will be to the Consort what an Imperator is to an Ethereal. The garden worlds will not be put to the torch once again. They will be the protectors and the champions of the new Nalidus species.

As of this moment, the number of existing Consorts is small, and no Palatines exist. This is due to Viatorian's paranoid watch over our station. I am sure you understand by this point what the role of this Ethereal is in our work.

The few Consorts that exist all have earned positions of influence and renown in Paradise. Every single Consort has earned membership of an Order.

There is one in the Marshall's legions who serves as a champion and gatekeeper to the upper echelons of the Carmine Baptists. A Baptist recruit will reach a certain rank ceiling over the course of their career, and in order to advance to the high tiers of the Order they must prove their worth by defeating her in personal combat.

This is far easier said than done, as this Consort is extremely well drilled and knows how to counteract all battle styles, is experienced with all weapons available to a Baptist, and is well versed in adapting to the strengths of their opponent. Be it the closeness to the Veil of a Human, the physical perfection of a Muton Apostle, or the nimbleness of a Vitakaran.

One has joined Preximius' Order, as we did not curtail in any way the spiritual and cultural strengths of the Nalidus of old. The Master Weaver has even taken her into his personal circle of close confidants and partners.

It seems that the modern age is not safe from the charms of the Nalidus, and the Master has fallen for one just as millions did back in the age of Agmus and Omnima.

His Love is accepting and welcoming of all types of personal relationships in Paradise, regardless of biological gender or species. With such freedoms, we strengthen the bonds that hold Paradise together, for if we cannot love each other, how can we love the sightless we will free?

From conversations with many Weavers, this relationship seems to be progressing exceptionally well, with the Nalidus woman easily handling herself alongside the veterans of the Order and managing to keep up with the exotic humor and quick paced wit that Preximius is famous for.

This individual has also become a star in Speculmnis, as she can enhance her already otherworldly beauty to nearly incomprehensible heights with the creative application of telepathy to the willing crowds. To see her streaking past the night sky of the planet which never sleeps, gracefully flying through fireworks while encased in an aura of splendor and brilliance is a sight that Voice Inspirars has repeatedly urged me to experience myself.

The Artist and I are proud to see that we managed to not only preserve the reputation of the Nalidus of old, but enhance it beyond what was possible in this long past era.

Two have paid me visits and urged me to allow them to work alongside the Sculptors. They desired to join those who had brought them to life once more.

The Consorts are educated on the origins of their species, and on the demise that befell it at the hands of the monsters of steel. The Consorts are driven by differing motivations as a result of these revelations imparted on to them.

Three desired vengeance and justice, leading them to combat oriented roles in Paradise.

One desired to revive the cultural spirit of the species which was lost in the furnaces of the Apostate. This led her to Preximius and his Order.

It seems that these two want to ensure that work on the future of their species is constant and without difficulty, and this has led me to commence their training as Sculptors. The intellect of the Nalidus Consorts is great, and so is their ravenous appetite for knowledge and education.

I am pleased at the speed and efficiency which they devour books and treatises with. If they maintain this same momentum, I will gladly accept them into the Order should they pass all required tests and exams successfully.

There is another Consort in service of the Umbra. Unfortunately, due to her elevated size and conspicuous form, she is not well suited for stealth.

However, the Umbra was one to quickly recognize the talents and potential of the Consorts, and she employs this Nalidus woman as a trainer for the elite of her Order. The speed and flowing motions that the Nalidus have shown in duels and combat greatly resembles the art of Bladedancing, and this Consort has proven exceptionally skilled in this Dath'Haram discipline.

The final Consort is currently seeking admittance into His Trusted. She has expressed a desire to become one of the Stormwalker's Paladins, which is a sentence that has amused the Order Commander.

The Stormwalker has always maintained that the skill required for her Order is earned through hard work and perseverance. One is not born with that skill, and to become a Paladin is to show absolute excellence.

If this Consort wants to achieve this goal, the path to it will not be as smooth as those that her sisters have enjoyed, and this is a vast oversimplification.

However, due to the considerable potential already shown by the other Consorts in relative few years compared to many in Paradise, I am confident that this Consort will achieve her dream.

Now, you may have noticed that all the Nalidus mentioned here are females.

The reason for such a decision is twofold. First, we desired to honor the femininity of His Love with creatures that would not only be physically breathtaking and highly graceful, but capable of wielding His Will with ease and impressive scope, in an effigy of the feats which are possible for the Saint to perform without effort.

The second motivation, is to test a new concept which now promises to revolutionize Children production.

To rebirth a species as glorious as the Nalidus, equally hallowed wombs are necessary. The cold technology of a growth tank does not suit the revival of a precursor race.

To control the development and birth of each individual Nalidus, we have designed a new creature named the Empress.

Currently three Empresses exist, and all are a valuable investment to be protected in the deepest chambers of His Toil's layer in Paradise.

The Empress is an automated birthing pod for Consorts, but it does not employ machinery.

First, we acquired three Human females of a young fertile age and with high undiscovered closeness to the Veil aimed for the telepathic discipline. This search was conducted by His Touch and the Stalkers.

The next step was their induction into Paradise and the awakening of their Will bearing power. However, we did not want to damage their bodies with instant awakening which ravages Caretakers due to the energies of the Father flowing through them.

Instead, we awakened them with simply machinery courtesy of the Sectoids, knowing that the technology is simple enough to replicate. This was a longer process, but left us with healthy Human Will channelers of considerable power.

We proceeded to employ them in our Order and impart into them experience and know-how regarding genetic manipulation.

Their past selves would have been horrified at their coming fate, but as we had eliminated the flaws of the sightless from them, they understood and happily accepted what was to come.

We educated these new telepaths extensively in the arts of biopathy, specifically the reshaping of one's body and structures. Next, we formed a covenant between them and His Toil, and with the incredible power flowing through their bodies and the complex understanding of psionics they now had access to, we began our work.

First, we reworked their brains and uploaded their minds with the precise technical knowledge required to successfully grow a Nalidus Consort. Entire books were in an instant made available to them, and their now perfect memory could easily read through the pages.

We also overhauled their thought processes to induce rigorous routine. They now could essentially structure their thought patterns to resemble the never-ending function of machines or the enslavement to commands of computers.

A much more radical overhaul than those employed by the Overseers. The Overseers have the freedom to think all that they desire, but these three Human telepaths were now willingly enslaved to commands.

Next, came the bodily modifications. The women were almost quintupled in height and size. The legs and arms were amputated, as they would not be necessary. The abdominal cavity was enlarged in exchange by an extreme amount, as we desired to include a uterine cavity capable of fitting a fully sized Nalidus Consort.

When awake, the Empresses were installed in their chambers, with tubes transporting nourishment grafted to the stumps where their limbs were once and through their mouths.

When the required genetic material is introduced into the uterine cavity of the Empress, and the telepathic activation signal is sent, the Empress begins the work of growing the Nalidus Consort inside her abdomen.

However, this is not regular childbirth, as the Empress carefully bathes the developing fetus in life-giving Veil energy akin to the process which His Toil employs to birth most Children.

The programmed mind of the Empress maintains watch over the developing Consort inside her abdomen, monitoring growth development and life signs.

The Empress possesses surgical tools inside her uterine cavity, which can be utilized via biopathy should any imperfections in the developing being inside be detected.

Due to their connection to His Toil, the Empresses have become extensions in all but name of the Saint. The Saint sustains the Empress, while the Empress works on the embryo it nurtures. The Empress can accelerate both the physical development cycle of the embryo through biopathy applied to her own organs and the embryo, and the Will bearing development by attuning the intensity of the flow of Veil energy inside the uterus.

It has been noted that the nurturing process is extremely painful to the Empress, as wails and screams are commonplace when a Consort is being grown. We admire the sacrifice that these brave and hallowed mothers engage in for the good of Paradise.

If pain purifies imperfection, it is logical that such a toll should be paid to produce a being as graceful as a Consort.

For the first Consort, we kept watch over the assigned Empress to assess whether or not she was truly capable of growing this Child to the standards we desired on her own and without any sort of intervention.

She was successful, and the other two Empresses produced their own Consorts without any deviations or imperfections in the design. We have monitored the Consorts during the years following their births, and they show no signs of genetic breakdown or decay.

In the Empress, we have produced a living cloning chamber that can monitor every single step of an operation on its own and can produce beings of considerable closeness to the Veil with more speed than conventional technology.

We plan on expanding this concept once we escape the Imperator, as we have the potential to establish automated production facilities for the Children rather than the hand-crafted work we employ today to produce the most complex of the Child designs.

The tradeoff is the need to sacrifice powerful telepaths well versed and educated in the arts of Sculpting, but establishing such production plants would free labor to pursue more time consuming undertakings.

In any case, the restoration of the Nalidus species has proven an astounding success. I patiently await the opportunity to begin development of the Palatine, as well as beginning to restore the other species present in the Father's old galaxy.

-Siren

Let go of your pains. Your story is just beginning.

The second of the Children designs commissioned by the Weaver Master.

Inspiration from this creature was explained by Preximius to us as coming from His Love Herself. The very first time the Weaver Master laid eyes on the Saint, he was awestruck and captivated. This attraction toward divine beauty eventually led him to join their Order, and I do not need to explain to you what Preximius has achieved ever since.

The Master Weaver desired a creature that could embody a mere fraction of the pull that His Love induced upon the once young Sectoid. The irresistible urge to follow the Saint, the incessant fire in his heart at the sight of Her work, the inspiration that flows daily as he listens to Her words.

He desired a Child that could tease the mortal mind. A Child that would slowly and deliberately turn the biases of a sightless against them. A Child that could give them a taste of His Love's presence.

This creature he named the Siren, after the creature of Human myth which would lead sailors to their deep graves by enticing them with immaculate song.

As you must already know, our Sirens do not end lives. They are the gate to eternity.

Preximius handed us schematics and design peculiarities he desired we include on this new creation.

The Siren is a creature with an alluring female form. The body is crafted to the modern beauty standards of the Vitakara, Humans, and the preferences of the Weaver Master. The being has six arms, all ending in delicate five fingered hands.

The face of the Siren is modeled after His Love's, and it was pleasant to attempt to carve such works once more.

The Siren's face is without a blemish, with a small and refined nose accompanied by well proportioned lips. For eyes, the Siren employs four black organs positioned in a square formation in the front of the face.

The Child's otherwise bald head is covered by a shawl, and its lack of legs is hidden by an extension of this very article of clothing.

Only that this is not actually clothing. A point of pride for my students in the development cycle of this Child was the fact that we managed to create flesh which could pass off as the finest articles of clothing. Therefore, this "shawl" is not such, but an extension of the Child itself.

With no legs, the Child requires an alternate means of locomotion. For this, Preximius included two large membranous wings. In honor of the Father's aquatic origins, the Siren is colored a pleasant hue which resembles that of the deep sea.

According to the Weaver Master, the Siren is a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar concepts to a mortal. The delicate hands are a known and accepted concept, subverted by the six arms which carry them.

A beautiful face is usually a disarming sight to many due to the pleasant feelings it induces on the mind, and the Weaver Master has paired such attractive features with four eyes arranged in a glyph of Paradise. This confuses the mortal mind and forces it to question itself, as the mortal beauty which they seek and desire is accompanied by the alien visage of the Father.

One cannot be disassociated from the other, and to desire one is to desire Paradise. Even if they do not realize it at first, the subconscious seeds are planted and only require cultivation to flourish.

Wings are associated with the divine in many cases, as young species look to the skies of their worlds and wonder what could possibly inhabit such a mysterious and unexplored part of their homes. Myths and legends are crafted, and the sky usually becomes the abode of gods and creatures of fantasy.

We have given wings to the Siren, but they are membranous and fleshy. The Father is divine, but his perfection differs from the expectations of many.

The Siren's very appearance is meant to both confuse and appeal to the mind of mortals who gaze upon them. This aids the Siren in its main task.

The main function of this Child is to serve as a highly skilled telepath. The Siren engages in a particular brand of mental manipulation, and it is the mastery of urges.

This Child can slip through conventional telepathic defenses and manipulate the desires of a target. As this is not a direct telepathic assault or attempt at mind control, it is difficult to detect for even trained telepaths, and therefore difficult to defend against.

Once the Siren has infiltrated the mental defenses of the target, the being can commence manipulation of the lower functions of the brain. Nerve endings, euphoric centers, motor control.

A victim will be aware of the fact that their body is betraying them, but any resistance will be worn down by the puppeteering Child before sufficient control is attained and their mind is completely under its grip.

The Weaver Master employs all Sirens under his Order, giving them the title of the Maidens of the Night.

From first hand accounts retold to me by Sculptors who have attended such showings in Speculmnis, the Master has constructed great confusing labyrinths where Pilgrims are locked inside occasionally.

A Siren will be hidden in a chamber above the labyrinth, and will slowly manipulate the mind of the Pilgrim below. Of course, the Siren has the power to quickly subdue them, but they prefer drawn out showings rather than instantly ending spectacles.

The Siren will worm its way through any defense presented by the Pilgrim, and once in control, will begin playfully altering emotions and stimulating nerves. All done to keep their quarry from being able to keep their balance or concentration.

A favorite of the Sirens is to make themselves completely irresistible to the Pilgrims trapped inside their lairs, while not showing themselves for long periods of time.

It is a common sight to see these once strong- willed Pilgrims break down and weep when it becomes clear that they will never attain that which they desire. In other cases, the Pilgrims will attempt suicide by bashing their heads in to the walls of the prison, as they come to be convinced that the objects of their obsession will never show themselves.

Invariably, when the Sirens are satisfied over the absolute hold they lord over the mind of their prey, they descend from their perch of concealment. Upon witnessing their divine lust descend from the heavens, the Pilgrims extend their arms desperately, to score just one touch at the flawless flesh upon them.

The Siren obliges, as they seek to give a final release to the frustrations of their guests. With their six arms, the Child embraces the Pilgrim in a moment that stretches to infinity.

With their great wings, the pair locked in love ascends to the heavens, where the Siren gently grasps the face of the person they have toyed with for so long, and finally delivers what the Pilgrim seeks.

A deep and passionate kiss, a Human expression of attraction and romance admired by the Weaver Master. The Pilgrim is so completely hypnotized by the sensations ravaging their minds, that they fail to realize that the Siren is draining their life force by touching the Veil.

The Child lets the now lifeless husk drop, and applause breaks out from the Caretaker crowd indulging in the masterful performance.

The lucky Pilgrim's mind is sent to the Gestalt, where they become another eternal servant to Paradise. Such minds show much elevated excitement and vigor at the prospect of their immortality, for if such pleasures could be delivered by a mere Child of Paradise, what awaits us all after the Father's final victory?

Understandably, these minds desire above all to see the Siren which sent them to the Gestalt once again. I suspect that the Siren who suffered a physical death at the hands of the Agent of T'Leth during the Battlemaster's incursion has gotten little rest courtesy of its hundreds of admirers and competing suitors.

A perfect end to this Siren's service, as I am sure that it absolutely adores the attention it is receiving in the Gestalt.

Few examples of this Child exist. The incubation process and resources invested in each one are great considering our current inhibited capabilities, but the complexity of telepathic control and skill shown by each of these Sirens has caught His Wisdom's attention.

It is of note to mention how the Siren deployed during the Battlemaster's incursion managed to fool the telepathic defenses and experience of the last remaining Zudjari Axis, and the Child would have claimed the Battlemaster's disciple were it not for the interruption of the Agent.

Such impressive outcomes should come as no surprise, given that the Master Weaver keeps his Maidens well trained by gifting them with hundreds of playmates to indulge in. Will channelers have even been provided to them on many occasions, as well as Caretakers and Order members who wish to partake in an evening of enjoyment.

In such cases, the Sirens are instructed to not drain the Caretakers challenging them. So far, Sirens have been able to defeat members of all Orders with the exception of the Overseers and the Trusted.

The Siren is one of our most successful prototypes, and once we are free of these shackles, we plan on overhauling the Child to transform it into a telepath capable of besting the most stubborn of foes.

Intelligence in this being does not require drastic improvement, but as with many Children in this list which will eventually see combat, we plan on exponentially boosting their closeness to the Veil and the skill at which they channel His Will.

In the Siren, Preximius has proven that a small servant of the Father is capable of absolutely dominating a mortal. If a simple Child can brush aside the flaws of the sightless to touch the very souls of those upon it, then what hope do those who stand against us have when faced with the majesty of a Saint?

-Virtuoso

An unshackled mind is always behind the heights of a culture.

The brain is the center of who we are as people. Stored inside this complex organ are our memories, the commands which control our bodily functions, our personality traits.

If you analyze this reality from a literal sense, all of us are brains piloting constructs of flesh. I am a brain currently commanding a pair of hands to write this document. You are a brain commanding eyes to process the visual stimuli before you into an image you can comprehend.

And yet, the brain is not an organ associated with the self, because it is not seen. The brain encloses itself in a skull, as a protective measure, but the ambassadors of the brain are all external constructs.

We commonly associate the eyes, the mouth and the face as the true embodiments of the ego. Eyes which lead us to the soul, mouths which convey emotions verbally or visually.

We can tell much about a life by witnessing the state of the face. Scars and deep wrinkles may indicate a life of hardship and peril. A spark in the eye indicates confidence or hidden intent, relaxed muscles indicate ease and comfort.

When we praise a work of art, be it a painting, a sculpture, or the unmatched sounds emerging from an instrument, we praise the hands that brought such to life.

We exalt the mind when we admire such works, but we think of the mind as the whole body. The mind is the self, the mind is the collection of parts which form us.

But the brain is always absent. It is never glorified like the rest of the body. It is never the object of admiration for any culture, even though it is more vital to our existence than literally anything else in our forms.

A heart may be replaced, lungs may be regrown and implanted once more. Stomachs can be enlarged or cut short. But a brain is never restored perfectly.

We can transfer all facets of the self telepathically to an empty grown brain, but the result will never be the same.

The soul is a theological concept found in many religions throughout the cosmos. Many species at some point believe that the very essence of who they were, the eternal monument to mark that they once existed and walked the small corner of the Universe they called theirs, could be found through spirituality.

And yet they ignore that the soul is not in their hearts, but in their heads. The soul is that which sees through eyes, which speaks through a mouth, which feels through the touch, which walks with two or more legs or appendages.

The soul is that vault which keeps all precious memories together. That library of nostalgic volumes that one can open and read once more even though the chapters have long passed. That record of who we were before, who we are now, and who we desire to be.

The brain is us. It is the purest distillation of a person.

This is the primary reason behind my decision to leave mine visible to all around me. In exposing my brain to the fresh air which surrounds us inside Paradise, I prove that my soul is worthy of being freed from the cage which Nature has deemed necessary for mortals.

This is the philosophy that the Master Weaver diligently listened to one evening inside my operating chamber. He desired to understand the design choices behind my form which has left the shackles of my species behind.

The reasons behind the design of my head in particular resonated with Preximius, and before much time had passed, he presented me with a third blueprint for the creation of a Child much more ambitious than the two he had commissioned before.

The Virtuoso is the final Child produced for service under His Love and the Master Weaver's Order.

The being is constructed from the design and genetic material of an Ethereal brain, as Preximius wished to honor the Artist's soul in the same principle by which I honor mine.

Rather than a normal sized Ethereal brain however, this grown organ is enormous in size and can match the corpulence of even the Stormwalker and the Sentinel.

The brain which serves as the majority of the Virtuoso's body is then encased in organic armor hardened by the Legion, in a similar parallel to the skulls which commonly protect this organ in mortals. Unlike skulls however, this protective casing does not hide the brain from willing eyes.

Grafted to the front of the main body, the Virtuoso has six magenta colored eyes arranged in the same configuration as that employed by the Despoiler. Such similarities to the Father's Sovereign origins are deliberate, as the Weaver Master is showcasing to us how the Artist's soul is one with the Father's.

A unique design choice, is the inclusion of a mouth under the eyes. The mouth is not accentuated by grafted on lips or other organs which would be out of place if put on a brain, but designed in such a way that it resembles a natural cavity of the body. It is covered in flaps of flesh that the Child can easily close and open when desired.

Connected to the main body through long tendrils, are a pair of long hands colored in the same hue as the central brain.

As you know, the brain is the key to channeling the energies from within the Veil. The surest method to enhance a being's power and control over His Will is to enhance the brain itself or overhaul it for future releases of the creature.

The Ethereal brain is the reason behind this species' impressive closeness to the Veil, and in the Virtuoso, we have produced a being that is essentially an enormous Ethereal brain.

You can imagine the sheer Will channeling power that the Virtuoso has at its disposal.

As the Imperator would easily detect such a powerful being through mere telepathic surveillance, we have installed temporary inhibitors inside the Virtuoso to artificially limit its power and scope of abilities.

Such inhibitors will be removed once the Father escapes the Veil and we leave the Collective behind, and the Virtuoso will live up to the potential that it already unknowingly possesses.

However, even with the inhibition of its power, the Virtuoso is still arguably the most powerful of our current Children designs in terms of channeling His Will.

I will illustrate this point with the following argument. The Virtuoso has no anti gravitational engines attached to its body for locomotion. It does so itself by levitating telekinetically, constantly.

This single action would be enough to exhaust most lesser Will channelers, but the Virtuoso has shown incredible stamina and endurance when touching the Veil.

I should add that the Virtuoso takes a proportional amount of time to grow inside our laboratories and then in His Toil's cavities. Perhaps an Empress variant can be designed to accelerate development of this Child.

As a result of the need to keep such a powerful creature away from the Imperator's gaze, and the enormous resources invested in each one, only two of these beings exist as of now inside Paradise.

These two Children have been recruited by Preximius and pressed into service inside his Order, as is his right due to his creative ownership of the concept.

It should be noted that the Virtuosi not only are the closest to the Veil and possess the biggest ability to channel His Will out of all current Children designs, but their intellect is also the most remarkable.

The Overseers have tested both of these creatures extensively, and have identified in them the same characteristics required to become an Overseer.

The sheer amount of information able to be stored inside the libraries that are their minds is nothing short of what would be expected from a data storage unit back in Andromeda Prime.

The natural reaction time of a Virtuoso can be compared to those of low-ranking Overseers, and this is with a complete lack of training.

The two Virtuosi have also shown an exemplary capability to learn. Usually it takes an investment of time for an Order member or Caretaker to master the various skills possible to achieve by channeling His Will, especially if they came from a species that originally could not touch the Veil.

In the first days of their training by Preximius, the Virtuosi had already grasped the intricacies of biopathy, and their skill in lower and higher brain telepathy outclassed that of many recruits into his Order.

According to Preximius, he even explained to them the secrets behind teleportation, and performed the feat in front of them, convinced they could not replicate it.

The Virtuosi proved Preximius wrong, and ever since this incident, the other Orders have suddenly gained an interest in the Child.

As a test, the Marshall took the two creatures and taught them complex destructive abilities such as Rifts, and the Virtuosi managed to replicate them remarkably well considering they were novices in this discipline of Will channeling.

Testing by the Overseers is currently underway, and from preliminary results it seems that the two Children are not having difficulty grasping the defensive discipline as well.

Even the Stormwalker, who has remained ambivalent to the current available Children due to their prototype status, has shown interest in acquiring one of these Virtuosi to train and hone in every single discipline of Will bearing.

Perhaps this will be the first instance of a Child earning its place in the hallowed ranks of the Trusted?

However, it must be noted that in exchange for such an overwhelming mastery over His Will, the Virtuoso is completely outclassed by most opponents in terms of physical combat.

Should Will inhibitors such as the mists of the Poisoner be employed against them, the Virtuoso would easily be destroyed by most opponents.

However, this is not a major cause of concern. Simulations have proven that a fully unshackled Virtuoso extensively trained in all disciplines of Will channeling is an overwhelming force on the battlefield only matched by an assisted Despoiler.

It would be an incredible feat for the enemy to even manage to reach close proximity to a Virtuoso before being vaporized, crushed and bisected by barriers, completely dominated telepathically, or reduced to an organic slurry.

I do not think Preximius realized that he was designing the current pinnacle of Child design when he sat down to plan this, and in such a deceptively simple concept, but that is exactly what he has accomplished in the Virtuoso.

The name is even more thoroughly relevant than he surely intended.

Due to these reasons, His Wisdom has forbidden the two existing Virtuosi from participating in any type of combat operation, as the Saint wishes that this concept be expanded and perfected as much as is possible once the Collective is left behind. I imagine that the Saint sees the enormous potential that such a creature serves as a weapon.

As of now, Preximius has kept the two Virtuosi inside Speculmnis. The Weaver Master has found that the powerful telepathic abilities and complex skills mastered by the two Children makes them unique performers of the highest caliber for his shows.

An unexpected art that he has taught to the two Children is that of singing.

It seems that the Master Weaver intended this for them since the very beginning, as during development he asked us to give one of the Virtuosi a deep and imposing male voice, while he asked for the other one to boast an immaculate and high-pitched female voice.

Preximius has trained each of the Virtuosi in various forms of song. Vitakara ballads, Human Opera and Classical styles, original versions of Muton war chants. Even the Artist herself provided Preximius with old classics of the Ethereal Empire for the Virtuosi to perform.

The Weaver Master has even confirmed that the Virtuosi have altered their own vocal chords biopathically to reach high or low ranges not possible with their original voices.

When a Virtuoso performs, Preximius employs orchestras manned by performers of his Order, while the Child serves as the star of the performance.

Accompanying the heavenly sounds emerging from their mouths, the Virtuoso casts a powerful telepathic spell over the crowd, inducing finely detailed illusions and certain desired emotions which increase in intensity as the music reaches a climax or quickens its tempo.

It seems that they have learned well from His Love.

An element of surprise also comes from the fact that a Virtuoso might hijack an Order performer's mind during such a show, and use the performer as a prop or an otherwise humorous catalyst for the crowd.

On one occasion the performing Virtuoso attempted to take control over the Weaver Master himself, but was unsuccessful due to Preximius's own unmatched mastery over the telepathic discipline.

The Weaver Master playfully chided the Virtuoso for even trying such an act with a wag of his finger which the crowd found endearing, but in private he commented over the Child's skills as being uncommonly difficult to defend against.

It was not an approach of brute force, but an insidious worming through mental defenses and barricades which would put even the skills boasted by the Sirens to shame.

Such showings indicate the unexpected levels of success that we have attained with this Child.

This is a design that will serve us well in the conflicts to come, and I look forward to witnessing the heights that the two Virtuosi of Paradise can achieve once we remove the inhibitors from their bodies.

Should the Virtuoso be not sufficiently enhanced by the time you assume the mantle of Magistrate, I will provide an idea currently swirling through my mind.

What if we grow a second version of the Virtuoso not based in the baseline Ethereal brain, but in that of an Imperator? Of a Sovereign when we obtain the necessary genetic material? Of a Saint?

---

THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT FROM MAGISTRATE S´TRENTAR´S MEMOIRS HAS BEEN DEEMED PROBLEMATIC BY JUDGEMENT OF THE FATHER´S TEMPERANCE AND MARKED FOR CONTAINMENT.

THE MAGISTRATE´S MEMORIES REGARDING THE EVENTS IN QUESTION HAVE BEEN PURGED FOR HIS OWN WELLBEING.

ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED TO ALL NON-SAINT CLASS INDIVIDUALS DEEMED AS NOT BELONGING TO HIS TRUSTED.

FAILURE TO RESPECT THE FATHER´S WILL SHALL LEAD TO CAPTURE AND SUBSEQUENT INTERROGATION AT THE HANDS OF THE AFOREMENTIONED ORDER.

-Room 615

None are ready for the Garden. Not in this moment, perhaps not ever- recorded conversation between the Stormwalker and her Paladins.

From what we have managed to decipher of Trusted scripture, their translated mumblings recorded by the Overseers, and the unique language they sometimes utilize amongst themselves, we have been able to more or less develop theories about facets of the nature of the Father that we may have been ignorant to.

To the Trusted, it seems that the Garden is a physical entity or manifestation rather than the philosophical concept accepted by most Caretakers and Voice Inspirars.

Rather than the Garden, and by extension Paradise, being the conclusion we will achieve after the destruction of the Apostate, the Trusted imply that the Garden already exists and can be traveled to.

How this is possible and how one reaches the supposed physical Garden has firmly remained a mystery to us, and official investigation was blocked by His Wisdom, with the Saint asking us to have patience and focus on more immediate matters.

The Overseers soon seized all information on the Trusted that we had compiled, and the matter was quietly dropped.

And yet, something captivated me about this entire ordeal. An indescribable force pulled me towards my operating chamber, and I had an intense compulsion to create something.

This same indescribable force took me to His Wisdom's chambers, to request permission for a project I had not even begun to draft or plan.

The Saint stared at me for a curiously long moment, and granted my request before I could even utter a single world.

Later I would learn that the Artist had recused herself from this new nameless project, leaving me with full creative control and supervision.

I did not know what I would even work on for this mysterious undertaking, but a small voice in my head told me to worry not for the details. Inspiration would come once I had begun.

Surely, this had been the Father reassuring me. It was nothing out of the ordinary, as this had happened before and has happened afterwards, and I began to schedule the event for all Sculptors to attend.

As I called on my top Sculptor students to assist me and called for a conference in my operating theater, this force took me once again.

Before I could even begin to explain to the gathered crowd what would be done in that evening, my body began to move on its own.

I was a passenger in my own body and mind, and this force which had taken me began to work.

Soon my students, who initially stared at me in confusion, joined me in this intricate dance, I suspect taken by this force as well.

Our hands and extensions took genetic material from many origins and placed them in combinations I never would have guessed on my own.

Samples and resources which I still have not been able to identify and that I am sure were not in the room when we entered also appeared before us, and even though we had not seen such tools during our entire time as Sculptors, our bodies knew what to do with them.

Curiously, I managed to see a tall shadow for a small second standing in the corner of my eyes. It must have been His Touch who delivered the mysterious artifacts for us to work with. The Saints were watching, and the presence of His Touch let me know that they wanted to observe this project directly.

We worked, of that I am certain. But I do not remember what we did. All memories from this operation are mere flickers and whispers in the back of my mind. It is possible that this is the work of His Touch, who for some reason does not desire that I remember what it is we did.

Something that I do remember, however, is that the operating theater had become remarkably silent. Usually students would be occupied taking notes or discussing what they were seeing before them, but this time they just stared at us. Not a sign of life in their faces, as if they had suddenly become veteran Overseers.

Finally, our bodies stopped. In the frenzy, I had lost track of time, as if I was in a trance of sorts.

When I came to, and laid my eyes in the operating table, I realized we had produced something.

The closest way I can describe this is this. It was a mixture between the root of a tree and the entrails of an animal. A mixture of vegetations and flesh. Even now I cannot recall if what I managed to see was the full extent of what we had produced, however.

All I have is flickers and whispers.

I usually keep records on the amount of time required to produce a Child, in order to improve deficiencies in our production methods and keep output optimal in order to supply His Wisdom's demands.

This was no Child.

When I saw the amount of time we had invested to finish this project, I was stunned.

We had spent weeks producing this. Time required for production on the scale of a Saint!

Had I rested at all during this laborious session? Had I worked alongside my original assistants? Or had the crowd before me joined in at some point? How many resources had we invested? What was the size and complexity of this creation, that it had taken so long to complete?

Questions swirled in my mind, and answers were nowhere to be found.

I do not even properly remember what it looked like, and I can only offer vague details.

The outer layer of this creation was a mixture of pitch black and the deepest purple I have ever seen, even darker than that of the Trusted's armor. Various cracks in the surface allowed me to see a harsh crimson underneath, nearly blinding my eyes in its intensity.

A voice spoke to me next, and I affirm that it came from the mysterious entity we had brought to life.

The thing had no mouth, or facial expressions, or perhaps it did and I do not remember, but a vision I received in that moment let me know what it thought.

A small pair of lips, showing me an innocent smile.

It was satisfied with what we had accomplished that day.

I do not know if the Artist was as well.

She has said nothing about this event. Her voice and her mind have betrayed no secrets, but I know her eyes.

We have worked for a long time together, and I know her expressions well enough to say this. There was a flicker in the Prophet´s eyes when we met for the first time after this project. A brief second, a mere moment, but there was a softness which she has not shown to me before that.

Did she approve? Was she a witness to our near month-long work alongside the silent crowd? Was there a regret at her inability to work alongside us? Or perhaps she had joined us without us ever realizing it?

That is what I want to believe.

But the truth is different. She was sorry. Saddened even.

That small moment she intended as an apology. I now know why.

She has said nothing ever since.

The creature I brought to this world has not given me such love.

Once again, my memories are mere fragments, but I remember its commands clearly as if they came from the divine among us.

It demanded a secluded chamber for itself. Far away from the crowds of our layer, far away from the legions of Children being born every day, far away from any Sculptor.

I am certain I took it to this forlorn chamber, but I do not recall what I did inside it.

All I am certain of is that it remains there to this day. And it has grown exponentially. This room is its domain.

It told me so itself.

I do not know what it is exactly. This is not a Child, not a Saint, not a Caretaker.

And yet it commands a certain unspoken authority that many instinctually follow.

Sculptors and Children evade the room where it has taken residence, and all without exception stare at me in confusion should I ask them about their reasons to do so.

Their answers can be summarized as "There is no chamber there, eminent Magistrate. Never has been".

Even the layer maps have been changed without me somehow noticing.

Trusted frequent this very room, without any Sculptor or Child in the layer acknowledging their presence. Everyone seems to have been blinded to the abnormalities taking place here, and only I seem to be aware of the growing madness surrounding me.

Ominously, the Trusted seem shaken once they complete whatever they do inside this chamber.

Their masks reveal nothing, but I can tell they are from the subtle changes in their body language, or in the almost unnoticeable slowing in their usually confident step.

I used to dream of this room and what is inside it every night following the project. The visions I received during my sleep were indecipherable gibberish, but an uncommon feeling of dread kept growing night after night.

Something that I still do not understand, is the constant sound of suction which was ever present during these visions. A nightmarish sound which occurred rhythmically, as if it followed every palpitation of my heart.

Finally, it all came to a climax one night.

The force took a hold of me once more. The same which had possessed me and my students and gave birth to the mystery of the lost chamber.

It forced me to make my way towards that mystifying room. Step by step I walked ever closer to it. In my mind that same smile from before appeared, but it was far from innocent this time.

I found myself standing in the edge of a cliff, watching an enormous lake in the horizon, with a magenta sky above me. From the lake emerged a disembodied pair of lips, the same as I had seen before.

The lips were closed into a smirk. The skin was of the same color scheme as the creature I had produced during these weeks. As the being's smile further contracted and shifted, I saw the skin crack to reveal the very same violent crimson from before.

The disembodied organs descended into the lake from where it came, and I could feel a powerful rumbling all throughout the illusion I found myself inside.

The lips emerged once more, but this time they were so enormous as to completely blacken the sky before my eyes.

Due to the massive increase in size, I could observe the cracks that had formed on the surface of the skin more clearly.

I could see people inside the crimson underlayer. They were moving, pounding on the wall of flesh trapping them inside. They were shadows who screamed silently, and one can only imagine who they were or why they were here of all places. I do not know if this was merely another trick of the mind, or a warning of some kind.

I could not make the exact shapes of the shadows, but the nature of their movements marks them as creatures who are alive.

The lips then opened, to inexplicably reveal a cavity behind.

Teeth lined it. Teeth as far as my eyes could see. Teeth not of a civilized creature, but feral needles that would maul anything that dared come close to them. Teeth not only located where the gums should be, but positioned all throughout its insides down to the bottomless hole where a throat would normally be.

The sky became a horizon or wicked bones.

Inside this ghastly mouth, in the very deep end of this vortex of fangs, out of the endless hole, I saw three titanic spheres of radiant white light emerge. They resembled stars, but I knew they were eyes, for they shifted through my mind and looked into my miniscule soul.

It had my past and present, and wanted my future.

I could feel it taste my very being, and salivate profusely at the thought of slowly consuming me.

The mouth began to move and speak a tongue none in Paradise can understand. A mixture of flowing musical whispers, and deep reverberating echoes.

A low rumbling emerged from this mouth, one every Caretaker would recognize all too well.

One that caused great alarm to me in that moment.

The illusion ended, but my ordeal had not.

When I came to, I was in front of the door to this room, with my hand on the Will panel required to open it. I prepared myself for the trial sure to be found inside, when an enormous arm dragged me away to safety.

It was the Stormwalker.

She took me to my chambers, and instructed many of the Trusted telepaths accompanying her to break me free of the force holding my mind.

The presence must have been remarkably powerful, as the small squadron of elite telepaths had an uncharacteristically difficult task at extirpating the ephemeral tentacles which had bored deep into my being.

When I came back to my senses, the Stormwalker knelt down and looked me straight in the eye through her static mask.

According to her, the Trusted had to determine the extent of the creature's hold over me before finally acting. The creature wanted me, and only me, which is why it had left the rest of the Sculptors and Children untouched.

They would contain the monster to avoid this fate befalling any other, and "satisfy" it through means that I dared not ask.

Clearly this creation was far more dangerous than I had realized, and when I asked the Stormwalker why the Artist and Saints permitted this being to still exist and even cooperated in its creation, she had no answer.

Or perhaps she wished to not share it with someone like me.

When I demanded to know what this being that clearly left even the fearless champions of Paradise frightened was, she flatly refused to answer, telling me I could not know under any circumstances. That no one was allowed to.

Grateful as I was for her rescue, I decided to drop the matter.

She commanded me to keep this absolutely secret from all, but I have included this here as a warning to whoever replaces me as Magistrate. It is a breach of authority, but I deem it necessary.

After furiously meditating about the events that occurred, I have reached a conclusion.

This may be preposterous to even suggest, but you must heed my words for your own security.

Prepare yourself, soon to be Magistrate.

The thing inside Room 615, the vague name a result of me frustratingly forgetting what this room was before the incident, influenced our Saints and the Artist.

It is the only explanation I can propose that explains the bizarre behavior of our leaders.

This is why the Artist apologized to me with a small detail in her eyes. The thing would not permit her to use words.

His Wisdom would have never sanctioned something so dangerous to ourselves. He would have never authorized that which would almost possibly kill the leader of one of His Orders.

He would have never ordered us to build something which even His Trusted clearly fear.

There is a detail I recall when He authorized the cursed project. Something I did not realize when I asked for permission as I was under the spell of this creature. Something that should have caused immediate concern to me.

His voice strained for a long moment before finally granting my request.

His Wisdom never strains. He does not slur, He does not hesitate.

Never to this extent.

There was something else. Something He must have fighting back against. Something much more powerful than Himself.

And He lost.

The Father is hiding something from us, I suspect for our own safety. It is the creature who introduced itself in my illusion. It is the maw which ends in a god shaped hole.

That root that I created. That creature that took me weeks to build and required resources never seen beforehand or afterwards. It must be a small extension of this aspect. A simple finger that it has stuck inside the lake which separates our reality from the Veil.

I should not fear this divine aspect of the Father. I should sing its praises, herald it as a seventh Saint. Give it a gracious shape and form here in Paradise, and propose the establishment of a new Order to commemorate the occasion.

And yet there is something which holds me back. Something that makes me doubt. A primal instinct that drives a miniscule fish away from the leviathan before it.

I fear what it intends for anyone caught in Room 615. I know not why it desired a permanent presence in Paradise, but there is a reason why even the Saints were overruled when such would normally be impossible.

Others would tell you that they are in the process of investigating this matter more deeply. Finding a hidden truth in the mystery. A revelation to revolutionize the understanding of all Caretakers for the good of us all.

I am wiser than to delve myself into the depths of a pit where there is no ladder back up.

I suggest you do the same.