Key in hand, and despite strong intimations it is no mere key to a supposed datacore, we saliva-coated brothel girls trek back a short way, to the Forgotten City. Upon entering the Mandate camp, which I also strongly suspect to be a Mandate camp in appearance only, we quickly get flanked by troopers.

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Of course I try to talk my way out of a possible fight; as so befits my profession, I am a lover, not a fighter (though Thassia assures me some of her regulars like it when she punches their balls, so that’s a consideration). But afore I can say a word, the researcher in front of me approaches yet closer—and her features droop, verily as if melting wax. Face, body, clothes; every part of her now reshapes itself. And boy… I welcome the change.

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Good, very good indeed, that we are all still partially covered in saliva, as it is helpful right this moment to disguise my own drooling over her insane boobs-to-waist-to-hips-to-gap ratio.

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Uh. Her portrait next to the textbox has complete heterochromia, with one rust-red eye and the other emerald-green, while her artwork has two light amber eyes. -1/10; will leave a negative review.

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Yes, I understand. Well, more or less. I helped her shapeshifter sister escape (an act she mentions), so she could have been more inclined to reveal her real shape to me right off the bat; but still, it makes sense she would be mistrusful of strangers in this place of all.

Then my hair is made disheveled after I’m caught in a brief but tempestous whirlwind of information.

– Her name is Alpha;
– She and the other pseudo-humans by her side form a coven of ‘slimes’ as she presents it for my clear understanding (though they prefer different terms, doubtlessly some do not evoke noisome oozings);
– The shapeshifters have followed my movements awhile;
– From parts of the Caretaker they have been created by the Mandate, who then unceremoniously dumped them here in the Abyss;
– The Caretaker and his shapeshifting daughters must defend the Forgotten City (though Alpha does not know why);
– Some time ago, the 3rd Division launched a bloodless coup within the Traverlers’ hierarchy, usurping power and exposing everyone else to memory-deleting pathogen;
– The 3rd Division is currently questing after the shapeshifters, for reasons left vague by Alpha;
– The 3rd Division still has agents within the Travelers’ Mandate;
– Alpha knows why Director Mitty and the Immortal want me down here;
– Wait… what Immortal? Why, you dummy me, it’s obvious: a powerful female shaper whom I have apparently met before, who goes by many names, and whom Alpha only knows as an immortal;
– Alpha’s life was saved, however long ago, by Isutyr and her brother;

After all this, Alpha shifts her form anew, and now garbs herself with the guise of Daniel Levy:

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Yeah, no kidding it’s a lot to process. My main problem with all this being that the small handful of questions I was allowed to ask only birthed yet more questions in my mind; so come now, Alpha, please let me ask these newly-begotten questions, pretty please…

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In a parallel universe wherein everything is called by its truest name, ‘Memoirs Of a Battle Brothel’ is titled ‘Mysteries: The Nesting Dolls Game’.

Fine, I then say, I’ll help, if only to sate my perishing curiosity. Thus Alpha explains to me the 3rd division has built a small installation at the center of the Forgotten City—and most likely there they hold captive some of Alpha’s siblings, with the further possibility that Isutyr’s brother could also be found there. More: the Caretaker wishes to reclaim the city center, for purposes uniquely is own. But with throngs of alien entities in the way, and with devices set up by the 3rd Division to combat shapeshifting abilities, just you go ahead and guess who might be doing all the door-opening and creature-fighting while Alpha shows the way?

Naturally, the next step involves this:

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Obviously. As expected. The game momentarily becomes a dungeon crawler, as it should.

Room after corridor after room and corridor, we almost blindly paw our way through most tenebrious environs, periodically finding ourselves set upon by monsters.

In one room, we find statuettes with elf-like features; Isutyr pockets one such object. Further, we descry a variety of murals in bas-relief depicting people disembarking onto an island, with in their custody a fire-enwreathed prisoner; then further still murals depicting a murtherous conflict between the disembarked people, with one of their sides led by the prisoner; then finally murals depicting a field strewn with a carnage of dead bodies, and to the side a prisoner bound anew.

Of equally mysterious origin is a second set of murals, portraying an eerie-faced gelatinous mound at whose figurative feet thousands of people bow so that their foreheads kiss the ground. Lastly—forcing me to wonder if these bowels of the Forgotten City once housed a throng of overly-industrious stonemasons—we examine yet another mural, storying the forging of a massive chain.

At length:

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This secreted door is secured by a DNA scanner, explains Alpha; before she reaches into a bag slung about her shoulder, and from within produces a hand, cleanly severed from its erstwhile forearm, which I’m sure very much misses its knuckled companion. Mere moments later, as we explore the handful of rooms constitute this Mandate facility, we easily disable what little security features—drones, and anti-shapeshifters screening devices—are still active.

With Alpha and her siblings now allowed safe passage, and with a fey and antique stone door facing us, then, then, oh at long and final last then! is the time to use the key found atop the Caretaker’s tower. With such gusto would cause papa Freud to lose himself into maniacal conjectures, I thrust the key into that eager keyhole, and twist it to my relief.

The door opens onto a room.

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Under our curious eyes, Alpha’s two siblings begin to melt in a now familiar fashion. The stuff of their beings gently drifts toward a point between them, as if pulled by a magnet; globules of flesh splatter across the floor and roll like beads of wax before amalgamating into a form distinctly non-human. Lo! its final form is reached; and harken! for its voice is the clamor of thousands.

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Yay, Lion-thingy buddy; I knew it had to be you.

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