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The swim from one island to another had been exhausting, but Simon had finally reached the land mass the Sunbeam was planning to land on. This island wasn't nearly as big as the rendezvous point, but Simon did quickly notice the building protruding from the side of it.
Judging by the looks of it, Simon would wager the construction to be some kind of spire, but if it was, it certainly wasn't something a human built. Just looking at that ominous black tower made the spines on his back rattle.
Simon briefly considered letting the clearly alien building be, but if there was anything he'd learned since getting stranded on this planet, it was that he should trust his instincts, and right now, his instincts were screaming that something was incredibly wrong with that spire.
No matter what, Simon just had to know what that building was before the Sunbeam touched down.
With his mind made up, Simon Started looking for an entrance to the building and quickly managed to spot a force-field blocking the entrance. Next to the force-field was some kind of control panel that glowed with an eerie purple light,and a few feet away, there was a broken purple tablet that seemed incredibly familiar to Simon even if he couldn't for the life of him recall where he'd seen it.
Pushing that thought to the back of his mind, Simon dove into the water to try and find an alternate entrance. In the water, he spotted a strange alien creature that seemed to freeze and just stare at Simon the moment it spotted him. Taking a risk, Simon quickly scanned the creature, his PDA informing him it was called a 'Warper', Before refocusing on his mission of finding an entrance.
It wasn't long after his run-in with the Warper that Simon found an underwater gate that seemed to lead into some kind of moon pool. The inside of the alien structure looked the exact same as the outside, dark greys with glowing greens seeping through the etchings. On one side of the massive moon pool room, there was a force field like the one blocking the entrance, while on the other there was a winding path leading further into the building.
Following the winding path, Simon came across a room filled with precarious bridges leading upwards, along with a strange green cube radiating energy. Following the path further just lead to a dead-end containing a strange arch similar to the one he'd come across on the other island, so Simon decided to take the path towards the top of the spire.
On his way to the top, Simon ran into a pedestal that held a purple tablet like the broken one he'd found outside, except this one was whole. Seeing the tablet in one piece, Simon finally realized why the tablet seemed so familiar, he'd found one before in the abandoned Degasi base he'd found in the Jellyshroom caves.
Knowing he had another of those purple tablets at his base was nice if he ever came back here to explore the rest of the spire, but right now Simon had to keep going forward. He had to reach the top, even if he didn't quite know why.
Pressing onwards, Simon quickly came across a third force-field, but this time he had a key. Simon placed the purple tablet into the control panel, and within moments the force field came down, allowing Simon to press onwards.
Past the force-field, Simon walked into a large room. Pillars lined the path, beckoning Simon towards the pedestal at the center. The moment Simon approached the structure in the middle of the room, it sprung open, revealing a button. Simon hesitated a moment before carefully pressing his hand against the button. The moment he did so, a force-field surrounded his arm keeping it locked in place as a large needle emerged and stabbed into his arm, causing Simon to cry out in pain.
After taking a sample, the device folded shut again and screeched out some garbage noise. His PDA immediately got to work translating the sounds. The moment the message was translated, Simon's PDA played the translated audio. The message made Simon freeze in his tracks.
He had to warn the Sunbeam, Right Now.
Tonight, Simon was already on the surface of the blood ocean. He could see the shadow of the eel swimming beneath him, circling him, taunting him “You think yourself so clever, don't you?” The monster taunted him, it's gaping maw almost seeming to twist into a cruel smile “Do you even realize who was pulling your strings? Or were you actually convinced all of your choices were your own?”
A rattling laugh rippled the blood's surface as the monster's shadow vanished deeper into the ocean.
The monster's laugh seemed to abruptly cut off as the Leviathan once again appeared, looming over Simon. “You… Saved… Them.” It spoke to Simon.
The survivor stared up at the Creature, the Blood eel's words ringing in his ears as the strange happenings of the past day came flooding back to him. The strange feelings of unease, the overwhelming need to find out what the alien building was, and suddenly, it all clicked for him. “You Manipulated me.” He growled at the creature, his voice clicking as he spoke.
“I… wanted to… warn you.” The Leviathan responded to the Survivor's accusation “You… could not… hear me…” It tried to explain to Simon. “Did you… not want them… Saved?”
Simon scoffed at the creature's voice, his sails flaring in anger. “Of course I wanted to save them!” he exclaimed. “But you do not get to mess with my head, no matter what.”
The Leviathan seemed almost chastised by Simon's words. it's voice boomed around him “I…”
But before Simon could hear its response, He woke up.
After successfully saving the Sunbeam, Simon spent a lot of time just... Existing. He was well and truly alone on the planet now, all of the Aurora crash survivors were dead, and there would be no other rescue attempts.
For the first time in his life, Simon had no clear goal aside from surviving, and Simon was surviving relatively fine. He had his base, plants that provided food, fish were easy enough to catch if he wanted more protein, and if the feeling of isolation started getting to him, the Stalkers were pretty okay conversation partners, or he could listen to the voice recordings on his PDA, even if listening to the last words of dead people felt like a pretty morbid thing to do. Nothing he wasn't used to anyways.
It wasn't until the skin irritation started that Simon found a new goal.
Simon remembered Danby's words, about being infected with that virus the moment he entered the water. If whatever virus he'd caught was really that contagious and deadly, then a planet wide quarantine made sense. A disease like that could wipe out the universe, and Simon refused to be the reason this universe died like his own had.
But he couldn't just leave the weapon on either. Simon may have managed to warn the Sunbeam away, but they couldn't warn everyone about the danger, it would only be a matter of time before the next unlucky ship gets too close to this planet and activates the quarantine protocol.
So no, there was no way Simon would let anyone else die like that. But that meant he somehow had to find a cure to a disease not even the hyper advanced aliens that built that weapon could cure.
Simon was getting ahead of himself. Curing the virus on his own was a pipe dream right now. If he wanted even the slightest chance of doing this, he would have to start with gathering any information that the aliens or anyone else had already discovered.
Which meant, ugh, that Simon would have to read the data that his PDA had already gathered.
Simon booted up his PDA as he looked at the logs he'd gathered from the Quarantine enforcement platform, his vision already blurring at the thought of reading through those long text as words jumbled together.
Bracing himself for the headache he was surely going to get from this, Simon started reading.
The logs from the quarantine enforcement platform were almost completely useless. the best information he found were the almost completely corrupted coordinates to other alien bases on this planet. the only uncorrupted coordinates lead to a Sanctuary cache in the Blood kelp zone. Maybe that place would give Simon a better lead on the 'Disease research facility' and 'Primary containment facility' that were mentioned in the alien logs.
What did help when Simon was looking through the logs, was remembering the PDAs he'd found in the abandoned Degasi bases. At the time he'd found them, Simon had been too caught up in his failure to save other survivors to read through them, but he'd found a purple tablet in their underwater base, so they had to have at least been aware of the aliens, and maybe even the disease they'd been researching. if anything, the odds were they'd probably gone down a similar path Simon had, getting infected with this disease and trying to find a cure to it.
Simon started by listening to Bart Torgal's logs, which hurt more than Simon had expected it to. Compared to Danby's or Maisie's last recordings, Simon had assumed he could handle listening to Bart's logs, but he just sounded so young. some of the Aurora's notes even stated he wasn't older than 20 when he'd crashed here.
But what hurt even more than knowing his age, was the way Bart's voice was filled with so much wonder for the world around him. Hearing his voice logs reminded Simon of his brother, someone he hadn't even thought of in years, not since he lost his mom.
Simon remembered when he was a child, before he moved to Eden with his mom, his brother used to sneak out with him and tell him about the stars. He'd tell all these grandiose myths, and he'd always tell Simon “Someday, I'm going to build my own ship, and then we'll explore the stars together.”
Listening to Bart's final log, Simon wondered if this was the kind of person Mark would have become if he'd come to Eden with them, instead of staying planet-side with their dad.
the rest of the Degasi logs only told Simon two things, there was a third Degasi base out there, maybe Simon could find the coordinates of it if he took a quick dive back into the Jellyshroom caves,
and Simon despised the kind of person Paul Torgal seemed to be.
Simon was right, there was indeed still a PDA in the Jellyshroom caves that contained the coordinates to the last Degasi base, which was remarkably close to the floating island they'd first built their base on. Actually diving down to this last base however, was much more effort than Simon would like to admit.
This base was nearly twice as deep as Simon's last deepest dive, and PDA scans indicate that there's some kind of non-leviathan predator in the area that Simon hasn't encountered before. On top of that, there were Warpers in the area, that seemed to have become aggressive since the last time Simon had run into them. At least now Simon knew why the things were called 'Warpers.'
All these things together meant that Simon would finally have to admit defeat to traversing this planet on his own, He'd have to build a Sea Moth. Great, a tiny submersible vehicle for Simon to be stuck in, his only source of oxygen down in an ocean once again.
Simon already had the resources needed to build a Sea Moth lying around in his base, so building the thing wasn't as big of a setback as it could have been, but actually using the vehicle was even worse than Simon imagined.
The Sea Moth wasn't designed with Simon's… unique features in mind, which made the journey even more uncomfortable than he imagined. his spines were digging into his back and his tail was uncomfortably pinned under him for the entire trip. Once Simon found the abandoned base, he couldn't get out of the Sea Moth fast enough.
Entering the base felt different compared to when he found the other bases. Instead of being the remnants of some unknown people, he now knew their voices, their names.
Trailing through the ruined base, Simon did his best to avoid disturbing the ruins as he collected the abandoned PDA's. after collecting everything he dared to disturb in the base, including an orange alien tablet, Simon returned to the Sea Moth, and drove back to his base as fast as he could.
for the third time in his life, the Survivor found himself staring down The Light, except this time, Simon could feel the distance between himself and The Light. It was so far away, Simon wondered why it was bothering to reach out in the first place. “̶̗̾Ÿ̶̖́ỏ̵̮ū̴̟ ̵̘͗l̸̼̓è̵̡f̴̾ͅt̶̟͝.̶̟͂”̵̪̿ Its voice echoed through Simon's mind.
“I did.” Simon agreed with The Light, although he didn't know why. It wasn't as if Simon had chosen to leave. Something about being directly perceived like this made Simon's mind unable to focus, as if someone had stuffed it with cotton or something.
“̶̩͋Y̷̯͊o̶͓̅u̶̞͆ ̴̞̉w̵͇͌i̵͖̇l̸͇̈ĺ̷̼ ̸̬̎n̵̥̋ó̷̰t̵͕̓ ̷̹̾r̶̫͐è̶̻ť̵͚ủ̸̗r̷̨̒ń̵͔.̷̘͗”̷̧̌ The Light once again echoed, dragging Simon back into the moment.
Simon wasn't sure if it was a question, a statement, or an order, but despite the uncertainty, Simon still felt himself responding “I won't.” to the Light.
“̶̢̛̗͉̗̪̐̏̎͜A̴̪̰͓̒g̶̨̠̠̥͓̝̓́͑̾̀r̸͖̺̼̔͗͊è̵̛͓̽͒e̷̢̗̭̤͉̩͗͝͝ḑ̷̛͇̦̳̹̮͆̐̾͋͠.̴̧̦͕̣̰̿̈́”̶̢̨̻̬͇̺̿ and with that final word, The Light faded away.
For the first time since waking up on this planet, Simon's dream didn't leave him on the blood ocean's surface, but it wasn't this planet's ocean either. It was brighter, it felt more alive.
And this time, when Simon turned around to meet the Leviathan, it wasn't hidden in shadows, it hadn't even surfaced yet. Seeing it like this, illuminated by the ocean's light, almost made it seem kind. Despite his new perspective on the creature, Simon wouldn't let himself be fooled so easily. He'd listened to the Degasi logs, and he needed answers.
“Was it you?!” The Survivor yelled at the surfacing Leviathan. “Were you the one that separated the Degasi crew?!”
The creature stared down at Simon, its head tilted in confusion as its lures softly illuminated its face. “The ones that came before you?”
Simon sputtered at the question, caught off guard by the thing's genuinely confused tone. “Yes the humans that were stranded here before me!” He shouted at the Leviathan. “Who else could I possibly be talking about?!”
Now that Simon could see the creature clearly, he could recognize the genuine sorrow in its eyes as it responded to Simon's initial question. “They could not hear me.” It explained. “I tried to help them… but they could not hear my warnings… my offers of aid.”
Before Simon could ask anything else, he once again woke up.
He was getting really tired of being cut off mid conversation like that.
After taking a day to prepare, Simon set out for the Sanctuary in the Blood kelp zone. Like with the Degasi base, Simon begrudgingly took the Sea Moth to get there.
The Vehicle was annoyingly loud, and made avoiding predators and leviathans much more trouble than it had to be, but Simon could admit that it was nice to not have to swim five hundred meters to the surface every time he started running out of air.
The Sanctuary itself was much smaller than the quarantine enforcement platform had been, and didn't contain nearly as many artefacts. There were a few Ion cubes on pedestals that Simon collected, alongside two data terminals that his PDA downloaded.
There were a few useful notes in the translated data, like the alien species' name, the Precursors, and the name of the virus, the Kharaa bacterium, alongside the coordinates for a laboratory cache in the Lost River.
But one piece of information made Simon see the sanctuary in an entirely new light. Somehow, this alien species had found out a way to transfer their consciousness into computers, and these sanctuaries were filled with these consciousnesses, all of them in stasis, waiting for a cure that hadn't been worked on in over a thousand years. It made Simon's chest ache in a way he couldn't quite understand.
Or maybe he understood it a bit too well.
Either way, the survivor left the Sanctuary, careful not to disturb the pillars housing who knows how many souls. Maybe, if Simon successfully managed to cure this bacterium, and the other Precursors were still out there, all of these people would get to wake up again.
In a way those lost to the quiet rapture never will.
Returning to his base after Collecting the data and resources re needed from the laboratory cache felt surreal to Simon. Finally he'd managed to track down the coordinates to the main research facility, and he wouldn't even have to take the Sea Moth ever again, because he could apparently breathe underwater. According to his PDA, the slits on his neck were actually gills that allowed 'ram ventilation' which, as far as Simon understood, meant that as long as he was swimming with his gills exposed, he could breathe.
Aside from his water breathing discovery, Simon had also impulsively taken an egg from the facility, an egg Simon couldn't recognize. Pulling out his habitat builder, Simon gathered the needed materials and built an alien containment aquarium so he could give the egg a safe place to hatch.
After getting the Aquarium set up, and the egg safely nestled inside, Simon headed for his bed. From what Simon had seen, the Lost River was a big place, and he'd probably be down there for a long time when he headed for the disease research facility, so he'd spend the next week gathering supplies so he could set up a temporary base down here while he learned all he could about creating a cure. and to do that, Simon would need his rest.
With how exhausted Simon was, he was asleep before his head even hit his pillow.
He was back in the Iron Lung again, back in the blood ocean. Whereas the last time the Monster had been almost passive, taunting the Butcher from a distance, this time it was throwing everything it had against the submarine. “WHAT DOES IT SEE IN YOU!” It yowled as it tried to breach the SM-13's hull. “Why did it let you go while we must stay here and suffer!”
With each hit, the sub groaned and strained, trying not to fall apart. Simon desperately tried to think of a way out as the Eel finally broke through the hull. “You do not get to escape this fate we were condemned to!” It cried as it dragged Simon out of the wreck. “You saw the light! Now you must suffer with us! Forever!”
In the distance, Simon heard the Leviathan bellow, but this time it wasn't enough to deter the Monster. It had Simon trapped with no escape, and it was just about to deal a final strike when Simon woke up.
That was by far the worst dream Simon has had in a while. Out of everything he hadn't expected his dreams to get worse without the Leviathans presence, yet somehow they had. If this was how his nights were going to be from now on, then Simon doubted he'd get a good night's rest anytime soon.
Seeing the Disease research facility made Simon's heart sink. it's no wonder the disease got out and infected the planet if this was what their main research site looked like.
Instead of being suspended in the water by cables like quite a few of the Precursor sites had been, this facility had crashed to the ocean floor, cables snapped and multiple tears visible all over the structure.
Simon idly scratched at his arm as he swam around the facility, looking for the entrance. The same green pustules that covered Danby when he'd found him had started sprouting from Simon's arms, it made the survivor more desperate to find the cure.
It was a bit difficult to spot, with the building in the state that it was, but Simon eventually managed to make his way into the facility.
Unlike the other precursor buildings, this facility was flooded with water, probably as a result from all of the damage the structure had sustained. A part of Simon was glad he'd discovered his water breathing capabilities the last time he'd ventured into the Lost River, because there was no way he'd be able to explore this flooded facility entirely in a single breath.
While exploring the research facility, it quickly became clear just how actively it was being used before the abrupt collapse. There were research specimens around practically every corner, and there was even a leviathan egg still fully sealed away, which briefly made Simon's mind flash to the Sea Dragon skeleton he'd seen just outside of the facility. interestingly enough, the egg was still viable, if it were to be taken out of its containment at least.
But by far the most unsettling was the Warper construction stations, because apparently they weren't just invasive to this planet, they were artificially created to hunt down anyone infected by the Kharaa bacterium. staring at the Warper parts strewn about, Simon's thoughts unwittingly wandered to Laika, and exactly where he'd found her egg. She didn't really resemble the Warpers, but the basis was there, and his PDA had even stated Laika may not be native to this planet. Simon tried to shake the idea from his mind, the mere thought of his little girl getting turned into one of these things made a vicious satisfaction spark at the state of the facility.
Diving deeper into the facility, Simon found a few data terminals, one contained a fully fleshed out Contagion profile about the disease's progression, which prompted his PDA to request a self-scan. Another detailed the Precursor's battle against the Kharaa bacterium, revealing 143 billion of their kind had died, back when this facility was still active. Seeing that number made Simon's heart ache. The quiet rapture had taken billions of lives, and yet it didn't hold a candle to the amount of lives the Precursors had lost to the virus. Despite the indignation Simon felt towards the Precursors, he couldn't help but remember his past as the Butcher, and feel a level of understanding for their desperation. If the quiet rapture had been gradual? And Simon had been tasked to try and find a way to stop it? he could easily see himself carry out equally heinous acts to try and save them, he already had done things like that as Eden's butcher. At least the Precursors were ultimately trying to save lives, even if they failed.
Pushing those thoughts out of his mind, Simon focussed on the final terminal, which contained the uncorrupted coordinates to the thermal plant. The terminal also indicated the power plant would contain coordinates of every facility it was powering, including the Primary containment facility, which was the last shot Simon had to finding the cure, or at least whatever the Precursors had found to be so sure this planet was the key to creating a cure.
Having gathered all the information he could from this facility, Simon headed back to his temporary base for a nap, before he'd set out for the power plant. Afterwards he'd probably head home for a bit. After a week away from his main base, Simon needed to see Laika to take his mind off of everything he'd discovered.
“What is this place?” Simon called out to the Leviathan as it surfaced from the bright blue ocean. after weeks of being tormented by the Blood Eel, this was the first night in a while that Simon met the Leviathan in this ocean teeming with life.
“This is our planet.” The Leviathan responded, “This is what it looked like… before the others locked me away.” It gazed out longingly across the water, Simon couldn't tell whether it was its freedom it missed, or the way this world used to be. Maybe it was a mix of both.
Simon Looked out over the ocean with it, trying to imagine just how different living in this ocean must have been. “You were imprisoned?” The survivor asked. If that was the case, the it must have been done by the precursors over a thousand years ago. “Why did they lock you away?”
The Leviathan turned its gaze to him. “I am what they sought… But I was too old, i could not provide what they needed… So they built these walls.” The Leviathan sounded melancholic as it spoke. “I tried to reach them… but they could not hear me.”
Silence hung in the air as Simon processed what the Leviathan had just told him. If it was what the Precursors sought, then that meant it was… “You're the cure?” Simon asked, “You could fix this?” As he said this, Simon held up his green boils covered arms.
“Come to me,” The Leviathan responded, “and I will give you what you seek.”
“But where are you?!” Simon yelled out at the Leviathan as the dream faded around them.
Waking up from the dream, Simon considered what he'd learned. The Leviathan was locked away by the Precursors, and the last location Simon didn't know the coordinates of, was the primary containment facility.
With the thought of getting that cure motivating him, Simon set out for the thermal plant.
Entering the Lava Lakes, Simon knew he was almost there, if the information he'd gathered from the power plant was correct, then the Primary containment facility should be visible from here, and sure enough, Simon could see a Precursor building visible in the distance.
Swimming toward the facility, Simon was briefly stopped by the roar of a Sea Dragon, but a quick greeting roar he'd learned to mimic when exploring the thermal plant was enough to allow Simon to keep swimming towards the containment facility.
Approaching the facility, Simon easily spotted the force-field blocking the door, which was easily opened using the blue tablet he'd found in the thermal plant.
Simon entered the building, and was immediately met by a steep ramp, which lead to a giant circular room with multiple paths for Simon to follow, including a path blocked by another force-field requiring a blue tablet.
After a brief moment of deliberation, Simon decided he'd leave the room behind the force-field as the last one he'd explore, and started entering the different rooms moving clockwise.
Simon quickly discovered half of the rooms were warp gates, all of which he activated with some Ion cubes he'd brought. The first room he entered that wasn't a warp gate, was a complicated pipe room that circulated water into the containment that held, what Simon recently had discovered to be named, the Sea Emperor Leviathan. Every once in a while a Peeper could be seen swimming through these pipes.
Another room Simon discovered was filled to the brim with eggs, only a few of which were still viable, including another Sea Dragon egg. Mentally making a note to return as many of the viable eggs he could after he was done exploring here, Simon continued down the line of rooms.
The final room Simon found, was by far the most horrible. in the middle of the room, there was a cage containing a dead baby leviathan, that looked almost identical to the Sea Emperor that has been reaching out to him through his dreams. Words couldn't describe the anger he felt, seeing the egg shell that had been methodically cut open, sitting on the side of the room.
The Precursors had locked the Sea Emperor away and taken her eggs. no matter how desperate they were for a cure, it was despicable.
Staring at the cut open eggshell, Simon couldn't help but think it was familiar. It took a moment, but he eventually remembered the similar egg located in the egg room. Running back there, Simon pulled out his scanner to scan the egg, and found it was still alive, although the chances of it still being capable of hatching were slim.
Despite that, Simon broke the glass and pulled the egg into his arms. even if it won't hatch, the Sea emperor deserves to see her child one last time while it was still alive.
Careful not to damage the egg, Simon unlocked the force-field, and entered the final room of this facility, which lead to a giant moon pool. The survivor strengthened his hold on the egg, and carefully let himself drop into the water, where, after months of meeting in his dreams, Simon would finally meet the Leviathan face-to-face.