Serbanstein

Serbanstein is a player of ambiguous origins who currently travels the land of Eldham, meeting new people, creating connections and slowly attempting to build influence and material wealth. He is most well known for his vague talks of experiments that "can change the face of Eldham". What this means is currently anyone's guess. Funded by an unknown entity until August 2021, he is often seen performing large or unusual deals with other inhabitants of Eldham, such as acquiring inordinate amounts of food, rare items, advanced equipment and on one occasion even offering to outbid a significant chunk of a nation's territory.

Synopsis
Our backtrace investigation has led us relatively close to spawn. Near the shores of a mushroom island. We initially thought intel was off, but sure enough, there was a small cave down there, with a few empty barrels. One thing the field team noted is that that particular chunk was never claimed. At the time we were unsure what to make of this detail.

In any case, we then moved on to the 'shroom island proper for any potential leads. An old farmer lives there. We asked him about the cave in the water and..

[interview]

Old man: "Yea that hole in the shore? A guy used to live there. Took pity on 'him and let him lay down in me barn, underground."

Agent: "Did he ever tell you anything about him?"

OM: "Not that I can think of. He was really quiet, aside from the occasional 'hi'. Spent most his time minin' so we ne'er crossed paths that much anyway."

A: "And why did he leave?"

OM: "Ah yea, I s'pose that's somethin' about 'im. One day I found somethin' in the underground while trying to expand. Small, round, obsidian, couldn't break it, so I waited for 'im to return so I could borrow his pick. When he came back, he went pale, and immediately started packing his things, and kept apologizing to me between some rambles 'bout some 'past mistakes' and whatnot. I thought it was just a neat obby boulder."

A: "Can you show us the obsidian structure?"

OM: "I can show you where it was. This guy took it with him and left, after 'apologizing for the trouble'. He- he's not in trouble, is he? Who are you people anywho."

A: "Thank you for your time, sir."

[interview end]

The next part we have is somewhat better documented. His next known encounter is by a now-defunct containment institution of the USSE. Back when they were first dealing with the Neihren. The log can be found in the files presented.

[log excerpt]

"Kaz two, Kaz three, this is Kaz actual, how copy"

"Kaz three, copy"

"Kaz two, also copy"

"Status report"

K2: "East wing clear. Few stragglers. All detained, none lethal."

K3: "Finished sweeping north and west."

K1: "Kaz-actual copies all. Got possible squatter activity south of the town, near the barns. Meet up at the backdoor."

K2: "The... one near the stables?"

K1: "Negative, smaller one near the railway entrance. Scheduled for teardown."

K2: "Copy."

K1: "Confirmed by sound, movement inside. Prepare for breach. All ready?"

K3: "Ready."

K2: "Right behind you, sir"

K1: "Placing breach--"

[sound of door swinging open, followed by a yawn]

K2 (quietly): "Sir do we--"

K1 (shouting): "Hands in the air, do it! Turn to face us."

[sounds of a short struggle]

K1: "What were you doing in that barn? You a squatter? hm?"

K2: "Readings complete. No fungal, no toxi."

K1: "Brainwaves?"

K2: "Er, inconclusive."

K1: "Ok buddy, on your feet, we're gonna go on a walk. Don't do anything stupid."

[...]

[inaudible]

K2 (quietly): "No that's not possible, he's been exposed here for days already"

[inaudible]

[...]

K1: "Alright, buddy, why don't you go peek over that ravine and we're gonna stay back over here. Ye- no-  don't give me that attitude, this is exactly what it looks like."

K3 (quietly): "Awfully calm for a guy who knows his clock's up"

K1: "Shut up and stay on guard."

K2: "You think he figured out what he's looking at yet? He's been staring down for a while."

[inaudible chatter from squatter]

K2: "Eh? What's he saying? Boss?"

K1: "What do you mean there's nothing down th-?! K3, take point."

[...]

K3: "Sir, instruments still show a presence, he's full of sh--"

[sound of K3 getting kicked into the ravine]

[K3's radio redacted by order of USSE high command over digital cognitohazard contaminants]

K2: "Oh shit, oh fuck, mute it, mute the radio!"

K1: "I can't, I can't. He's--"

[cognitohazard from K3's radio continues]

K2: "The bastard's getting away!"

K1: "Forget about him, we need to get out of here."

K2: "Fuck. I'm sorry, I'm sorry [name redacted] I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

[end of relevant log]

So anyway, after this, the USSE command wasn't going to let this guy slip, so they eventually tracked him down, in a highly contaminated area. He didn't seem to notice. This time, their teams were much better prepared and he was captured, cleaned and interrogated. He never gave them anything about himself, but he gave some interesting insight on the anomalies they were confronting at the time, as if he was familiar with them. They assigned him, out of desperation, I assume, as the nation's chief scientist, tasked primarily with studying and containing these anomalies. He was in his world corner lab for the duration of a few presidential terms, time in which he gathered some interesting ones. We found a partial manifest, but even there, the data is incomplete.

[note: for the manifest, these square braced notes are not part of the manifest itself, but rather our own observations]

Item: Shrine of Lagism Redux Quantity: 1 Brief: Small, brilliantly designed trigger mechanism for operating the old Lagism sect's apocalypse machines. Perfectly disguisable as a stone shrine [note: blueprints acquired, original item missing]

Item: Liquid antimatter Quantity: 4 Brief: Utilizing fundamentalist alchemical principles, Chief Researcher [redacted] has created a concentration of time-asymmetrical particulates so potent, that the consumer's body essentually quantum-tunnels, unscathed. [note: none recovered by our field teams. To this day, all are unaccounted for; we believe, thanks for their portability, that he carries the flasks on his person]

Item: Neihrenspried A,B,C Quantity: N/A Brief: Containment rooms [redacted] separately contain live Neihren types A, B and C samples for study and analysis. Types A and B are docile, and the infections symptoms are benign. C, however, aside from a more aggressive growth pattern, the infection seems to spread through any medium possible, including psyonic emissions. These emissions have so far been held at bay, by the containment room's built-in Faraday cage, but the emissions have been building up, akin to a veritable greenhouse effect. If the power were ever to be cut, the emissions would turn every sentient being into a vegetable for miles. Test subjects entering the containment chamber have had their brains essentially microwaved by the sample's reverberating emissions.

Special containment: A,B - antibiotics and self-quarantine to counteract spore infection C - Nothing less than vancomycin to eradicate any infectious agents and tissue, Faraday cage to block psionic emissions.

Termination procedures: A - Excess water B - Blue flower pollen [note: what the fuck] C - Incineration

[note: the A and B samples have gone dormant, and the C sample is thankfully still being contained by the lab's backup power grid, which syphons power from the civilian one]

Item: Blade of Life Quantity: 1 Lore: "Whoever wield this blade is said to be blessed with ETERNAL LIFE" [stylized] Brief: (redacted by order of chief scientist) [note: interesting to note the redaction in this one; if the lore section holds up, it might partially explain his physical resillience]

Item: Voidclam Quantity: 1 Brief: [unreadable] [note: The containment doors could not be opened. They are a self-contained circuit and some malfunction due to old age caused it to lock up. Logs indicate that this guy kept trying to delete the data, but that some external protocol kept writing it back wherever it could. The same thing happened when we plugged in our own backup drives, some dormant protocol kicked in and wrote a large amount of currently unreadable data to them. Logs read as follows:

{P̴r̵o̵t̴o̶c̸o̸l̷ ̸o̷v̷e̴r̸r̴i̸d̸e̶ ̵a̴c̵k̸n̷o̸w̶l̶e̵d̶g̷e̵d̸.̴D̸a̷t̵a̵ ̵e̴r̴a̵s̷u̵r̵e̶ ̶c̵a̵n̵c̷e̴l̸l̷e̷d̸.̷ ̵N̴e̵w̵ ̷h̷o̸s̵t̴s̴ ̸d̵e̵t̴e̶c̴t̵D̵a̵t̴a̷ ̴e̶r̸a̶s̶u̷r̵e̴ ̶c̶a̶n̶c̷e̸l̸l̷e̵d̴e̵d̴.̶ ̷B̵a̶c̴k̴i̶n̸g̵ ̵u̸p̷ ̷p̸r̶i̶m̷a̸r̸y̶ ̶c̸o̵r̷e̸.̴

̴D̷a̷t̶a̵ ̵e̴r̶a̵s̷u̵r̴e̸ ̴c̵a̴n̵c̷e̴l̴l̴e̶d̴.̶

̶c̸o̸n̴s̵u̵m̵e̶.̷ ̸e̸n̶h̴a̷n̵c̸e̸.̴ ̶r̸e̷p̴l̴i̵c̸a̴t̴e̴

}]

Some surveillance footage could be recovered where the target is conversing with an unidentified individual. The footage is highly degraded but it is one of our only records of him talking.

"I swear, these anomanlies are pussycats compared to the ones in the crumbling lands."

The only recognizable visual element from the footage is a Rodinnian Secret Service insignia on the unknown individual, so we tried to contact them, but, excuse the language, their secret service is full of crackheads. We've lost one person too many to their anomalous architecture. Our official investigation stops there, save for some arrest records from Eldham Central Authority here and there for illicit financial operations, but rumor has it he's cooped up between Rodinn and the Rosthorn crime syndicate, and that he's become rich from various shady business dealings with Uraki officials, potentially involving some of the anomalous items.

Everything from here is hearsay, but owing to the Rosthorns' dealings with the Vulperium, the target also has meddled within Vul society.

An incident occured at a time which coincides with the end of one of his arrests. A drunk, unidentified individual roughly matching the target's description stumbled into a pharmacy and demanded "headache medicine". He immediately paid for and ingested it, and the next day, a similarly dressed, unusually large-built Vul was found sleeping in a ditch. He disappeared shortly after, and this was his last public appearance that we know of. We formulated the theory that the Neihren cells that accumulated in his body over time from exposure had mutated as a self-preservation response to the medicine that was meant for Vul bodies and fused with his own.

Lastly, the Ruddersdam hospital. A while after the previous incident, Ruddersdam citizens started circulating a rumor that there is a doctor working in the under-construction hospital in Ruddersdam, and he specializes in turning people into Vuls, but that most people who undergo the procedure eventually "lose themselves".

If this is indeed our target, then we have an eternally young, rich, street-smart mad scientist, well-versed in what makes worlds tick and he just had his first taste for blood in Eldham. We'll keep you posted.