I. Dredge
Dredge, a high-ranking cult priest enters Research Facility Θ, Father Carmach's research lab. Dredge ponders at how Father Carmach could have erred so much in awakening the mature alien. Dredge worships, but does takes caution of the alien creatures, the star children.
Research Facility Θ had gone dark, and Dredge was sent to investigate. The door slams behind him as he enters, the alarums blaring. Distant noises, horrific and alien assault his ears. He is trapped here. Trapped with whatever unholy secrets Carmach had hidden from the cult.
II. Research Wing Θ
Dredge finds himself locked in the facility. He hears screams in the distance, the loudspeaker blaring yet the sound coming from within his own mind. Is that a woman screaming or a creature? What had Carmach done in this lab? Was awakening a mature alien lifeform not enough for him?
Dredge delves deeper, wondering if anybody yet lives. He enters the Research Wing and sees the first of the creatures. What was once human, now...wrong. Had Carmach experimented with the star children? Did he experiment on his own scientists? Dredge wastes no time, cutting them down. A mercy, for what they are now is blasphemy incarnate.
III. Cthonic Gaol
Dredge passes through the Research Wing and arrives in a large containment area. Inside he sees what was once a fellow cultist. Carmach had clearly infused him with the blood of the mature alien before moving to The Lazarus. This...thing...is not human anymore. A creature born of man and beast. An affront to Dredge's religion itself. To think Carmach would profane the star children.
Dredge draws his sword. It will be a mercy killing. Or so he thought. The power of the god's blood empowers the creature. Dredge finds himself pushed back. Even a failed experiment like this was monumentally powerful. How long has it been since he had been pushed back like this? An inquisitor like him?
IV. Parturient Waning
Dredge has defeated the tainted cultist. It had put up more of a threat than he ever could have imagined. He rests for only a second before his vision clouds over. His mind is transported to the past by the power of the one waiting below.
He sees a peaceful village, a happy couple. A beautiful young woman heavy with child, Rhea. She lives her life carefree, awaiting the day her baby would be born. That peace does not last as Father Carmach arrives. He convinces the girl to go to his facility. He can solve all of her money problems. She could provide for her family and live comfortably.
What awaits her is years of torture and experiments. Dredge watches on with horror as the vision unfolds. As the woman is assimilated with the body of an alien lifeform. Carmach’s greatest sin. Mother, unborn child, and alien become one as Carmach tries to achieve his goal of godhood.
V. Somae Decidua
Memory Reconstruction Failure...the machine goes haywire as the world changes around him. Almost as if inside the vast emptiness of a dead star. Surely within the facility's deepest layer. "Is this a memory...?" Dredge thinks as he is confronted with Carmach's greatest sin and creation. The fused monstrosity of mother, child, and alien lifeform. He had seen the vision she had shown him. Seen the woman she was, Rhea, taken and experimented on for years. There was no going back. He can only stare at this creature in awe, a manmade version of something he worships. She is horrific, beautiful, repugnant, and divine.
Dredge makes his decision to end her pain.
VI: Father Carmach, Null Reprobate
We find ourselves back at the end of Starfallen. With the death of the creature that had once been Rhea, the timelines of the two albums converge. Dredge had defeated Father Carmach’s greatest sin and greatest creation. At the same time, galaxies away, Gillean enters the sanctum of Father Carmach’s ship.
Gillean looks at the man, or what had once been a man. The one who had set all of the nightmare he had endured into motion. He had convinced the cult to awaken the mature alien, causing the destruction of his world. He had let the infant alien lifeform kill the monks, he had ordered the attack on the military ship and killed his saviors.
This song is their final battle, though Carmach is no grand final enemy, but a failed god. He had reached too high. Tried to assimilate himself with an alien lifeform and had been found wanting. Squid-like appendages and bits and pieces of what a man once was.
VII: -To Come, Our Bloodbloom-
Something calls out from the forest outside the village. A sickeningly beautiful and terrifying sound. I am drawn to it. My head pounds, but she calls. She needs me. I have to...what am I...? Where am I? The forest? Oh god...
