Otherworldy nature documentary - interrupted

Observing the several floating islands answered some of my questions about the E.L.F.s, but it also led to numerous new ones. I realized that a single designation was insufficient, given that the organisms observed within the Hawkins Anomaly were far from the only ones present.

I noted the presence of more than two dozen distinct lifeforms, both mobile and sessile. At this stage, designating them as plants and animals seems somewhat premature, although morphological parallels could be drawn.

One particular lifeform of interest bore a morphological resemblance to Theropods, albeit significantly smaller. With a pair of short, muscular legs, a thick tail that tapered to a pointed tip, this creature displayed a somewhat reptilian structure. Its head, however, was far from reptilian, bearing a closer resemblance to that of a cephalopod, a reef squid in particular. The thoracic region appeared to merge seamlessly into the head, without a discernible neck. All observed specimens averaged around one meter in height and roughly two meters in length. The head hosted a pair of glossy, white-beige eyes with slit pupils, positioned laterally on either side. The tail terminated in a hooked claw, which, based on a singular observation, appeared to serve an offensive function in a spin attack.

Arguably, the most remarkable feature of this creature was an array of bright red, tentacle-like protrusions encircling its mouth, functioning as a prehensile apparatus for securing prey.

I observed a group of these creatures demonstrating territorial behaviour around a pool of a luminescent green substance, nestled amongst structures resembling oversized strands of hair - a possible analogue to our understanding of flora.

During my observation, the group was besieged by a pack of tripedal organisms. These creatures exhibited a predominantly yellow-green pigmentation with electric blue, tiger-like stripes marking their spines. In place of a conventional head, they hosted a large, black compound eye, reminiscent of insects and protected by what appeared to be eyelids. The pack consisted of four individuals who seemed to employ a form of sonic attack, although I couldn't confirm this due to the purely visual nature of my observations through the Palantír. Despite their aggressive onslaught, the tripedal creatures were ultimately repelled, suffering one casualty in the process.

This interaction allowed me to document another intriguing phenomenon. The consumption of the green substance from the pool seemed to trigger rapid wound regeneration in the theropod-like creatures.

Although these findings necessitated a more comprehensive investigation, they must remain preliminary at this stage. Further in-depth exploration was not currently feasible due to resource constraints. I, after all, had only one palantír.

These observations, however, did shed some light on the combat efficiency of the E.L.F.s. Their prowess suggests adaptation to a highly competitive environment, contrary to our initial assumptions.

The second group that attempted to claim the pool was more familiar. It was a pack of seven quadrupedal E.L.F.s, the canine-like entities we'd seen skulking in the Hawkins anomaly. Their movements were synchronized and harmonious, each one part of a formidable, interconnected whole. This hive-mind coordination was both their greatest strength and their most glaring vulnerability.

When the confrontation broke out, it was like a wildlife documentary unfolding before my eyes. The E.L.F.s moved as one, an eerie, united force lunging at the pool defenders. But the theropod-like creatures were far from easy prey. With their thick tails and hooked claws, they fought back ferociously, holding their ground against the intruding E.L.F.s.

The first blow came when a theropod managed to wound one of the E.L.F.s. The wound was not severe, but the pain seemed to echo through the E.L.F. pack, causing a momentary lapse in their coordinated attack. The theropods seized the opportunity, launching a counter-offensive with their red, tentacle-like mouth protrusions.

As the chaotic dance of the battle wore on, the E.L.F.s were slowly worn down. The unified mind that had given them their initial edge now became a liability as each wound inflicted on an individual was felt by all. Eventually, the E.L.F.s retreated, leaving behind the wounded and the fallen.

The victorious theropods did not waste time celebrating their victory. In a grim display of the harsh realities of nature, they set about devouring the fallen E.L.F.s, reducing them to nothing more than nutrients for their continued survival.

I decided to follow that pack of E.L.F.s instead of continuing my observations of the pool and its protectors. While obtaining a sample of the green substance was desirable, understanding these entities aligned more closely with my immediate interests.

As I continued my observations through the Palantír, my curiosity was piqued by the peculiar mode of transport those E.L.F.s utilized. They converged upon an entity that, in appearance, resembled a corporeal orifice nested amidst the exotic fauna. The shape of it hinted at biological function - a puckered, fleshy structure that seemed capable of expansion and contraction.

What happened next was a spectacle of extraordinary engineering by nature. Rather than succumbing to a typical expectation of being consumed by the opening, the lead E.L.F placed its limb on the structure, causing it to contract and then violently expel a high-pressure gust of what seemed like a gaseous substance.

This explosive propulsion sent the E.L.F into a high parabolic arc, sailing through the void before descending towards another floating island in the distance. Its trajectory was precise, suggesting the mechanism was adapted for this specific form of inter-island travel. The gas expulsion was timed impeccably with each E.L.F's turn, allowing the entire pack to travel with efficiency and coordination.

Upon their arrival on the island, a stark contrast was evident in the local environment. This particular floating landmass was barren, save for the presence of a few familiar vines - the sessile form of E.L.Fs. There was a stream present, but it flowed with a dull red hue, unlike the glowing green pools I had observed earlier.

The injured members of the pack were treated with an unanticipated level of care by the bipedal form of the E.L.F.s. This was a behaviour we had not recorded before. Our prior encounters had either resulted in their death or escape; we had never actually followed the injured ones back to their home territory. It was becoming increasingly clear that observing them in their natural habitat was the key to unlocking their enigmatic behaviours and understanding the E.L.F.s as a species.

The absence of other life forms on this island was conspicuous. Was this natural for this particular floating landmass, or had the E.L.F.s perhaps eradicated all potential rivals from their claimed territory? Such territorial behaviour wouldn't be out of place in the Earth's ecosystem.

I was reminded of the fiercely territorial army ants of the Amazon. Known for their highly coordinated and aggressive raids, these insects decimate all small animal life in their path, essentially ensuring their dominion within their temporary territories is unchallenged.

Likewise, the leafcutter ants of Central and South America have evolved a fascinatingly intricate society centred around the cultivation of a specific type of fungus. These ants assiduously removed any plant material or organisms that could pose a threat to their cherished fungal gardens, maintaining their colonies as fortresses free from competition.

A parallel could be drawn to wolves, apex predators renowned for their territorial nature. Like the E.L.F.s, wolves established their dominion over particular regions, marking their territory through scent and defending it aggressively against intruders. This not only guaranteed them exclusive hunting rights within an area but also ensured the safety of their pack, offering them a strategic advantage in survival.

In the plant kingdom, a similar tendency was displayed by the black walnut tree. This remarkable tree orchestrated a form of chemical warfare known as allelopathy, which involved releasing a toxin, juglone, into the surrounding soil. The toxin hampered the growth of potential competitors for water and nutrients, allowing the black walnut to monopolize its immediate environment.

In the fungal kingdom, certain species from the Penicillium genus have developed a unique way to secure resources for themselves. They produced antibiotics, such as penicillin, which inhibit the growth of competing bacterial species, thereby ensuring a lion's share of nutrients for themselves.

Drawing upon these examples from Earth, it wouldn't be surprising if the E.L.F.s adopted a similar strategy, actively suppressing the existence of potential competitors in their territories. These observations pointed towards a profound commonality of life's underlying principles, no matter where it takes root.

The connection to the other realm severed abruptly, yanking my consciousness back to the harsh reality of the viewing podium atop the Aperture Hawkins Facility. The trigger was a sudden tremor that gripped the building, causing the ground beneath me to shake uncontrollably and forcing me to let go of the Palantír. I tottered, losing my footing on the vibrating surface, but Archer was there in an instant, his firm grip on my hand anchoring me. Even amidst the chaos, I couldn't help but notice how calm he remained, his eyes a steady blue amidst the tremors. I had always admired that about him, his unyielding calm in the face of calamity.

"What's happening?" I managed to ask, my voice trembling as much as the ground beneath me. The strain from overusing the Seeing Stone, compounded by the forced cessation of its use, left me reeling. "We've never recorded any seismic activity here before!"

Archer's response was as calm as the eye at the centre of a hurricane. "It doesn't matter," he replied, his gaze unwavering from the trembling horizon. "This building is rated to withstand a 9 on the Richter scale." He paused for a moment, sighed, and then added, "I knew we would need it."

I was about to question him further, to understand what he meant, when he moved abruptly. My words caught in my throat as Archer reached for a concealed switch on the podium's surface. With a barely audible click, hidden mechanisms whirred to life, and the ground shifted beneath us.

It was like watching a well-rehearsed performance. Panels seamlessly integrated into the floor rearranged themselves, revealing an array of high-tech equipment that rose to meet us. Several monitors blinked awake from their hidden recesses, the glow of their screens casting an eerie light against the shaking walls. Alongside them, keyboards emerged, their keys gleaming under the artificial lights.

An array of other interfaces, buttons, and levers, all familiar to me, completed the sudden transformation of the space. I recognized the functions of each piece of equipment.

"Aperture Emergency Command Center, at your service," a dry, robotic voice announced as the screens flickered to life, each of them displaying the Aperture logo. "Director Johnson and Dr. Hutter, welcome to the party. Now let's get down to business, shall we?"

Instead of responding verbally, Archer opted for efficiency. His fingers flew across the keyboard and manipulated the interface with practised ease, pulling up the most recent logs onto the monitors.

"Epicenter," I murmured as I skimmed the data. "It wasn't underground, but rather, it was right in the heart of this building."

A note of recognition entered Archer's voice, "That's where our portal hub is situated."

With a few swift strokes on the keyboard, I checked the schedule. "The portal between this anomaly and Earth isn't due to open for at least another hour," I reported. I then moved to examine the records from the portal hub, "However, we've had a brief, spontaneous opening."

"Resonance effect?" Archer mused, seemingly more to himself than anyone else. He fell silent, his eyes scanning the data on the screens before him, his brow furrowed in concentration. "But there were no other transdimensional gates detected in the same time period. Wait...I almost missed this. Look here in the backlog. There was another gate, but it seemed to have closed just before the quake. Why didn't we get that information right away? Ah, I see... There appear to be a lot of errors in data transfer between the twin facilities. That's why that message was delayed."

"Problems with data transfer? But how?" I wondered aloud. "We use a specific property of the Hawkins Anomaly, which allows some electric fields to propagate across boundaries. If the connection was lost, the system should have alerted us immediately. Let me check this."

My fingers danced across the keyboard, my gaze narrowed on the swathes of data illuminating the monitor. "Interesting," I murmured aloud, my comment hanging in the air as I redirected the relevant data to Archer. "There seems to have been a misalignment between Hawkins and Mirror Hawkins. It's minuscule, just a few micrometres, but that's enough to cause data loss. It seems to have corrected itself now."

Archer, engrossed in his own analysis, was quick to respond, "That's consistent with my findings." With a deft flick of his wrist, he shared a stream of his data onto my screen, aligning it with mine. "If this is indeed the direction of misalignment..."

Casting my gaze over the merged data, I found the correlation I was looking for. "Yes," I interjected, confirming the match. "The degree of misalignment matches to the fourth decimal point. Accounting for measurement errors, that's close enough to consider it the same. But what's this here?"

Archer leaned in closer to the monitor, tracing the highlighted information with his finger. "That's the trajectory between the two portals. One is within the bounds of our measured anomaly, but the other is situated further away."

A realization dawned on me. "We knew that was possible. That's the principle we utilize for our portal hub. But such portals are both energy-intensive and notoriously unstable."

"Precisely," Archer said, his eyes still glued to the data. "That instability might have caused the quake—the sudden release of energy. I've pinpointed the location and am sending it over to your terminal now."

"Right. If we take the temporary misalignment into account," I said, tracing the newly updated data with my finger, "such a portal moved the anomaly minutely while it was open, and when it closed, the anomaly snapped back into a state of lowest energy. Like pushing a ball uphill a little and then letting it settle back down. Taking the metaphor further, we could say the branes of Earth and Xen rubbed together, like tectonic plates, creating a quake in more than three dimensions."

"Interesting theory," Archer commented before moving on, his eyes still focused on the data. "The Earthside gate is still in America, just in the neighbouring county."

I frowned, deep in thought. "Well, that would make the Russians an unlikely culprit. One secret facility… America is large, so I suppose it could happen. But two…" My eyes widened as a sudden realization struck me. "Could it be Black Mesa?"

Maybe I had caught a bad habit from Aperture meetings — just blame Black Mesa when anything went wrong. But the list of research facilities studying this kind of science was short, and Black Mesa was certainly on it. After all, they were our most bitter rivals. However, now that we entered the computer design market, Apple seemed to be vying for that position.

Archer frowned, his brows knitting together as he digested the information. "If they've managed to conceal a clandestine research facility within an asylum...it's not beyond the realms of possibility." His voice held a grim edge. The implication - a potential supply of test subjects no one would miss - hung heavily in the air. "The second gate is in the vicinity of Pennhurst Mental Hospital."

A flash of recognition ignited in my mind. "Isn't that the place where they committed Dr. Brenner until his trial?"

At that, Archer's face softened somewhat, his gaze distant. He gave a curt nod, a shadow of a relieved smile playing on his lips. "Yes. Could this be his doing?"

"Quite possibly, and more than likely," I mused. "Other than massive technological devices, psychic powers present an alternative, significantly less demanding, way to open these gates. And statistically speaking, the most likely place to encounter an adult psychic is a mental hospital. There's a strong correlation between mental illness and psychic abilities. Whether this is a fault of modern society, or humans were just not equipped to properly process such input…" I trailed off, my mind already on the next task. "But there's still the other gate. The one here, in the anomaly. I'll use the palantír to scout the location."

I keyed in the command and the viewing platform smoothly rotated, orienting itself towards the gate's presumed location. The monitors slid aside, clearing the space and providing me unobstructed access to the podium where the black orb resided. I took a deep breath, acutely aware of the lingering fatigue from my previous explorations. Yet, I knew this couldn't wait. I placed my hand on the orb, bracing myself for what I was about to see.

But I hadn't braced myself enough. The sight was beyond words. A black spider, taller than this tower.

Had one of Ungoliant's brood followed me here? Was this Earth the future of Arda? Or had it come through Xen?

But even Shelob, the direct daughter, was smaller than this. Could it be another version of my apprentice? The time remnant I had sacrificed to revive the children. My apprentice had reported that encounter, and that it took the form of a spider. Or was it something entirely unrelated? Another alien visitor from Xen?

Observing more closely, I noticed it wasn't a single organism but a swarm of small black dots, clustered together in the rough shape of a spider. Suddenly, a memory flashed in my mind. This was what Will Byers had seen in the original timeline, not this one. Or at least, as far as I knew. I had thought it was a mental image of the E.L.F's hive mind, not an actual physical creature.

Could this be a different type of E.L.F? One we hadn't previously recorded? Could this be their lair?

Yes, I could see it beneath, hidden under the shadowy swarm that formed the spider's legs. A mound, the size of a hill, constructed of intertwined vines. It looked a bit like a fortress and an anthill. And there were all types of E.L.Fs crawling in frantic motion from it.

They were pouring out like a stream from the vine hill. Columns of an E.L.F army, both humanoid and canine, running in perfect unison, and above them a flock of bat-like E.L.Fs. Their destination was obvious. Here.

I jerked my hand away from the stone, severing the link, and turned to Archer, "The good news is we're not going to run out of ingredients for the AIDS cure. The minor complication is that my newly built dark tower is about to be besieged by an army of E.L.Fs."

"If Brenner is working with them, it's an alliance of E.L.F and Man. A known peril for an aspiring Dark Lord," Archer teased.

"Hopefully, it will also be their last," I shot back.

"You'd best mind your fingers then," Archer continued, keeping the atmosphere light. This kind of pre-battle banter was helpful; war should be approached calmly, without hatred or fear. "It's not as if you have a ring to lose. Or do you? Have you been forging something in secret?"

"Just as I've promised, I'm keeping up to date with the Ring-lore I've deciphered," I replied. "But I'm still years away from even attempting to make a functioning Great Ring of Power, let alone something like the Ruling Ring. And I'm not even sure if that would be possible without the essence of something similar to a Maia."

"What are your orders, Master?"

With a flourish of my hand and a dramatic tone to my voice, I answered, "Should I play the villain, let it not be said I didn't play the part well. Activate all O.R.Cs, T.R.O.L.Ls, and W.A.R.Gs units stored at this site." It was fortunate that, due to the Hawkins anomaly being technically outside the borders of the USA and a prime testing ground for military robots, we stored most of them here. "If they want to wage war, let us show them why it is man's domain."

Archer's lips twitched into a smirk, a soft chuckle escaping him as he typed in the necessary commands. He clearly found my theatrics amusing. "Done," he reported, his eyes twinkling with mirth. "Should we move to secure command, or will you be joining the front lines?"

"Let's keep the magic under wraps for now. I'd like to see how our autonomous war machines perform in the field first. Can we assume command from this station?"

"Yes. I designed it for that purpose. However, it is unnecessarily exposed, on the open roof."

"Are you not an archer? I'm sure you can keep me safe. Besides, the palantír is here. This is just the right situation for using it." I paused for a moment, looking at the ash-covered horizon. The murky atmosphere still concealed the enemy's approach from my bare eye. "I'm fond of this tower, but there's just one thing it's missing."

"Let me guess - a giant eye on top." Archer's voice was dryly amused.

I returned the smirk, and then rectified the tower's shortcoming by invoking a spell with a short aria, "Shatter: Ophanim"