Dr. Klein (The Secret World)

"Thus farm my intellect has not suffered under a regimen of the Filth. I find I am still able to turn my head fast enough to catch my shadow before it sneaks up on me. Ha! I confound it every time! If I were mad, would I be able to do this? I think not!"

- Dr. Klein

Dr. Klein is one of the bosses of the horror-fantasy M.M.O. The Secret World. Originally encountered as the main boss for the Dungeon known as The ANKH in Egypt, Klein is the first sapient boss encountered in the game's dungeon runs. In the game's first incarnation as The Secret World he was rated as one of the game's most complex bosses and though this was diminished in the game's second incarnation as Secret World Legends, his presence in the story as of "The Call of The Nameless" arch has shown he has evolved to something beyond a mere dungeon boss.

The Orochi research team
A series of quakes brought on as after effects of a dimensional dirty bomb in Tokyo that would create The Black Signal would crack the earth above the long burred Egyptian temple of the ANKH. The ANKH had a reservoir of Filth, within it and the corrupted anima would leak out of the earth and poison the land. The land poisoned would produce dates that absorbed the dark force and when picked spread the decease to locals in Al-Maryah Egypt. Those contaminated would intentionally spread the decease to even more others and produce a revival of the Cult of the Aten. Orochi, a corporation with a world-wide monopoly in every major field would noticed the revival and use it to identify the source of the infection. Tracking back the poisoned dates to a corrupted oasis, Orochi sent an excavation team to find how far beneath the sands the blackness was leaking from and how big a vein was struck. Dr. Klein was the head of this research team.

Klein had been researching The Filth for years, which had been in a dry spell for centuries, but Klein had first become  aware of The Secret World through encounters with Orochi Filth samples on file from centuries prior. So it was with the resurfacing of a new well-spring of the toxic evil liquid that Klein finally had a chance to experiment on it properly. Orochi extracted mass amounts of sand and stone until they finally struck a Filth pay-load in a gigantic buried tomb built over three millennia prior by the mad and Filth corrupted pharaoh, Akhenaten. The archeology team knew of the heavy mutations and wore proper protection but still maintained various casualties. Those compromised were set to be terminated but Klein instead opted to use them as test-subjects.

Klein had seen those infected with The Filth became feral and murderous but also gained newly adaptive tissue. Klein saw this as a radical form of evolution if only the mental effects could be avoided, so with a treasure-trove of Filth now at his disposal he undertook the most radical experiment of his life so far; Klein began to slowly harvest The Filth and injected it directly into his brain in micro-doses, in hopes he would be mutated but that his brain-cells would adapt to continue thinking in their corrupted new stage.

The ANKH
Lisa Hui, an Orochi security officer was charged with watching the surface and sending down more supplies or security, as the research team needed it. However as the weeks went by the research team asked for more and more troops to be sent down. Lisa and her troop realized too late that the men they were sending down were not being used to fight off Filth monsters but rather intentionally turned into Filth monsters as their former friends began marching out of the hole in a trance before their skull's irrupted in black testicles and their bodies began opening fire on them. By the time Lisa's team determined their charges had been corrupted and they needed to break the chain-of-command, the ANKH had already claimed enough of them to stage a surface assault and all they could do was hold them off, if not turn them back.

The Big Three - the main three secret societies who keep The Secret World secret, arrived in Egypt months after Orochi to follow-up the apparently massive Filth outbreak, quickly finding out the substances had grown exponentially thanks to Orochi. The societies were The Templars - crusaders, The Illuminati - world shadow-government and The Dragon - a mass chaos cult. All three had problems with Orochi but prioritized stopping The Filth first and foremost so upon uncovering Lisa Hui's pleas for aid from anyone qualified an official unofficial operation is undertaken to seal The ANKH. Lisa regales the players with all she knows about the situation, that he team were there for security and the white-coats were the ones who were in-the-known, but they were all corrupted by that point. Lisa believes she and he men will die soon but wants their last stand to mean something so she points the Players directly to the ANKH.

Once inside Klein can be heard over the Orochi load-speaker down in the site. Klein first sends up the other members of his research team to greet the Players, all of whom are in a state of living death, aware of their surroundings but slaves to The Filth and attack wildly. Klein comments that his former colleagues are in a pitiful state can did not adjust to The Filth as well as he did. After putting the research team out of their misery and stepping further in, Klein reveals that during his time there he had discovered a staff used by Akhenaten's cult millennia ago and pried it from the warped hands of one of the priest mummies. Upon claiming the staff the priest it-self went from rabid guardian to obedient slave and Klein found with the staff in his hand, all those infected with Filth bent to his will. The Players themselves must them fight off the priest's mummy.

After the defeat of the priest Klein formally introduces himself over the P.A. and briefly explains how he retains his intelligence, but also explains that overtime the micro-doses turned into a addiction least the withdrawal consume his preserved mind. Klein is then encountered himself for the first time on a bridge over the vast shaft. Klein will toss waves of Filth from his staff from one side of the bridge, then the other, routinely conjuring Filth orbs, which seal the Players' powers if they make contact. if the Players avoid the waves and orbs long enough Klein will unleash one massive wave that can not be dodge and they must seek cover from instead, in-between all this, Klein will also be opening fire on one member at a time. Klein, while able to talk looks almost nothing like a human anymore. And becomes increasingly aggressive as the fight goes on. If weakened enough while avoiding all his attacks Klein will use the staff to teleport deeper inside and regather his strength.

Klein leaves Lisa Hui's initial security elite team to destroy the Players while he stabilizes his wounds. But once they are defeated Klein then sends in his initial research assistance with a giant Filth Spider guardian. The team was initially told they were trying to find a way to treat the mutation on the spider but as they became infected themselves Klein eventually revealed to them they were actually experimenting on it to increase the mutation with controlled doses of Filth.

After the research team and spider are dealt with, Klein once again peers down from the rafters to reveal he had commandeered a colossal mummy, which was a running on muscle memory as a massive bio-engine that destroyed everything in it's path. The giant mummy will slowly march from behind the Players down the next bridge it must be killed before it reaches the end of the bridge or the Players will be automatically wiped out. Destroying the mummy prompts frustration from Klein as he states he told Orochi that the passageways used to teleport to Egypt should have been sealed with concrete long ago. Klein further reveals that the ANKH was not infected with Filth but rather it had been made for The Filth and the temple itself was made to house tears in reality that The Filth would seep through.

In the deepest part of The ANKH Klein is waiting on-top of a massive alter guarded by another giant mummy, this one submerged in a pool of Filth and guarding the alter Klein stands on. The Players must fight Klein in-between holding off the mummy. When the mummy is finally down Klein is on his last legs but he notices that the pool is reacting to the staff thanks to all the deaths inadvertently fed to the Filth from the Players. Klein claims that the reaction was immense and if he acted quickly enough he could create a second Black Plague level Filth event. One that would wash over the globe. Klein's obsessive rant soon sees him admit has long since been claimed by the Filth and as far as he was concerned he -is- The Filth. But with Klein so focused on creating his great chain reaction The Players finish him off and he falls off into his own Filth portal, melting away into the blackness.

The Angry Earth
In the mission "The Angry Earth" the first mission for the end-game Issue: Call of The Nameless", a supernatural force is causing quakes in Egypt. Following the quakes to their source leads back to the ANKH and within an newly revived Klein is encountered. Klein does not remember the Players very well, claiming that the revival process of The Filth plays havoc on one's memory. Klein is no-where close to as powerful, his army of Filth still gone and his Filth supply mostly used up, however with his staff he can still form a Filth barrier around The Players in the ANKH and then unleashes the Filth waves in that tiny area as a form of torture until the Players talk. The player can not hit Klein from this position so they must instead avoid the waves until the quakes reach critical levels. Klein reveals that he knows of the quakes too, but surprisingly he is nor responsible, he was trying to research what was causing them. Upon the final massive quake Klein teleports away to study the source of the Filth itself, while the Player, now knows from Klein's questions the quakes come from The City of The Sun God and the Player and Klein part ways. One to follow the quakes to their source in the forbidden city, and the other to follow the Filth to it's source, The Dreamers.

Personality
Klein was obsessed with The Filth long before he became infected and before he even arrived at the ANKH. He is initially a man of science fascinated by the other-worldly application of the substance. When actually encountered his attempts to micro-dose himself instead of allowing him to avoid becoming possessed by the evil run-off instead only made him fully indoctrinated by it by presenting the illusion of independent thought. Once he arrived in the ANKH, Klein becomes more and more obsessed until he can no separate the concept of the Filth from himself. After his apparent death and subsequent revival Klein reveals while reawakening his mind touched that of The Dreamers - the Lovecraftian super-gods kept asleep by the life-force of the planet, Gaia, and whose dreams manifest as The Filth. The Dreamers have been looking for a way to wake from their dream, since doing so would destroy reality, Gaia resets reality to "factory settings" preventing them from the dream ever ending. But with Klein now able to transcend they resets by reviving himself and able to remain sapient during his revivals, he is now the ideal agent for The Dreamers to sabotage the process. Klein sees finding a way to break the cycle of resets as method to ascend and reach and evolutionary end game. His words before his final teleportation to commune with The Dreamers indicates that during the next reset cycle he will be there to keep them awake.