Lilith (The Secret World)

"I promised you my name. There are so many names. Once upon a time, a profit forced me to admit the seventeen names I used to sow misfit. Say my name. Abeko. Abito. Amizo. Say my name. Batna. Eilo. Ita. Izorpo. Kea! Kali! Say-My-Name! Kokos! Odam! Partasah! Patrota! Podo! Satrina! Talto! I did tell you lies, but I AM a mother. You've faced the descendants of some of my children. Every monstrous silhouette that haunts every legend, every myth, every night terror- they all trail umbilically back to between these legs, and I dissolved entire entire civilizations in the sizzling afterbirth. My body is a temple that outlasted all temples. Gods have worshiped here in blood and semen. Through me you enter the population of loss. No things were before me not eternal; eternal I remain! Can you guess my final name? Lilith."

- Lilith

Lilith is a primary antagonist in the M.M.O. video game, The Secret World. Starting from issue 7 of the series Lilith becomes an arch-enemy of the player character. She is the mother of all monsters, in multiple contexts. Though appearing entirely human Lilith is a deeper, darker, higher life form than any mortal creature. Even demons are subspecies compared to her.

Mortal Sins
Whether working for The Templars, Illuminati, or Dragon, the player will be dispatched to Transylvania during the late content of the main story arc of the game. The Council of Venice, diplomatic union that supervises the three societies peace accords, will call for action to tend to a massive vampire crusade being called for in the region. Each of the societies in addition to being bound to honor requests from the Council has their own reason for going. The Dragon are on an investigation to see why so many forces converge there. The Illuminati had found that the Orochi Group, who had previously opened hostility with them, had a class 1 prioritized project in the Carpathian mountains and were using the call to simultaneous score points with the Council of Venice while seizing the opportunity to get leverage on their new and powerful foe. The Templars had history with the vampire hunters of the area and feel it is their job to put down the vampire crusade mounting in the region.

A Council agent and former Templar named Carmen Preda is there to greet the players. She informs them of the situation, that the vampires had mounted a cause drawn to the area by the myths about count Dracula. Investigation in the village eventually leads to a fey-witch called Cucuvea, who mentions that the Vampires are lead by Mara, Vlad Dracula's wife. Cucuvea also suspects that Mara's crusade is a charade. When again speaking to Cucuvea, she states that she has a much, much older foe than Mara, someone named Lilth, another immortal of some sort. Lilith is mentioned again by Octavius. A roman legionary who had come to Transylvania long ago in service of the ancient empire. Octavius only states he was cursed with immortality by Lilith, then quickly drops the topic to say how Dracula cursed him with stopping Mara if she ever returned. Octavius is belligerent about being charged with acting as a prophetic part of dealing with putting down the vampire crusade and will say little more about this Lilith figure, though he is eventually pursued by the player to reveal that Mara is digging for something deep in the mountains. Octavius also gives up a token given to him by Vlad Dracula, he does not know the talismans purpose but with the agent looking to stop Mara he believes it was meant for them.

Within the Carpathian mountains is an outpost for the Orochi group. A girl called Emma appears in a vision when approaching, the operation is what the Illuminati have been looking for and "Emma" is a name the Dragon have heard before as a significant figure of some sort. The logs have to do with Emma being used by the two Orochi agents to access a dimensional breech deep under the mountains and some sort of large cube only called "The Engine". The logs end with Emma talking directly to the camera telling the viewer to seek Dracula's former friend and Mara's weakness. Both of the scientists, Winston and Julia Smith can be heard discussing the situation, saying Mara's vampires descended upon their lab. Julia states that she saved all the sensitive data she could and Emma too but they were unable to secure the lab so it was set to self-destruct. However the sequence was canceled, which meant an inside job. Only a few sets of bio-metrics were cleared to preform such an act and they would have to be very high up in the company to initiative such an order.

Pursuing The Smith's lead will bring the investigation to the outpost and security feeds of Lidiya, an agent of the mercenary society known as the Phoenicians. Lidiya is seen being contacted by someone with vampire body guards, just off-screen of the security feed. Whoever it is seems to terrify Lidiya far more than the actual vampires. She was dispatched to try to recover data on The Red Hand base for the client; sensitive info but ultimately a dead end in the investigation. Following Emma's lead however leads to a vampire named Callisto; a bard knight in the court of Vlad Dracula who was seduced and turned by Mara. Callisto says Mara was turned into a vampire, but not by Dracula, Dracula was in fact a vampire hunter. Some unseen force had corrupted Mara and she in turn had corrupted him. Callisto never saw the corrupter of Mara but feels as if it was a woman of some type; any further connection in clouded to his mind by an intense aura of pure terror. Seeing the talisman Callisto leads the player to Mara, saying Dracula charged him with the only act that would redeem his soul for betraying him, helping coordinate the death of Mara.

The player fights Mara, reducing her powers tremendously but ultimately she is still immortal. With her powers reduced though the talisman reacts to her and summons forth the ghost of Vlad Dracula. Dracula exorcises the corruption from Mara. Upon coming to, Mara is confused as to where she is. He previous contempt for her late husband has vanished and she speaks to him as a loving wife. Vlad tells Mara to shut her eyes and rest and that this time there will be no nightmares. Mara complies and is killed by Vlad with a stake through her heart. The two then fade into ethereal light into the afterlife.

A Dream To Kill
The Issue starts off in Transylvania. With many loose ends in the investigation in Transylvania the player will return to Carmen Preda who states that there is something in the woods other than the vampires. Something that even the vampires and their enslaved werewolves run from. "A thing that gives nightmares, nightmares". Going down into the woods will reveal the werewolves being preyed upon by a Filth infected creature. When about to be overpowered the creature is subdued by an unnamed Vampire Hunter in the area who helps they player defeat it by burning it to death with a flame thrower. The beast reverts to it's original form, a young girl. The player character will be visibly disgusted by the dead child. The Hunter points to Orochi operations in the forest which leads to several implications that Orochi had been capturing children to experiment on, something the Templars had heard of previously. Passing through the camp of the local gypsies will give the player the chance to overheard two of the younger members, Tibor and Luminita. Both are sad that two of their friends have been missing and fear the worst. Following up on possible threats in the area the player comes upon an Orochi base hidden beneath a waterfall. The base requires an Orochi hand and eye scan, with two dead Orochi agents near by the body parts to allow access are quite available.

Entering into the base the players is met by an agent. Her outfit signals her as a member of the Council of Venice. The woman confirms she is indeed with the Council of Venice. She says that while they would have trusted the societies to tend to the vampire crusade the prospect of kidnapping children to use for supernatural studies was a crime they were not willing to remain neutral for. With the implication of introductions, the agent states that if the two live to die another day she will give her name and that, that should be a good incentive to get out of this situation alive.

Going through the base the records speak of the base being a former Red Hand base long since abandoned when the Orochi found it to re-purpose as their own holding depot. The two children missing had been shipped off to some placed called The Nursery. Not long after the children had left the base the vampires descended upon it, along with the werewolves and many other creatures. The final messages of the agents kept there seem to state that they knew they deserved to die for the things they eventually found out they were helping the company do to children by sending them off to the nursery but they would still attempt to flee all the same. Based on the bodies found outside, this was indeed a fruitless effort. The Council Agent tells the player to go on ahead to try to find a member of Orochi who can lead to the Nursery while she stayed behind to pour over the data. In the Carpathian Fangs the player will find Dragan Dzoavich the only remaining living Orochi agent in the region. He is talking to a stuffed teddy bear but prepares to open fire when the player attempts to take it. Dragan says the bear wants to see "her" again helps to organizes a method to go against Orochi. Dragan has had his fill of being thrall to Orochi and wishes to make things right. After recovering data on the Nursery's location Dragon gives the player a snow mobile to outrace the Orochi back-up troops trying to beat them there. Dragan also entrusts the teddy bear to the players telling them not to mess up.

Racing the tropes to several key areas and ultimately a bridge overlooking a gorge the player will encounter the Council agent again, with a parachute for each of them to escape fire on the bridge by jumping off and an attack helicopter ready to cover them. The copter opens fire on them but suffer an explosion which crashes into the bridge destroying the backup troops while the agent and the player escape bellow. At the base of the gorge in a shielded bunker, the Nursery. Inside are numerous records by one Dr. Schreber, Orochi. Nanny bots and a lullaby that plays over and over. The nanny bots are programed to remain passive while the music plays as it is a psychic pacification signal. If turned off, which eventually is needed to access the control room, the drones go into security mode to attend to whatever managed to shut off the signal keeping the children controlled. Even with no children of staff still standing at the facility the bots still preform their primary function to secure the area. Notes in the records room catalog a frightful group of experiments preformed by Dr. Schreber Orochi CEO, Lily Engel. He exposed the children to Filth, lycanthrope, parasites and spectral possession in attempts to see how well their children instinctively adapt to each. All the missing children as either werewolves, corrupted shades, corpses or possessed. Dr. Schreber himself had become corrupted by Filth and had reached it's final stages during the base's knockdown devolved into an insane monster and clearly no longer working for anyone outside of his own madness.

Below Dr. Schreber's lab is a small chamber with Emma found in the flesh. Kept asleep by the lullaby loops running in the room. The Council agent will ask the player to wake her. But as soon as the player's back is turned to the Council agent to help Emma, the agent injects the player with a tranquilizer. She states that the charade is over and that it was a pleasure to play the Council spy girl. But that time is over.

Once awakening the player is strapped down to an operating table with all their gear and clothing removed. The spy states that she owes the player her name. She says she has had many names. Once a prophet forced her to reveal the her seventeen names. The spy then compulsively recites them all, her voice distorting into a demons echo overlapping different pitched versions of her original voice. She says she is the mother of all monsters. And then states her final name; Lilith. Reciting the name causes the player to spasm uncontrollably. Lilith states that the player's body recognizes her name. Because she had encoded a memory of herself in the R-complex of the human brain ages ago in times forgotten by the histories, forgotten by the histories that the present's history had forgot. The last child of the nursery then comes in, called forth by Lilith's presence, the child in the only remaining living subject of Dr. Schreber, one subject to possession. Lilith goes up to the twisting host as a loving mother, singing to it, she then promptly snaps the child's neck, finding no use for Schreber's left-overs. With the player effectively immortal Lilith opts to keep them in place by vivisecting them. She turns on a laser which proceeds to carve off their legs while she causally leaves with the still sleeping Emma, kept asleep the the lullaby Lilith now sings. Emma stirs just enough to release mana into the air which gravitate toward the player to begin healing their legs.

The players receives visions of the full extent of the Smith's experiments on her, witnessing Emma being made to reveal the Engine and rift that Mara's vampires had seized. Meaning Mara was acting as a pawn for Lilith the entire time. Schriber's note, crossed with what the Smith's say about being betrayed reveal Lilith to be Lily Engel, the CEO of Orochi and the one who had green lit the project to harness Emma and the Engine in the region in the first place, also making her the one who had shut down security protocols once the Smiths fled their base. The vampire crusade was in truth a cause for Mara but a mere manipulation on Lilith's part to get Emma and the Engine once Schreber locked himself in his lab and cut off contact with the proper Orochi channels. Emma reveals she is no human child but a conduit for Gaia, the life force of the universe. Orochi had intercepted her shortly after she manifested and brainwashed her repeatedly to block out her purpose or knowledge of being an avatar. She had been used to release the engine, which keeps "Them" asleep. The Engine (Gaia Engine) play a lullaby which keeps The Dreamers dreaming. Orochi had synthesized a similar tune to pacify Emma. To awaken Emma the player must play through Emma's dream and find her true name to call out to her to break free. If the player listens closely they can hear Emma briefly give her true name when first met; Anima. When then reciting the name Anima wakes up as does the player, transported to the dimensional way-station, Agatha just as Lilith is about to enter a portal to her headquarters in Tokyo with "Emma" in hand.

Lilth uses third age technology to generate a force-field around the player, preventing them from interfering directly. But with Anima awakened and the Teddy Bear acting as an anchor, she breaks free of Lilith's lullaby. Lilith seems transfixed on "Emma" remaining a subservient little girl. Anima restates that her name in Anima. Refused, Lilith states the "Emma" will not choose Gaia over her. And that "Samael choose her". Anima's continued opposition only triggers a deep rooted resentment in Lilith and she quickly shifted from the persona of an over bearing mother to that of an abusive one. Anima releases her power and launches Lilith clear into the portal without her, though the power seems to trigger the Filth outside the portal to come to life and attempt to devour her. Anima teleports away along with the player. She tells them that "The lullaby must never end. If the Dreamers wake, all that is, won't". Anima then asks for her Teddy Bear back. The player hands it over to allow Anima to her re-acclimate to her true self and looks off into the portal to Tokyo, where Lilith now waits marshaling her forces.