Introduction
The following brief chronology of events before the time setting for this mission may help to clarify some details.
Abbreviated Humunkulun Chronology — backstory
• Prince Wu zel Abbas Moyan of Ama and Ambassador Izak of Humunkulus produced an offspring, the first of his kind, whom they named Xing. He matured to adulthood quickly, as all Humunkulans do, to eventually become one of the preeminent scientists in Humunkulan history. The period of his lifetime and the next few cycles were officially declared in the annals of Humunkulus as the Xing Epoch. More complete details of this part of the history have been accumulated from the mission logs of his father Wu zel Abbas Moyan and released as The War for the Heart of Humunkulus readily available for reading by this same author.
• Having the advanced mind of the Humunkulun expanse at his disposal along with his knowledge from his father and all of Ama, Xing solved most of the universal problems faced by the planet Humunkulus and all Humunkulans. Perhaps his greatest contribution however was the construction of the Grand Transponder (GT).
[Wu zel Izak Xing in his laboratory with the GT]
•The GT, built coincidentally in the shape of a human heart, was able to unlock the planetary gates of the antecessors at will and initiate stable transport between them, and therefore any planets in the galaxy, without having to wait years or decades for planetary alignment as it was believed to be the case by the Amans and other discoverers of the gates and transponder technology.
• This achievement was not shared with the Amans for reasons of ensuring Humunkulan superiority over it and greatly expedited the Humunkulan astral charting missions. Therefore, Humunkulan dominance of galactic exploration was ensured for centuries, though still in the shadows of ignorance as far as the Amans were concerned despite and on again-off again diplomatic relationship between the two planets.
• After countless missions, however, it was becoming clear to the Humunkulan leadership council that most worlds were uninhabited piles of rocks and minerals devoid of life of any kind be it carbon-based or silicon-based; and therefore, not very useful to the Humunkulans for trading purposes.
• After consuming many resources on the missions while yielding nothing particularly useful, it was decided to focus more missions on worlds with life and attempt to understand such worlds more fully as well as increase trade with more pockets of carbenoid life.
• One of those worlds was the world humans call Earth, and dozens of missions were sent to explore the various regions of the planet with the hope of establishing any number of trade and cultural exchanges.
• The standard procedure was to send mission teams of eight Humunkulans to a region, blend in with the locals as Humunkulans could do with ease thanks to their ability to so-called shape-shift into anything or anyone and establish beneficial contact before revealing the true nature of themselves, while some never did.
• Unfortunately, as anyone with much knowledge of human history might guess, many of the mission teams of Humunkulans, once discovered for what they were (shape-shifting aliens), were not well-received. Humans were generally not fond of creatures capable of doing things they could not; but, especially, shifting shapes, making things from sand at will, and so on — the basics of being a Humunkulan.
Some of this, to be a bit introspective, was simply because humans never like it when others become wildly popular in their societies courtesy of the kind of extraordinary natural beauty and charm Humunkulans possessed naturally (or rather shifted into). As had been Humunkulan tradition since their first encounter with the mostly all-male species of Ama in general and the Aman research team K*-0002.1 led by Wu zel Abbas Moyan in specific, preferred to take the form of exceptionally good-looking males. Their lustrous beauty, charm, and gallantry, in fact, usually won over the humans in every society, only soon to be replaced by waves of mistrust, animosity, anger, hatred, blood lust, and attempts to rid the world of them.
• Nearly, by accident, however, the Humunkulan teams discovered they could do better in this process by staying mostly hidden outside on the fringe of human settlements and societies by disguising themselves not as human lookalikes but by taking the form of nearby non-human species instead such as local canine species including wolves, foxes, and coyotes which commonly lived in packs making their groups less suspicious. They would transform only as necessary to their human form to explore the human settlements for trade opportunities and other relevant reasons as they arose.
Now to the facts and events of this particular story or rather mission.
• Mission ||||*||||°|_|__|: a standard mission team was sent to a previously unexplored, extremely cold, arctic region of the northern hemisphere of Earth known to the local people today as a region of Finnmark.
[OFFICIAL MISSION PATCH]
• Unlike other missions and logs, however, this one is not about the past. This one is about the present. For you see, as it happens, the descendants of the original eight, according to legend, became involved in one of the most fantastic and legendary tales of all time, especially for those followers of one of the earth’s largest and most enduring festivals celebrated by more than two billion people in more than 160 countries.
Let’s begin, and proceed to Chapter 1.
