Major spoilers!
Destiny’s database has been updated, and with the updates, come all of the new Dark Below Grimoire entries as well as what seems to somewhat of a fix to the Vault space issue.
If you want to avoid spoilers, check out this video with important information about Destiny’s raids:
[divider]Collections
To avoid any unwanted spoilers, let’s first talk about the the “collection” vendor additions.
As you can see in our vendors page, Bungie has added (unfinished) “vendors” – known as Ship, Shader, and Emblem Collection.
These will likely act in a similar way to our Vault, and will obviously help clean up our vault/inventory some. I do not think this will be immediately available, as the names/descriptions are clearly unfinished.
Furthermore, ignore the Iron Banner icons – that’s just what Bungie uses when they don’t have an icon to use for something.
[divider]Crucible Arenas
Pantheon
“Take not for granted what you cannot see. What it is was not always, and may not ever be.”
ARENA DESIGNATION: Pantheon
LOCATION: Black Garden, Mars
Deep in the endless channels of Black Garden, an ancient Vex temple sits high on a plateau, buzzing with anomalous messages.
Fearing that the Minds which live within seek to return, the Crucible has set up shop here to master the ins and outs of Vex-controlled landscapes and keep watch should any Vex find a way back.
Skyshock
“Whatever they were after here, it’s been lost. We can only hope it was Rasputin that destroyed it and not the Hive.” – Lord Shaxx
ARENA DESIGNATION: Skyshock
LOCATION: Old Russia, Earth
This repowered interplanetary defense array in the Cosmodrome, once under the control of Rasputin, was recently ravaged by the Hive.
Now cleared and controlled by the Crucible, the deserted Seeders left amongst the Skyshock Array offer more evidence that the Hive’s endless battle with the last Warmind still rages on, and has now reached Earth.
The Cauldron
“Every inch of this place feels wrong… tainted. Makes your Light itch. Just ignore it and keep firing.” – Arcite 99-40
ARENA DESIGNATION: The Cauldron
LOCATION: The Dark Side, Moon
The Warlocks’ most lucid theories assert this crumbled husk of a Hive ritual site is one of many ceremonial transmogrification chambers hewn beneath the Moon’s crust.
Now secured and maintained by the Crucible, scheduled study of it’s remnants suggest a sacrificial purpose—where other forms of life were given an audience with the reigning monarch and judged before the power of the Darkness.
[divider]Crucible Playlists
Doubles
“Work together… and you might survive.” – Lord Shaxx
2v2 with teammate revival. Sometimes the only Light you can rely on is your Ghost and another Guardian.
Partner with a single Guardian for an efficient duel with an opposing pair of adversaries and their Ghosts. Watch each other’s back, and shut down the enemy.
Grimoire Ranking
Match Wins
- Rank 1, 25 Match Wins
- Rank 2, 50 Match Wins
- Rank 3, 100 Match Wins
Inferno
“Pick your fights. Stay focused. Or this only gets worse.” – Lord Shaxx
A modified variant of multiple Crucible match types, Inferno tests your Light against the darkest of conditions.
Darkness prevails, leaving Guardians to rely on their weaponry and combat skills alone. The enemy can only be found by sight and sound alone.
Rely on your teammates and keen tracking to stalk your enemies and shut them down without the trust in your most powerful abilities.
True skill put to the ultimate test. No trackers. No Supers. No bonuses. Only kills earn points.
[divider]
The Dark Below
1. Quests Introduction
“Deny no ally their quests, and together we will explore those paths untraveled.” – The Speaker
The forces of the City have spent years sifting through the plights of its Guardians, seeking humanity’s greatest feats and the true desires of our enemies, but there is still so much unexplored and unknown.
The incessant curiosity of the Tower patrons continues to offer new paths and insights to aid in our survival. Unfortunately, few have the means to survive the harshness of the frontier, but you and your fellow Guardians offer hope for their causes.
Listen to their pleas, seek out what they value, help expel their fears, and we can further unravel our greatest mysteries and look to seize the promise we hope they contain.
2. Rise of Crota
“The shattered one once referred to Crota as the god holding domain in a threshold between our world and theirs. He said he deciphered the means by which the Hive call to him. From all that I’ve seen, I now know he was right.
“I watched as Crota’s soul rose from the abyss, his sword cracking the Moon’s surface with every stroke, and countless Guardians, losing their light to his wrath.
“We tried once to hunt him, gave up all we were to challenge the ones that bow in his name, hoping to deny him his power. One by one, we failed. But I’ve kept watch, seeking vengeance for all I’ve lost.
“What we faced on the Moon now looks to take the Earth. And none will survive if they succeed. First Crota’s sworn Blades will rise. Then every disciple who haunts these worlds in Crota’s name will seek to overrun the Earth. If they raise Crota here, we could lose everything.
Go to the Cosmodrome and meet this invasion head on. Find the Fist leading the charge and break him, then the others, or Crota will claim the Earth for his king, and all Light beware.” – Eris Morn
3. The Wakening
“Thanks to you the Wakers of Crota failed to summon their master here; my efforts to warn you were not in vain.
“But beyond the threshold at the pit of the Hellmouth, Crota still lives. And his disciples will continue to haunt the Earth, seeking the power to raise him again, and again, until Earth is carved in his name. But—there is a way, spoken by the shattered one, to enter the dark where he sleeps.
“Perhaps you can succeed where we could not. Gather a force worthy of the Light and enter that abyss, only there can we truly see to Crota’s end.” – Eris Morn
4. Disciples of Crota
“They are all here, on Earth, I can feel them. His Eyes, who watch our worlds for him; the Hand whose grasp on Earth must be unbound; the Heart who ceases at nothing to bring Crota back. And Omnigul, his vile Will, the keeper of the worms, the mother of his spawn.
“Find them, defeat them all—as long as even one of these monsters walks the Earth, the threat of Crota will never fade.” – Eris Morn
5. Urn of Sacrifice
“The Hive pantheon only begins with Crota, the shattered one said he is but a child among their gods. Even now, I can hear the Hive calling to them, and to Crota’s maker, Oryx.
“I can lead you to their most unholy rites, and there we can taint their faith and sully their offerings. But be warned, what we dabble in now could bring us to a very fortunate but challenging future.” – Eris Morn
6. Will of Crota
“Omnigul is the last of Crota’s generals. She is the architect of her master’s wakening. She’ll spawn countless armies to feed his will. As long as she lives… the threat of Crota’s return will always haunt this world.
Track her down, and exterminate every Hive that stands in your way.“ – Eris Morn
7. The Undying Mind
“The Black Garden may not stay among us for long. Something has begun to repair the schism torn by its destruction. Vex now flood the Garden channels to protect it.
We must stop the weavers before they seal the Garden and begin to summon back its heart.“ – Ikora Rey
[divider]Raid
1. Crota’s End
My name is Eriana-3, disciple of the Praxic Warlocks, marked by the Cormorant Seal. Survivor of the great disaster: the day we set out to retake our moon, united in a host of thousands, and found ourselves outmatched by one Hive champion of unspeakable power.
The monster’s name is Crota. He killed my friends face to face, one by one, and he relished it. In the name of all those lost I devote myself to his utter destruction.
This is my confession. If I transgress in your eyes I ask for your forgiveness.
In our world Crota seemed invincible. Together Eris Morn and I worked the problem, but found no hope. So we sought forbidden knowledge—the exiled master of Hive arcana.
We found Toland.
Toland tells us that Crota’s presence in our world is a shadow. That its true power resides in a netherworld forged by his will. We must pass through a keyhole between realities, navigate the seething midnight of Crota’s world-mind, and overthrow the ascendant champions that gather to his throne.
Toland speaks—he hardly seems mad, at times—of the terrible things that await us. A secret song he hungers to learn, and the issue of that song, an ashen burning star-husk that looms above, the utter antithesis of life. He talks of it with a curious ambition I do not want to understand.
Tomorrow I will ask Agah, Mota and Tarlowe if they will go with us. If we fail, I leave this record for Guardians to come. Remember us.
2. Ascendant Sword
Eris, Eris, what a name, a name for discord, a name for far cold orbits where no living thing should dare to go. I like this name.
Let me give you a gift, Eris. Let me tell you about the power in the logic of the sword:
A Shredder or a Boomer is a powerful weapon, but it kills acyclically. You see? It sends out harm and it takes nothing back. The bolt passes away into nothing. A sword, though, a sword is like a bridge, a crossing-point. The sword binds wielder to victim. It binds life to death. And when the binding is done—the sword remembers. When the Boomer’s fire has burnt away into axion and neutrino scatter, the sword goes on, hungrier and sharper.
Understand that this nightmare logic underpins His nightmare world, and you will see why the ascendant blade has so much power there. Whenever in our passage we find ourselves in need of power—remember that the greatest authority here is a blade made keen by eons of use.
This is the world the Hive craves: a universe creased by the edge of the sharpest sword.
[divider]Weapons
Primary
1. Necrochasm
“Eternity is very close. Can you feel yourself slipping?”
The Weapons of Sorrow were believed to be nothing more than a myth. But even the darkest myths are born of some truths, and whispers of the Necrochasm have long filled the Light with dread.
It is said the Necrochasm was born in the twilight after Crota’s sword first cracked the Moon. That a lost Guardian’s weapon was altered by the Hive in an attempt to fuse their own dark understanding with humanity’s mastery of war.
The result was a weapon that would feed on its owner’s aggression—reaching further when angry eyes drew focus, its hunger rising as it tore through bone and flesh.
Any Guardian who comes across the weapon must ask some very simple questions with endlessly complicated answers: Is your Light bright enough to stand, even briefly, in full gaze of the Hive’s abyss? Can it handle what has died and been reborn in those shadows?
2. No Land Beyond
Every hit blazes the path to our reclamation.
Rumors of this weapon’s existence sent many a Guardian clawing through the corners of Old Russia, seeking its legend. Some believe its origins predate the Golden Age and served to liberate the old Earth nation from a terrible cycle of war.
Others believe it a Golden Age relic built to honor the sniper and their artful approach to battle—to lean on the sole power of the long rifle, nest where the enemy cannot see, trust in the power of calm and know there is nowhere to fall back to.
Special
1. The 4th Horseman
“It’s not a holdout weapon. It’s a pathfinder.”
One look at The 4th Horseman, and the care taken in crafting it, points to the old trophy-driven traditions of the hunt, but this blunt force destroyer wasn’t built for just any game.
Its precision tuning allows for full-auto firing, while measured impact timing provides an extra kick at the tail end of each magazine—a needed fail safe designed specifically for the weapon’s intended prey, the biggest game in the system, the Cabal.
Heavy
1. Dragon’s Breath
Burn the world. Burn it all.
From the labs of Feizel Crux and Victor Lomar comes another shoulder assault offering built to match the incendiary fury of a legendary beast — or at least classic depictions of it.
Carrying three rockets, each equipped with Solar Flare detonators, its power is believed to far outmatch those of the mythical flying monster, but we’re still hoping an actual showdown between the two will put an end to that argument.
[divider]Allies
Eris Morn (Crota’s Bane)
Eris Morn is the sole survivor of an ill-fated raid on the Hive’s lunar fortress. It was Eris and a rag-tag Fireteam who, after the first charge to take back the Moon, sacrificed everything to return in search of the one the Hive call Crota.
Robbed of her Ghost, Eris remained lost among the darkest shadows of the Hellmouth for countless cycles. Despite all odds she endured, using the very dark she battled to emerge a changed warrior—driven, some would say obsessed.
The Speaker and Commander Zavala find her compulsions a sickness, convinced she has been fully seduced by the shadows.
Though her warnings of Crota and his power are often dismissed as madness, Eris returns to the shadows time and time again, operating as one of Ikora Rey’s Hidden—a clandestine group of Guardians tasked with silently infiltrating enemy strongholds and gathering vital intel for the Warlocks.
Rasputin
The legendary Warminds stood watch over our Golden Age colonies: vigilant intelligences stretched across thousands of warsats and hardened installations. When the Collapse struck, the great Warminds fought and died. Rasputin fell with them.
Or so history believed. But centuries of explorers’ tales spoke of a surviving, elusive Warmind –a myth substantiated when Guardians exploring the old Cosmodrome made positive contact with Rasputin. A single Warmind still lives, diminished but unbroken.
Threatened by a convergence of Fallen and Hive forces, Rasputin exploited the reactivation of the Cosmodrome’s Terrestrial-space array to extend itself across the inner solar system.
The Guardian Vanguard hoped that Rasputin might make a powerful ally, capable of mapping and reviving Golden Age military assets and recruiting them for the City’s defense. But Rasputin has proven recalcitrant and high-handed, unresponsive to the City’s outreach.
We cannot characterize Rasputin’s strategic objectives and capabilities, cannot define its physical or computational architecture, cannot ascertain its disposition with regard to the City, and cannot be sure it retains memory of events before the Collapse. Perhaps what remains is only an autonomic shell, defending itself by reflex.
Or perhaps Rasputin’s objectives have changed, transformed by some vital information it obtained during those dark days.
Rasputin’s survival opens the possibility that other Warminds may be revivable, opening weapons systems to aid in City defenses. The Vanguard and the Consensus hope that continued outreach towards Rasputin will develop into a strategic alliance.
Ghost Fragment: Rasputin 2
She hunts the Valus named Ta’aurc by the grunting radio traffic of his bodyguards. Cayde sent her to Mars to track and so track she will even if it kills her a hundred times. For him she will hunt forever.
When Ta’aurc goes down into Meridian Bay she follows him in the night and finds herself caught up in the war. Like this—
Something’s happening, her Ghost says, something’s wrong. She leaps from the Sparrow and gets cover between slabs of ancient stone haunted by quiet firefly light.
Harvesters sweep overhead, cautious, prowling. On the Cabal command network a low voice mutters in their tongue, saying: Stand by to fire. They are coming. Stand by to fire.
Hearing this she climbs a stone obelisk and perches on its point to watch the night sky. She wonders whether she will ever stand in the Tower courtyard and look up at the stars waiting for ruin.
The Vex erupt from nothingness and crash down over the Cabal in formations of golden light. Lightning arcs and snaps and gives birth to marching ranks of bronze warrior hulls. Gun positions thunder back. Tracers sweep the sky and she can feel on her skin the electromagnetic howl of Cabal munitions seeking targets and the prickle of stranger signals that whisper of broken space and bent time.
A Harvester spins down burning to shatter itself on the sand and now the command network drums with grim Cabal war-speak, a Centurion somewhere crying Black Shield, Black Shield, Firebase Thuria, perimeter compromised, request terminal protective fire, zero six zero, one three eight, immediate effect—
Something else is watching too.
Do you feel that? her Ghost whispers, awestruck.
Yes, she says, yes, what is it?
A third song, a stealthy regard, something high above them not Vex nor Cabal narrowing its great eye to measure the battle with instruments of light and gravity. Does she—remember it? Does it remember her? It feels like she should…
She has the sense of something old lifting a long spear. Testing its heft.
Then dawn light, a terrible dawn—the sky opens up to admit devastation, thrown down from orbit: Minotaurs fall burnt and broken with their fluids boiling out. Cabal guns detonate in thunderous chains as tiny piercing flechettes fall out of the sky and find their ammunition bunkers.
The battle stops. The Vex wink out. On the Cabal network the voice of Valus Ta’aurc roars: Find the source! Rouse the Flayers and find the source!
She remembers word from Earth: the Array opened. A ghost of the Cosmodrome set loose. And she wonders who won this battle, who learned the most, the Vex baiting out this new power, or the Cabal hunting it. Or the Warmind itself, testing its reborn strength.
When someone kills Ta’aurc and the Flayers, as they killed Draksis, whose purpose will they serve?
But this is not for her. Her purpose is the hunt.
Ghost Fragment: Rasputin 3
V120NNI800CLS000 CLEAR MORNING OUTCRY
AI-COM/RSPN: ASSETS//FORCECON//IMPERATIVE
IMMEDIATE ACTION ORDER
This is an ALL ASSETS IMPERATIVE (unsecured/OUTCRY)
CAUTERIZE. DISPERSE. ESTIVATE.
Total strategic collapse imminent. FENRIR HEART reports complete operational mortality. SURTR DROWN in progress but negative effect. Forecasts unanimously predict terminal VOLUSPA failure.
As of CLS000 a HARD CIVILIZATION KILL EVENT is in progress across the operational area.
I am declaring YUGA SUNDOWN effective on receipt (epoch reach/FORCECON variant). Cancel counterforce objectives. Cancel population protection objectives. Format moral structures for MIDNIGHT EXIGENT.
Execute long hold for reactivation.
AI-COM/RSPN SIGNOFF
STOP STOP STOP V120NNI800CLS001
[divider]Enemies
1. Blades of Crota
“They are the heralds of our destroyer. Ushers of this coming storm.”
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Vell: They’re more than Knights.
Eriana-3: They look like Knights.
Vell: That’s like calling you a tin can.
Eriana-3: Excuse me?
Vell: I’m saying calling them Knights is an understatement.
Omar: What are they then?
Toland: World carvers.
Omar: Meaning?
Toland: Those swords are neither bone nor steel. There’s a dark purpose to their edge.
Eriana-3: Darker than death?
Toland: Death is peace compared to the shadows.
Omar: Those Blades cut down more Guardians than I can count.
Vell: Hundreds.
Eriana-3: Thousands. The Vanguard should’ve known better.
Toland: I tried to warn them.
Omar: But we’re prepared?
Vell: I am.
Omar: Not exactly the question.
Eris: I have a feeling Light won’t be enough.
Eriana-3: Then we’ll take their swords from their ashes, and cut them down one-by-one, Blade-by-Blade.
Eris: You would wield a weapon of the night?
Eriana-3: For her—them? I will butcher any who stand in my way with even the darkest blade.
Eris: Pray it doesn’t come to that.
Vell: Heh. To cleave our enemies with their own tools of destruction? We should be so lucky.
Omar: You’ve got a strange view on luck.
Toland: When you’ve got your hand around the hilt and their ash under your boot, you might change your tune, Hunter.
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2. Sardon, Fist of Crota
“One sword stands tallest among them, leading the charge against us all.”
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Vell: So this Sardon is one of these Swarm Princes?
Toland: In a stretch of the concept, sure. He is their lord and master. They are his generals.
Vell: Sounds like my kind of fight.
Omar: What isn’t?
Vell: Eris and Eriana said the Blades rose first and slaughtered our brothers and sisters. If the one who leads their charge is within reach, I mean to end him—to end them all.
Eris: We are here for Crota.
Toland: I’m afraid each disciple is Crota.
Vell: Then it must be done. Know that I have faith in your Light, as I do in my own.
Eris: This isn’t about faith.
Eriana-3: It’s about vengeance.
Vell: It’s about the only thing that matters—victory. It’s about doing what we must to end this terror.
Eris: We will face them all, together. We have no time to fight individual battles.
Toland: I have no doubt the Fist will welcome your challenge, Titan. When we face him, you will lead the charge. Come, Crota’s Temple lies ahead. If we can breach it, I’m sure another fight awaits.
[/toggle]
3. Might of Crota
“It is a mountain of rage, summoned to leave only destruction in its path.”
Toland: When a god’s Will is met with force, its Might will be unleashed in the form of those raging beasts we call the ogre—monsters bred of pain, tormented by the Light, nothing but hatred for all who bring its suffering forth.
Eris: And how do you know this?
Toland: It was told to me.
Eris: By the Speaker?
Toland: By the Darkness itself.
4. Hand of Crota
“It crawls from the shadows to claim our Light in the name of Crota.”
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Sai: Can you track the others?
Eriana-3: No. There is too much interference. The shroud is too thick here. Ghost?
Ghost: <chhk> Yes. <chhk>
Eriana-3: We in bad shape?
Ghost: <chhk> Could be better. <chhk>
Eriana-3: Any charge?
Ghost: No. Something is siphoning the Light. <chhk> I’m getting weaker by the second. <chhk>
Eriana-3: And Sai’s Ghost? Same?
Ghost: Faint charge detected <chhk> but it’s fading. Its shell is damaged beyond repair. <chhk> No comms. No transmat. <chhk> Even if there were a signal—
Eriana-3: Use whatever juice you’ve got and relay this transmission to the others.
Ghost: They won’t receive it. <chhk>
Eriana-3: Not the point.
Eriana-3: This is Eriana-3 of the Praxic Warlocks. Marked by the Cormorant Seal. I am alongside the Hunter Sai Mota. Our Light is nearly gone. The ash of untold Hive covers the ground in our wake.
Unknown: [inaudible scream]
Sai: Omnigul—
Eriana-3: From what Toland has described we are on the path of Crota’s dreaded Hand.
Sai: The Hand is falling back toward the screams beyond these tunnels.
Eriana-3: Screw it. You ready?
Sai: My knives are eager for another dance.
Eriana-3: You speak little, Sai Mota, but always say the right things.
[/toggle]
5. Eyes of Crota
“The Eyes watch us all, gathering our secrets in hopes of ending the Light.”
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Eris: Something is watching us. I can feel it.
Omar: I hate when you say that.
Toland: Crota has many Eyes. Every god does.
Eris: We have to go.
Omar: If they know our every move, what chance do we have?
Toland: With their great age comes even greater wisdom. I have no doubt the Hive led us here with intent.
Omar: What are you saying?
Toland: For these disciples, we offer the greatest sacrifice.
Eris: What does that mean?
Toland: Do you feel your Light fading? They are offering it to Crota. Us coming here, we are the ones waking him.
Omar: He’s mad.
Toland: Perhaps.
Eris: Why do you hold these secrets like weapons, to damn us all?
Toland: Because they are weapons. And we are going to use them to show the Hive they are not the only ones who breed fear.
Eris: How?
Toland: You’re hunters—hunt. Find the Eyes that are upon us.
Omar: Then?
Toland: We blind Crota and use what’s left of your dying Light to lead us to where these monsters seek to conjure their master.
[/toggle]
6. Heart of Crota
“It’s not the first and surely is not the last. But until the last Heart stops, their hate will spread endlessly across the black.”
Eris: Record this.
The Heart of Crota.
It is her blood that feeds their fury.
I thought Omar dead until I heard his screams. I followed them down, to the darkest night of the caverns below. What I saw—I witnessed all we fear—the villainy of the Hive on full display.
Among a sea of cocoons, and surrounded by thousands more freshly spawned hordes, the Heart held Omar’s broken body in a vice of bone and pain. She was peeling the Light from his body. How? I can’t imagine, and I have tried. Tendrils of luminance tore away like flesh.
With every strand Omar’s scream cut the dark and was met with a chittering chorus from the unborn. I can’t say if they were feeding off the Light itself, or the pain, but my guess is both—somehow, both.
The Heart, though I can’t believe she actually has one, seemed to be conducting some nightmare orchestra, nurturing Crota’s children, with the echoes of Agah’s Light.
The Hive must end for all they had done, and some day, by my hand or another’s, the Heart will meet with an end fitting of the pain she, herself, has dealt.
7. Urzok, the Hated
“By pleasing their gods, the Hive carve scars on the fabric of our realm.” -Toland, the Shattered
Among the lesser Hive, there is no higher honor than that of the Hated.
Not all can be hallowed, fewer still gods, but all can do their part to smite the Light. The Hated, though, holds a unique place among the Hive.
It is a singular position. Only ever one. And the emerald marrow on its blade is not from combat, but the ritualistic execution of those the Wizards have deemed Forsaken.
8. The Forsaken
“Conjured with but one purpose… to die.” -Toland, the Shattered
How does one call through the Darkness? Through the void of the eternal night sky? Through the pathways that link the Hive to their ancient, rotting deities? With suffering.
The Forsaken are conjured and birthed through ritual, meant to serve as worship to gods of a higher plane of misery. To perform a ritual of sacrifice is to tempt a god’s hunger.
What then, if a being of the Light were to taint such a ritual? Would the Hive be punished? Would their gods grow angry?
9. Omnigul, Will of Crota
“That shriek, that wicked laugh. If you listen closely, you can hear power in its song.”
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Eris: Those screams.
Omar: And I was just starting to tune them out.
Toland: It has been told that with these screams another spawn is awakened, birthed in the name of the god it holds.
Sai: Crota.
Toland: I am afraid so. They call this one Omnigul, mother of the spawn.
Sai: How do you—? I’d rather not know.
Toland: Commands, echoed through the dark, fetid caverns—orders carried out with grinding stone and squeaking claw, skittering thrall and blade against bone.
Omar: Well, now he’s on a roll.
Eriana-3: I hear them, even when I don’t. I will tear this Omnigul’s throat out.
Toland: If you were to do so, our work here would be done. Without a Will to raise its army and herald its ascendance, there is no Crota to fear, at least here and now.
Eris: Then we follow the screams.
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10. Ir Yût, the Deathsinger
Eriana! Let’s sing. Sing with me. No, no, you rattling machine, not yet, it’s too soon: we don’t know the words.
We’ll learn the song down there. We can learn it from Her. She comes up from the deep dark places where the greater Hive await to sing it to us, and here’s a puzzle for you—
The song is death. To hear it is to die. To know the words is mortal. Oh, good point, Eriana, death is just a word, isn’t it? A catch-all term for the failure to go on, nothing spiritual, nothing with its own quiddity. We all died once, and it did not prove insurmountable.
But what if what if what if, shhh listen, what if death were reified, described in its totality, made autonomous and universal, separate from any context or condition? What if She could invoke the ending of anything?
How, then, would She know the song, and sing it, without Herself dying?
Perhaps they know a way to make themselves part of the song, part of something vast and burning that rots and peels into ash but never ever ends. Perhaps She has engineered this for Him, and pinned His power up against the quiddity of death itself.
I am so terribly curious to know.
11. Ghost Fragment: Hive 3
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“The nightmares will crawl across this world and the machines of old will rest silent as they witness the final Light of this seemingly eternal dusk.”
Ikora: And this Omnigul is here? On Earth?
Eris: I can feel it.
Ikora: Why?
Eris: She’s left the Hellmouth. Her inner chambers are active. More so than I have seen. But she is no longer in the shadows.
Ikora: No, not—I don’t question your belief. I’m asking why she is here. Why Earth? Please, try to be clear. There is no time for cryptic half-answers and almost-truths.
Eris: Heh.
Ikora: She still laughs.
Eris: It seems I have become more like the Speaker—
Ikora: Secrets have their places. Here, now, is not that place. Omnigul. Tell me what you’ve learned. Tell me how we stop her.
Eris: There may be no stopping what comes. The Hive in Old Russia—in that dead land—their assault on the Cosmodrome is no coincidence. They move against the Light with purpose. Always with purpose.
Ikora: The Warmind?
Eris: Rasputin. Yes. The last fail safe against the night.
Ikora: He’s still yet to heed our calls—
Eris: I’m aware.
Ikora: —but seems just.
Eris: Just is enough. Just can save us all.
Ikora: And the Hive?
Eris: They will tear into its eyes—or worse.
Ikora: Worse?
Eris: The dust and bone and horror of their existence is simply who—what they are. But it does not negate their ageless intelligence.
Ikora: They do not seek to destroy Rasputin.
Eris: I don’t know. Destroying Rasputin would cost us a treasure beyond belief. But, such fury twisted to the Hive’s ends?
Ikora: We would fall.
Eris: All would fall.
Ikora: The Omnigul is here for Rasputin.
Eris: She is here to pave the way.
Ikora: For Crota?
Eris: That could just be the beginning. He’s not their only god.
Ikora: As I am learning. I will make the others listen.
Eris: It may be too late.
Ikora: Then you need a new army.
Eris: I’ve made that mistake before.
Ikora: You saved us all. Your sacrifice—
Eris: I am still here. My sacrifice was—
Ikora: Enough.
Eris: And I should ask new heroes to fall… as they did?
Ikora: It is why we were reborn in the Light.
Eris: My Light is all but gone.
Ikora: Cherish what remains, but know that you have done enough. Your time in the shadows… I can’t fathom—
Eris: My role among the Hidden is an honor.
Ikora: None would argue. But it’s had its cost. Your place is to gather the understanding we need to wage these wars, but your own war is long done. Let those prepared to fight, fight.
Eris: And should they die?
Ikora: None who walk these Towers is afraid—and Rasputin must not fall.
Eris: Then Omnigul must be stopped.
Ikora: Two goals that appear to be one and the same.
Eris: Perhaps. So I am to stay?
Ikora: I will see to it.
Eris: Then let us hope we are strong enough to stand against what is upon us—and hope the others do not follow.
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12. Crota, Son of Oryx
My Thoughts on Recent Events
He hides in the dark below: the monster of Luna, the titanic god-Knight who walked the regolith beneath a sky of green fire and butchered the greatest army of Guardians ever assembled. We abandoned the Moon rather than face him.
Whispered lore and fragmentary theories suggest that Crota represents a distinct class of Hive entities, not resident in our material world. My latest synthesis of this scattered esoterica suggests that Crota’s ‘home’ is a universe created or remade by his power and occupied by Hive organisms of immense age.
Any Guardian formidable enough to return with information on this dark reality might help us understand the Hive’s goals for our own world—and, more pressingly, such an expedition might provide the key to Crota’s defeat.
The epithet Son of Oryx is an ambiguous translation, often disputed. At this time, no direct action by Hive entities of more expansive power has ever been observed. Those who trade in Hive lore bicker over the exact positioning of Crota—is his world the apex of Hive power, or is it the youngest and most accessible of a string of netherworlds, each host to a more terrible Hive archentity?
The nature and possible interrelationship of the Vex gate system with Hive netherworlds remains unexplored.
13. The Undying Mind
“We are starting to believe that time is home to the Vex, and somewhere in those unmappable voids dwell their undying minds.” – Maya Sundaresh, Fragmented Entry 10938, Ishtar Collective Archive
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Commander Zavala: And you believe it’s different than the others.
Ikora: I know it is.
Cayde-6: Let me guess… Chasing more Vex “minds”?
Ikora: The readings from nearby surges hold no time function. It could quite possibly be resealing the Black Garden back into whatever void it once hid.
Cayde-6: Any more Hidden intel?
Zavala: Negative. Just some old Osiris riddles.
Cayde-6: They are starting to feel like the same thing.
Ikora: We cannot just ignore it. We have to keep the Garden here, among the Light. We are just beginning to match its pathways to this fractured data from the Archive.
Cayde-6: Interesting, undying, huh? What do you suppose they meant by that.
Zavala: I’ll alert the Speaker. Let’s find out.
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