Preface: I knew from the moment I played the "Presage" exotic quest mission from Destiny 2's Season of the Chosen, I was going to have Wahei Ohr investigate the hulk of the Glykon. A spooky place redolent with Darkness? Absolutely.
"You shouldn't stick around. Only a matter of time before one of the Praxics turns up."
"Let them come. They won't find me."
"Just get in, get the Crown, and get out."
"That's the plan."
~*~*~*~*~*~
This place stank of death. Death and something worse. It hung in the air, even where there was no air in which to hang.
The Warlock Aunor Mahal frowned beneath her helmet. The ship was a tomb. Those who had served on it had died, and they had been ugly deaths. She wasn't surprised, based on the reports she had received from Osiris. The experiments conducted here had been profane, all to satisfy the demands of a deranged egomaniac, dabbling in sorceries to focus upon the anomaly where Mars once sat. Dark things had been done here, in service of Dark-minded people, and a Guardian had been lost because the Darkness had subverted that Guardian's Ghost.
She wanted that Ghost, so they could find out what had convinced them to abandon their Guardian. There was also a Dark artifact here, if the reports were accurate, one that had been developed by the Hive to take control of whomever wore it. If nothing else, this needed to be secured before someone else got their hands on it.
"Main landing stage looks clear," she reported over the comm. "How are things looking from outside?"
"There's still too much interference to transmat to the bridge," Ferris Char replied. "We shouldn't linger. We don't belong here."
"Try to keep a bead on my signal," Aunor said, as she checked her hand cannon and shotgun. "I might need to get pulled out."
"I'll do my best. Rhodes, how do things look on your end?"
The Exo Praxic Warlock also came over the comms. "Your proxy readings are coming through clear, Char."
"Sounds good, then," Aunor squared her shoulders and went to the lever for the hatch. The Cabal oil had crusted in the vacuum, but it did finally move, and the hatch opened for her, the interior poorly illuminated by emergency lighting. The air within seemed thick with dust, but it only took a glance around to remind her that this was actually evidence of the fungal growth filling the space with spores. "Bighari, the seal on my helmet's secure, right?"
"Yes, it is."
"Good. Last thing I want is to be breathing in this stuff." Aunor drew her Quitclaim and proceeded forward. "Map us a route to the Crown."
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Bad news. The Praxics are here."
"Who'd they send?"
"Looks like Char's standing watch outside. ...it's Mahal."
"Dammit!"
"The cloak's holding. They don't know we're here. Hurry up and get the Crown."
"I will. Mahal can't get to me before I get the Crown. The Glykon will take care of her. She doesn't belong here."
~*~*~*~*~*~
Char was right, Aunor reflected later. We don't belong here.
Navigating the hulk of the Glykon had proven more difficult than either she or Bahaghari had expected. Even after the initial forays into the derelict Cabal ship, which had left many hatches open, there was still no direct route to the laboratories or the room where the deposed Emperor's communion had taken place. The infestation of Scorn on the ship hadn't been entirely cleansed, either, as she could hear them scuttling about, screeching and hunting for her.
Aunor sat up as after Bahaghari rezzed her after a panel had collapsed, sending her down what appeared to be a maintenance shaft. She peered into the gloom of some cargo hold, picking her way past the corpses of dead Scorn and trod through puddles of congealed Dark Ether. "Char, can you see me on your scans?"
"Barely," the Praxic Titan's voice was just audible beneath the static. "Too mu--(kzzzkh)--ference. Recom--(khzzktk)--thdraw."
"Might be best," she agreed. "Pull me out."
"Can't. (ktkzhh)--ansmat not wor--(hhzzzkht)--ake way bac--(tkhtzzzh)--angar."
"Copy. Will try to get to the hangar." Aunor glanced to her Ghost. "Bighari, can you map a route there?"
"I'll do my best. This is a Cabal Carrier, but the internal layout isn't matching up to the intel we have." Bahaghari glanced at her. "Someone did some renovating, either the Loyalists or... something else."
the light has failed you.
Aunor whirled around, racking her shotgun at the whispering voice. Bahaghari flinched at the movement, and spun to face that direction, shining light in that direction. "What is it?" the Ghost asked in hushed tones.
"Someone was whispering," Aunor hissed back. "Show yourself!" she shouted into the gloom. There was no answer. She rose from her crouch, lowering her shotgun, squinting past the spore particles in the air. "I know I heard someone."
it was never yours to have.
She snapped her shotgun up again, calling out again. "Who's there? I know you're there!"
Silence answered her. Then a voice called back, from a different direction in the hold, "Can we agree to first put our weapons down?" It was a different voice too, female. "We both might be Guardians, but getting shot still stings."
The Praxic had to concede that point. "Lowering my gun. Keep your hands empty when you step out."
The other gave a scoff. "I'm not that stupid. But my finger is not on the trigger. For the moment."
Aunor knew that voice. She narrowed her eyes again. "Ohr?"
The Awoken in question, Wahei Ohr, slowly stepped into view, hands raised, pointedly keeping her finger away from the trigger of her Waking Vigil. "Mahal."
The two Warlocks stared at one another for a moment. Neither made an immediate move, but finally Aunor asked the question, "Why are you here, Ohr?"
"Same reason you are, I would assume. To find the Crown." Wahei's helmeted gaze turned, as if to take in the aftermath of the carnage that surrounded them. "Albeit for a different reason than you."
Aunor's teeth ground together. "Haven't you delved deep enough in Darkness?"
Wahei sighed. "Look, we are, the both of us, temporarily trapped here on this ship, yes?" With her free hand, she gestured about them. "The anomaly, the Darkness on this ship, it's all blocking transmat. Backtracking to the hangar will get you out of here."
"You mean 'us' out of here." Aunor smirked to see the quizzical tilt of the other's head. "I'm not leaving here without you in custody."
Wahei just stared at her before replying, "Yes. You are." Then she paused, glancing downward a moment. "Wait." She reached down with her free hand into one of the pockets on her belt, drawing out a familiar scrimshawed waxen figure. The eyes of the Traitor's Die were glowing with a cold, pale light, and the artifact tumbled on her palm of its own accord. Wahei cursed as she closed her fingers around it, shoving it back in her pocket. "Eyes up!" she shouted, as she whirled around.
Aunor nearly opened fire with her shotgun, but then she saw the vapors rising off of the congealed puddles around them. Dark Ether flowed, slithering into the corpses of the Scorn around them, the bodies rising back to their feet with sibilant growls and snarls. The Praxic hurled a whirling set of fireballs into a group of the Scorn, immolating them where they stood, as Wahei fired her hand cannon with one hand, the other catching a charging Scorn by the throat. Voidglow flashed as the creature withered. The Awoken dropped it before flinging a vortex grenade into the gaping maw of a chieftain.
It was the work of only a few moments to put them all down again, at which point both Warlocks snapped their weapons toward each other. "How did you know that was going to happen?" Aunor demanded.
"I've been spending the last several months studying the Die," Wahei shook her head. "That, along with the information in Toland's last book, has shown me a number of useful things." She patted the pocket. "It's very reactive in places where the Darkness holds sway. It's already given me forewarning a few times since I came on board this ship."
Aunor looked her over, noting said book's absence. "Where is the Umbranomicon?"
"The book is even more reactive," Wahei said. "Bringing it aboard the Glykon would have been monumentally stupid." She paused, glancing away, then added, "Last thing I want is whatever still lurks on this ship to have it as a conduit."
"Osiris' team already killed the Locus," Aunor reminded her.
"And those Scorn we just killed were already dead when we both walked in here," Wahei retorted. "And that didn't stop them from getting back up again." She looked at the Praxic. "And anyway, the Locus wasn't alive when it was put down. It was just being worn by something else like a cheap suit."
"How do you know this?"
"Because it's still whispering." Wahei nodded to her. "You heard it before, didn't you?"
Aunor paused. "Is that what that was?"
"Yes. I've been hearing it too." There was a bite of venom in her voice when she added, "Taunting, usually." And then, the venom drained away, with a faint tremolo of trauma. "Including with voices that already give me nightmares."
so confident you're in the right. what will you do when you're wrong?
Wahei's gaze snapped back to her when she flinched. "Whose voices is it using against you?"
Aunor glared at her, but after a moment, she answered, "A Dredgen we had to put down once. One of Bog's cadre."
The Awoken paused, as if mentally going through a list. "Damon Geist?" She shrugged when Aunor started. "You're not the only one who knows things. You and the Order might have hunted down a number of his cadre, but only one or two have actually been RTL."
Aunor nodded slowly. "Before him, it was Stragka. The Legion Valus that served as warden for a number of captives in the City during the Red War." She took a deep breath. "During the Vanguard's counter-offensive, I was part of a team that went to try to free the captives."
Wahei put her hand cannon away as she turned to regard the cargo hold. "Yes. Mine have been whispers from Lightloss, too. Tasarakh, usually. Sometimes it tries to get to me by using Sergei's voice." She paused, then shivered. "And sometimes it's Oryx."
Aunor Mahal prided herself on not letting fear get to her. But the mention of the Taken King made her blood go cold. "What does it say?"
"It's not important," Wahei's voice was curt. "The Taken King is dead. And he's not coming back. Not while I'm alive." She looked back to the Praxic. "This way. This corridor should get us closer to either the hangar, or to the bridge."
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Bad news. Mahal's not alone."
"Did Char join her?"
"No. Someone else is on the Glykon with her. Can't tell who."
"...I know who it is."
"What are you going to do?"
"Give them a little greeting."
"Bad idea."
"I've got what we came for, anyway. This is just for a lark."
~*~*~*~*~*~
The strange fungal growth was everywhere. In some places, the fronds had sprouted, drifting gently in the air. Both Warlocks gave it a wide berth as they passed. More than once, Aunor thought she saw the vaporous flow of Dark Ether flicker past along interconnecting corridors or tunnels, but there didn't seem to be any other Scorn manifesting yet.
But this wasn't to say that there weren't other things stalking them.
i'm not the only one wearing shackles here.
Aunor tried to ignore the voice of Damon Geist as it whispered to her. The Hunter also known as Dredgen Teufel had refused to go quietly-- like most Dredgens did-- and even after they'd rezzed him to interrogate them, he had never once shown remorse for the things he'd done. He'd refused to be redeemed.
to be redeemed, you have to admit fault. i'm at peace with what i've done. are you?
She tried to put Geist out of her mind as she and Wahei continued making their way through the Glykon. The Praxic thought about what Wahei had said earlier about her reason for being here. "I'm here to secure the Crown and make sure it's buried somewhere deep, where no one will meddle with it. But you're here to study it, aren't you?" Wahei said nothing, and Aunor shook her head. "I'd have thought that Calus had let you study it to your heart's content. I'm surprised he didn't invite you aboard the ship for this whole communion."
"He did," the Awoken replied. "I didn't accept." She looked over her shoulder. "My interest in it was down to studying more Hive artifacts and how the Witch had programmed it. I suspect that the Crown was only one thing that the Witch has crafted to try to enslave people. I needed to know how it worked so I knew what to look out for in the future."
They made their way through what had been a barrack room, now encrusted with fungus and filled with fronds. Aunor cast sunfire among them to burn a path through. Wahei continued, "But my studies of the Crown gave me more insight into how Dark artifacts function, and it was included in my report. I know you read the one I gave the Vanguard about it. Well, I gave a copy to Calus, also." She raised her hands as Aunor glared at her. "He had allowed me access to it, played host even, while I stayed on the Leviathan to study it. I couldn't not give him a report. Not without possibly turning him hostile to other Guardians."
Aunor snarled. "And you don't see how dangerous it was, leaving that knowledge in the hands of a madman like him?"
"Of course I see it!" Wahei snapped back. "Why do you think I'm here?! I feel responsible for what happened here!" She looked at the bulks of the Cabal corpses, frozen in agony in cocoons of fetid mycological growth. "I don't care what might have happened to Calus. But these Loyalists? Katabasis? They didn't deserve to go out like this."
Aunor nodded slowly. "I'm surprised. You actually do care."
Wahei's hand cannon was abruptly in her face, hammer cocked. Without turning, the Awoken spoke, her voice cold. "If you ever suggest that I'm a heartless monster again, Mahal, you won't have time to blink before I kill you and drop your Ghost down the Martian anomaly."
The Praxic kept her hands raised, watching her carefully, but evidently Wahei considered her point made and put her hand cannon away as she led the way out of the barracks. She wanted to take her at her word, but too many of the tainted Guardians she had captured had expressed the same conviction, the absolute belief that what they were doing was justified or necessary.
the only thing that makes me different from you is you call yourself 'praxic' while i call myself 'dredgen.'
Geist had been wrong, of course, she reminded herself. The Praxic Order did not make a habit of torturing people, of killing for sport or for a lark, of spreading misery and despair, like Dredgen Bog and his cadre had. Shadows of Yor of the worst stripe, Bog's faction had thus far evaded the Man with the Golden Gun and most of them had escaped the Praxic dragnet that had looked for them. The Praxics were holding the line against the corruption of the Dark, to keep the Light shining bright. No matter what airs Bog, Teufel, or the rest of them put on, they were not the same as the Praxics.
A capable person with the strength of conviction could move mountains. A capable Lightbearer with the strength of conviction could reshape those mountains.
"Keep up," Wahei called ahead of her. "We really don't want to get separated in here."
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Sitrep?"
"Cloak's holding. Char still doesn't know we're here."
"And Mahal?"
"She and the other one are almost to the bridge."
"Good."
~*~*~*~*~*~
if you don't look into the dark, you'll never see the monsters coming.
Aunor ignored the whispering as they passed into the boiler room. Ash and more congealed Dark Ether was smeared all over the place. As they stepped on the deck plating, she froze when she heard the plodding step in the lower level of the room. Chains rattled and something heavy dragged along the deck as something growled. Wahei held up a hand, then raised a finger to her helmet in a shushing gesture.
come out, lightbearer! i can smell your mind!
She tensed to hear a new voice from the whispers. Like Stragka's earlier, it dated back to the Red War. One of the Valus' Psions, Ptotec, had tracked her down to capture her, wanting to study what made Lightbearers different physiologically from baseline humans. It had been a tense and terrifying week, trying to stay ahead of Ptotec's hunt.
Aunor looked at the floor, imagining the hulk of the creature beneath them as it prowled, the growl of its breath audible. Osiris' team had managed to put it down, but it sounded like it had been reanimated, like the other Scorn had been. Aunor slowly drew her hand cannon, but Wahei's head snapped back to her, and she froze.
The other Warlock's hand went into another pocket on her belt, drawing out a long length of leather cord, knotted at irregular intervals and festooned with hand-carved beads of various materials. For a moment, Aunor thought it was some kind of rosary, but there only a few beads here and there on it. Wahei took out the Traitor's Die and hooked it onto the cord, which she began to wind around the fingers of either hand, twisting and shaping the thing like a strange cat's cradle. She could hear Wahei muttering under her breath.
The eyes of the Die had that same cold, pale glow within that Aunor had seen earlier. Several of the beads began to glow in a similar fashion, while others shimmered with the purple glow of the Void. Wahei finally hissed some final syllable, and let the cat's cradle come apart. The Die swung on the end, before snapping the cord taught as its beak thrust toward the deck plating, as if magnetized. The entire cord and beads now shone with a combination of the cold glow and the Void.
The Awoken took a deep breath, clenching the charged cord in one fist, as she then summoned forth a staff made of ice, which she slammed down into the deck. Aunor felt a wave of energy pass over her, through the boiler room, and then the growling from beneath them abruptly ceased. Wahei sagged briefly, leaving the staff where it was, but wrapped the strange rosary around her fist, the Traitor's Die hanging over the back of her hand. "Let's go, and hurry," she suggested. "That'll hold it, but we shouldn't linger."
"How did you do that?" Aunor asked, staring at the Penumbral Staff. She was familiar with how Stasis worked, of course, but this was some usage that was new to her.
"With difficulty," Wahei replied, her voice strained. "Explaining would take too long, and we don't have time right now. Let's move."
They moved down to the lower level, where Aunor saw the towering, twisted hulk of a mutated Scorn Ravager. It was rimed with ice and Void Light shimmered within the crystals. Beneath the ice, she could see the Dark fungus sprouting from the boils and pustules of the Scorn flesh, and tiny fronds protruding from its jaw. As she looked, though, she saw its eyes track toward her beneath the covering. Wahei jogged toward the door, calling back, "Not far to the bridge!"
run all you want, little mouse. you will just die tired.
She pushed Ptotec's whisper out of her head as she followed Wahei, emerging into the Glykon's bridge, where the festering corpse of Katabasis still hung from the ceiling, strung up by long coils of mycological matter, as fronds and pustules grew from beneath the deceased Hunter's armor. Aunor grimaced to see it. Osiris' team hadn't been able to cut through those coils to recover the body, and she made a mental note to come back with a larger team to do so. No one gets left behind.
Then she spotted a glint high up in the room, and she shouted out, "Get down!" Without waiting, she pushed Wahei to the floor as she hurled a salvo of fire toward the shape she'd spotted, just as there was a crack of a linear fusion rifle. A bolt of baleful energies lanced past her, vaporizing a chunk off a pile of Castellum Gold behind her. Aunor hauled Wahei to her feet as she dragged them behind cover.
"Praxic Mahal," a voice called out, a harshly-accented baritone. She recognized that voice. "You don't belong here."
"Afa Kashaf," she called back, while wishing she'd brought a sniper rifle. "Same thing could be said about you."
"I am more at home here than you," the rogue Hunter retorted. "There is no Light here."
Beside her, Wahei was taking a deep breath, still clearly strained from whatever arcane rite she had performed on the mutated Ravager. She lifted her head, turning her head away from Aunor as she called out herself, "Dredgen Bog. You delve into depths you cannot fathom."
"Who's that with you, Mahal?" Kashaf laughed. "Another Light shackled by Praxic ideology?"
"My name," the Awoken stated, her voice carrying, "is Wahei Ohr."
There was a pause, and then the Dredgen's LFR fired again, punching a hole through the panel they'd hidden behind.
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Get me out of here. NOW!"
"What's happening?"
"Mahal's the least of our problems. Ohr is here."
"...bad news. I can't transmat you."
"What?!"
"Give me a minute! I gotta recalibrate!"
~*~*~*~*~*~
"I take it you two have met?" Aunor asked dryly as Wahei glanced at the hole next to her head.
"I think my reputation precedes me." Wahei sighed and considered. "I don't have my scout rifle. Didn't think I'd need it in the corridors of a derelict."
Aunor considered her own options. "You could Nova him--"
"Most of my Light is tied up in keeping that thing back there contained." Wahei shook her head. "It's not happy about that. If I let it go, it'll come for me."
The Praxic hummed thoughtfully. "How long do you think before it gets here?"
"Only a minute or so. The Glykon belongs to it, it will be able to get here faster than we did."
Aunor nodded. "Bahaghari, stay out of sight. I'll try to draw his fire and distract him." She looked to her. "If we go in separate directions, he can't track us both. His Longbore can't fire that quickly."
Wahei looked at her, jerking her head out of the way of another LFR shot that punched through their cover. "I have a different plan."
The Praxic listened as Wahei explained it, then muttered, "The timing will be tight. And there's no guarantee of success."
"Better odds than if we don't try it." She looked at Aunor, who finally nodded in agreement. The Awoken lifted up the pseudo-rosary and pulled the Traitor's Die off the cord. The strange glow that had suffused the beads winked out, and Wahei let out a breath, as if a weight had just been removed. Aunor heard a not-too-distant roaring. Then a whisper bellowed in her head with Ptotec's stolen voice.
this is my hunting ground, little mouse! tallyho!
Both Guardians dashed out from their cover, and Aunor heard Bog cursing, his Longbore firing first at her, then at Wahei. The Voidwalker suddenly Blinked out of view, reappearing up higher in the space, peppering the Dredgen's perch with fire from her hand cannon. A frozen kama came hurtling toward her, but she sheathed her forearm in ice and parried it aside. He spun around, tossing down an Icewall grenade to shield himself from another fireball from Aunor.
Kashaf leapt down from his perch, shouting, "Vergift, get me out of here!" Frost spread out from him as he summoned forth two more ice-kamas, flinging one toward Aunor, raising his arm to fling the other to Wahei, but he paused as the hatch to the bridge was smashed open by a flaming censer. The giant Ravager had to bend nearly double, crumpling the hatch's frame to fit through it. It rose to its feet, roaring, swinging the censer around and slamming it down toward the Dredgen.
Aunor stifled a curse, however, as she saw him vanish in a transmat field a split second before impact. The Scorn monstrosity appeared to realize this also, snarling, then looking at the remaining two Guardians. It began to spin the censer again, but Aunor drew forth her Dawnblade, casting waves of cleansing fire down on the fungus-encrusted giant. It bellowed in agony and rage, swinging the censer around toward her soaring form.
But that was when Wahei Blinked above its head, plunging a sword into the base of its neck. It seized up, but the blade seemed to have caught in the mycological crust. It roared again, then crumpled when she delivered a Void-empowered thrust of her palm into the pommel, driving it into its spine. She Blinked backward, then fired a Nova Bomb into its skull. It sagged over, the deck rumbling from its death throes.
The two Warlocks both sagged and caught their breath. Aunor looked at it. "Is it dead?"
"For now," Wahei shrugged. "You'd have to purge every wisp of Dark Ether on the ship, and even then, I'm not sure if that would be enough." She pulled out the Traitor's Die and rolled it on a console. She considered the runes that showed after, then said, "But the Dark energies at play are quiescent for the time being. At least until our Light leaves the Glykon."
The Praxic nodded, then leveled her hand cannon at her. "Good. Now. Put your weapons down, Ohr."
There was a pause, and with no great hurry, the Awoken collected the Die and put it back in her pouch. The pseudo-rosary was still clutched in her other fist, and she began to roll it through her fingers, her thumb rubbing over the beads as they passed through. "Are we really doing this, Mahal?"
"You stole a proscribed book and artifact from the Praxic Vault. The book alone is a worry." Aunor shook her head. "The Umbranomicon is locked up for a reason, and you know that."
Wahei nodded thoughtfully, still running the rosary through her fingers. "You're referring to its alleged curse."
"There's nothing alleged about it. Everyone who has tried to study that book has gone mad."
"Samita Sadihj, I'll grant you," the Awoken conceded. "But Afa Kashaf was already delving in Darkness before he glimpsed what was in the book." She gave Aunor a level look. "I am aware of the risks. And I'm taking precautions."
"Not good enough. You will return what you stole."
Wahei tilted her head. "Hm. No, I don't think I will." She suddenly Blinked out of view, and before Aunor could turn, she felt the palm slam into her back, ice spreading rapidly from the point of contact. The Praxic Warlock tried to bring her gun around, but her limbs locked into place as the freeze overtook them, and her Light was still depleted after casting it against the Scorn beast. Her head was left free, and Wahei stepped back into view. "Understand, Mahal, I know why you do what you do. I commend you for it. While most Guardians that have begun using Stasis still have the City's-- mankind's interests at heart, it's a dangerous line to walk. We need people like you to keep watch for corruption."
She spun the rosary in her hand, and there was a pulse of energy. Bahaghari abruptly appeared, and looked alarmed. Wahei just smiled at the Ghost. "Relax. I'm not going to hurt you. All I ask is that you give me a chance to check something before you work on breaking your Guardian out." She glanced to one side. "Vizier?" Her own Ghost appeared beside her. "Keep your eye on them." The Awoken's Ghost bobbed a nod in the air as the Warlock stepped away.
Aunor, teeth chattering, managed to croak out, "What... is she doing?"
"Checking the Crown," Vizier replied. "Dredgen Bog was here for a while before we were. Neither of us likes the idea that he somehow gleaned something from it--"
Wahei suddenly reappeared next to him. "Viz, we need to go. Bog has the plating we were looking for." She glanced at Aunor. "You should be able to free yourself soon. I urge you to leave as soon as you can. This place isn't safe to stay in." She looked toward the still-smoking hulk of the Scorn giant. "It hates us. We don't belong here."
Vizier flitted to her side, while she wound the rosary cord into another cat's cradle, the beads glowing pale and cold. Behind her, a portal opened, shining darkly and glittering with starlight. "Until next time, Mahal. Be brave, stay vigilant. And don't follow me." She swept through the portal, which closed behind her.
Moments later, the ice finally cracked, and Aunor caught herself on a console. Bahaghari went to her. "Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine," she assured her Ghost. She tapped into her comm. "Char, are you still there?"
"I am. What happened in there? The interference seems to have gone away. I thought I saw someone else in there with you."
you are alone. you will die alone.
Aunor pushed aside the whisper of Stragka. "Not anymore. They're gone. I'll explain later. But before we come back, we need to have more people." Like Wahei, she considered the carcass of the Scorn. "This place isn't safe."
"Copy that. Transmatting you out."
As she felt the field claim her, she murmured, "We don't belong here."
~*~*~*~*~*~
TYPE: Statement
DESCRIPTION: Addendum to Debrief AAR-GLK-MA-2021-02
AUTHOR: AUN-326
ASSOCIATIONS: Cabal; Calus, Emperor; Darkness; Glykon Volatus; Kashaf, Afa [AKA Bog, Dredgen]; Ohr, Wahei [POI #0247]; Scorn; Vergift, Dredgen
As a follow up to my report of my investigation to the Cabal carrier Glykon Volatus, I have some new observations concerning POI #0247.
I have long advocated continuous monitoring of her, since her return to the City following the Red War. The behavior she has exhibited since then has suggested a form of PTSD, usually manifesting as a pathological focus on violence against the Hive and especially those who are seen as "aberrant" compared to the rest of their race. (cf. Nokris, Savathûn) Her repeated defiance against conventionally-held safety procedures when studying Hive artifacts and texts still alarm me, but she does seem to have maintained a sort of level-headedness without the monomania shown by others. (i.e. Eris Morn)
Ohr's continued possession of the Umbranomicon and Traitor's Die must still be addressed, and she must suffer the consequences for her part in the theft of the same, but for the time being, I believe she can be trusted to have mankind's best interests at heart. Having said that, great care must be taken to be sure that she is not crossing that last line onto the colloquial "Sorrow's Road," or something like it.
Trust, but verify, you might say.
At the moment, her interests and the Praxic Order's coincide, as Ohr is also pursuing Dredgen Bog and his cadre, after they stole something from Calus' modifications made to the Crown of Sorrow. I doubt she will be amenable to a long-term collaboration, but it is my recommendation that we rescind the "arrest on sight" order for her.
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