Elsie Bray led the way through the manufactory complex. "I've been down here before," the Exo Stranger told the rest of the team. "I know some of the places that Versenne might be located."
"No need." Jinju, Ana Bray's Ghost, piped in. "Looks like Vizier left some nav markers for us. Plus, Wahei had said something about Vergift going down into the Vex caverns. I'll bet she had Vizier mark the route for us."
Shin Malphur kept his hand hovering over the butt of the Last Word on his hip. "From what you said, Vergift worked in this place in her first life. I'll bet she's got traps all over. So, eyes up, everyone."
Aunor Mahal kept her pulse rifle ready. "When we find her, I want her taken alive, Malphur." He shot her a look over his shoulder, but the Praxic Warlock met his gaze firmly. "I don't care about your own personal code, gunslinger. The Praxic Order still seeks to redeem those who stray from the Light."
The Man with the Golden Gun scoffed. "Didn't work out too well when you captured Teufel, did it?"
Aunor whirled on him, poking him in the chest. "We still have to give them the chance. How many Warlords changed their ways after taking the Iron Decree?"
"For every Shaxx, there were at least two Citans," Malphur retorted. "And redemption depends on the person thinking they did something wrong. Guarantee you Vergift doesn't think she's in the wrong."
Ana looked back at them. "Can we save the debate for later? We should be keeping an eye out for traps."
"Agreed," Elsie piped in. "I'm picking up some kind of strange signal in here." She looked at Aunor. "Same one we picked up earlier, before the Golem turned up. It's probably how Vergift is monitoring everything in here."
"Let's just hope that Ohr's sensible enough not to engage her before we get there," Malphur grunted.
Rega-7 barked out a laugh. "Wahei can be rash sometimes, but she's not that foolish."
~*~*~*~
"Trying to hide, are we, kleine heks?" Vergift's voice taunted her. The Vex Cyclopses both fired their cannons, shaking the column behind which Wahei had taken cover. "That rather depends on me not seeing where you went. No--" The Dredgen raised a breech-load grenade launcher and fired it as she spotted the Awoken Guardian appearing in a Blink, forcing Wahei to scramble back behind cover. "--don't try that. I know the limitations of your Voidwalker talents. You can't slip out of there so easily."
Wahei considered her options, slotting a fresh shell into her own grenade launcher. You are a Warlock. She couldn't dodge or sprint as fast as a Hunter. You are a Voidwalker. But Vergift knew the range of her Blink teleportation and had already proven she could deny her freedom of movement. You are not bound by the laws of space and time. But there were other ways of moving.
She stashed her launcher and pulled out the rosary chain from her pouch. The hand-carved beads clicked softly as she looped the leather cord around her fingers and quickly pulled and tugged at the strand, eyes going unfocused. Techeuns need queensfoil to do this. She knew the tech-witches had methods and knowledge she'd need decades to fully understand, but the Reefborn Awoken were only mildly paracausal. I am a Lightbearer. My powers are greater by an order of magnitude. She looked and she Saw.
Wrapping the rosary around her hand, Wahei stepped forward, and through, and backward, and across, moving through the Ascendant Plane.
Vergift whirled around as she heard a shrieking rending of air and causality. Wahei Ohr had reappeared in something like a flash of darkness and starlight, plunging her sword through the radiolaria container at the back and base of the Cyclops. Vex milk splashed as the armature squealed before exploding. Vergift flung a web of lightning toward her, but Wahei had already Blinked to one side, firing her grenade launcher toward the glowing eye of the other Cyclops. It gave a squeal of its own, firing its cannon blindly until it detonated.
The Dredgen made a tsking sound. "Clever little witch," she stated, with grudging respect. Seeing the Voidwalker beginning to gather Void Light between her palms, the Exo snapped her hand out, the Splicer Gauntlet glowing. "None of that now."
Wahei felt energy being twisted, spun around the chamber, as the Dark Warlock attempted to restrict access to the Light. "You think that'll stop me?" Frost formed around her fingers as a crystalline shard of Stasis formed between them. With a flick and snap of her fingers, she shot it toward the Gauntlet, encasing it in cosmic ice.
"Jou bliksem," Vergift swore, tossing a crackling orb of Arc Light toward her as she floated up to a higher platform, where she took out a multi-tool and dug it into the ice to try to free her hand. She barely had a chance to begin before scout rifle fire skimmed the edge of her helmet. Cursing again, she had to flinch away from it and cast down a healing rift as she hunkered down. "How did you slip past the sentries?"
"Voidwalker," Wahei replied. "You clearly don't really understand what that means, for all your claims of knowing my limits." The Awoken had floated up to a platform of her own, above the now-electrified floor. "Because to be a true Voidwalker, you have to learn there are no limits."
With a purple flash, she vanished from her platform and arrived on Vergift's, where the Dredgen had to parry aside her thrusting palm, even as she felt the Void reaching hungrily for her energy. Wahei just tried again, but this time Vergift used her ice-coated limb to do it, the Void devouring the frozen energy in the ice. The Exo started to lash out with her own electrified hand, but the Awoken caught her wrist, pivoting inward and bringing her elbow around sharply into the Dredgen's helmet. She felt metal buckle and Vergift toppled back off the platform to the cavern floor below.
But the Dark Warlock was chuckling as she got to her feet, the front of her helmet cracked. "In science as in arcana, one must learn there are no limits," the Weaponer of Sorrow agreed. "For all of Clovis Senior's faults, he taught me that much." She twitched the Splicer Gauntlet again, and the Vex architecture around her hummed with a melodic chime. Metal shifted and radiolaria bubbled, energy coalescing in the air.
Wahei was taken aback as a Vex appeared, an Axis Mind by the size of Minotaur frame. She started to raise her grenade launcher, but had to jump away as Vergift's free hand flung another Arc grenade toward her. The Axis Mind turned ponderously to follow her, tracking her with its Torch Hammer. Before it fired, however, Vergift raised the Splicer Gauntlet, an action echoed by the Minotaur with its free hand. Vex data artifacts glittered in its grasp and Wahei flinched back as an unbreachable energy barrier rose in front of her. But then she felt her back slam into another barrier, before two more arose on either side of her.
"How are you doing this?" Wahei demanded as she looked around at the cage she was trapped within. She stowed her weapons and pulled the rosary off her wrist as she started to twist and pull the cord between her fingers--
Only to scream as she lost her concentration when Vergift electrified the platform beneath her feet. "How am I doing this, you ask?" The Dark Warlock's smirk was audible. "If those benighted Fallen can work out how to manipulate the Vex Network with one of these," she brandished the Gauntlet, "then for someone like me, I can do so much more." She gestured at the Minotaur, which continued to glare at the caged Awoken. "Such as command the power of Fylakas, the Gaoler Mind."
~*~*~*~
The rest of the party, meanwhile, had reached the manufactory floor, in the main workshop, where automata and armatures were busily constructing combat frames, which marched off the line and collected some of the brutalist weapons so commonplace in Europan stores. These were joined by lurching Exo frames whose eyes glowed with a cold orange-red electric light, brandishing High Albedos and Arctic Hazes.
Aunor overturned a worktable and took cover behind it. "I think we found out what that paracausal signal was," she called to Elsie, who bunkered down with her as she checked her hand cannon. "But how are the Exos even moving?"
The Exo Stranger glanced at them, then muttered, "I don't know, but I don't think there's any exomind piloting those things. There's no connection from here to Eternity where the Memory Banks are. How is she controlling them?"
"Probably not important right now," Rega-7 commented as she sighted through her sniper rifle, taking down zombexos and attack frames with a steady rhythm of shots. "Let's focus on trying to get these zombexos out of our way."
Shin Malphur blinked. "'Zombexos?'"
"Yeah. Zombie Exos. Zombexos." Rega glanced up from her scope and over to Malphur's flat stare. "What? You got something better to call them?"
"Suddenly I remember why I prefer working alone," the Man with the Golden Gun sighed as he fanned the hammer of the Last Word, gunning down more of the zombexos.
"Good news is," Ana Bray noted, "there's only so many of these," she sighed, "'zombexos,' but the manufactory's still churning out these combat frames." She tossed a swarm grenade into the advancing horde, a series of small explosions shattering several frames and knocking others prone. Aunor followed this up with a solar grenade of her own, the swelling flare of burning light vaporizing more of them.
Elsie glanced around. "I might be able to do something about that," she mused. "Cover me while I get to the control center!"
Rega-7 nodded. "Wait for my go, Stranger." She set down her sniper rifle and raised her hands, drawing forth a spectral bow with her Light, launching a volley of Shadowbolts into the horde, tethering them in place. "Now. Go!"
Elsie vaulted over her cover, disappearing in a flash, then reappearing in the throng, running up the chest of a particularly tall zombexo before kicking off its head. The exoframe tried to reach for her, but its arms moved sluggishly in the grip of the Void. She landed on a swinging armature, then vanished again before reappearing on an overhead catwalk. She dove through the shattered window as an untethered zombexo lifted a heavy machine gun and began firing toward her, before Malphur brought it down with a flurry of shots from the big iron on his hip.
"Might need a Ghost's help up here," Elsie reported. "I set myself up with override access for a lot of Braytech's systems on Europa after Clovis woke up, but Vergift's got her hooks into this system."
Ana glanced to Jinju, who bobbed a nod before flitting across the manufactory and up to the control center. "I'm here, Elsie. We can do this." The Ghost opened her shell, beginning to interface with the systems, then blinked her eye. "Er... slight problem. We're completely locked out up here. It'd take me at least an hour to untangle the web of code that Vergift locked this down with."
"Wahei doesn't have an hour." Rega reclaimed her sniper and paused. "Brays, any objection to the Titan method?"
"What? Smash it all and try to fix it later?" Ana looked up from her cover to the control room, locking eyes with her sister. After a moment, they both nodded, and Ana answered, "If it saves time and doesn't bring this place down on our heads, then let's do it."
Rega nodded. "Gunslingers, form up. Elsie, a little Stasis action to give us the moment we need?" The Exo Stranger nodded and flung down a duskfield grenade, dragging the remaining zombexos and attack frames into a frozen demisphere. "Right, Chaukeedar, tag as many crit-spots as you can on the equipment in here that's building the frames. Mahal, a little boost to the Light would be in order."
The Praxic Warlock nodded, drawing her Dawnblade and plunging it into the floor, spreading a Well of Radiance down for the others. As one, they called forth their Golden Guns and fired at the armatures and other assembly machines throughout the manufactory, the equipment melting to slag from the heat of their shots. By the time they finished, the factory floor was awash in red emergency lights as the facility entered into a shutdown.
The endless tide of attack frames halted, it was simple work for the five of them to finish dispatching the remaining zombexos and frames. They regrouped and reloaded, then plunged onward through the complex to the nav-point that Vizier had left for them, beelining for the entrance into the Vex caverns below.
~*~*~*~
Wahei collapsed on the floor of her cage when Vergift finally relented and ceased electrifying it. "Why were you bothering to track us?" the Dark Warlock asked her. "None of us threatened you or your fireteam. Until Kashaf ran into you aboard the Glykon, our paths never even crossed." She considered this a moment, then raised a finger. "Ah, I suppose that is incorrect, both you and he had Toland's damned book in your possessions at one point."
The Awoken raised her head, grimacing as her Light struggled to stabilize her burned and weakened body. "How-- how did you know I had--"
Vergift waved off the question. "Why else would you be pursuing us so doggedly?" She paused, removing her damaged helmet, looking up at her with her cold white Exo eyes. "Ah. I realize now. It's the tablet from the Crown. Why do you want it?"
"Seeking," Wahei croaked, "insight. Always."
The Dark Warlock cocked her head slightly. "You still think it's possible to stop what's coming," she realized. A wry chuckle followed. "Ever hopeful, you are. Dat is schattig."
Vergift started as Wahei abruptly vanished from within the cage, whirling as she heard the rending of space and causality again, seeing the Seeker of Insight land in a roll from a flash of darkness and starlight, flinging a scatter grenade at her. The Exo had to dive out of the way, as the titanic figure of the Vex Mind Fylakas turned its giant Torch Hammer toward Wahei. The Awoken fired her grenade launcher at its optic, causing it to stagger in surprise.
"Verdammt!" The Dredgen rose, Arc Light crackling up her arms and crackling from the corners of her eyes as she faced the other Warlock. "I allowed myself to get distracted, and so I underestimated you for a second time. That won't happen again!" She began to hover above the floor, extending a hand and casting a net of lightning toward the other Warlock, but Wahei Blinked out of sight.
Vergift grunted as Wahei's palm slammed into her back, feeling the hungry pull of the Void negating the Arc's power levitating her. With a snarl, the Dark Warlock drew her sword, whirling to slash toward her, but the Voidwalker had already Blinked away again, her own sword drawn as she clashed with the Exo. "Stand down, Versenne, it doesn't have to--"
"Magda Versenne died centuries ago," came the snarled reply. "She died nine times over." The Dredgen's eyes flashed with Arc, and the bolt of lightning that shot down from the ceiling drove Wahei back, leaving her open to a slash from Vergift's wicked blade. Wahei let out a shout as she collapsed, feeling her Light fade. "Having your Light ripped away hurts, ja-nie?"
The Dark Warlock stepped back and raised the Gauntlet again, and the Gaoler Mind echoed the motion, beginning to form another cage around the fallen Voidwalker, slowly tightening it closer, forcing the Awoken to pull her limbs in close to avoid them being burned by the encroaching walls.
Vergift whirled as a thick beam of red energy fired through the cavern, impacting one of the floating platforms, where the beam fractured into a scattered spread of smaller, but still potent beams, which tore through the gleaming brass carapace of Fylakas. The giant Minotaur let out a distorted bellow, until a bolt of Solar fire punched through its radiolaria heart, after which the entire body began to fall apart. The cage of energy constraining Wahei flickered and died, and the Warlock slowly sat up, using her sword to help push herself up to a knee.
The Exo weaponsmith turned and looked around the cavern at the force arrayed against her. Ana Bray stood on another platform, a Sleeper Simulant trained on her. From an enfilading position, Rega-7 was crouched and had her dialed in through the scope of her Dreaded Venture. Elsie Bray alit on the brass floor, a shotgun trained on her. Flanking the Dredgen was the renegade Hunter Shin Malphur, the Last Word leveled on her head. Aunor Mahal landed in front of her, between the Exo and Wahei, pulse rifle raised.
"Magda-9, Dredgen Vergift," the Cormorant Blade intoned, her voice ringing in the cavern, "you will stand down. By the authority of the Vanguard and the Praxic Order, you are under arrest for the murder of Lightless civilians, the final deaths of Guardians, the construction of and traffic in proscribed weaponry, and numerous other charges. Stand down, or we will use deadly force to detain you."
"We can bring you in warm," Malphur added, "or we can bring you in cold."
The Weaponer of Sorrow regarded them all again, and then she stood straight. There was a strange smile on her face as she extended her arm to the side, letting her sword drop. She opened her robes, drawing out her Thorn and her grenade launcher, dropping both of them as well. She removed the Splicer Gauntlet and let this drop before raising her hands in the air, backing away from the weapons and equipment. "I surrender," she stated simply.
Aunor glanced to Malphur, who nodded once in assurance that he had a solid shot on her. The Praxic Warlock stowed her weapon and took out a set of manacles, taking both of Vergfit's wrists and binding them behind her back. Ana Bray came down from her perch to collect the Dredgen's weaponry, while Rega-7 dropped down to check on her teammate. "You all right, Wahei?"
The Seeker of Insight touched the slash across her chest. "Haven't felt pain like that since Paris," she admitted. "Lightloss is not something I wish on any Lightbearer, especially not at the hands of Hive magic or Weapons of Sorrow." She flexed her fingers a few times, a flicker of Void dancing along her fingers. "But... at least my Light's coming back."
Rega nodded, glancing down at the scar on her chest where Dredgen Bog's Thorn bullet had punched through. While her Light had healed her injury and patched her armor, the spot was notably discolored. Chaukeedar had assured her that he could fix that in time, but it was still a sobering realization that the wretched man had nearly returned her to the Light. She looked over to Aunor. "You guys go ahead and take her topside. We'll catch up once Wahei's fit to move."
The Praxic Warlock nodded and frog-marched the Dredgen up a ramp toward the entrance to the cavern. Ana and Malphur followed her, the latter keeping his hand cannon trained on the Dark Warlock as they went. Elsie Bray holstered her gun and came down to look over the Vex conflux in the middle of the cavern, as well as the structure that Vergift had constructed around it. Rega noticed, then asked her, "What do you think it is, Bray?"
Elsie shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not sure," she lied. "Nothing good, whatever it is, knowing her." In her head, she replayed experiences from past loops. She had seen the Weissager Scryer numerous times, enough to give her confidence that it was a recurring constant in some timelines. But this was too early, and it was in the wrong place. She tried to remember where it had been constructed before. Was it Venus? Nessus? Enceladus? After so many loops, even with her Exo memory the details could get fuzzy, especially with her focus on trying to gather the disparate forces of the Light to fight the army of the Darkness.
"She seemed to indicate it was some kind of forecasting device," Wahei heaved herself to her feet, swaying slightly, bolstered by Rega. She sheathed her own sword and looked up at the structure. "Something like what the War Cult uses. She's made some augmentations to it, though," she indicated certain parts of it. "Reef Amethyst, a Pyramid Splinter, and--" She stopped, examining the white crystal shard embedded in the brass. "--I think that's a Shard of the Traveler, like the one Uldren used to breach the Watchtower."
Rega-7 considered this, looking from her teammate to the device. They were silent for a moment, until the Hunter said, "No, Wahei."
"What?"
"You're thinking about trying to use this thing," she stated flatly. "You forget, I've been your friend and partner for years, ever since I finally dragged you out of your books and into the field. I know you. You want to use this thing, to 'seek insight' like you do."
There was another pause. "You don't know that." Even to Wahei's ears, it wasn't a convincing lie.
Rega's palm caught her upside the head. "I'll send Morgan down here to smash this thing to slag," she told Elsie. She paused as Wahei stepped up to the structure, reaching up to wrench the three components from the framework.
"These won't get slagged," Wahei told them. "Her Grace will pay a bounty to get the Amethyst returned, and Ikora will know what to do with the Splinter and Shard." She turned the Shard of the Traveler in her fingers. "Though if she'll let me keep this, it might come in handy for my studies--"
She was cut off when Rega smacked her upside the head again. "Not the time, Wahei. We need to get Vergift back to the Tower for her arrest. You can continue your search for insight later."
"Of course," Wahei assured her, following the two of them out of the cavern. Her thumb traced thoughtfully along the beads of her rosary, the eyes of the Traitor's Die glimmering with pale light. "I would never have assumed otherwise."
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