Donovan Morgan, Captain of the Skyspear, stood back as he watched the feeds, quietly loading his shotgun and prepping his armor. In front of him, Soap sat in the sensorium chair, his eyes flicking about as he collated the various feeds, communicating with the ketch's sniper team. They could both hear the flurry of activity going on, until the single blast of a Golden Sniper round went off, bringing everything to silence.
Morgan leaned forward. "What's happening, Soap?"
The younger Titan raised a finger to him, requesting momentary silence, his other hand lifting to his ear. After a moment longer, a voice came through. "Control, this is Longshot Actual," Rega-7 reported. "Jackpot. Repeat: Jackpot. Tango One is down."
Soap glanced at one of the feeds, then pointed it out to Morgan, where they could see a sprawled Fallen body, its neck ending in a smoldering ruin. Morgan bumped his fist against Soap's shoulder, murmuring, "Damn fine shooting. Have them maintain overwatch. I'll take in our ground team to sweep the lair. You keep an eye on things here, Soap."
Soap relayed orders to the Longshot team as Morgan stepped away to join the ground team. Revenant-19 was frowning at the other two members of the team, and it soon became clear why. Eliksni and Cabal glowered at one another. Bokta Tren had his two reaver's swords drawn in a ready stance, the larger sword pointed forward, nearly touching the point of the cleaver held by Maal'kemat, the gladiatrix from the ketch's Cabal contingent. She bared her teeth and lowered her jaw, as if leveling her tusks for a goring attack.
Morgan stepped up with a louder tread than necessary, the thump of his boots breaking the staredown between the two. "Is there going to be a problem here?"
Tren flicked a pair of eyes toward him, then back to Malka, who let her other arm, which had been poised with her other cleaver for a roundhouse chop, fall to her side. "No problem, Captain," she grunted, a sentiment echoed by the Eliksni.
The Titan glowered at them. "What's the rule?"
Now Tren eased up, and the two took a step back from one another. "One ship, one crew," the pair chorused, lowering their weapons completely.
"If you two want to establish primacy, do it after we're finished here," Morgan ordered them. "I'll clear the fight deck for you, you can get it out of your system, and then I'll even stand you your first two drinks at the Ether Tank."
Tren grunted, sheathing his swords. "Aye, Captain." Malka followed suit. Morgan glanced to Revenant, who rolled his eyes before fastening on his Stag helmet. The team went to the transmat pad, in an adjoining chamber to the bridge. As he walked in, however, he saw a familiar purple-skinned figure waiting for them, and sighed. "Wahei, what do you think you're doing?"
The Awoken Warlock turned to the sound of his voice, her pale unseeing eyes blinking. One hand rested atop her Ghost. She was dressed in the same, usual set of utilitarian robes she'd taken to wearing since her impairment, without the usual armor plates most Warlocks used in the field. She'd bound her thin dreadlocks into a loose sort of knot on one side, while her free hand brushed against the shaven side of her scalp. "I heard that Iriks had a relic. I wanted to see it. Well," she touched her face near her blinded eyes, "you know what I mean."
"We have to clear the lair," Malka said, behind Morgan. "It's not safe, Awoken."
"I'm blind, not helpless," she snapped. "Morgan, you promised I could get first crack at the next relic you found."
Morgan sighed. He'd stopped by the H.E.L.M. after another encounter with some of the old crews to find that his longtime fireteam partner had gotten involved in the study of the reliquaries they'd taken off some of the pirate lords. Wahei had been ebullient with the findings that she, Misraaks, and Eido had found while examining the relic, and insisted on coming along his next pirate hunt. Morgan had only allowed it when she'd agreed to heed his orders as captain of the ketch.
"I didn't say you could go into the danger zone before we've secured it!" Morgan shook his head. "You might still be a Lightbearer, Wahei, but if Ikora found out I let you go down there in your current state, she'd have my hide."
Wahei shrugged. "Ikora doesn't need to know."
He raised an eyebrow. "Have you met Ikora Rey, leader of the Hidden?" Morgan sighed when she stuck her jaw out stubbornly. "Here's what you're going to do-- you're going to stay in the transmat zone, and you're not going to move. You're going to wait there, until Rev, Malka, Tren, and I can clear the lair."
Wahei nodded. "Fair enough. Just... leave everything as close to normal as you can? Might be I can sense things better that way."
Revenant-19 grunted faintly, and leaned in to Morgan. "This is a bad idea, Morgan."
"Captain Morgan." He turned and stared back into the eyes of the Stag. "And maybe it is. But it's on me if it goes wrong. I'm the captain. The glimmer stops here."
~*~*~*~*~*~
~observe~maintain~standby~
ALARM:principal vital sign emergency
case(principal vitality=0)
THEN ~Activate(contingency ALPHA)
{contingency ALPHA} = broadcast(ALERT BRAVO-1 TO 16426 CANTOR); change(STATUS TO ACTIVE)
ALERT BRAVO-1 SENT
STATUS CHANGED TO ACTIVE
~secure~defend~annihilate~
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Captain on site," Revenant-19 reported into the comm. "Overwatch confirm?"
"Confirmed," Rega-7 came back. "No sign of any external activity-- no, wait, survivors are fleeing to the ketch."
"Let them go," Morgan interrupted. "Ketch isn't leaving any time soon. We can clear that next." He glanced around. "Okay, team. Rev, you and Malka take point. Tren, you're with me, we'll cover the rearguard." Then, to the fifth person, "Wahei, you stay here."
The blinded Warlock sighed, her hand resting atop her Ghost, who led her toward a crate on which she could sit. "I hate feeling useless," she grumbled.
Morgan glanced at her, "Seriously, please don't go anywhere. They might have had Light-suppression tech on one of their hijacked cargo runs."
"You be careful, too," Wahei told him, as she settled on the crate, hearing the departing tread of their footsteps. She took out her umbral rosary, running her fingertips along the hand-carved and -wrough beads along the length of cord. She heard the soft shift of Vizier's shell facets as her Ghost hovered beside her. She sighed faintly. "This would normally be the point when I'd start doing a few rolls of the Traitor's Die and make some notations in my journal."
"Kind of hard to do that sort of thing now," Vizier commiserated.
She grumbled as she started to idly wind the cord and its beads around her fingers, pulling it into a cat's cradle. "You ever think that maybe that was part of the reason I was cursed? To keep me from continuing my studies?"
She couldn't see her Ghost's physical reaction, but she could just about picture the way he narrowed his optic at her. "I seem to recall you ruminating about the Entity as a being several orders of magnitude above us."
"What do you mean by this?" she asked, her brow furrowing.
"You compared the difference between IT and us to the difference between us and an ant," Vizier said, bluntly. "You're basically comparing what happened to you as if the Witness was picking out a single ant to blind."
She paused as she digested this. "I see where you're going with this, Viz. But we're also talking about an Entity that singled out Eramis, that singled out Calus, and manipulated them directly. We can't make any assumptions about its way of thinking."
Vizier made a sighing noise. "Every time we think we understand something, some new wrinkle gets exposed that changes everything."
"It's always been that way, even before paracausality was discovered," Wahei assured him, her fingers still idly turning the cat's cradle and shifting beads around, as if they were part of some abstract abacus. She was about to continue on that train of thought when she paused, tilting her head, as if she were hearing something.
Vizier had grown used to Wahei's behavior, and this was something that had even predated her blinding. The Ghost swiveled in place, looking around. "What? What is it?"
"A shift in the energies," she murmured. "Paracausal." She squinted her sightless eyes, craning her neck and straining her senses. "It feels strangely familiar--"
She jumped as the comms erupted in noise and shouting from Morgan's team, wincing a bit as disrupted her concentration. She took a deep breath. "Viz, can you mute their comms?! I need to refocus, I almost had it!"
"Wahei--"
"NOW, Viz!"
~*~*~*~*~*~
As the hatch opened, Malka barreled inside, cleavers poised, as Revenant swept in behind her, shotgun raised. "Clear left," the Warlock grunted.
Bokta Tren came in and went the other direction, a knife clutched in one lower hand, his shorter sword in the accompanying upper hand, and a shock pistol in the other. He grunted as well as he scanned the vicinity. "Clear right."
Morgan came in behind, auto rifle at the ready. "Sweep the room." He clapped the Cabal on the shoulder. "Blades are all well and good, but guns might be useful while we're cleaning up."
Malka scowled, but she stowed one of her cleavers and drew her gun, holding it in the ready position as she tromped through the room. "The pirates are all retreating to their ketch. We should press on toward it."
"We will," Morgan told her. "Don't be in such a rush to go into a fight, Malka. You've only got the one life. Don't confuse being brave with being foolish. There's a thin line between the two."
"Room's clear," Tren called out, sheathing his knife as he returned to the ketch captain and gladiatrix. "Hoard should be in the next bulkhead. Past that is the dock for the ketch."
Morgan nodded. "Captain to Longshot. Chamber is clear, moving on to the next one. How're things looking outside?"
"Surviving enemy crew are digging in at the ketch," Rega-7 reported. "Longshot Three and Four have eyes on. Looks like taking the ketch might be a room-by-room fight."
Malka's eyes gleamed as she heard this. "Let's go, Captain. My cleavers are hungry." She plodded to the next hatch, cycling it as a panel beside it lit up. She failed to notice the flicker of red particulates around the panel.
Revenant-19, however, did see it, and his voice rose in a shout. "SIVA! SIVA trip-mine!"
Malka turned her body to look at him, which is the only reason the spike-tipped tendril of nanotech missed her heart. The gladiatrix coughed up blood as she drew her cleaver and started hacking at the red-tinged spike protruding from her armor. Swarms of red mites began to rise up from several of the crates in the room. Energy crackled in the clouds of nanites as they roiled angrily in the air.
Morgan stumbled faintly. "Light-suppression in effect! Rev!"
The former Iron Lord nodded grimly, frost beginning to coat his arms as he summoned his Penumbral Staff. "Tren, stay close! Hold on, Malka!" The Warlock raised the staff as energy glowed around its head, then slammed its butt into the floor as the SIVA swarm began to rush toward them. Stasis pulsed outward, creating a thick fog that seemed to catch the red mites within it.
Beside Morgan, Bokta Tren was shouting into the comms. "Nanotech traps! Malka is hurt!"
The Titan drew his Burning Maul with an echoing clang, flames wreathing him as he swung the hammerhead through the frozen fog. The sudden shift in temperatures from near absolute-zero to metal-boiling heat was too much for even teh robust durability of the infamous nanotech. There was still a red haze around some of the equipment in the room. Morgan, breathing a little heavily, slammed his maul into the floor, sending waves of flames toward them, trying to purge the trap with fire.
By the hatch, Revenant used Void Light to disintegrate the spike that had impaled Malka, then stumbled as her weight collapsed against him, barely keeping her upright. Bracing her, he cast down a healing rift. "Not sure if this will work on you, Cabal, but it's worth a try," he grunted. He eased her to the floor in the rift, then turned his gaze to Morgan. "Where the hell did they get SIVA?!" he demanded.
"How the hell would I know?!" Morgan shouted back. "Tren, you have any scanners or anything in your gear? Can you find any other traps?"
The Eliksni pulled a bi-monocle over one pair of eyes, tapping at his gauntlet. "More nanotech beyond the hatch."
"Can you do anything about it?"
"I am a warrior, not a splicer," Tren snapped.
Revenant looked up from checking on Malka. "She's stable, but if someone can keep an eye on her, I might be able to burn out the SIVA beyond the hatch."
Morgan nodded. "Might be I could short out the Light-suppressors, too."
Tren glanced at them both, then sheathed his sword and stashed his pistol. "I will get her to safety." The House Blades reaver took hold of Malka's arms with two of his own and helped her up and braced her arm over his shoulders. "Come, Gladiator. I need you healthy so we may spar."
The two of them lurched back to a previous chamber as Morgan called after them, "Get her back up to the Skyspear, we'll finish the clean up ourselves!" Then he began to channel Arc Light. "Can you muster up some lightning for this as well?"
Revenant just gave him a look, as electricity began to arc between the antlers of the Stag. "Just pump it out wide and ground it in every part of the room, Titan."
Morgan focused his Arc energy into his fist, which glowed with blinding, actinic white light. "Three, two, one--"
The Fist of Havoc which slammed into the floor crumpled and vaporized part of the deck plating, and left a crater three feet deep in the asteroid beneath it. Moments later, Revenant-19 entered a Stormtrance and cast his net wide, sending lightning crackling over every surface and into every nook and cranny in the room. Any lingering clouds of SIVA particulates had been annihilated.
Both Guardians took a breath as they felt the Light return. Revenant drew his Dawnblade and stepped up to the door. Morgan wordlessly tore the hatch open and stepped aside as the Warlock sent flames scorching through the corridor beyond, incinerating more SIVA clouds. Morgan followed him down the path, consulting his Ghost. "Eyeball, how much further to the hoard? That was where the Sharpshooter went down, right?"
"Yes," the Ghost said. "Next chamber."
Their comms crackled. "This is Longshot Actual!" Rega-7's voice had risen in alarm, and some anger. "Might want to hustle up, Captain, I'm seeing movement in there! Some survivor might be going for the relic! We can't get line of sight!"
The two Guardians put on some speed as they finished burning through the SIVA traps in the corridor, and Morgan just smashed the next hatch open with a Hammer of Sol. When they ran on into the treasure hoard, they saw a pair of crippled heavy shank frames littering the chamber as well, shot down by the Skyspear's sniper teams. But standing over the headless corpse of Iriks, the Sharpshooter, was another large Fallen, one which bore several telltale signs of cybernetic modification.
Both of the Fallen's legs had been replaced with spike-like protheses. One of its upper arms had likewise been replaced with a bulky mechanical limb that ended in a three-pronged claw. The other had cables and wires running around it which terminated in a modified gauntlet with vents along either side. A pair of tanks were strapped across its back, into which the cabling on both of its upper arms connected. It didn't wear the banner of House Salvation, or the stylized Fallen-crosshair emblem of the Sharpshooter's crew, instead bearing a bifurcated black banner with a stylized Eliksni skull emblem, its upper jaw filled with a jagged design as of a multitude of teeth. Its lower face had the usual ether-mask, but everything above it was covered in a sleek black glass-like material.
As the Guardians arrived, the Fallen turned toward them, and several red eyes glowed beneath the glass faceplate. One of its lower hands clutched the Sharpshooter's relic, which it sequestered beneath the tanks on its back. "Too late, Lightborn," the Fallen growled. Its voice was heavily synthesized, even distorted.
Both Morgan and Revenant leveled their weapons at it. "Drop the relic, and you might just live," the Titan ordered.
But the Fallen just laughed, before its bulky arm suddenly shifted, the pincer claw unfolding back as the barrel of a shrapnel launcher emerged, belching molten debris toward the two. As they moved to cover, it raised its other upper arm, and the vents on its gauntlet opened, as a cloud of SIVA issued forth. But instead of swarming toward the Guardians, it instead split and went to the heavy shanks, flowing into their shattered frames. Red light flickered as Morgan watched, before both shanks shuddered, tendrils of SIVA weaving their way into their components, pulling the machines back together and then lifting into the air, their optics glowing red as their repeaters spooled up.
Morgan leveled his auto rifle at the Fallen, who fired its shrapnel launcher at him again, before disappearing in a swirl of transmat energy. Cursing, he tapped into his comm. "Captain to Skyspear Control and all points! We have another Tango-- Fallen using SIVA! Do we have eyes on?"
"Nothing at the ketch!" Luna reported. "Anyone else--"
Arion-5 interrupted, "Enemy skiff! Not bearing the Sharpshooter's banner! Moving off at speed!"
"Shoot down that skiff!" Morgan ordered.
"It's already out of our weapons range," Soap told him. "Do we pursue?"
The Titan cursed. "Tag it, keep an eye on its heading. There might be more traps, we can't split up."
"Aye, Captain," Soap returned. Then he paused. "We're picking up some additional energy signatures on Chimay, sir. What's--"
And then the entire asteroid began to shake, and everyone winced as their comms were suddenly overwhelmed by screaming. Morgan, after a moment, blinked as he recognized it. "Wahei!"
~*~*~*~*~*~
Wahei had wrapped her umbral rosary around her wrist as she concentrated, stretching out her senses. For a moment, she wished she'd remembered to bring along some queensfoil tincture, or the Resonant Visor. She might have better been able to focus with them, to re-grasp whatever energies she'd picked up before.
It had slipped from her attention with the distraction, and she was dimly aware of shouting and energy discharges from elsewhere in the lair, but she was able to block these out. This wasn't quite like that, she could tell the difference between Morgan's team's Light and whatever she'd been sensing. This was... similar? Familiar, certainly.
She was about to feel it again, could just about grasp it when Vizier's voice cut into her concentration. "Wahei--"
"God dammit, Viz!" she swore. "I nearly had it!"
"Wahei--"
"This isn't as easy as I make it look, you know--"
"Wahei!"
The sudden alarm in her Ghost's voice finally made her pause, and then she was able to really sense it. It was Light, but it felt different. And there was another presence in the vicinity. She turned her head to face that direction, and then her nostrils flared as she picked up a distinct scent. Like grave dirt and petrichor, sterile rot and new growth. The scent of Hive.
Of Lucent Hive.
A florid rage arose in her as she felt this, lips peeling back from her teeth as she snarled, reaching for the Void. "Viz, get ready to get me something to defend myself with--"
"I know you, Warlock."
The voice was high, almost melodious, with an underlying rasp to it. Feminine. There was a stirring of air, as of something moving through it, and there was a gentle jingling, like chimes, as if little bells or charms were twinkling from robes. The voice gave a little hum, both in thought as well as if finding a note. It thrummed in the air, resonating faintly around them.
Wahei froze as she heard the voice, and then stumbled back in alarm. "No. No no no no..."
"Yes. I know you," the Hive voice repeated. The Warlock could hear the smile in its voice. "The First Ghost taught me much about you. We met once before."
Wahei scrambled back, heart racing, beginning to hyperventilate. "No, no, no, you're dead. You're dead!"
"I live, I die," the witch intoned. "And I live again. You killed me, Warlock." The light amusement in the Hive's voice evaporated now. A cold, cold hatred arose in its place. "You killed me. Took your time in the killing. Inhabiting our ways while the Light had left you. It was not a clean death you gave me, Wahei Ohr. I think the time has come that I return the favor--"
Wahei slammed her fists against her temples, her voice rising to a shrill scream, Void Light rippling off of her, into the rock of the asteroid. Her voice began to resonate as she screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and the energy she was unleashing resonated with her will, as 1633 Chimay began to shake around them, threatening to come apart.
The Hive witch gave a shriek of her own, half agonized, half angry. "The Song? My Song! You stole my Song?!" With her own scream, the witch began to teleport away. "There will be a reckoning for that as well, Kingslayer! If I must bring the entire Choir Invisible to bear, I will sunder your bones!"
Wahei could feel the twist in the energies as the Hive vanished, but her screaming continued. Vizier was shouting at her, trying to get through to her, but panic had seized her. Memories of the claustrophobic tunnels of the Catacombs. The weeks and weeks of sleepless days and nights running from the Hive. The sounds of tides of thrall scrabbling after her, the heavy tread of knights in pursuit. And above it all, that voice, the witch that led the brood, weaving its way into her head--
"WAHEI!" Vizier screamed directly into her ear, and she flinched, but she spun toward his voice, a burst of Stasis erupting from her palm. A stalagmite of cobalt ice erupted from the floor and trapped her Ghost within it, as she scrambled backward until she struck the wall, her screaming pausing as she gasped, before she started to build back up again, curling her legs up to her chest as she tried desperately to calm herself, but she was spiraling. Could feel her power winding out into the asteroid, which still shook and quaked around her. She barely heard herself babbling incoherent denials, barely felt her nails digging into her scalp as she tried to stop the spiral, the memories from spooling out into her thoughts, tried to stuff them back into the hole where she tried to forget them, to pretend they hadn't happened--
She was still panicking when Revenant-19's Penumbral Staff cracked her in the head, freezing her in Stasis.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Morgan jerked his head behind cover as one of the heavy shanks opened up in his direction, a spray of fire crashing off a pile of treasure. "Rev!" he called out. "Drop back, go find Wahei and stop her bringing this place down on our heads!"
The Warlock shot him a look as he fired his shotgun toward one of the shanks. "Leave you to deal with these two things?"
"Captain's orders!" He flung a pulse grenade toward the shanks, but they glided out of the way and continued to fire. "Gonna take more than a couple of bigguns to R.T.L. me!"
Revenant paused, then flung a singularity grenade toward the shanks before beginning to charge back the way they'd come. "Tren! Get back up here and help the captain!" With that, he Blinked away.
Morgan blind-fired around his cover, then lunged out from behind it, running toward a fresh set of cover, putting on a burst of Arc-amplified speed to dash in and slide to a halt, swinging his rocket launcher up to his shoulder as he sent a projectile downrange. It detonated off one of the shanks, but the SIVA swirled around it, as it wobbled briefly before redoubling its efforts to kill him. Morgan dropped behind cover as he reloaded, trying to work out a strategy.
His comm crackled. "Captain, distract the one nearest to you. I will flank it."
"Copy. Make your move in three, two, one--" He let his auto rifle spray toward the nearest heavy shank, one or two of its optics getting blown out by his bullets. He saw a flash of movement behind it as Bokta Tren came up a pile of treasure and dropped onto the shank, plunging two of his knives into its patched-up armor plating. With a twist, he tore great gouges in the metal, holding it open with his lower hands while his upper hands drove his larger sword directly into its cranial-core. SIVA particulates swirled, but the House Blades reaver just snarled and jammed his small sowrd into it as well. The shank finally crashed to the floor of the quaking asteroid and went inert.
Tren grunted as a shot from the other shank caught the pauldron of his armor, beginning to turtle to avoid more fire, but Morgan landed in front of him, throwing up his barricade. "You all right, Tren?"
"Bruised, no blood," the Eliksni assured him. Despite saying this, there were rash-like marks on his arms where the nanites had swirled around his body, but the reaver seemed unconcerned by these.
The other heavy shank continued to fire on them, beginning to close the distance, but then Maal'kemat came charging in with a roar, her cleaver hacking off one of its propulsion jets, then one of its turrets. As it warbled in fury, she dropped her blade, grabbing the machine by its chassis, then heaving it up and over her head, driving it upside down into the floor. It spun wildly before the gladiatrix took her other cleaver and plunged it into its less-armored underbelly. Smoke belched out, tinged with red particulates, but the shank ceased moving.
Morgan stowed his weapons as he approached her. "Malka, you good? You took a pretty serious wound--"
"I am Cabal," the gladiatrix declared, wiping some blood from her lip. There were a few livid rashes where the dying SIVA particles had brushed against her skin, as well. "It will take more than a poke like that to stop me."
He laughed, clapping her on the shoulder. "Spoken like a Titan!" He tapped his comm. "Rev, what's going on with--"
Revenant's voice interrupted, just audible beneath the screaming from Wahei. "Standby." There was the sound of a thud, a burst of static, and then the screaming stopped. A moment later, the quaking in the asteroid subsided, too. "I have her locked down in Stasis. I'll get her up to the Skyspear."
"Do that. Make sure she won't bring the ketch apart around us," Morgan told him. "Captain to Control. Did we tag that Fallen skiff?"
"Confirmed, Captain," Soap's voice responded. "Not pinging at the moment, but he was in a skiff, so he can't have gotten far."
Morgan nodded. "Right. We'll finish sweeping the lair, make sure there aren't any other traps, and then you get a team down here to start plundering the loot." He turned to Tren and Malka. "You two ready to clear out that ketch?"
Malka had retrieved her cleavers, brandishing them with a fierce Cabal smile. "My cleavers are still hungry!"
Bokta Tren considered her, then drew his own reaver's swords, brandishing them as well. "Come, Maal'kemat, let's fight them as Blades together!"
~*~*~*~*~*~
Everything had gone still and dark for Wahei. Even her thoughts had gone quiet, thankfully ceasing the spiral of terror that had seized her. That said, when she came aware again, freed of the frigid clutch of Stasis, she let out a brief shriek, a burst of Void erupting from her, but she felt a presence sidestep it, before a hand lashed out and slapped her across the face.
She blinked, then groaned. "...Rev?"
The Exo Warlock grunted. "Are we going to have a problem, Ohr?"
She took a shuddering breath. "I think I'm okay." She rubbed her arms a bit, then lifted her head, her sightless eyes turning about. "...are we back on the ketch?"
"Yes." Revenant folded his arms as he regarded her. "Your Ghost is okay, as well, after you froze him."
"Oh, god! Vizier?!" She held out a hand, and then let out a sigh of relief when she felt his shell bump up against her fingers. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I was just--"
"You were panicking," Vizier said. "But the only time I ever see you react that way to something is if it has to do with the Witness. This was just a Lucent Hive."
She shook her head. "That wasn't just a Lucent Hive, Viz." She could feel her heart racing again as she felt the memories swirl back up to the surface. "But you weren't to know. How could you know? You weren't really aware of anything at the time, you wouldn't remember that voice--"
"Ohr." This was Revenant again. "Don't spiral. Breathe."
She shuddered. "I was in Hive spaces during the Red War, in the Catacombs below Old Paris, when Lightloss caught me." She took a deep breath. "The Hive down there were led by a Deathsinger called Ir Tasarakh. I killed her, but now she's back. She's a Hive Lightbearer now."
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