"Wahei?" Vizier's voice interrupted her reverie as the Awoken Warlock looked up from the Traitor's Die and the cat's cradle she'd fashioned from her rosary. Wahei Ohr blinked eyes that felt raw, dry, as they would do after an unblinking, unseeing stare into probability, and the maddening tangle she kept seeing.
As she came back to awareness, the Ghost went on, "There's an incoming message from Queen Mara via the H.E.L.M."
I need to pace myself. Morgan was right, I need to sleep more frequently. Wahei pinched the bridge of her nose as she closed her eyes and let them rest a bit. "Put it through."
The comm crackled and then the Sovereign of the Awoken's voice came through. "Guardian Ohr," she began. "The time is at hand."
Now she looked up. "The exorcism?" The ritual was at the center of the tangle in the skein...
"The beacons shine bright, and the Ley Lines are set in place," Mara Sov agreed. "My Techeuns are prepared to perform the ritual that will separate Savathûn from her worm. Although she claims she will help us in our fight against the Black Fleet and the Entity that commands it," and the Queen's sneer could be heard in her voice, "she cannot be trusted."
Wahei looked down at her journal. The two open pages were covered in automatic writing scrawl, overlapping and looping, but after decades of practice, she knew how to decipher her own handwriting, even in this state. The visions she'd glimpsed through the veil, the probabilities she'd scryed, as disjointed as she could perceive them. So many had been around this very event. "Seems like we've been waiting for ages," she muttered, "and yet this feels too soon..." I need more time to see the way through. "The things that she could tell us, even with the lies woven through them--"
"You have coaxed enough information from her for my purposes," Mara Sov interrupted. Wahei frowned. You, perhaps. But there are other players on the board, O Sovereign of the Awoken. As the Warlock ruminated, the Queen was still speaking of the danger that Xivu Arath posed, concluding with, "You once swore to aid me in my plans. I call on you once more, Guardian Ohr."
Wahei sighed to herself. "I'll gather my team and head for the Dreaming City." The Queen closed connection as the Voidwalker looked down at the circle that she'd drawn around herself. Runes and markings lined the perimeter, with several nodes containing artifacts she'd hoped would help focus her visions, including the components she'd pried out of Magda-9's forecasting device-- a piece of Reef Amethyst, a Splinter of Darkness, and a Shard of the Traveler. Placed in front of her had been the Wayfinder's Compass, which glimmered in a way that only someone familiar with paracausal energies might have detected.
She collected these all and slipped them into a pocket on her satchel, then began to slowly wipe the chalk markings of the circle off the cold stone floor. Vizier watched her. "What did you see this time?" the Ghost asked quietly.
Wahei looked up and out of the entrance of the cave where she'd holed up, the shape of the Pyramid sitting ominously on the horizon, through the haze of a distant snowstorm. Again and again, details change, but the outcome seems to be the same. How do I stop the ritual from failing?
"Constants and variables," she sighed.
