The Titan held his auto rifle at the ready, even if there was no need for it at the moment. He watched as the jumpship flew over the landing zone, while his Ghost monitored the distant shape of the Lure. There hadn't been any major activity from the Hive throneship since shortly after its unveiling, but the presence of any Hive ship of its caliber meant they couldn't relax. The Titan watched as the jumpship's occupant transmatted down to the sands, then raised his wrist-comm. "Char to all points. Principal on site."
Ikora Rey strode toward him. "Thank you, Ferris. Where do we stand?" she inquired.
Ferris Char shrugged lightly. "Chalco is on-task with monitoring the throneship. Nothing new to report since the Wolf got yeeted out of it."
"And our Warlock?"
Ferris scoffed. "Unsurprisingly, no word from Fenchurch since he went on reconnoiter."
Ikora's lips twitched in an almost-smile. "In his case, no news is good news. What about with the Relic?"
He shook his head. "Search me. I'm just here to look menacing in case the grub-lovers decide to flex."
"Take a break from guard duty, Ferris," Ikora clapped him on the shoulder. "Stand down and relax. I'll have one of the others take over for you."
"Obliged, boss." Ferris stowed his gun and transmatted away, to go on break.
Ikora strode on across the red sands toward the rest of the Enclave. Several of her Hidden were on site, whether updating investigation boards and databases, or taking readings from various instruments, or just providing site security. Several looked up as she arrived, nodding in acknowledgment, then turning back to their tasks. She was glad of this. When she was here, she was not looking to socialize, and the Hidden were very task-oriented.
As she came up to the wall of Dark Matter, the door slid open as another figure ascended the steps, looking up with thrice-green eyes. "Ikora," Eris Morn greeted her.
"Eris. Have you had any luck with the Relic?" She looked from her into the space beyond, the pendulum swinging silently in the dim space.
"Very little," Eris admitted, stroking her ahamkara bone. "Lisbon's reports were helpful in determining how to make use of this 'Deepsight' ability, but I have not yet had the chance to visit one of the Altars in Savathûn's Throne World. The Relic, however, has not been as simple to work with. It may be that it is meant more for the shaping of objects and weapons, than in the retrieval of memories."
Ikora nodded, folding her hands behind her back. "I had a similar thought, myself, after the difficulties in retrieving memories from the parasite. To that end, I have brought someone to lend some expertise." She turned and raised her comm. "Send her down."
Two figures materialized in a shimmer of transmat particles. One wore a Hunter's cowl, with a Cormorant Seal badge affixed to the clasp. She was holding the shoulder of the other, an Exo in a pristine white Braytech Research labcoat, with a bright orange collar affixed around her neck, and a matching set of manacles around her wrists. The Exo's vermillion chassis looked duller in the Martian sunlight, her cold white eyes glancing around. The Hunter nodded once, and reported into her comm. "Escort on site. Prisoner secure."
The Exo turned and regarded the vista beyond, scarcely glancing at the throneship overhead, instead focusing on the shimmering blue haze around the temporal anomalies. "So, those are the 'Scablands' I heard about?" The Exo spoke with a faint Dutch accent. "Fascinating."
Eris blinked at her. "What is she doing here?" she asked Ikora. "I thought she was--"
Magda-9 smiled. "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." She chuckled. "I always wanted to say that."
Ikora sighed to Eris. "The Vanguard tribunal decided that her expertise might still prove useful." She gave the Exo Warlock a stern look, emphasizing the words, "So she is under a stay of execution for the time being."
The erstwhile Dredgen just smiled again. "So. Show me this 'Relic' I was told about."
Eris frowned, but she turned and led the group down into the Relic chamber. The Hunter escort still keeping a hand on Magda's shoulder, but as they reached the bottom of the stairs, Ikora turned back. "Thank you, Nasco, we'll take it from here." There was some hesitation, but the Hunter nodded, and stepped back to let the prisoner move onward without her.
Magda-9 had gone still as she beheld the Dark Matter construct in the middle of the room, the pendulum continuing its endless swing back and forth above the altar-like shelf. The Exo weaponeer looked it up and down, and murmured, "Remarkable."
"Thus far," Ikora stated, walking up behind her, "Guardians and Lightbearers have been making use of the Relic to shape weapons, using this new Deepsight ability to recover patterns for constructing weapons, in conjunction with resonant energy and matter they've acquired across the system. So far, it's proven very adaptable."
Magda gave a little scoff. "You give the Guardians the slightest bit of capability, and suddenly so many develop the illusion that they have become a weaponsmith on par with the likes of me." She could practically hear the frown on Ikora and Eris' faces, and amended this to, "Or perhaps the old man in the Tower." She approached the Relic, lifting her bound hands to run a finger along the smooth stone-like material, watching as its surface fluidly opened, the molds and shapes of components and frameworks emerging and reorganizing themselves as she watched. "I would appreciate the chance to study this properly, however," Magda said over her shoulder. "Might I request a change of venue for my incarceration? I could be of more use here, I think."
Ikora drummed her fingers in thought. "I'll talk with the tribunal."
"It is interesting," Magda continued, thoughtfully. "It's as though..." She paused. "Forgive me, but humans and Awoken see it, too, don't they? The ..." She gestured a bit vaguely with her hand. "Visual artifacts. As if my optics were glitching. Like ripples in the air. I've noticed it particularly strongly around Pyramid tech and Dark Matter."
Eris nodded. "Yes. Initially the working term was 'phantasmal energy,' but we've noticed it even when no Nightmares are being manifested. It may be an expression of Pyramid Resonance."
The Exo nodded. "Interesting," she repeated. She turned her attention back to the Relic. "As I got closer, I noticed an uptick in those ripples, and it was stronger still when I touched it. And this time there was an audio component to this 'Resonance.'" She paused, glancing up. "A whisper. Like a voice."
"One of the hazards of using Pyramid technology," Eris remarked. "There is an Entity that placed this here. For what purpose, remains unclear."
Ikora met Eris' gaze and nodded to the stairs leading back out of the chamber. The two went back up, Ikora briefly giving Nasco a look. The Hunter nodded once and stepped into the room, posting up by the door and keeping an eye on Magda as the weaponeer continued her examination of the Relic. The Warlock Vanguard and her foremost Hive expert reconvened on the red sands at the top of the stairs. "You cannot possibly trust her," Eris stated, bluntly.
"I trust her scientific curiosity to keep her focused on-task," Ikora replied. "I trust her engineering expertise to help find more ways to make use of the Relic. But I do not trust her not to have her own agenda." She gave a millimetric smile. "Here at the Enclave, however, she is bereft of any of her usual contacts, her movements and communications would be intensely monitored, and I don't propose to ever leave her alone with the Relic."
Eris nodded slowly. "And without access to her Ghost, she cannot use her Light to infuse any weapons she might create with the Relic with ammunition." Her fingers tapped thoughtfully on her ahamkara bone. "This is still a great risk, Ikora."
"Everything done with Dark paracausality carries a risk," the Warlock Vanguard replied. "But if anyone can tease out details on how Pyramid tech works, it's someone like Magda-9."
The Light's Witch tilted her head. "But not Wahei Ohr?" Then she gave a nod. "Ah. You want her to focus on her recovery."
"That's part of it." Ikora sighed. "In many respects, she imprinted pretty strongly on me. She doesn't know when to slow down, to take a moment to breathe." She shook her head. "I had hoped with her current condition, she might finally take a chance to talk with Doctor Grus, unpack some of the issues she's been carrying ever since the Red War."
Eris made a slight frown. "Not everyone is temperamentally likely to respond to psychiatric therapy, Ikora." She raised a hand to forestall an answer. "But I trust your judgment there, and I suppose with Magda." She straightened up, wincing at some lingering pain in her back, a legacy of her encounter with the Taken during the Black Fleet's arrival. "I must go. The young Eliksni scribe has been asking for some assistance with these relics the old crews had been hoarding."
Ikora nodded. "Don't stretch yourself too thin, Eris. You need to learn when to slow down, as well." The Hivebane simply nodded with a wry smile before transmatting away. Ikora tapped her comm. "Nasco, keep an eye on the prisoner, I have some calls to make." Making arrangements to transfer Magda-9 here and requisitioning a hab to house her, not to mention scheduling round-the-clock monitoring, and setting a schedule to allow the prisoner time to study the Relic when they could curtail any other Guardians from dropping in to use it. The work of a Vanguard and master of the Hidden was never done.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Magda-9 made a show of examining the Relic's surface, of watching the pendulum, of all of its moving parts that it deigned to show her, but she knew there was little she could do unless she had some material to work with. Ikora had said the Guardians had utilized special energy and matter derived from Resonance. She'd been allowed to read some reports that had been done on this still-undefined and unquantified energy. It was unquestionably tied to the Darkness in some way, but exactly how it worked was still unknown, and appeared to require the use of Pyramid tech in some way.
Magda paused as she saw the visual artifacts in the air shift and twist in a different way. She looked at the Relic, but its surface and the pattern of the pendulum's swing had not changed. But something had evidently shifted in the vicinity. She looked toward the Hunter that was guarding the door and watching her, then back toward the Relic, before lowering her voice, almost subvocalizing, "Someone is there, ja?"
There it was again, the slight distortion in the rippling of the 'phantasmal energy' around the Relic. But now Magda saw the shape standing beside the Relic, dressed in utilitarian Warlock robes, staring at the Relic as well. Magda made a faint 'tsk' in her throat, keeping her voice pitched low so that Nasco wouldn't hear. "Ah, de slimme kleine heks. Come to see the chained engineer again? Did you need more directions on operating the Scryer?"
The figure turned their head, and Magda blinked as she saw the pale, sightless eyes facing her. "I didn't even know you were here," Wahei Ohr said, dismissively. Her hand rested on the shell of her Ghost, who was pointedly keeping his eye on Magda. The blinded Warlock moved around to the front of the Relic, where Nasco reacted to seeing her.
"Oi!" the Hunter shouted. "Where'd you come from?"
"Somewhere else," Wahei muttered, without turning her head. She reached out with her spare hand, feeling the Relic, her hand dancing back as the surface shifted and moved. She didn't turn when the Hunter racked a round into her scout rifle.
"Step away from the prisoner," Nasco ordered.
"I'm not here for her," Wahei replied. She was facing the Relic, and pulled her fingers back as the shelf in front of the pendulum moved and folded back to reveal a different one, with a different indentation in the middle of it. Her fingers traced along the surface until finding it, and cocked her head. "Viz?"
Her Ghost swiveled under her fingers and looked over the shelf. "Yeah. Yeah, it looks like it'll fit the artifact." Vizier paused, then added, "Wahei, are you sure about this?"
"I'm sure I won't get answers unless I do this," she replied, then cocked her head as she heard the bustle by the stairs, the outburst of voices there, and then the quick, steady approach of authority. "Ikora. Sorry, I should've called first."
"What are you doing here, Wahei?" The Warlock Vanguard glanced at Magda-9, who had taken a few steps away from both the Relic and the Warlock studying it. Ikora looked back to the Awoken. "You're supposed to be taking it easy."
In response, Wahei turned around, holding a thin, curved piece of ... metal? Magda craned her neck to look more closely. It glistened like Pyramid metal, and as she watched, it appeared to ripple faintly, as if its shape weren't fully defined or set. The blinded Warlock held this up in her gloved hands. "I was trying to study this," she said. She shook her head when Ikora started to speak, interrupting, "I know-- take some time and let my vision try to recover. But..." She sighed. "Magda can probably relate, but my mind rebels at stagnation. I need to work, or I'll go stir-crazy."
The ex-Dredgen nodded. "Ja, I know the feeling."
Wahei nodded. "Viz and I were studying it. And we-- well, I noticed something." Vizier made a little twitch under her fingers, and she amended this, "He picked it up, but didn't have context until I explained. What do you notice about the artifact?" She set it on a folding table that had been left near the Relic.
The others present leaned in to look. "It ripples," Nasco remarked. "Like Resonant material."
Magda raised a finger. "Also, there's a ... shimmer to it, not like the Resonance. More like..." She paused. "I'm not sure, but it feels similar to the phantasmal energies. I perceive 'visual artifacts' around it."
Wahei pointed in her direction. "That. Yes. Other energies connected to Darkness. But it feels more like Deepsight to me."
Vizier bobbed slightly. "Right. I was having trouble detecting it because of the Resonance."
Wahei gestured to the artifact. "And when I touched it with my bare hands and attempted to use Deepsight with it, I was able to see again."
Ikora blinked, looking at the artifact more closely. "Wahei, may I...?" The other Warlock nodded, and Ikora picked the piece of Resonant material up, turning it over in her hands. She concentrated, focusing on her own Deepsight connections, and saw the object glow in her fingers, but, "I'm not noticing anything different."
"That's because I think it's attuned to me." Everyone looked at Wahei again. She hesitated, then said, "As I said after the incident aboard the H.E.L.M., it was left in my hands when the egregore released me. It can't have been a mistake. It was left for a reason."
"All the more reason we should be cautious about this," Ikora interjected. "It could be a trap."
"Of course it could be a trap," Wahei sighed. "But even if I never return to field duty, I'm going to be useless as a researcher if I can't see. Vizier is a huge help," she added, giving her Ghost a reassuring tickle atop his shell, "but I still can't work at my best if I'm minus one significant primary sense!"
Nasco cleared her throat. "I'm no Praxic," she put in, "but this all strikes me as a really bad idea. How do we know this won't, I dunno, corrupt you and turn you into someone like Jana-14?"
The blinded Warlock took a deep breath. "We don't," she admitted. She turned her head to look in Ikora's direction. "Which is why I encourage everyone to keep an eye out for that kind of thing. Especially the Praxic Order."
She picked up the artifact again and turned to the Relic, her fingers feeling along the shelf until she found the indentation for it. She set it within, and took another deep breath, concentrating as she reached out to the Darkness, and twisted the energies to her purposes, focusing with Deepsight on the artifact. On the memory of what it should be. Making memory into reality.
And the energies around the Relic... Resonated with her will.
The shelf closed over the artifact as the pendulum swung around and around and around it, energies spinning as material fed into it. In Wahei's mind, it felt like a tangle in the skein was being pulled tighter and tighter, like a knot. She grimaced, a hand lifting to her temple, gritting her teeth against it. She could almost perceive the flow of the Resonance for a moment, one white-hot moment of crippling pain--
--and then the tangle in the skein snapped straight, the knot undone, and she almost sagged with relief as she felt the Relic shift under her hand again, the shelf opening back up. Behind her, the others murmured quietly, while her fingers felt out for the artifact again. As she did, she felt the faint vibration of the material against her fingers, and then explored its dimensions. Vizier muttered to her, "It's bigger. Almost shaped like a visor, but it has two protrusions on the anterior curve, like two hooks almost."
Wahei lifted the visor-artifact from its cradle in the Relic and turned to the others, holding it up. Ikora frowned slightly. "I still counsel patience and care, Wahei. You don't have to do this." She held out her hand. "You should let someone else study it first."
"You tried using Deepsight while touching it, just now," the blinded Warlock stated, bluntly, "and it had no apparent effect. Like I said, I think it's attuned to me." She arched an eyebrow. "Besides, if using it is corruptive, I think you're the last person who should use it. If you were to go to the Dark, Ikora, who could reasonably stop you?"
"You wouldn't exactly be simple to stop either, Wahei," Ikora said, kindly. "But perhaps you have a point." She glanced back. "Nasco, position bravo. Magda, just stay out of the way."
With another deep breath, Wahei lifted the visor toward her face, pausing to add, "Vizier? If this all goes wrong, I'm sorry. And ... stay back, too? Just in case." Her Ghost warbled faintly, but reluctantly moved back behind Ikora. The Seeker of Insight raised the visor and positioned it across the bridge of her nose, so the black material obscured her clouded eyes. She started faintly. "I felt it... attach to my temples just now." She lowered her hand, and the visor remained in place. She paused, then reached up again and pulled the visor away. "But it comes off when I want it to." She considered for a moment. "Can we move up out of this room? Just out by the cliffside maybe? If this does react strongly to Resonance, then further tests should be away from the Relic."
And so the entire party moved up to the Enclave, where Ikora signaled to several Hidden agents, who took up their own positions and monitored the group as Wahei stepped into the monitoring station area. She placed the visor across her eyes again, then called out. "Tapping into Deepsight... now."
She gathered her will and focused her Deepsight through the visor. There was a heavy sensation of ... sensation that slapped into her perceptions. She swayed and clutched the back of a chair to stay upright as she blinked behind the visor several times, breathing heavily as she felt momentarily overwhelmed by the influx of new sensory data. It took several moments before she was able to lift her head and parse the data, to look around herself.
"It-- it's a little intense," she grunted. "It's taking me a moment or two to grasp what I'm ... seeing. And I am receiving this all like visual data." She looked at her hands and then at the console in front of her. "But I am seeing. Or..." She snapped her fingers. "It's not so much that I'm seeing, as I'm receiving a memory of what the visor perceived an instant previous." She laughed faintly. "Which, if you think about it, is all any visual input is, at the bottom of it."
Ikora stepped forward. "You're seeing things, as they are?" She pointed to the console. "Even the screens or holo-displays?"
Wahei nodded, turning the visor in those directions. "Yes. Login screen-- no, wait, that's a lock screen. Someone left themselves logged in... Char, it looks like. And the holo is showing... the Hive throneship."
"And how many fingers am I holding up?"
"Your hands are behind your back, so you're cheating," Wahei replied after looking in her direction.
Magda-9 called out. "And how many fingers am I holding up?"
Wahei glanced over, then tsked. "Well, that's just rude." She then held up a hand and released her concentration, letting out a breath as the sensory load from the visor abated, before taking it off of her face. "Okay," she remarked. "Short bursts, I think, but a solid first start. I think with time, I may be able to wear it and use Deepsight for longer."
Ikora frowned. "How are you feeling?"
The Awoken paused. "A little drained. Using Deepsight-- maintaining Deepsight, I should say-- takes considerable effort. But as I said, I think with practice I can extend how long it can be of use. Not going to start running field missions," she added quickly, "but this will open new avenues of research."
"Mahal is going to have conniptions, you do realize that," Ikora sighed. "I should take the visor from you."
"You want to keep the Praxic Order off my back?" Wahei reached into her robes, then held out a battered, black-covered tome. "Give them this. Stars know, they've been asking for it constantly enough."
Ikora took the Umbranomicon from her, raising her eyebrows. "You've been denying every demand for its return since they found out you had it. What changed?"
"I don't need it anymore." Wahei shook her head as she contemplated the visor in her hand. "There's nothing more that Toland can teach me."
While the Warlock Vanguard and the Seeker of Insight spoke, Magda-9 stood back, steepling her fingers slightly in thought as she regarded the visor as well. She didn't voice her own concerns about the artifact, though she knew de slimme kleine heks would understand them. Wearing that visor might indeed help her to see things, but she would need to take care. Because there was seeing, and there was seeing. And when she had looked upon Wahei wearing the visor, with the horn-like protrusions on the front of it, she considered how uncomfortably similar she had looked to a visage she had beheld when looking through her Scryer.
Kleine heks, as bright as you are, you fail to learn the lessons imparted by history. I warned you against staring into the abyss, and you went blind for it. I warned you about the Scryer, and I know you've built one for yourself. And you know what's staring back through from the other side. You're so sure that you can avoid your fate, you fail to realize that many paths lead to the same destination.
The Weaponer of Sorrow, however, just smiled to herself.
I can't wait to see what comes next. You're going to find yourself in the crosshairs of too many enemies, kleine heks.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Afterword: This chapter took longer than expected to finish. My creative energies were scattered and uncooperative, on top of a sudden lack of downtime at work, and this all meant it was harder to concentrate on writing. Still, now this one is out of the way, so I can maybe gloss briefly over what the Wahei Transcripts characters were up to during Season of Plunder, and now in Season of the Seraph. -- 7 Dec 2022
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