11- Chamber of Night
Before I could even ask for any form of clarification regarding what Twilight told me just now regarding Aria being at the tower, Ray had received an urgent transmission that went out on all channels. To be honest, if it were from Flash or someone else in the Tower, I would have Ray cut the transmission to try and get ahold of Twilight again. However, this was a different case. Because the transmission did not just come from anybody that was at the tower or anyone in the Vanguard. It instead came straight from the one who was the Voice of the Traveler.
It came directly from the Speaker. The message itself was brief… but it was enough to make me realize the reason why he was releasing this transmission and the gravity of what it meant. “As of this moment, nothing is more important now. We believe that the Hive are engaged in a ritual on the moon that is draining the Traveler of it’s Light. To all guardians who are listening, whatever power the Hive wield in order to attempt this feat must be understood… and destroyed.”
This… put me in a bit of an awkward situation. For my duty as a guardian was to protect the City and the last of humanity… but I also promised Adagio that I would help her find her sister and see it through. If I choose to help Adagio in this moment, my choice could be seen as an act of defiance by the Vanguard. Yet, if I go back to the surface of the moon… Adagio might see it as if I’m going back on my word. I can’t choose to do both given the repercussions, but even choosing one of them is rather difficult right now… and even Ray could tell that I was having trouble choosing.
Then, someone unexpected reached out to me out of the blue. And when I had Ray sync the transmission, I was honestly surprised to hear back from her again. “Hey, Shimmy! Did you get ahold of that transmission just now?”
“Yes I did, Indigo-” I paused for a moment, before looking back at the transmission as I spoke up. “Hold on… Shimmy?”
“Yeah, that’s what my ghost called you when I asked for him to reach out to you. And normally, he doesn’t give nicknames.,” I heard the Hunter respond back. “So… since I’m taking a break from the Crucible and Mac is still helping out his sister, you wanna go investigate what the Speaker was talking about?”
Oh great… talk about being rushed to make one of those ‘in the moment’ decisions. Now how am I supposed to explain this? “Indigo… I’m kind of tied up with something at the moment and I just finished a mission for the Vanguard like… half an hour ago.”
Personally, I’m not a fan of saying only half truths… because it seems less like your trying to answer the question that they ask you and more like your trying to dodge the question altogether. But when Indigo heard what I said, she was… actually rather calm about it. “Oh, I get it… Last mission left you low on supplies? Well, go back and get the stuff that you need and just let Sparky and I handle all the prep work.”
I looked back at my ghost for a brief moment, before following it up with another question for the Hunter. “Prep work?”
“Well, you can’t exactly disrupt a hive ritual when you don’t know where it is,” Indigo replied back to me. “Sparky and I are going to scan some of the cracks on the moon’s surface and see if we can trace it back to wherever this ritual is being held at. Once we find out where it leads, I’ll contact you so we can disrupt this thing.”
That… definitely sounded like a pretty good plan. I did need to take care of a couple of things while I was at the tower anyways so that would work out well. “Alright, I’ll be back in a few moments.”
On my way back to the tower, I had to explain to Adagio that I couldn’t exactly be there for when she would reunite with her sister Aria and tried to explain everything to her… but before I could, she stopped me for speaking. Saying that I had already done enough for her and that she needed to do this on her own. Her cold expression reinforced those words as the two of us parted ways, but part of me felt that this was for the better. That we would be able to fight alongside each other again in time, but now was not the right time for such a thing.
Before I was to go back out to reunite with Indigo, I had to do two things. First, I needed to see the gunsmith. According to Ray, Vinyl sold items called Ammo Synthesis, which could be used to refill the ammunition for a weapon that you would happen to run out of while in the field. Considering the fact that my Shotgun and my Rocket Launcher had not a lot of ammo to begin with, I thought that buying a few of these with the glimmer that I had obtained from the Cosmodrome bounties I was finishing would be a good first step.
Secondly, there was the Cryptarch, Moondancer. It turns out that Ray had picked up a pair of engrams that had dropped when we were in the World’s Grave, so he recommended me to decrypt them because there ‘might’ be a chance that I could get some equipment that was better than what I already had. Though… he was half right. One of the things I did get was better, but it was only a better piece of chest armor called the Tengu Operant VI, which had the nifty traits of increased defense and extra ammunition when I have a pulse rifle. The other engram gave me a machine gun, which at first I thought was okay… but when I compared it to my rocket launcher, the machine gun had high damage output at the cost of reload speed. Something that I saw as crucially important to survival.
After dismantling the machine gun and getting back some weapon parts and glimmer, I had Ray take us back to orbit and go straight for where Indigo was on the moon as I sent her a message that we were on our way. Upon touching down on the moon in a place that was called ‘The Hellmouth’, Ray directed me to where Indigo was located at while I was focused on taking down a few Hive that tried attacking me en route.
Once we caught up with the bladedancer, she was relieved to see the two of us. “Glad you can make it. I was worried that you were going to miss out on all the fun,” As she said that, the hunter fired her hand cannon at a hive acolyte in the distance. The shot puncturing the acolyte’s head as they disintegrated into green flames and a pile of ash and dust. “I’ve been having Sparky scan the energy from the cracks in the hellmouth so we can try to find out where it’s coming from.”
“And?” My ghost asked.
“Easy now, I’m getting there,” The hunter responded. “Good news is that he got the data… bad news is that it’s farther inside a Hive Temple.” After a couple of seconds, Indigo had her ghost transfer some of the data that it acquired over to Ray for him to analyze and make sense of everything. And almost instantly, he knew where exactly we were headed off too.
“This is…” He said at first, before letting out what almost sounded like a small sigh as he looked back at me. “I know where we’re headed, but we’re going to have to go deeper into the Temple of Crota.”
Oh joy… that place again? The last time we were there, the welcoming committee was a tidal wave of hive whose claws were trying to slash at my throat. Not to mention some mysterious person watching me while I fought for my life… hopefully this time around, things will be different. Again, hopefully… given the kind of ritual that the Hive were performing, it was likely that there were more of the Hive inside of the temple instead of outside.
But nevermind that, we can’t just stand around and let them do this while I was processing all of this. So, shortly after I told Ray to put on a marker for the location we needed to go to, he pointed us in the right direction and marked it for us as Indigo and I both got on our sparrows. But as we were accelerating across the surface of the moon, Ray began to pick up something. It sounded like radio static and right away, Ray thought that the Speaker was trying to reach out to us. But he couldn’t tell because of how there was so much distortion on the comline.
However, the voice that did manage to get through… was not who we thought it would be. “You’re an interesting one… not entirely interesting, but you do have potential.”
Immediately, I turned around to look at the same cliffside from before. But unlike last time, no one was there. “Who is that?”
“Who is what?” Indigo then asked. “I don’t hear anyone else on this line.”
That had me stop for a moment… if Indigo couldn’t hear them, then… why was… whoever this person is… why are they reaching out to me? “Ray-?”
“Sunset, I don’t know who or what it is, but I’m losing their signal…”
“Guardian… I know what you are about to do,” I heard the voice of this stranger that was speaking to me again. “It’s brave… but know that there are foes out here in the solar system that you would not believe.”
“Out where-?” I tried to ask, only to get cut off by the strange voice again. Hearing one last line before the transmission was abruptly cut.
“Descend and face the hive… And if you survive… then come find me.”
“Sunset? Earth to Sunset, are you there?!” That loud outburst from the bladedancer had both Ray and I snap back to reality as we looked back at her. “Geez, for a moment, you had me concerned.”
“You… didn’t hear that?” I blinked for a moment, shaking my head as I looked back at her. Maybe this whole Guardian business was slowly driving me insane somehow. Well, at least Ray heard that… right? “You heard that, right?”
“Yeah I did,” He told me, causing me to let out a sigh of relief. “Signal was dropped, but I got some broken coordinates out of it. Venus… Northern Hemisphere… Ishtar region.”
“Ehh, sounds like something that someone who wants to keep a low profile back at the tower would do so the Vanguard wouldn’t trace the origin point of the signal,” The hunter shrugged it off as she made sure that her hand cannon had a full set of rounds in the chamber. Despite what Indigo said though… I highly doubt that what I just heard was someone who wanted to try and trick me. But I can worry about all of that later. “Get your rifle ready, Sunset. We got only way to go from here.”
“And that is?” Ray asked. Though… I kind of knew what the answer to that one was off the top of my head when we heard the sound of… something roaring from deep within the entrance of the temple itself.
“We go down.”
Upon rushing through the entryway to the temple, Indigo and I found the room filled with several Hive Acolytes and a massive one in the center that my helmet defined as a Ogre. And upon them noticing our presence, both of us had to split up in opposite directions because of the blasts that were coming out of the Ogre’s eye. The hunters first move was to throw down one of her own grenades that split apart upon touching the ground as it took down several of the acolytes before firing at the others with her hand cannon. As for me, the Ogre was trying to aim for me, so in an effort to disrupt it’s attacks, I threw out my solar grenade towards it’s eye to see if that could help me.
Turns out, it did. Because the moment that grenade made contact with the Ogre, it flinched in pain and staggered. Allowing for an opportunity for me to open fire with my auto rifle and take it down as Indigo finished off the last of the acolytes. Though, one thing that was different from last time was now there was a pathway that extended under the right side of the platform that Ray and I originally found the ghost of the guardian that was held here. An open passageway for us to descend deeper into the heart of the temple as it curved like a downward spiral.
At first, the way down did not seem too hard given that the only thing that blocked our path at first was a few thralls. But as we continued to go deeper, more tougher foes began to emerge. At one point, a hive Wizard and a knight were bombarding us while several hive acolytes tried to force us out of our cover and a swarm of thrall tried to rush us. Though, all this did was have Indigo’s light crackle all around her as she conjured a blade with her arc light. Using it to slice through the husks of the thrall as if she was cutting through paper. Within the time she had it active, the whole room of hive had almost been decimated as she used the last of the Light she was using to destroy the knight. Leaving me to take down the wizard by using a grenade to destroy it’s shield and then finishing the rest with my auto rifle.
“Nicely done.” I complimented her.
“Thanks… I could’ve used my super later on, but since we are trying to not waste time, I thought now would be more appropriate.” She replied, tilting her head towards the end of the hall as the both of us began to charge forward.
In the next room, we didn’t find any hive roaming around on patrol. But we did find something that really did not look good at first glance. “Is that…?”
“Hive Seeder…” Ray responded, answering Indigo’s question almost instantly. “Just like the ones invading the Cosmodrome… If we don’t end this now, then more of these would be hitting home.”
All that did was just compel us to push forward even more. Taking down every Hive that we came across along the way as we re-entered the World’s Grave. This was only briefly considering the fact that it was what connected the pathway that we just came through to where Ray and Sparky were detecting the energy surge back on the surface. And when we reached the back of the room, the doors to the next room parted open as we cautiously stepped inside.
In what was now coming up as the Chamber of Night, we saw three Hive Wizards that my helmet defined as ‘Siphon Witches’ and they looked to have been performing some kind of ritual on an object that was floating in the middle of the room. It was covered in black shadows as the witches began to drain something from it.
If what they’re doing was what the Speaker was worried about… then we needed to put an end to this, now. “Indigo… you have a rocket launcher on you?”
“Always. It’s one of the most important survival tools I have other than my knife.” She replied, pulling out her rocket launcher before asking me a question. “What’s the plan?”
Around that time, I got my rocket launcher out and looked back at her. “Use the launcher to take down the first two witches and then we focus our fire on the last one. I have a feeling that these three aren’t alone, so if more come in afterwards, we dispose of them before trying to find out what exactly this thing is and why the Hive are so interested in it,” As I said that, I noticed something nearby that looked to be a terminal or something. “Sound like a plan to you?”
All Indigo did was nod her head, shortly before moving to the right as I went to the left. Aiming our launchers at the two witches and opening fire as the rockets destroyed them on impact. I switched back to my auto rifle afterwards and threw out my grenade after to take down the shield on the last one before using my shotgun to take it down. But, we weren’t exactly out of this yet… because by killing them, several other chamber doors began to open as the Hive began to pour out and charge straight at us.
I fired off three more rounds from my shotgun at the first few incoming hive before hearing the clicking sound of an empty magazine as I switched to my Auto Rifle, scorching another thrall to buy myself some time as Indigo was firing her Hand Cannon at the Acolytes and knights that were coming in. There were a couple times where some Cursed Thralls that I had encountered with Adagio tried to approach the hunter from her blindspot, but I was able to shoot at them before they could even get the chance to detonate.
After that first set though, we soon had a lot of Hive Knights swarm in. Some with their own weapons while others had giant swords that looked to be big enough to cleave me in half. Given that two of my weapons needed to reload, I saw this as the chance for me to activate Radiance. Recharging my grenade and scorch before I began to throw several grenades at the swarm while Indigo continued to shoot them. As each one fell though, I noticed something else drop alongside the ammunition blocks that fell to the floor as I went to go grab it.
Turns out… what I found was a weapon. One that was colored in camo and looked rather different than the auto rifle I was using. “Oh hey, you got a pulse rifle,” Indigo pointed out. “It looks brand new. What are the modifiers-?” She stopped partway near the end of her question to shoot a hive thrall that tried to leap up into her face as I had Ray inspect the weapon. Shortly before I saw a complete breakdown on my helmet.
Weapon: SUROS JPS-32
Type: Pulse Rifle
Manufacturer: SUROS
Slot: Primary
Modifiers:
-QuickDraw IS: Agile sight. Lightning fast handling
-Red Dot-OAS: Snapshot sight. Enhanced target acquisition.
-Grenadier: Kills with this weapon reduce the cooldown of your grenade.
-Upgrade Damage: Increases Attack Power, allowing this weapon to cause more damage.
That… definitely looked like something I could use. Not to mention the fact that my new robes gave me extra pulse rifle ammo reserves. “Ray, put my Auto Rifle away. I’m going to give this weapon a shot.”
“You got it.” Was the only response I got as he transmatted an ammo clip for the new weapon I was holding. If I recalled correctly from what Vinyl-3 told me when she first explained the weapon types to me, instead of this weapon being in full auto, Pulse Rifles fired their shots in bursts of three. My clip right now had about thirty six shots, so I needed to do what I could to make sure that all of them counted.
As the clip I had locked into place, the third wave of hive began to storm the chamber. This time, there were no acolytes or wizards, but a massive amount of Hive Knights with a few cursed thrall hiding right behind them. Aiming my newfound rifle, I fired off several shots that were aimed specifically at the thrall while trying to strafe out of the way of the Knight’s own blasts. In my mind, since I knew that these ones could explode upon death, killing them could make the knights weaker and vulnerable to our attacks. And after the first couple of shots and two of the thralls detonating nearby their allies, it caused the knights that were originally shooting at us to stagger. Allowing for us to focus on them as I felt my grenade finish recharging.
As we were fighting the knights though, I was personally still trying to adjust to the mechanics behind the newfound weapon that I was currently using. Unlike with the Auto Rifle I had, where I would just aim and hold down the trigger as I fired it, this one required for me to keep tapping the trigger after each round was fired. Which… was different, but considering the fact that the fire rate on the weapon was rather quick, it didn’t seem like much of a change.
After Indigo and I took down the last of the Knights that swarmed the chamber, we got a brief moment in order to reload our weapons. But it was in this brief moment that Indigo… actually asked me a question. “Hey, how’s it going with that new weapon of yours? Still trying to get adjusted to it?”
“Yeah, I haven’t really used Pulse Rifles before,” I replied back. “I’ve mostly used Auto Rifles up until this point, so it’s taking a bit in order to adjust to the weapon and how it works.”
“Did you get the full-auto modifier?” That… was a question that I did not anticipate as I looked back at Indigo. A bit confused by what exactly she was talking about. “On the weapon. What modifier did you get?”
“I got something that would help recharge my grenade faster.” I replied to her. “Why?”
“That’s good… but Sunset, there’s something I think I should make sure to let you know when it comes to modifiers,” She replied back to me. “No two weapons or armor pieces have the same modifiers. Everything you get, whether it’s a scout rifle or a rocket launcher will have a random different set of modifiers each time. Not everything’s the same-”
Before she could go any further on the explanation though, that was when both of us heard an ear piercing roar that shook the very chamber as I looked back at her. Indigo herself cursed for a moment as she looked back at me. “Let’s worry about that later. We need to deal with whatever that was if we want to try and figure out what the hell is this thing.”
The final door began to split in two as both sides parted ways. Now there was an ogre storming into the room alongside a wave of hive thralls. But on my radar, this ogre actually had a name. Telthor, Unborn. And once it’s eye saw us, it unleashed a fury of blasts in our direction while we were trying to fight off the Hive. Indigo herself had the thralls chase her before jumping into the air and firing off a rocket from her launcher, but when she aimed at the Ogre, all she heard was a clicking sound.
“Crap! Out of rockets!” She cursed, before switching weapons. “How many do you have, Sunset?”
“I only got one!” I hastily responded, scorching one of the thralls that lunged at me before taking out two more with my shotgun. Of course, it was then that I realized something. “Ray… get me out a heavy ammo synthesis!”
“For you-?”
“No… Give it to Indigo,” I told him, channeling my light and activating Radiance as solar light began to surge around me. “I’m going to buy her some time.”
Before Ray could even question what I was saying, I began to channel my power into throwing several solar grenades at the ogre. The flames from them burning away at the Ogre’s overly huge body as I focused each one of my throws to hit it in the eye. My plan though wasn’t necessarily to kill it, but weaken it enough so that Indigo could be able to take it down with one well placed shot of her rocket launcher. And it was around the last few seconds that I had Radiance active that I was then told something.
“Alright, I’m all set. Get clear!!”
Immediately, I got as far back away from the ogre as I possibly could. Turning to Indigo as she leaped into the air and fired off one last rocket. As the rocket exploded, the hulking ogre let out one last deathly howl as it disintegrated into a pile of ash and smoke. Leaving nothing behind as the hunter was able to let out a sigh of relief. Glad that it was done as she looked back to me.
“Well, that’s one less hive we need to worry about… Now let's go inspect this thing and get out of here before more of them show up.”
After further inspection, both of us found out that the object in question that we uncovered from within the Chamber of Night was actually from the Traveler itself. A shard of the Traveler that the Hive were using against the Traveler in an attempt to try and weaken it. Ray had it sent back to the tower shortly before we returned back to orbit and Indigo had already taken off for the tower so that she could report to the Speaker about our success.
Yet, for me… something really didn’t feel right. And by now, I think Ray was noticing me being stuck in thought for the last ten minutes. “Sunset… are you okay?”
I turned to my ghost, a bit surprised that he was actually showing concern for me as I let out a sigh. “Sorry I just… I can’t stop thinking about earlier…”
“You mean in the Chamber?” He asked, leading me to shake my head.
“No… before we even entered the temple,” I responded back to him, before looking back at the navigation console on my ship. “Even though we both don’t know who that stranger that was trying to contact us was, she went through the trouble of leaving coordinates for us… And then there was what she said.”
“I remember… and I’m still trying to make sense of everything myself.” He replied. Just around the time that I was finally able to finish my thought.
Around then was when I was finally able to finish thinking through what was in my head and now began to speak. “I just… think that this is something that we shouldn’t ignore,” As I was speaking, I sat back down at the helm of my ship and began to look at the interface of my vessel. “If this threat she speaks of is even more dangerous than the hive, then we need to learn what it is so the Vanguard can know. Do you still have those coordinates?”
Ray nodded, scanning the navigation system of the ship as a holographic projection of Venus was now presented in front of me. “There we go.”
As I punched in the coordinates and began to have my ship accelerate, I asked one more thing to Ray. “So… what should I know about Venus before we touch down?”
“It was once considered as a jungle paradise during the golden age and during that time, humanity set up a scientific research colony that was built by a group called the Ishtar Collective so they can study the ruins here. Some that are supposedly older than humanity itself.”
Well… this will be interesting then.
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Either bygones from the drifter, go figure, or ace of spades
9199249
I'm working on the precision crucible kills part for the Ace of Spades, but I can agree with Bygones. I had Go Figure at one point, but it wasn't as smooth and fit the kind of playstyle that I had like how the Bygones did.
So...is resurrection going to be a thing in your story, or are you pretty much shying away from it?
9205129
Resurrection is a thing... but it's not entirely an overall focus.
Just found this today when I wanted to read something about Destiny and to write my own fic on Destiny. Have to admit, first chapter was fun to read. Hope you stick to this, judging by how you're consistent with updates, I do hope so!
That void sword from destiny 1 can't remember what its called
9229745
There’s two. Void Edge and then Dark-Drinker. But that will come later. MUCH later
9231014
I think its the Void edge that I was/am thinking of
9231025
Both are void swords, the difference is that there are two types. Void Edge is Legendary, and Dark-Drinker is Exotic.
I just hope you manage to get the Exo Stranger better than Destiny 1 did