Lore:Duress and Egress: Difference between revisions

'''Duress and Egress''' is a [[Lore]] book introduced with ''[[Season of Arrivals]]'' in ''[[Destiny 2]]''. Entries are unlocked by progressing in the [[Exodus (Quest)|Exodus]] quest.

The [[Pyramid (Io)|Pyramid]] hovered inside [[Io]]'s atmosphere, close enough to be impacted by a projectile flung at sufficient speed. In the time it took Asher to blink twice, he knew the angle of attack and the mass of the projectile.

Deputy Commander [[Sloane]] watched the overloaded [[Vanguard]] skiff dip close to the waves. "Watch it!" she barked into the communicator, and the craft straightened out. "That's liquid methane down there, and if it don't kill you, the [[Leviathan (Titan)|Leviathan]] will."

A [[Fallen]] [[Ketch]] screamed overhead, and Sloane was on the catwalk outside the rig in a flash. She bellowed at the men working on the deck to cover clear of the cargo as she drew her Scout Rifle and dropped to a knee.

She cursed and leapt over the railing, landing like a crash of lightning. Her earpiece sprang to life. "Siren's Watch, this is supply craft Vienna Stinger looking for a place to put down."

She plugged two more Dregs and the Ketch's engines changed from a roar to a whine. A halfhearted volley of Wire Rifle fire spattered the landing pad from the Ketch as it blasted away.

She looked up at the Pyramid in the sky and frowned.

She had tried everything. The great Bray. A lineage that promised to save them. For all her genius and moxie, this was beyond her.

[[Rasputin]] lay dying in a dozen empty screens splayed out around Ana's command station. She could visualize the bleeding code running through her fingers. [[Zavala]]'s voice was in her ear, as ambient haze—relegated to the background of her mind like distant gunfire. The image of the Pyramid's distortion wave was still raw. This wasn't an attack. It was a command. A lazy dismissal of all their best laid plans.

Outside the windows, bolts of atmospheric friction dragged flames through the sky as Warsats plummeted from low-orbit defensive positions. Their impacts were distant.

Brother [[Vance]]'s smile fell as the Titan entered his sanctum. The smell was unmistakable: ancient gunpowder, burnt oil, scorched Vex fluid, the burnt tang of steel overused through a hundred lifetimes.

"You did not claim this weapon from the tomb of Saint-14, but instead through some [[Fractaline]]-powered tesseract, yes?"

As he picked his way across the rocky outcrops, he cursed the loose soil underfoot, cursed his oversized pack, cursed the roving Taken, cursed the kick of his [[Silicon Neuroma]] Rifle against his shoulder.

He looked up at the Pyramid funneling its foul energies down into the Cradle and sneered. Well-read as he was, he didn't have the energy to arrange the required words.

He crept down through the cavernous spaces beneath the Cradle. Unfamiliar roots protruded from the earthen walls. He calmly observed the pattern of a twitching Shrieker, and his calculated ricochet sent a band of Taken roaring down the wrong pathway. He passed unmolested.

Eris was in her meager camp near the twisted roots of the enormous Tree. She knelt near a beam of light coming from far above, which filtered through the pith of the Tree to strike an unnatural splash of cambium petals. Asher noticed the smells of sap and burned cooking oil.

He rested by the fire. Nearby was a small table that held samples of Hive chitin, clippings from the Tree, ashy soil, and an open notebook that Asher saw was a personal journal, which he quickly flipped shut with distaste.

Deputy Commander Sloane was in a foul mood, and Amanda Holliday, bless her heart, had no idea.

The Traveler hung behind him, buried in a darkening cloud, a part of and apart from the sky.

"When Cayde passed, I saw the fracturing of the Vanguard as a path toward inevitable failure. Still, it has proved impossible to fill his seat. I believed I would be too weak to lead without the balance added by his… unique perspective. As it turns out, his life was but one in an eternity of choices."

"Relax, I'm not offering you the job. Unless you killed Cayde, and we've had the wrong man this whole time?"

"I'd understand," he said and smiled. "Ikora told me back then that an object in motion stays in motion. I've always admired the phrase, but I must admit, it can be difficult to adhere to."

Ana nodded. "Whatever happened to Cayde's chicken?"

"It repeats," he whispered to himself and the young Warlock who was bent over the Infinite Forge, diligently crafting weapons from another age.

"Help yourself to a prophecy, friend," he said. "I believe I have finally finished my studies."

As Asher Mir watched his assistant's ship tear into orbit for the last time, it occurred to him that he had not expressed how truly satisfactory he had found some of their work.

He briefly entertained the thought of leaving a letter, but there were others more deserving of his thoughts. And if he worked in descending priority, he might never make it to his assistant, which would defeat the purpose of the exercise completely. Instead, he went to the Pyramidion.

He destroyed the first hundred Vex, then the second. A Minotaur roared into being before him and he crushed its radiolarian core in his metal fist. He climbed forward over their clawing limbs. He slipped in the cooling roux of their dead fluid.

She tried to form Arc energy, but the suit blocked her Light, or perhaps she would have to learn how to flex her Light through the suit.

A symbol flashed, and a Hive Thrall charged her. She gripped it by its neck and arm before tearing it apart. It was so easy.

As Ana Bray watched the Guardian's Sparrow rocket across Hellas Basin for the last time, she saw a confidant who had believed in her when no one else would. That faith, Zavala had reminded her, was a bond with more power than all the Warmind weapons in the system. It was a promise to go on—an agreement that there was still a future. Jinju had called it "reverse salvage." She knew a thing or two about building something from the wreckage of their past.

The building was nearly empty. She had sent as much tech to the Tower as they could handle: an entire freight vessel's worth, packed to bursting.

She turned to the large glass window overlooking silent Warsat cannons. There were no Cabal. The death buried beneath Mars had quieted. Valkyrie subroutines that could be maintained remotely remained active, just in case.

Jinju ran final checks on the jumpship. A dark Pyramid loomed overhead. An experimental Exo chassis was secured in the ship's cargo hold. One foot in front of the other.

After the Guardian left his sanctum for the last time, Brother Vance collected his few belongings and stepped onto the scorching surface of Mercury. He found the entrance to the Infinite Forest easily, as though he had practiced the journey endlessly in his mind, because he had.

He struggled with his pack as a tempest beat on his eardrums. He withdrew his Infinite Simulacrum, impossibly small in this immense space, and with trembling fingers synchronized it to the frequency of the crack in the Forest. It ticked like a metronome and then…