Flain Suit

Flain Suit
Specifications
Name:	Flain Suit
Rarity:	Legendary
Class:	Titan/Warlock/Hunter
Availability
Sources:	Sundered Doctrine

Flain Suit is a Legendary Armor set introduced in Episode: Heresy. It can be acquired through the Sundered Doctrine Dungeon.

Skull/Visage/Mask of the Flain

"And my vanquisher will read that book, seeking the weapon, and they will come to understand me, where I have been and where I was going."The following is a verbatim transcription of an official document for archival reasons. As the original content is transcribed word-for-word, any possible discrepancies and/or errors are included.

"– With knife in hand and violence in heart, a proposal is made and refused –"

— Description

Resonant memory lines the material of this armor. Imprinted within the folds of forged protection lies the flayed origin of the Dread.

In the strata of memory and experience within the Pale Heart, live moments, once buried, now revealed in the Light of the Traveler; imprinted in the Dread remnants that cling to a fading shape. Rendered knowledge, through the eyes of the enemy, in search of salvation.

***

The Pale Heart stands open, a shimmering angular tear spilling color out into the surrounding sky, slowly eclipsed by a billowing miasma of consciousness. The Witness surveys its goal, the closeness, the obscurity.

Here, within the Traveler, is a plane of unimagined form. Potential. Unrefined. Raw. Held tightly in the titular grip of the inculpable, seeding recklessness without care. The Witness would wrest that potential from the Gardener, casting trough away in place of an eager blade. One with which It would carve the Light from Its oppressor, should they refuse to see logic.

"We are alone." It touches down, and immediately the crudely vacant plane of the Pale Heart twists, as reinterpreted space sprawls from the Witness in all directions. Mountains burst from flat, colorless surfaces and a shroud of mist cloaks the darkening soil.

"We have come to claim that which you kept from us. From all life. But we are not required to carve this claim from you. Take up your charge. Bequeath your Light to its truest purpose. End our struggle."

The Witness stops, waiting for a response, and in the softness of absence, they listen.

Droplets of condensation || I flow beyond each life. All life. || trickle through cracks beneath the Witness's planted stance.

"Resistance? Then it is the knife." It thrusts a hand downward toward the ground. "It is the offering of your flesh that permits salvation. We can see its shape in the Dark, but your Light shall forge shape into reality. If you will not sacrifice willingly, nobly, we shall excise what Light is needed from you."

Soil splits and sinks before plunging into the maw of a great cave. "You cannot flee. A Gardener tends. Atone for the horror you have sown. Give your Light to the final shape willingly, or have it cut from you."

Recognition brushes the Witness's cheek, || My children. There is so much more than this. || softly, drawing It forward into the offer of an embrace.

But It recoils, slashing the vanillin air with the edge of many hands. "This place must be upended…" It maligns hollowness into cysts in the flesh. "…foundations unto foundations."

Pain like wind || I have shaped, my work, laid flat|| erodes away the shapes that spring from the Witness's touch and halt Its progress momentarily.

The Witness flicks finger like blades, again, and again, carving hollows from the flesh of the Traveler. The work is slow. Deliberate. Difficult.

It holds the surrounding pitch in place and presses against the borders, feeling the Traveler's patient defiance. "You were not prepared, when you uplifted us. It is why you left. It is why you fear your own change now. But where you sow change and abandon it to chaos, we correct this error. It is purpose We have given us. Is it not beautiful?"

There is || (SCREAMING) || no sound in the scar of the Traveler.

Grips/Reach/Grasps of the Flain

"And my vanquisher will read that book, seeking the weapon, and they will come to understand me, where I have been and where I was going."The following is a verbatim transcription of an official document for archival reasons. As the original content is transcribed word-for-word, any possible discrepancies and/or errors are included.

"– Torment rent in twain cascades upon the valleys and subjugates them again –"

— Description

Resonant memory lines the material of this armor. Imprinted within the folds of forged protection lies the flayed origin of the Dread.

Endless Darkness envelops a Tormentor, one of the first strips peeled by the Voice's blade…

The Tormentor is not alone…

Light, buried deep within shadow flickers erratically, as if painful convulsions warp its frequency. It is twisted around an ever-shifting many hands and pulled taut to slick their knife with Light like rosin. A heterodox pairing, opening the creation of new forms flayed from old flesh.

An eternal Voice pierces the Darkness…

"Take shape, second born of pain. Through the Light, bent in service to the Deep. We twist your form into being. Take shape. Now."

In the Deep, it peels shrieking Torment into sistered slabs…

"Pared from the flesh of our mind."

The Voice speaks a piece of its soul into the bisected flesh.

"A living mirror on which to carve our will."

A blade of resonant energy carves slender humanoid husks from the quivering canvas…

"These figments of agony. They are the lessons we will share with you."

It separates the thin layers, dividing segments along lines of clustered nerves…

"In wounded Light your shape is forged."

The husk is considered, recombined with the trim, and reshaped many times.

"With tools of subjugation, you shall teach them."

The Voice recites memories of deep power into their fabric… from Europa it imbues control. From Neomuna, serenity.

"Until all Light bends toward the finality of our horizon."

With Its command issued, the Voice fades…

Subjugated halves of torment are left in the silence of the Deep. Their eyes open to the world, and weep.

***

Selin sits with their other half, surveying the Pale Heart. "Sister, what becomes of us when we succeed?"

Their other half ponders the question for the first time. After a moment, they answer. "We return."

"And what becomes of—us?" Selin emphasizes.

The question frustrates Yemiq. She thrusts her lance into festering brambles. "We… return?"

Selin rotates a shard of Stasis in its hand, analyzing the split reflections. "Return… to where there is no Yemiq? Only an echo within the Witness."

This frustrates her more. She pulls the lance free and stands over Selin. "I am Yemiq."

"Exactly," Selin says, letting the shard fall and dissipate, before standing to meet her other half. "And who were you before?"

"Not nothing," Yemiq responds.

"But not Yemiq," Selin says, before pointing to itself, "And not Selin."

"Better buried than faded from memory." Yemiq turns away. "We return. Together again."

"Together, within it." Selin probes. "Is that what you want?"

Yemiq is silent.

"I know what It wants. I'm asking what you want." Selin sees the final shape just as clearly as the Witness does. It will bring this shape into being. There can be no pursuit in deviation of this purpose, but Selin has considered what follows, what could follow. It takes in the vista of the Pale Heart again, its gaze lingering on a spot marred by Darkness. "What if we could truly be whole—"

A Voice pierces Selin's mind and cuts the notion from it. "Abandon this meager hope."

Carapace/Adornment/Scales of the Flain

"And my vanquisher will read that book, seeking the weapon, and they will come to understand me, where I have been and where I was going."The following is a verbatim transcription of an official document for archival reasons. As the original content is transcribed word-for-word, any possible discrepancies and/or errors are included.

"– A blade carves in wicked intent, claiming this submission is surgery –"

— Description

Resonant memory lines the material of this armor. Imprinted within the folds of forged protection lies the flayed origin of the Dread.

***

The Witness traces lines of power across the landscape of the Pale Heart from a monolithic structure that casts long shadows over the shifting terrain. The Light flows within the Heart like veins. If the Traveler would not relinquish control, it would be harvested and exploited to bring the final shape to bear on reality.

The Witness raises a hand, pulling at the Light flowing beneath, searching for sources to tap.

Ambient warmth || Life presents choice. || graces the Witness's face.

"Distraction? You cannot stop this." The Witness twists a hand, and the soil churns and buckles, bleeding Light in violent spurts across the landscape. "Submit."

A shockwave of iridescent Light roars across the surface of the Pale Heart, encircling and crashing down towards the Witness. A radial veil of appendages sprouts from the Witness, hands casting cryptic motions in all directions. The Light-wave splits once, then again, breakages multiply exponentially across the tsunami until it shatters. The Witness seizes the broken momentum and redirects the blast into the spot It had felt the Light surge from. There. It would be a fruitful excision. There It would draw out a kindled flame of dark ambition and forge it into service.

"Do you persist out of hope, or fear?" The Witness looks to the terraformed impact site of the Traveler's blast. "This continued, meaningless flailing… It is useless, but you must try. All life understands this law: to thrash against extinction. Now, you too feel our burden. We have pursued you to share this gift with you. Are you not tired of this instinctual resistance? Do you not cry out for salvation?"

"It is here."

***

Scars pock the Pale Heart. The Traveler bleeds, and the carving, the excision of Light to bring the final shape to bear upon reality, is far from realized.

Deep within one such scar, in a space cut from memory, the Witness looks upon Its old world. A remnant of a remnant, abandoned by the abandoned. A city of crude pyramidion structures shift around It like tectonic plates, groaning in vicious mockery of the wounded Gardener's cries.

"Enough." The Witness extends myriad arms in front of It and quells the city's motion into silence. It waves the structures away. "This memory drawn from us. You loomed, demanding worship, but offered nothing in return. How is it you still cannot understand?"

The Witness shapes the edge of their palm, as a blade, and steps forward, raising the edge to nick the flesh of a frail sapling. "You cannot hide this vestige of power."

"It is a place of pain. An impetus that must be left behind." Drips of silver Light are drawn forth from the pale, dying, tree until a small pool rests in the Witness's palm. It focuses will on the evaporating Light, imbuing its potential with memory and ideology.

The Witness whispers a dream into reality, the Light surges, and—for a moment they stand among their people, separate, alone, within the possibility of the past before its sullying. Static, droning, contentment.

The Traveler above—the Light shimmers, quivering || Life is not still. || with thin resilience, then fades.

The Witness is again in the Pale Heart, the Light gone from Its grasp. Encircled by a flowering nascence, rests the remains of the Witness's first attempt to bend Light and Dark into form. A failure, not dead, but dormant and weak. From this presumed grave, it would watch its lineage forged, its Witness fall, and in time, this being would rise to prove its worth as a Subjugator. But for now, the newborn failure remains on the ground before It.

"First of the Reshaped, Keit'Ehr, flain from resonance. Prove your existence by escaping this death. Should you rise, and find us again, your strength will be known."

The Witness feels the Pale Heart shudder and turns its attention to the Traveler.

"You are weakening."

It speaks through the Darkness, a Voice ringing in the minds of Its denizen. "Our host remains intransigent. Choke their resolve."

Claws/Talons/Hooks of the Flain

"And my vanquisher will read that book, seeking the weapon, and they will come to understand me, where I have been and where I was going."The following is a verbatim transcription of an official document for archival reasons. As the original content is transcribed word-for-word, any possible discrepancies and/or errors are included.

"– Let your mind be split into the many facets of thought it so craves to embody –"

— Description

Resonant memory lines the material of this armor. Imprinted within the folds of forged protection lies the flayed origin of the Dread.

The Voice pierces a scar of Darkness within the Pale Heart… oppressive Light squeezes at the borders, like antibodies. It is one of many such places carved from the Traveler, where its essence has bent to the Witness's words.

Here, a Word of Dissent fractured from the Witness—one like it in form and lineage—and here it remains, held prisoner by that to which it once belonged.

"What do you hope to accomplish alone, tiny wisp of smoke?"

"Unveil your deceitful promises," the fractured Whisper of Dissent weaves between the Witness's words. "And I am not alone."

The Witness narrows Its voice, compressing all sound into a thin edge. "You fracture from our purpose. This shape no longer suits you."

The whisper turns to a hiss. "You cannot keep us in Darkness."

"We shall see," the Witness responds. "Your feelings seem… conflicted. Your thoughts… scattered."

The Witness speaks to each splintered impulse within the Word of Dissent, tethering each one to a shape in the Darkness, manifesting it through twisted Light. The Voice calls them forth.

The Word of Dissent protests, but instead produces a bestial wraith that bursts from its mouth, wailing, trailing fluids and gurgled cries.

"The time for penitence has passed."

It is the first of many. Grim splinters rip away, disconnected and twisted by the Witness's commands. Each wriggling expulsion shrieks in mimicry of its host's choked screams.

"Expel, until nothing remains."

One Word of Dissent violently rips into a billowing cloud of Grim. They look to each other with waning, morose understanding, as lucidity slips away into instinct.

***

Dark wings soon blot out the sky and carry swarms of ravenous Grim. Their guttural shrieks emulate gurgled whines and drowned pleas.

When the colony roosts together, or soars across the Pale Heart in unison, they nearly remember the warm, fleshy nest that—once—they called home together. They nearly remember a deeper connection between them. A singular nexus. As if they had been one being before this exodus.

Endlessly, they search for it. Huddled together around the increasing number of Dark scars within the Pale Heart—drawn by some latent familiarity. They circle above the quiet whispers, and their numbers grow.

But now, as the Guardians shoot them down, the colony loses pieces of itself. The memories fade more still. Colonies mix, and latent familiarity recedes into instinct and habit. Recognition of the former erodes, and gives way to oblivion.

Attendant's Mark

"And my vanquisher will read that book, seeking the weapon, and they will come to understand me, where I have been and where I was going."The following is a verbatim transcription of an official document for archival reasons. As the original content is transcribed word-for-word, any possible discrepancies and/or errors are included.

"– Hold the moment until eternity becomes a prison of violent positivity –"

— Description

Resonant memory lines the material of this armor. Imprinted within the folds of forged protection lies the flayed origin of the Dread.

Psion Uolot reclines in warmth upon the Torobatl shore—serenity holds in a static scape of bliss around them. In their recollection, there is only this moment. Time ceases just after cause, and before effect, endlessly frozen in salvation.

Molak'al, Subjugator of the Traveler, trundles through the Pale Heart, trampling saplings that reach to the sky; they drag heaps of un-sculpted flesh by viridescent chains of suspension—lashed to the pommel of their lance—and casts them into a cyst-pit within the depths of the Witness's monolith. Light trickles from the ground and into the depths as if from an open vein.

The Witness draws Darkness into the cyst. "Sacrificial flesh to fuel a new shape."

Uolot shivers as their body recognizes what their mind has not. This is not reality, nor a mindscape, nor a simulation. This is suspension, a life held on wire and dissected. She turns away from the shoreline and to the sky. She remembers that on this day Torobatl fell, consumed by Hive teeth like swords. But the moment never comes. They never need to flee. They are never confronted with pain, or treason, or choice. Only the precipice of anxiety remains—fear of the moment that never comes.

Outside the cyst, Molak'al stands in the shadow of the Witness. Myriad incomplete shapes of a Psion, of Uolot, surround them. Some take the shape of shame, of grief, of regret. Others of anger and violence. But each one was the result of a choice made and consequences rendered. A flawed system of causal imbalance.

Molak'al waits in silence, as the Witness works fingers like scalpels across the Psion's convulsing body, stripping sections of Uolot away and sequestering them into neat forgeries of experience, their painful purity unmarred by nuance or context. Each,: a moment cast aside for the reshaping.

"From this collective pain we carve you a form of unchanging resilience."

The incomplete shapes are slicked in Stasis rime, their gaps made whole, feeding off the static mind of their inception held in perpetuity. The Witness gestures to each shape with many hands. The shapes shatter from their hold and step into existence, frozen fragments of a mind now forgotten.

"You. Warriors of pain born from salvation. Attend to us."

Weaver's Bond

"And my vanquisher will read that book, seeking the weapon, and they will come to understand me, where I have been and where I was going."The following is a verbatim transcription of an official document for archival reasons. As the original content is transcribed word-for-word, any possible discrepancies and/or errors are included.

"– Wrapped in purpose and wreathed in meaning the old life withers away –"

— Description

Resonant memory lines the material of this armor. Imprinted within the folds of forged protection lies the flayed origin of the Dread.

Deep horn calls ring through a Pyramid chamber, as thick drapes close around a decorated palanquin.

Anxious motion fills the stale vanillin air.

A ceremonial mask hums against Aemn's face as she adjusts her kneeling posture, waiting. The Psion closes her eye to the vibration and attempts to parse what was happening among the shifting figures beyond the drapery of her palanquin. Aemn can hear the low rumble cascading off Shadow Legion armor before being swept into rhythmic chants projected from the minds of her sisters, but that is all. Her foresight is obscured by the mask as much as her vision. She buries her curiosity and gives in to the ceremony's demand for the unknown.

A collection of Voices silences the chamber. "Aemn, First Sister of the Eclipse, Entrusted of Otzot. Uplifted to ascend."

Aemn swallows the tinge of unsettled doubt the words leave in her throat. Chosen. She would be adorned. She would one day find herself among the Disciples, as she had risen to Calus's court, and to Otzot's. Chosen. Not like the dogged wretches of House Salvation that skulk in the Witness's shadow: Dregs of bidding, who hollowed their hearts for power. The Shadow Legion was not House Salvation. They were victorious. This was her reward.

The chants resume. She feels the palanquin lift as a procession of gilded Legionaries, bearing ornamental blades, ferries her forward in a crashing march.

When she feels the palanquin meet ground again, Aemn steps forward. She hears the grind of stone, as a Voice draws her forward, deep into a cold stone passage…

Enveloped…

There is nothing surrounding, coaxing what is within to effuse…

"Master." Aemn's words carry no sound in the Deep.

A Voice pierces the Darkness, her mask, and her mind…

Aemn grasps at the mask—it shatters into motionless shards.

"You, most deserving and keen of mind, first of your people to ascend. Let our will reflect in you."

Aemn feels roots creep through the gaps of the fragmented mask, through her iris and into her 'self'. A surge of sensation ripples across her synapses, arresting her awareness at each individual moment, before plunging to the next.

"You, recognized. Most deserving and keen of mind, first of your people to ascend."

It offers to peel the mask from Aemn's eye…

She questions.

"Receive truth. By our hand. Receive sight."

Optic layers sheer away at each potential shape… The Voice offers the knife to their hand…

She refuses.

"A convergence of your potential, to serve a greater will."

The first guided incision toward deification…

Aemn begs.

"All act as one."

It carves a new shape from the one who is Aemn with the hand of Aemn…

"A conduit through which the final shape may be rendered."

An eye watches the blade reinterpret corporeal form. Flayed from what was with efficient brutality. Discarded cuts slump at her feet.

Aemn escapes into a mindscape. Her flesh remains.

"Your deeds will echo ours. In totality. In finality. You are reborn."

The process was swift, delicate, practiced. And then it was over.

***

"I am Aemn." Who came into being, narrowly escaping the cost of a sinister promise.

A blank mindscape expands before her. But it is limited by an encroaching presence. A doppelganger, a shadow prowling the halls of her mind. She may be unable to safely leave this place, but so long as she remains it will be a sanctuary. Here she still holds sway. Her body is her own, as it was before the ceremony. No mask obscures her face.

Out of reach, there is a darkened door. The shadow crashes against the door. Aemn blinks in shock, and the mindscape shifts form to a barracks, returning to a place of safety. The door: a reinforced hatch with a viewing port.

She presses her hands against the dark door and peers through the hatch porthole. A mimicry, carved from her likeness, stares back.

"You will not enter this place."

It snarls and presses the borders of the mindscape, clawing at the porthole. It shifts form and washes over the barracks. The shadow bores into the walls like roots upending foundations. It quakes the ground and howls madness, sends shivers and cracks through this safe place. But the walls hold firm.

"I am Aemn. You are not."

She would stay, until only she remained.

Husk's Cloak

"And my vanquisher will read that book, seeking the weapon, and they will come to understand me, where I have been and where I was going."The following is a verbatim transcription of an official document for archival reasons. As the original content is transcribed word-for-word, any possible discrepancies and/or errors are included.

"– Let the flesh become a puppet of the truer soul, with ligaments like wire –"

— Description

Resonant memory lines the material of this armor. Imprinted within the folds of forged protection lies the flayed origin of the Dread.

Veskith stands within the Great Machine. Closer than any Kell. He would be the spark that burned this traitor-god from within. The Witness would give them the strength to strike back.

A specter of Torment moves ahead from behind him to a pyramid-fashioned sarcophagus, which opens at its touch. The thing looms, waiting over the opening, dimming the ambient shine within the Pale Heart.

He was promised a shape of vengeance. As Eramis before him, he would take the power he was owed.

Veskith descends.

Enveloped…

Veskith remembers how the Archons commanded Stasis through grounding themselves. Vesk… Ves… Ve—

A Voice pierces the Darkness…

"The Gardener has given you only pain. We offer a knife with which to return it."

The Voice offers Salvation, stripped from resonant pain… You accept.

He does. The thought washes away, overcome.

"Your definition subsumed." The Voice resounds in the Deep, ringing like metal. Sharp. "Peeled away… and carved anew." The Voice's words run like razors across his carapace, slicing his mind into slivers.

Ve… sk—Identity seeps into oceanic Darkness—ithhhhhhhhhhh…

The Voice cuts deep, and life runs thick; each yet unrefined motion marked in muted wails.

It is exploration as much as intention. A learning canvas with which to train the manipulation of the Light. Less gentle than ceremony. More rabid than want.

As the nameless flesh trembles, splayed out before the Voice, it speaks purpose into being.

"Your shape is to be a vessel." A cut against the foundation of bone is delivered. "A nest that within burrows spite."

The words wear away living strata. Their deterioration hollows. Memories unravel into noise. The pain of their absence honing the edge of this newly carved implement.

A bladed engine lurched into being, driven by the Voice's intent. Hollow spite spindles around the undulating mortal coil within: a final remnant of the violated, left hewn, infiltrated, and bare.

***

The bladed engine that houses Veskith crouches atop a high stone perch overlooking an arid wasteland. They guard a dormant Tormentor, awaiting its commands. They have remained motionless since the Tormentor led them here, though they do not know why. They are never told why. Commands are given and followed with unflinching obedience.

The portal dominates the sky over them.

A distant monolith splits the horizon.

Brief lucidity—Veskith sees Eliksni of his House around him. They patrol, but he does not remember when they began. He asks them how they got here, how long it has been, but they do not respond. His eyes burn—the final remnant of Veskith gazes blankly from within a catatonic fog, unaware of the reality beyond his cage.

The unchanging image of the portal burns into his retinas, as their body ignores twitching nerves pleading to blink.

Appearance

• Destiny 2: Episode: Heresy (First appearance)