Lore:Rites of Passage
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Rites of Passage is a Lore book that was added in Season of the Witch. Entries are unlocked by progressing through the "Bladed Path" questline during Season of the Witch. It follows a number of characters and their perspectives during Clash of the Hive Gods.
Process
Saint-14 and Osiris sat across from ecch other at the rough wooden table, focused on the array of wires, struts, and braces spread out before them. Mithrax had mentioned that his Splicer Gauntlet had been causing his arm to go numb, and Saint's overeager offer of assistance had turned into an evening of frustratingly meticulous tinkering. Mithrax had politely excused himself hours ago, but and Osiris were so focused on their discussion of Savathûn's bargain they hardly noticed.
"We don't have a choice," Osiris said, threading a wire through the lacey frills of a tiny Ether converter. "The future the Witness is crafting beyond that portal is more terrible than we could dream. Anything is preferential to that."
"Anything but her," Saint grumbles.
"Even her," Osiris said defiantly. "If Savathûn knows how to pursue the Witness—and there is little doubt that she does—we must work with her. There is no other way."
With an Exo's patient precision, Saint straightened a row of metal pins. "I do not know how you can say that. After everything."
Osiris raised his eyebrows. "I am a beacon of forgiveness," he said, but the words sour on his tongue.
"So you forgive ber?" Saint didn't need to look up from his work.
"No," Osiris said quietly. He aligned a metal tab with its slot and pressed it into place, waiting to hear a click. It didn't come.
"The trurh is," Osiris said, "I hardly think of her at all."
Saint looked at him flatly, but Osiris shrugged, his face open. "I know how it sounds. I have acknowledged what happened and… moved on, I suppose. I am here. Alive. With you. They say that's the best revenge, don't they?"
Saint coiled a stubborn spring and prepared to slide it into a support brace. "Is it revenge to allow the violator to avoid accountability?"
"The 'violator' is dead," Osiris said wryly.
"And will live again if Eris and the Guardians fulfill this prophecy or prediction—" the spring shot from between Saint's fingers "—or whatever Savathûn wants to call this new trick!"
Osiris heard the spring clatter in the corner near the kitchen and rose wordlessly to hunt for it. Saint sighed. "I do not know how you can so calm," he said. "You sometimes act as though you do not remember what she did to you."
"I remember it all," he said softly, without turning away from the corner. "I remember being… helpless." The words caught in his throat.
Saint pushed his chair back and stood, but Osiris was already back at the table, a dusty spring in the center of his palm. "There is still fury inside me," he said, "fury that I will probably carry forever. I acknowledge it, but I do not let it consume me. I control it, and take strength from that."
Osiris placed the spring on the table and sat back down. Saint moved to his side. "Denying your emotions is not strength," Saint said carefully.
"I admit that, if I could, I'd change what happened," Osiris said. "But not if doing so changed where it led me." Osiris reached out and gave Saint a half-embrace around the hips.
"Have we finished talking about this now?" Osiris asked, and Saint heard the rawness in his voice.
Saint kissed the top of Osiris's head and sat back down. It would have to be enough.
A Matter of Distrust
As Ikora neared the console in the H.E.L.M., a voice cried out from the shadows as a figure lunged for her.
Ikora's hands moved reflexively to deflect the blow and deliver a killing strike, but she stopped after recognizing her attacker. She allowed Elsie to grab the front of her robes and shove her against the bulkhead.
"Were you even listening?" Elsie screamed, her hands shaking in frustration. "How many reports, Ikora? How many times did I tell you what I saw?"
The pain in her voice tore at Ikora.
She knew the stories almost as well as Elsie at this point: the Exo had traveled back from a future where Eris Morn held dominion over everything and even bent Savathûn to her will. It had not ended well.
Elsie pushed away and began to pace, furious.
"Elsie," Ikora said gently, "I know the future you came from. But that is not this future."
"I have seen what happens when Eris Morn has unchecked power," Elsie hissed. "I have smelled the corpses."
Ikora wanted to comfort Elsie, but knew that any attempts at camaraderie would push her further away. Instead, she straightened her robes. "The Eris in your timeline was corrupted by Darkness," she said coolly. "We bow understand how to wield the Darkness without becoming lost in it."
"Eris Morn was corrupted by POWER, Ikora," Elsie said. "The same power you're encoraging Guardians to—to—" she nearly choked on her words, "—to tithe to her through Hive rituals! And you think that's somehow BETTER?!"
Ikora took a breath. "I hear you," she said with quiet authority. "And while I trust Eris, I will not lose my objectivity. If actions must be taken, I will take them."
Elsie shook her head. "I wonder if you said the same thing before your body was buried in the wreckage of the Tower."
Ikora waited. One cannot speak when the other is unwilling to listen, Osiris has once told—
"It's in her voice," Elsie said. She sounded small. She sounded truly afraid, Ikora realized. "You can hear it, even through her Hive transformation. When she speaks, she's smiling."
Elsie took a careful breath. "When she led her troops from the Scarlet Keep. When she attacked the Traveler. When she turned us against each other and I was forced to…"
Ikora reached out a hand to stop her from having to say it.
"To kill my sister," Elsie whispered, pleading for understanding. "To kill Ana. Eris was smiling that same smile."
Ikora laced her fingers together and looked at the floor.
"I won't watch it happen again," Elsie said, and her voice was ice.
Auspices
Drifter sidled through Eris's Athenaeum, poking at her occult doodads. Many of the unidentifiable objects were covered in one type of grime or another: wax, tallow, machine grease, or blood. Hw shook his head with affection, amazed that someone so sharp could be so sloppy.
He spotted the Deck of Whispers spread haphazardly across Eris's lectern and strode across the room, gathering them into a clean pile. He'd had so many fortunes and misfortunes over his many lifetimes, he doubted another one would tip the scales either way. Drifter cut the deck fearlessly and flipped over the top card with a flourish.
THE HARBINGER
As he stared into the card, the magnitude of Eris's undertaking loomed large in his mind. "Don't worry, Moondust," he muttered. "You got this."
He casually back on top of the deck. "And when you're done, I'll be waiting."
* * *
Zavala eyed the Deck of Whispers warily. He had been touring Eris's base of operations when the cards caught his eye. They seemed to draw his attention with silent insistence.
The commander had never been one to seek omens or portents. It wasn't that hw chafed at the idea of cosmic forces influencing his fate; the far-reaching effects of the Traveler on his life had long put to rest his hubristic sense of self-determination. Rather, he distrusted the riddles that such ocular devices employed. Be had heard too many of the Witch Queen's half-truths to trust anything but hard evidence anymore. And yet…
Zavala picked up the deck and immediately sensed its power. It felt heavier than the weight of its materials. As he hefted it in his palm, a card slid from the middle of the deck, as if pulled by an unseen hand. Zavala watched gravely as it fell face up at his feet:
LAMENT
He gave a plaintive chuckle. Perhaps the oracles were not so difficult io interpret at all.
* * *
"Ikorakel?" Mithrax called out to the Athenaeum. He had come looking for the Warlock Vanguard on City business, but having found the space empty, he paused his search to scrutinize her latest operation. Mithrax had strong objections to Eris's use of Hive magic, but knew the Vanguard was not his House to command.
He perused the esoteric artifacts littering the space with mild distaste. They reminded him too much of the relics of Nezarec, which had plagued his youth. As his gaze came to rest on the Deck of Whispers, he felt a familiar numbness spread throughout his chest. Though the sensation had become more prevalent in recent months, he'd told no one.
As the Kell picked up the deck with his upper-right hand, he felt his Splicer Gauntlet pulse with energy. The cards were clearly imbued with a power beyond his experience. With his lower-left hand, he delicately withdrew a card and placed it face up on the table.
ASCENSION
Nithrax pondered the omen gravely. It reminded him of all the tribulations his House had suffered in coming to the Last City. Their ascension had been a volent and sorrowful one, filled with detractors. Yet the peace and security they found among the Humans had justified their risks. Now it was Eris who walking into the sanctum of her mortal enemy to her people.
Mithrax shook his head in self-rebuke. Perhaps he'd been too rigid in his opinions regarding Eris Morn's mission. He owed her the same grace that the Vanguard had extended to him.
He slid the card back into the middle of the deck and felt the numbness in his chest recede once again.
An Invocation
Titan's methane oceans roiled. Saturn's crushing gravity caused massive tidal waves to surge across the moon's surface.
In the comforting blackness beneath the waves, the tides swelled and contracted like the breath of a great beast. Within that churn of elemental forces, the proto-worm Ahsa slumbered.
She was not "asleep" in any sense her bonded Guardian would understand. For the frail Humans, sleep was a frantic, uninhibited state. Their minds roamed freely between terror, ecstasy, and oblivion. It was not a condition that Ahsa recognized as "restful."
Instead, the proto-worm's attention drifted peacefully among quantum fields unspoiled by physics or matter. Her consciousness diffused from the dense thoughtforms used by the Humans to a more expansive state of being. She was as.a mist upon the face of the cosmos. Time flowed through her as a tranquil breeze.
|Ahsa|
Her serenity was suddenly eroded. As if a gyre had suddenly formed beneath her mind, sucking her inexorably back into her body. She let herself sink.
| Akka… Xita… Sel… Ahsa… Ora… Leis…|
The crushing density of her material form suddenly weighed her down. She calmed herself as she re-identified the oppressive forces as mere physical sensation.
| I separate the true from the dead. |
The phenomenon pulling her back was familiar. A Human voice. The words were sharp and pointed. They smelled of putrefaction. Despair. Violence.
| I am the many-mouthed hunger. I am the knife-edged truth. |
The voice grew stronger, like a saprophytic fungus blossoming on a carcass. It spread its mycelial tendrils through her mind. An invocation.
She knew intuitively that she could withdraw from this connection if she desired. The will of the unseen voice was not so strong as to enthrall her. Not yet.
| I devour the free. I conspire with my vengeance. |
Ahsa suppressed the urge to recoil. Beneath the ritual words, she recognized a discordant note. One of… altruism. The speaker was sacrificing themself as well. They proposed mutual tribulation for a greater purpose: the survival of the universe.
Their reciprocal apprehension gave her solace. Ahsa opened herself up, allowing the voice to resonate within her.
| I will take what I need. The words in my throat are the weapon in my fist. |
The gruesome nature of the speaker's method became clear: Ahsa was to become a vessel for their harvested power. A battery for the profane logic—just like her corrupted kin.
Waves of conflicting emotion cascaded through Ahsa as memories of her flight from Fundament resurfaced. After her escape, Ahsa had spent millennia in grief for her lost brethren. But always dormant beneath the surface of her despair was a faint gleam of hope, like buried treasure. A hope that one day, she might redeem their depravity.
A hope which now rose to the surface wielding the very sword she once fled.
|Aiat, aiat, aiat!|
Upon the final invocation, Ahsa perceived the fullness of her caller's intent. They sought power not for themself, or even their species. They fought to preserve the very cosmos as they knew it. To save it from the cruel grasp of a wounded tyrant, using the only tool they could.
The proto-worm imagined the universe swelling and contracting like the tides. Beyond the reckoning of any one being. When moved by such swells, one could only accept their impetus, making of them the beat one could.
From her bonding with Sloane, Ahsa knew this was what Humans called "fate."
A Big Fan
Immaru floated at the edge of a large crowd, waiting for an opportune moment. He tried to remain inconspicuous.
The Hive Ghost had snuck out of the Tower, leaving his bone-ridge shell behind to avoid unwanted attention. He filched an old Shaded Shell from an office junk drawer. The sunglasses made it perfect for sneaking around undercover. Given the gaudy shells these preening Tower Ghosts wore, Immaru was sure his appearance would go unnoticed.
He wandered around the Last City for a while, watching the citizens putter from one inane task to the next. Since resurrecting Savathûn, Immaru had been witness to the creation of a throne world, cosmic-level spellcraft, and interplanetary invasions. Being pent up with the Humans, watching them haggle over the price of charred carrion skewers, was maddening.
He was nearly bored enough to return to the Tower when a stream of rowdy celebrants piqued his interest. They poured into the streets from houses, bars, and betting parlors—all making their way toward the edge of the City. Immaru floated among them.
The crowd eventually arrived at the perimeter of an abandoned military base. Well-to-do patrons filtered past Redjacks into the base, while most of the crowd gathered around enormous screens set up outside. The screens displayed the opening salvos of a Crucible match, and Immaru could detect changes in air pressure as the Guardians bombarded each other within the facility.
After the match's brutal conclusion, the crowd dispersed. A few die-hard fans waited around around the gate to congratulate the participants. Eventually, the Crucible's boisterous announcer emerged to receive his fans' well-wishes. Once the crowd had thinned, Immaru floated up to the one-horned Guardian.
"I love what you're doing here, big guy," Immaru effused. "I got friends who would be very into your kill-or-be-killed vibe."
Immaru could sense Lord Shaxx blinking beneath his helmet, trying to place the Ghost's voice. "Well met. Perhaps your friends will join us on the field!"
"Oh, you met some of 'em already," Immaru chuckled. "You got a lot in common, actually."
Immaru raised his voice in imitation of the Titan's booming commentary: "'ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE,' 'MAKE PAIN YOUR ALLY,' DYING IS AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT.' That's right in their wheelhouse. You might even call it a philosophy."
"Well, the Crucible is more than just senseless violence," Shaxx patiently explained. "It's about fair play. It's about bringing the beat out in one another and rising above our limitations."
"I totally understand," Immaru said, chuckling inwardly at the Titan's canned rhetoric. "The goal is to be the sharpest we can be. And anyone who can't handle the edge gets cut. There's a certain… logic to it."
"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself," Shaxx said as his gleaming Sparrow materialized beneath him. "But remember: the Crucible is about more than just combat. More than just Guardians. It's about putting our differences aside and uniting everyone in the City. Including the Ghosts," he seemed to wink.
"I'm a big fan," Immaru gushed. "Thank you for uniting so many different types of people. More than I could have imagined."
"Many thanks for your support," Shaxx hollered as revved the engines on his Sparrow. "I hope to see you and your friends again soon. Until next time!" The massive Guardian gave his admirer a brief salute and sped off into the City.
Immaru watched the Titan recede into the distance. "Whatever tickles your trigger finger, buddy," he muttered.
The Hive Ghost floated off toward the Tower, renewed in his purpose. At least now he knew what the Witch Queen saw in the Humans. Maybe they would come around after all.
