Sever - Resolve

Prev:	Sever - Rage
Next:	Catharsis
Sever - Resolve
Game:	Season of the Haunted
Player(s):	1-3
Location:	Leviathan's Underbelly, Derelict Leviathan
Enemy faction(s):	Loyalists; Nightmares
Hostile race(s):	Cabal; Scorn
Objective(s):	Return to the Underbelly with Caiatl and help her face the Nightmare that haunts her in order to complete the Severance ritual.

Sever - Rage is the seventh Mission of Season of the Haunted and the sixth and final of the Sever missions. With Empress Caiatl now bound, she confronts the Nightmare of Dominus Ghaul with the help of The Guardian.^[1]

Objectives[edit]

Clear a route to the Leviathan's Engines
Assault the Engineering Bay
- X%
Reach Caiatl
Search the Engine Room
Incinerate the Contaminant
Catch up to Caiatl
Defeat the Nightmare of Dominus Ghaul

Transcript[edit]

"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.

Mission begins

Eris Morn: Caiatl will arrive shortly.
Caiatl: Drop pod breach successful. The ship has turned… rancid. The Leviathan's transformation is a spreading miasma. One we stop here. Take the engines, Guardian. I ascend another path, but I will see this through with you.
Nightmare of Ghaul: Come to challenge me again? The beaten always do.

The Guardian clears a route to the Leviathan's engines once more, again encountering Val Parthus and Bracus Lume fighting Loyalists and Scorn.

Nightmare of Ghaul: We lifted the Cabal from Calus's stagnation. Now your mythkeepers list the worlds lost, not added! They speak of what once was, and no longer of what could be! Is this the new Cabal you've envisioned?
Caiatl: We've both humored scribes conjuring purpose for us–futures that never came to pass. Theirs is the buzzing of insects caught in the turbulent winds. When the wind shifts, so will they.

The Guardian repels the Loyalist and Scorn forces.

Eris Morn: Plant your amplifier, and do not linger in the spores longer than you must.

The Guardian plants the first resonance beacon.

Eris Morn: The interference has returned, more complex than before. Something language adjacent, but… familiar. A translation of a translation.

The Guardian can backtrack and find a damaged Calus Automaton and awaken it.

Calus: Brilliant! BRILLIANT! I have warned you, I have offered gold and power and so much more. And still, you deny me. Good. Every bond you sever, every piece of my fleshy hull you storm, paints a worthier tale, crowned by the triumph of my expansion. In truth, this is what I always desired, my good friend: a display of my… enormity, immortalized by those who resist it. Individuals are defined by what we are not, after all. Unfortunately, this duality we are partners in… is short-lived. Soon, I will grow beyond such small ideas as conflict. Until then I will savor our time together.

The Guardian progresses, finding Caiatl with a Scorn impaled upon her blade, and a disapproving Nightmare of Ghaul.

Nightmare of Ghaul: Your edge alignment was poor.
Caiatl: [grunts] Guardian?
Nightmare of Ghaul: Caiatl, dispatch this Lightspawn and send its head back to the City.
Caiatl: Silence! You are a weak imitation of the Ghaul I knew.
Nightmare of Ghaul: I am limited only by your weak imagination.
Caiatl: I will find you at the end.

The Guardian descends into the Ventilator

Optus Ulios arrives to aid the Guardian

Nightmare of Ghaul: You stand with the Traveler's puppet? Against me? You have grown fat from weakness–drunk on their patronage!
Caiatl: You demanded I rule in your shadow. With the Vanguard, I stand equal. The Cabal stand equal.
Nightmare of Ghaul: The Cabal will die alongside them: a desperate ember fading against the dark.
Caiatl: Just because you can't imagine a future beyond yourself, Dominus, doesn't mean there isn't one.

The Guardian is trapped in the engine room.

Eris Morn: The interference is a voice. I've heard it whispered through the Tree of Silver Wings on Io, and beneath the ice of Europa. But it does not speak to us. This connection must be severed.

The Guardian incinerates containment

Eris Morn: Fan turbines offline. The final severance awaits.
Nightmare of Ghaul: They are using the Cabal–using you. The empire is cattle-flesh between the City and their enemies. They will let every last one of us die to save themselves.
Caiatl: They have proven otherwise. I do not fear our enemies. The Light is at our back, and we are the Cabal. We eat the mountains; we drink the seas. Let them come.

The Guardian approaches Caiatl

Caiatl: Get on with it!

Caiatl and the Guardian begins the severance ritual

Caiatl: [Growls fiercely]
Nightmare of Ghaul: You were never able to best me, Caiatl. That's why I left you to hold my throne.
Caiatl: I was fighting with weapons YOU gave me. Now, I wield my own.

The Guardian battles with the Nightmare of Ghaul

Caiatl: Crush him with your Light, as the Traveler did!

The Guardian defeats the Nightmare

Nightmare of Ghaul: You are nothing more than a child playing empress. You lack my drive, and your father's vision.
Caiatl: The old ways are dead, Dominus. I forged a new Cabal in my image. It does not require your approval.

Caiatl impales the Nightmare of Ghaul with her blade.

Nightmare of Ghaul: [pained yell]

The Nightmare of Ghaul is transformed into the Memory of Ghaul.

Memory of Ghaul: I see you, Caiatl. I see your new Cabal, pulled from the jaws of extinction. You have surpassed me. I attempted to subdue the Light… and burned for it. But you… you wield it on your War Council. What conquest is more deserving?
Caiatl: You still don't understand. It wasn't conquest. it was compromise. An act your traditions never would have allowed.
Memory of Ghaul: You have finally grown beyond the prescriptions of your idols. Despite my legend, Ghaul is flesh. His words are only words. Like yours.
Caiatl: There is a difference. Mine are better. Was that it, then? If dead men and sanctimony are all Calus has to threaten me, he might as well turn the Leviathan around and run.

Mission ends