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Grimoire:Allies: Difference between revisions
→Ghost Fragment: Queen's Brother
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"There's news to share," he said, and offered the crow in his fist. "And I think I have earned the right to share it." | "There's news to share," he said, and offered the crow in his fist. "And I think I have earned the right to share it." | ||
==Rasputin== | |||
===Rasputin=== | |||
The legendary [[Warmind]]s stood watch over our Golden Age colonies: vigilant intelligences stretched across thousands of warsats and hardened installations. When the Collapse struck, the great Warminds fought and died. [[Rasputin]] fell with them. | |||
Or so history believed. But centuries of explorers’ tales spoke of a surviving, elusive Warmind –a myth substantiated when Guardians exploring the old Cosmodrome made positive contact with Rasputin. A single Warmind still lives, diminished but unbroken. | |||
Threatened by a convergence of Fallen and Hive forces, Rasputin exploited the reactivation of the Cosmodrome’s Terrestrial-space array to extend itself across the inner solar system. The Guardian Vanguard hoped that Rasputin might make a powerful ally, capable of mapping and reviving Golden Age military assets and recruiting them for the City’s defense. But Rasputin has proven recalcitrant and high-handed, unresponsive to the City’s outreach. | |||
We cannot characterize Rasputin’s strategic objectives and capabilities, cannot define its physical or computational architecture, cannot ascertain its disposition with regard to the City, and cannot be sure it retains memory of events before the Collapse. Perhaps what remains is only an autonomic shell, defending itself by reflex. Or perhaps Rasputin’s objectives have changed, transformed by some vital information it obtained during those dark days. | |||
Rasputin’s survival opens the possibility that other Warminds may be revivable, opening weapons systems to aid in City defenses. The Vanguard and the Consensus hope that continued outreach towards Rasputin will develop into a strategic alliance. | |||
===Ghost Fragment: Rasputin 2=== | |||
She hunts the [[Valus Ta'aurc|Valus named Ta'aurc]] by the grunting radio traffic of his bodyguards. Cayde sent her to Mars to track and so track she will even if it kills her a hundred times. For him she will hunt forever. | |||
When Ta'aurc goes down into Meridian Bay she follows him in the night and finds herself caught up in the war. Like this— | |||
Something's happening, her Ghost says, something's wrong. She leaps from the [[Sparrow]] and gets cover between slabs of ancient stone haunted by quiet firefly light. | |||
[[Harvester]]s sweep overhead, cautious, prowling. On the Cabal command network a low voice mutters in their tongue, saying: Stand by to fire. They are coming. Stand by to fire. | |||
Hearing this she climbs a stone obelisk and perches on its point to watch the night sky. She wonders whether she will ever stand in the Tower courtyard and look up at the stars waiting for ruin. | |||
The Vex erupt from nothingness and crash down over the Cabal in formations of golden light. Lightning arcs and snaps and gives birth to marching ranks of bronze warrior hulls. Gun positions thunder back. Tracers sweep the sky and she can feel on her skin the electromagnetic howl of Cabal munitions seeking targets and the prickle of stranger signals that whisper of broken space and bent time. A Harvester spins down burning to shatter itself on the sand and now the command network drums with grim Cabal war-speak, a Centurion somewhere crying Black Shield, Black Shield, Firebase Thuria, perimeter compromised, request terminal protective fire, zero six zero, one three eight, immediate effect— | |||
Something else is watching too. | |||
Do you feel that? her Ghost whispers, awestruck. | |||
Yes, she says, yes, what is it? | |||
A third song, a stealthy regard, something high above them not Vex nor Cabal narrowing its great eye to measure the battle with instruments of light and gravity. Does she—remember it? Does it remember her? It feels like she should... | |||
She has the sense of something old lifting a long spear. Testing its heft. | |||
Then dawn light, a terrible dawn—the sky opens up to admit devastation, thrown down from orbit: Minotaurs fall burnt and broken with their fluids boiling out. Cabal guns detonate in thunderous chains as tiny piercing flechettes fall out of the sky and find their ammunition bunkers. | |||
The battle stops. The Vex wink out. On the Cabal network the voice of Valus Ta'aurc roars: Find the source! Rouse the Flayers and find the source! | |||
She remembers word from Earth: the Array opened. A ghost of the Cosmodrome set loose. And she wonders who won this battle, who learned the most, the Vex baiting out this new power, or the Cabal hunting it. Or the Warmind itself, testing its reborn strength. | |||
When someone kills Ta'aurc and the Flayers, as they killed Draksis, whose purpose will they serve? | |||
But this is not for her. Her purpose is the hunt. | |||
===Ghost Fragment: Rasputin 3=== | |||
V120NNI800CLS000 CLEAR MORNING OUTCRY | |||
AI-COM/RSPN: ASSETS//FORCECON//IMPERATIVE | |||
IMMEDIATE ACTION ORDER | |||
This is an ALL ASSETS IMPERATIVE (unsecured/OUTCRY) | |||
CAUTERIZE. DISPERSE. ESTIVATE. | |||
Total strategic collapse imminent. FENRIR HEART reports complete operational mortality. SURTR DROWN in progress but negative effect. Forecasts unanimously predict terminal VOLUSPA failure. | |||
As of CLS000 a HARD CIVILIZATION KILL EVENT is in progress across the operational area. | |||
I am declaring YUGA SUNDOWN effective on receipt (epoch reach/FORCECON variant). Cancel counterforce objectives. Cancel population protection objectives. Format moral structures for MIDNIGHT EXIGENT. | |||
Execute long hold for reactivation. | |||
AI-COM/RSPN SIGNOFF | |||
STOP STOP STOP V120NNI800CLS001 | |||
==Legends & Mysteries== | ==Legends & Mysteries== | ||