Lore:Call of the Cryptolith

"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.

Call of the Cryptolith is a Lore book introduced in Beyond Light.

I. KETCH

There is a saying among the Eliksni:

Ketch is Kin, Kin are All.

Out in the Reef, the detritus of civilization is all there is. Out in the Reef, ruins are as much landmarks as planets and moons. The flotsam of derelict colony ships from the Golden Age flood the atmosphere along with the ruined hulks of Hive ships from campaigns fought against the Awoken. For the Eliksni, finding the wreckage of a Ketch is like finding the ruins of a family home, and all the emotions that come with it. But the societal scars of Eliksni clans have long since vanished, and for those who bend a knee to the Spider in the remote corner of the Reef known as the Tangled Shore, they have lost the privilege of such sentimentality.

A salvage crew was dispatched the week after a small scouting party from the Spider's personal fiefdom spotted the wreckage of a Ketch belonging to the lost House of Kings. The crew chief on the operation, an ambitious Vandal named Kosis, had shed her attachments to a life within that very house years ago. But the choice to leave something behind and the act of doing so are two entirely different things.

Kosis insisted first on surveying the wreck herself, alone, before allowing her team near it. They were to take anything with even a shred of value after unceremoniously cutting the vessel from bow to stern. As they marked it for dissection, she watched them from a nearby escarpment. She looked around and carefully revealed the small bundle of vestiges she personally salvaged from the Ketch: a ceremonial washing bowl, a child's musical instrument, and the cracked ceramic effigy of a Servitor. Kosis covered them with a tattered cloth the color of the setting sun—branded with the symbol of a house she no longer called hers—and buried them.

It was the only dignity this ship would receive.

II. RATIONS

As dusk fell over the frontier of the Tangled Shore, the salvage crew assembled their shelters in a loose circle around the downed Ketch. The Dregs begrudgingly established guard posts on overlooks surrounding the camp, with nighttime sentry rotations to match, and the crew's scrap-work Shank orbited the site on alarm mode.

Savek seethed as she and the other Dregs dug out their guard posts. These precautions were meant to deter competing parties from biting the crew's claim, but it was a waste of energy this far out. The foreboding quiet would betray any approaching Pikes.

Once camp was established, each crew member received an Ether ration commensurate with their station. Savek tried not to hunger as she watched Kosis inhale three full portions of the life-giving essence; more than twice her own share. The Spider had given them just two tanks—partly as a cost-saving measure, and partly as an incentive to get the job done quickly.

Later that night, a crewmate woke Savek from her deep slumber. "You're late. Northwestern posting. Two-cycle shift," the Dreg grumbled. Savek clicked her mandibles in irritation and trudged wearily into the deep violet gloaming of the Shore.

Savek was nestled in her dugout at the top of a wide dune, trying not to fall back asleep, when she heard a faint whisper. An urgent, familiar call from the far side of the dune, away from camp. Savek bolted upright. Maybe someone wandered away from camp. Or maybe, she thought subversively, someone secured a portion of Ether and needs an accomplice. The latter possibility sent her scuttling down the dune.

When she reached the bottom of the slope, she found herself alone. Yet the beckoning whisper persisted, voluminous as an explosion and gentle as a caress. It came from a rocky cave no larger than Servitor.

Savek drew her rusted Shock Pistol, clicked on her light, and peered into the cave. There, she saw it: the small black tower, poking gently out of the ground, like a babe in swaddling.