Toland, the Shattered: Difference between revisions

===Reunion with Eris===

{{Quote|I will teach you what I know. Executions are so much more fun when the martyr thinks they have a chance against the lion.|Toland, the Shattered}}

When [[Eris Morn]] became trapped in the [[Ascendant Realm]], Toland reunited with his old fireteam member, despite her initial suspicions after surviving an encounter with the [[Savathûn,_the_Witch-Queen|Witch-Queen]]. As they both reflected on their experience with their tragic descent into the Hellmouth, Toland brought up the idea that [[Pyramid|something]] greater was at play and how [[Savathûn, the Witch Queen|Savathûn]] was previously goading Eris into looking into. He last warned her of the dangers she was treading into before she was warped away to the [[Dreaming City]].  

After Eris had accidentally triggered the appearance of the [[Nightmare]]s, Toland turned his attention to the Moon. While monitoring the Hive's activity, he began sharing information with Guardians willing to listen. When Eris sent the Guardian on a quest to harness the Hive's Deathsong, Toland decided to aid them out of curiosity. He guided the Guardian to different components needed to access the song and watched as they slew a new choir of Deathsingers gathering underneath the Moon and used their remains to create the [[Deathbringer]].

==Personality and traits==

His main motivation and driving force always seemed to be curiosity. He possesses a deep hunger for knowledge and secrets, even willing to risk his very being to learn them; Eris remarked that made him predictable, regarding his earlier appearance in Mara Sov's throne world. He takes joy in preaching his beliefs and findings, and feeling his words are falling for deaf ears irritates him greatly. He seems to be enjoying his role of a foul guide, laying out a trail of breadcrumbs and watching others follow it. Even his bitterness towards the Guardian would in time be defeated by this - in [[A Hum of Starlight]] he angrily remarks he will not be our Virgil guiding us through the dark, and when we meet him again on the Moon in [[Shadowkeep]], he proceeds to do just that.

His relationship to his fireteam was a complicated one, as they valued the knowledge he possessed but were distrustful of his secretiveness, Eris even accusing him of "holding [his] secrets like weapons" in order to doom them.<ref>'''Bungie (2014/12/9)''', ''[[Destiny]]: [[The Dark Below]], PlayStation 4, Activision Blizzard, [[Grimoire]]: [[Grimoire:Enemies/Exalted_Hive#Eyes_of_Crota|Eyes of Crota]]''</ref> Eriana blamed him for the fireteam's tragic end<ref name="Patrol:H">'''Bungie (2019/10/1)''', ''[[Destiny 2]]: [[Shadowkeep]], Playstation 4'', Patrol dialogue: the Hellmouth</ref>, and her Ghost [[Jax]] urged anyone listening not to trust Toland in its last transmission.<ref>'''Bungie (2019/10/1)''', ''[[Destiny 2]]: [[Shadowkeep]], Playstation 4, Activision Blizzard, [[Lore:Luna's Lost#Ghost Fragment: Eriana-3's Ghost|Luna's Lost - Ghost Fragment: Eriana-3's Ghost]]''</ref>. Eris herself seems to have conflicting feelings about him, feeling as if she should not miss him yet listing him among her friends and arguing that "a fireteam's bond are not so easily undone".<ref>'''Bungie (2019/10/1)''', ''[[Destiny 2]]: [[Shadowkeep]], Playstation 4'', Lost Mementos: Memory of Toland, the Shattered</ref>.

*''We all died once, and it did not prove insurmountable.''

*''Eris, Eris, what a name, a name for discord a name for far cold orbits where no living thing should dare to go...''

*''Listen - death is the last part of living and life is learning to die. The song is the same as the singing; the last truth commands me to eat all the light in the sky.''

*''What does it mean to die so many times, at the hands of so many enemies and allies? What has death taught you, Guardian? How has it shaped you?''

*''Will you be prepared? Or will you be... boring?''

*''Listen, listen...''

*''Come slayer of Oryx. I have words for you.''

*''Will you listen? Or will you be like your Vanguard?''

*''Dark the Moon. Dark the night. Hush the station. Hush the Hive. Gone their leaders. Gone the Light.''

*''Just think of the old colony ships, lumbering toward some distant planet loaded with bodies. And then some soulless cargo package flashes by, shot from this Accelerator and piloted by an AI. It weighs you down, life''

*''You feel it, don't you? The hunger that cannot be sated. What's next? What if? Why? It eats at us, what we don't know. It always has. Ignorance has never been bliss - not once you've learned you lack the truth.''

*''Hubris blinded us to the realities of this place. To the hidden power pulsating throughout. One many shades darker than the Hive. Crota sat at the forefront of our story, and so we turned a blind eye to the very idea of puppet masters in the shadows. Darkness incarnate.''

*''Eris - at the time, unbroken - together with Eriana-3 sought vengeance upon Crota. And they formed a team of powerful Guardians to aid in executing him. Vell Tarlowe, Sai Mota, Omar Agah... And of course, the only one who could truly guide them, me. All of them, so foolish. They passed through this canyon, naiveté at their side, toward their inevitable doom.''

*''Omar Agah entered these depths with his own unique faults: disbelief and distrust. But beneath it all was his truth: fear. The Hive fed off this very fear. Poor Eris had to watch as his Light was stripped from his soul and his essence used to strengthen the Hive.''

*''The Fallen's obsession with Luna has cost them much. They come to pillage the remains of human innovation and pick at the Hive's arcana. But I have yet to understand what drives them to take such a risk when here are other worlds more easily scavenged.''

*''Before Crota's death, the Hive viewed the Fallen as nothing more than an annoyance. But now, as they struggle to regain their purpose, the Hive have no patience for distraction. This has led to a renewed conflict as both fight to survive in the face of sustained Guardian aggression.''

*''The Hive know no limits when it comes to ambition. Nothing remains sacred within the darkness of their ritual halls. In the summoning pits, that was truer than ever. A horrifying abomination - Phogoth, the Untamed - was created within.''

*''A series of unfortunate Guardians met their end under the weight of Phogoth's might. He strew them across the battlefields of the Moon and, together with Crota's brood, gave the Great Disaster its name.''

*''Not even Corta's brood could fully contain the rage of Phogoth, the Untamed. His power was nearly unmatched. But in the end, the Light overpowered Phogoth, and he was slain by your hand.''

*''The Pyramid hasn't always held residence on the Moon. Like anything foreign, it arrived here somehow. That chasm would suggest a fall and a crash. And it is as such. Only a single question lingers: Why? The collapse largely remains a mystery.''

*''The Moon is fragile. Even more so now than before. Look no further than the oozing schisms brought forth by the Pyramid. May they serve as a warning: The Moon has been carved out, far beyond imagination. Fetid miasma rises. It belongs to the Hive now.''

*''New voices reverberate through the lunar formicary. Heresies whispered in the dark. Below your feet, the Hidden Swarm are acquainting themselves with deeper magics beyond their reckoning. To say nothing of ours.''

*''The fissures appeared when the Pyramid stirred. They quake and belch, setting loose the potent energies that have long simmered just below. Should they be allowed to continue, the Hidden Swarm will make further outgambles to the surface. This is but a taste of the change to come.''

*''Behold: causation in all its exquisite majesty. Your persistence reshapes the Hidden Swarm; in turn, the Swarm reshapes the Moon. Their adaptations will only become more profound, the effects more pronounced. They have you to thank for this.''

*''For eons, the Pyramid sat hidden beneath the surface. The Hive, however, knew of its presence. For how long, I do not know. Their lust for power kept it secret. That we know of it now only makes me question whether it's due to coincidence or design.''

*''One wonders the effects of the Pyramid on the Hive. If they've existed in its shadow for so long, have they ever communed with it?''

*''Cloistered in their Keep, the daughters of Crota labor to architect a future renewed for their Swarm. They refuse to accept a world in which Oryx was struck down but not succeeded. They seek to correct that which you left undone.''

*''When Oryx fell, Crota's brood rallied around the strongest of his children, reaffirming their faith in the logic, accepting their loss. But deep in the hearts of four of Crota's daughters - [[Besurith, Daughter of Crota|Besurith]], [[Kinox]], Hashladûn, and [[Voshyr]] - a seed of doubt quietly took root. They resolved to lead their leaderless Swarm toward a new dawn and slaughter all who stood in their way''

**''[[Curse of Osiris]]'' {{Mo}}

**''[[Forsaken]]''

**''[[Shadowkeep]]''

**''[[Beyond Light]]'' {{Mo}}

**''[[The Witch Queen]]'' {{Mo}}