The Story Behind Erianna-3's Ill-Fated Raid on the Hellmouth

My name is Eriana-3, disciple of the Praxic Warlocks, marked by the Cormorant Seal. Survivor of the great disaster: the day we set out to retake our moon, united in a host of thousands, and found ourselves outmatched by one Hive champion of unspeakable power.

The monster's name is Crota. He killed my friends face to face, one by one, and he relished it. In the name of all those lost I devote myself to his utter destruction.

This is my confession. If I transgress in your eyes I ask for your forgiveness.

In our world Crota seemed invincible. Together Eris Morn and I worked the problem, but found no hope. So we sought forbidden knowledge—the exiled master of Hive arcana.

We found Toland. He speaks to us.

..........

Eriana! Let's sing. Sing with me. No, no, you rattling machine, not yet, it's too soon: we don't know the words.

We'll learn the song down there. We can learn it from Her. She comes up from the deep dark places where the greater Hive await to sing it to us, and here's a puzzle for you—

The song is death. To hear it is to die. To know the words is mortal. Oh, good point, Eriana, death is just a word, isn't it? A catch-all term for the failure to go on, nothing spiritual, nothing with its own quiddity. We all died once, and it did not prove insurmountable.

But what if what if what if, shhh listen, what if death were reified, described in its totality, made autonomous and universal, separate from any context or condition? What if She could invoke the ending of anything?

How, then, would She know the song, and sing it, without Herself dying?

Perhaps they know a way to make themselves part of the song, part of something vast and burning that rots and peels into ash but never ever ends. Perhaps She has engineered this for Him, and pinned His power up against the quiddity of death itself.

I am so terribly curious to know.

And Eris. Eris... What a name. A name for discord, a name for far cold orbits where no living thing should dare to go. I like this name.

Let me give you a gift, Eris. Let me tell you about the power in the logic of the sword:

A Shredder or a Boomer is a powerful weapon, but it kills acyclically. You see? It sends out harm and it takes nothing back. The bolt passes away into nothing. A sword, though, a sword is like a bridge, a crossing-point. The sword binds wielder to victim. It binds life to death. And when the binding is done—the sword remembers. When the Boomer's fire has burnt away into axion and neutrino scatter, the sword goes on, hungrier and sharper.

Understand that this nightmare logic underpins His nightmare world, and you will see why the ascendant blade has so much power there. Whenever in our passage we find ourselves in need of power—remember that the greatest authority here is a blade made keen by eons of use.

This is the world the Hive craves: a universe creased by the edge of the sharpest sword.

..........

Toland tells us that Crota's presence in our world is a shadow. That its true power resides in a netherworld forged by his will. We must pass through a keyhole between realities, navigate the seething midnight of Crota's world-mind, and overthrow the ascendant champions that gather to his throne.

Toland speaks—he hardly seems mad, at times—of the terrible things that await us. A secret song that he hungers to learn, and the issue of that song, an ashen burning star-husk that looms above, the utter antithesis of life. He talks of it with a curious ambition I do not want to understand.

Tomorrow I will ask Agah, Mota and Tarlowe if they will go with us. If we fail, I leave this record for Guardians to come. Remember us.

..........

Vell: They’re more than Knights.

Eriana-3: They look like Knights.

Vell: That’s like calling you a tin can.

Eriana-3: Excuse me?

Vell: I’m saying calling them Knights is an understatement.

Omar: What are they then?

Toland: World carvers.

Omar: Meaning?

Toland: Those swords are neither bone nor steel. There’s a dark purpose to their edge.

Eriana-3: Darker than death?

Toland: Death is peace compared to the shadows.

Omar: Those Blades cut down more Guardians than I can count.

Vell: Hundreds.

Eriana-3: Thousands. The Vanguard should’ve known better.

Toland: I tried to warn them.

Omar: But we’re prepared?

Vell: I am.

Omar: Not exactly the question.

Eris: I have a feeling Light won’t be enough.

Eriana-3: Then we’ll take their swords from their ashes, and cut them down one-by-one, Blade-by-Blade.

Eris: You would wield a weapon of the night?

Eriana-3: For her—them? I will butcher any who stand in my way with even the darkest blade.

Eris: Pray it doesn’t come to that.

Vell: Heh. To cleave our enemies with their own tools of destruction? We should be so lucky.

Omar: You’ve got a strange view on luck.

Toland: When you’ve got your hand around the hilt and their ash under your boot, you might change your tune, Hunter.

..........

Vell: So this Sardon is one of these Swarm Princes?

Toland: In a stretch of the concept, sure. He is their lord and master. They are his generals.

Vell: Sounds like my kind of fight.

Omar: What isn't?

Vell: Eris and Eriana said the Blades rose first and slaughtered our brothers and sisters. If the one who leads their charge is within reach, I mean to end him—to end them all.

Eris: We are here for Crota.

Toland: I'm afraid each disciple is Crota.

Vell: Then it must be done. Know that I have faith in your Light, as I do in my own.

Eris: This isn’t about faith.

Eriana-3: It’s about vengeance.

Vell: It’s about the only thing that matters—victory. It’s about doing what we must to end this terror.

Eris: We will face them all, together. We have no time to fight individual battles.

Toland: I have no doubt the Fist will welcome your challenge, Titan. When we face him, you will lead the charge. Come, Crota's Temple lies ahead. If we can breach it, I'm sure another fight awaits.

..........

Toland: When a god's Will is met with force, its Might will be unleashed in the form of those raging beasts we call the ogre—monsters bred of pain, tormented by the Light, nothing but hatred for all who bring its suffering forth.

Eris: And how do you know this?

Toland: It was told to me.

Eris: By the Speaker?

Toland: By the Darkness itself.

..........

Eris: Those screams.

Omar: And I was just starting to tune them out.

Toland: It has been told that with these screams another spawn is awakened, birthed in the name of the god it holds.

Sai: Crota.

Toland: I am afraid so. They call this one Omnigul, mother of the spawn.

Sai: How do you—? I'd rather not know.

Toland: Commands, echoed through the dark, fetid caverns—orders carried out with grinding stone and squeaking claw, skittering thrall and blade against bone.

Omar: Well, now he's on a roll.

Eriana-3: I hear them, even when I don't. I will tear this Omnigul's throat out.

Toland: If you were to do so, our work here would be done. Without a Will to raise its army and herald its ascendance, there is no Crota to fear, at least here and now.

Eris: Then we follow the screams.

..........

Eris: Something is watching us. I can feel it.

Omar: I hate when you say that.

Toland: Crota has many Eyes. Every god does.

Eris: We have to go.

Omar: If they know our every move, what chance do we have?

Toland: With their great age comes even greater wisdom. I have no doubt the Hive led us here with intent.

Omar: What are you saying?

Toland: For these disciples, we offer the greatest sacrifice.

Eris: What does that mean?

Toland: Do you feel your Light fading? They are offering it to Crota. Us coming here, we are the ones waking him.

Omar: He’s mad.

Toland: Perhaps.

Eris: Why do you hold these secrets like weapons, to damn us all?

Toland: Because they are weapons. And we are going to use them to show the Hive they are not the only ones who breed fear.

Eris: How?

Toland: You’re hunters—hunt. Find the Eyes that are upon us.

Omar: Then?

Toland: We blind Crota and use what's left of your dying Light to lead us to where these monsters seek to conjure their master.

..........

Sai: Can you track the others?

Eriana-3: No. There is too much interference. The shroud is too thick here. Ghost?

Ghost: <chhk> Yes. <chhk>

Eriana-3: We in bad shape?

Ghost: <chhk> Could be better. <chhk>

Eriana-3: Any charge?

Ghost: No. Something is siphoning the Light. <chhk> I’m getting weaker by the second. <chhk>

Eriana-3: And Sai’s Ghost? Same?

Ghost: Faint charge detected <chhk> but it’s fading. Its shell is damaged beyond repair. <chhk> No comms. No transmat. <chhk> Even if there were a signal—

Eriana-3: Use whatever juice you’ve got and relay this transmission to the others.

Ghost: They won't receive it. <chhk>

Eriana-3: Not the point.

Eriana-3: This is Eriana-3 of the Praxic Warlocks. Marked by the Cormorant Seal. I am alongside the Hunter Sai Mota. Our Light is nearly gone. The ash of untold Hive covers the ground in our wake.

Unknown: [inaudible scream]

Sai: Omnigul—

Eriana-3: From what Toland has described we are on the path of Crota's dreaded Hand.

Sai: The Hand is falling back toward the screams beyond these tunnels.

Eriana-3: Screw it. You ready?

Sai: My knives are eager for another dance.

Eriana-3: You speak little, Sai Mota, but always say the right things.

..........

Eris: Record this.

The Heart of Crota.

It is her blood that feeds their fury.

I thought Omar dead until I heard his screams. I followed them down, to the darkest night of the caverns below. What I saw—I witnessed all we fear—the villainy of the Hive on full display.

Among a sea of cocoons, and surrounded by thousands more freshly spawned hordes, the Heart held Omar’s broken body in a vice of bone and pain. She was peeling the Light from his body. How? I can’t imagine, and I have tried. Tendrils of luminance tore away like flesh.

With every strand Omar’s scream cut the dark and was met with a chittering chorus from the unborn. I can’t say if they were feeding off the Light itself, or the pain, but my guess is both—somehow, both.

The Heart, though I can’t believe she actually has one, seemed to be conducting some nightmare orchestra, nurturing Crota’s children, with the echoes of Agah’s Light.

The Hive must end for all they had done, and some day, by my hand or another’s, the Heart will meet with an end fitting of the pain she, herself, has dealt.

..........

My Ghost's Light is so dim, there's no point following me further into this fog – any hope of raising me died halfway through the Stills – I only hope she's got strength enough to take this ember to where you fell, to dance once more with any last whisper of your own light left on this cursed, broken rock.

Again I will confess. I am Eriana-3, of the Praxic Fire, and I know my flame goes out down here. I will burn bright and hot and raze a thousand Hive to ash as I go, but I know we will not end him – The one who fell you, and hundreds more, with that foul blade.

I now beg, as I feared, for your forgiveness. I will not avenge you, but join you amongst the fires snuffed out upon this moon.

I was a fool to lead us here. I was blinded by the loss of so much, by your light extinguished. I put my trust, and the light of four others, in a madman, and I bear witness to their fall into darkness and death. Toland's song was nothing but screams, and we go now to sing with them. We will not return.

I only hope now that my foolish charge will serve as a record of warning. So that no other Guardians go to face this monster and those that serve him – and those beasts beyond imagining that he must serve in the realm I now go forth to die in. That this tiny bit of Light, joined with yours, and Sai's, Vell, and poor Omar's – that it might spark a torch of warning to leave this dead and broken moon as Crota's prize.

Let the Titans on their walls and towers look up at night to this glowing reminder in the sky that your Light fell below the surface. Let the moonlight fall on Hunters' eyes through the canopies of the wilds, and guide the way of Warlocks searching their hidden paths. At night, let them look up and see, and let us be mourned.

At night, let them remember you. And let the light of the day free them from the curse of this memory.

..........

Vell is spectacularly dead. Omar and Sai are quite dead too. Eriana, poor Eriana, she was so very bright at the end, wasn’t she? A brave light.

But Crota was unmoved. That shadow is detached from its source. Light makes it darker. I could feel His presence and if I still had a Ghost I am sure it would have screamed.

I, too, am detached from my source. The charming Ir Yût made her introductions, and I was very pleased to meet her. We had a conversation, a little tête-à-Yût, a couple old wizards exchanging definitions.

I defined myself a friend. She defined for me the quiddity of death, and she sang the song of that fearful autonomy. Revelation, my friends, it does go down hard. The definition killed me. The killing redefined me.

This is the shape and the point of the tooth: nothing has ever lived that will not die.

Now I fly between green-black suns in the labyrinth beyond Crota’s god-star. This is the Overworld, the Sea of Screams, where the throne-universes of the great Hive fester in eternal majesty. I move among them. I map the shapes and connections of this world.

I want to appear in the Tower and taunt them, lo, lo, I never sleep, I dance in light and shadow, I never sleep, I will never die. I will never die. I want to ask them: if you followed your laws here, to this trembling fearful place, of what use were those laws?

But I have work to do. I shout into deep places. Osiris! I call. Osiris, Osiris! Can you hear me?

Sometimes I think he answers. Sometimes I wonder what became of Eris. She was very tenacious.

For the first time I am lonely.