Destiny: Lore

Chapter 13: the Taken King

As this occurred, and as the bonds between the City and the Reef-born Awoken became stronger, Eris morn found herself travelling to the Reef. She met there with Osiris or a Representative of Osiris's Cult. They met first with the Queen's cantankerous brother and then with the Queen herself. She listened to their words and all of them are firmed what they knew. The death of Crota and his cry across the night was being answered. They would need to prepare for what came next. For Crota's father would not take the death of his only son lightly. Oryx was coming. And Mara agreed on that day to fight the Hive, so that she might be able to give us a chance at defeating the Taken King. And so, with their fleets engaged, the Awoken would battle Oryx his fleet would be mostly decimated, but so would the Queen in return. It is not known to this day whether the Queen lived or died to that day, but what is known is this: Oryx had announced his presence to the system, and when he did so, he destroyed not only the Awoken fleet, but also brought to bear his most terrifying weapon. Oryx had the ability to abduct those that he saw as his enemies, even those he saw as his allies, with this he could send them to a dimension they would stand before the Darkness. Their personality would be disseminated and they would be corrupted and filled with Darkness itself. Returning them in portals he would create through his own will, Oryx could then summon these troops to battler for him. These would be known as the Taken, and they would be a scourge upon our system forevermore.

But this was all before our intervention. We headed to a Cabal firebase on Phobos, one of the two moons of Mars. Initially, we were there to investigate an openly broadcast Cabal signal. This was of great concern to the Vanguard. It could be the prelude to war if they are willing to break transmission ciphers, but once we arrive we discovered what can only be described as a slaughter-scape. Cabal were fleeing their base en masse, ships had been shot down, the base itself was in ruins, and strange dark portals dotted its walls. And for the first time we encountered not only a visage of Oryx, who told us that our infection would die, the Light that he saw within us, but also we encountered for the first time his mysterious Taken. At this point, we had no choice. We left as fast as we could, fleeing from Phobos posthaste, so that we might get further advice from the Vanguard. Eris Morn at this point took it upon herself to explain the doom that had been wrought by the Taken King. The fact that the City was in grave danger. But Cayde, the Hunter Vanguard, was most certaintly not going to take any of this lying down. He devised a plan and told us to take on the trail of a stealth drive that he had left in Old Russia. We would mount this to Eris Morn's Hive covered ship and would then use this to infiltrate the Dreadnought, Oryx's command ship that would also be his Neatherrealm, a paradox within our universe. We use the stealth drive to board the Dreadnought, knock out its weapon systems, and establish a transmat zone so other guardians could land and invade. With our beachhead established, we began our hunt of Oryx, finding the Cabal were assaulting a Hive rupture. They had crashed the Dantalion Exodus VI into the side of the Dreadnought. Primarily so they could destroy it but also so they could hunt down Oryx and interrogate him.

Oryx was not so easily captured such was the Hubris of the Cabal and their commander, the Primus of the Skyburners was taken by Oryx. We investigated the Rupture that the Cabal had been assaulting for ourselves, but soon realized as we attempted to enter it, and thanks to Eris, that the only the thing that could enter or will the Ruptures to open was an Ascendant Hive. Therefore we needed some way to pass ourselves on as an Ascendant Hive. As Eris said, become your enemy. Next, we returned to the Moon to the Chamber of Night that held Crota's soul. From this we could take a shard from the crystal that had been used to transfer his essence between that of his sword realm and the physical universe, the very vessel that we had destroyed earlier. Barely escaping with our lives and a shard of the crystal, Oryx attempted to eradicate us once more. But our resolve was strong enough that even withing the depths of the Hive fortress, we found a way to escape. Next, we needed to head to Rasputin. The stealth drive that had been destroyed with Eris's ship was valuable and the stealth code that Rasputin held was possibly one of the only things we could use to hide in Crota's realm. And here we would indeed need to infiltrate, for we would need imprison what remained of his soul within the crystal that held it. The crystal itself was left barren and his soul was being prepared to move on in a death ceremony of sorts. We entered the Hellmouth, once more with Rasputin's stealth codes going straight to the stills, the Darkness before the Oversoul Throne. And there we allowed the crystal to drink deep from the essence of the Hive prince of Nightmares. On our way out, we were ambushed again, but thanks to the help of Eris, we made it out unscathed.

Finally we return to the Dreadnought with the Soul of Crota in our grasp, and with this , the Ruptures were opened, and we were allowed to pass as Ascendant Hive. We entered the inner sanctum of the Dreadnought, finding our way to the Altar of Oryx, who challenged us, telling us that Darkness was liberation, and that by devouring our light, we would be pure. Oryx fought us, but in the end, all of his power was naught. We defeated his physical form, there at the altar, and in the act of desperation to save himself, Oryx took himself, transporting himself to a realm before the Darkness. In doing so, he did irrepairable damage and opened his throne world to be assaulted by our forces. This was unprecedented. This was the first time the Taken King in all of his majesty had truly been defeated by the light. He had even left his own sword behind. Willbreaker, the sword that drank the very essence of life, and Eris ventured to the alter of oryx and claimed for herself a shard of Willbreaker. She made this available to us and from this process of purification and crafting of hadium, we forged the crystal into our own blades so that we might battle Oryx in his realm. Finally, me made our assault on the Taken King in his own Netherrealm, found within his Dreadnought. Facing powerful Ascendant Hive, including the war priests Golgoroth and his two daughters, Ir Anuk and Ir Halak. We finally faced Oryx, the Taken King, first a Navigator, Lord of Shapes and Ruler of the Osmium Throne, Blighted Shadow of a Thousand Graveyard Worlds and Heir to the High Court of War. But even with all of his might and titles, even with all of those times that he made doxologies in praise of the Darkness, his body was destroyed, and Oryx, his pure form, was finally defeated. His form floated towards Saturn, a crystalline giant husk that might fall eventually into that world that might never be seen again.

Most many would try to take the place of Oryx in the hierarchies such as Malok and Alak Hul, we defeated them all too, thus keeping the Hive perpetually leaderless and disorganized. Never again will they be the threat they had been in Sol. The actions of but a single Guardian had done all of the damage of the great disaster, and instead had wrought the Hive a terrible fate to suffer under other enemies. But we had not finished our business on the Dreadnaught. We also killed in the process a pair of Cabal commanders who were attempting to detonate the Dreadnoughts core. Upon defeating them, Dead Orbit traced a signal to the crashed Cabal ship within the Dreadnought's hull, the Dantalion Exodus VI. We traced this signal back to the ship and discovered after defeating many Taken and Cabal, that the signal was being sent to the Cabal Empire, more specifically to the leader of the Cabal Empire itself. This was a threat that we would have to answer at some point soon, but there were other menaces lurking on the horizon. The Fallen had come back into resurgence, the force of the House of Devils had made its way to the Cosmodrome once more, more specifically into a sector of the Cosmodrom that had been dark for decades. A sector known as the Plaguelands.