The Last Flame

Cold Ashes

"What happened here?" a ghost floated a few paces ahead of a guardian.

The guardian said nothing, only observed the scene. There were remains of two other guardians and of some sort of hive creature, hive bones and guardian armor pieces scattered around a crater near the middle of the room. The guardian and their ghost stared at the gruesome sight.

"Poor guardians," the ghost concluded. I'm going to see what data I can retrieve from their ghosts.

Something caught the light-bearer's eye. He walked towards the edge of the room.

"Hmm, the recordings seem heavily damaged. I wonder if Banshee can take a look at them and get anything useful from them." The ghost looked to see his partner wandering away as he finished scanning the remains, "What are you looking at?"

The ghost followed after its guardian, who was staring at a third dead guardian. A hunter.

"This must have been the last member of their team," the ghost said as he started to scan.

There was a knife wound in the hunter's stomach, and the blade that looked like it was responsible was covered in dried blood at his side. The guardian saw something in the cold hand of the corpse. The way it was held, close to the chest, looked like it meant something special to him. The living guardian knelt down and gently picked it up from the motionless hand. It was a weapon. On its side, it read a single phrase:

"Until the last flame dies and all words have been spoken," the ghost read the words out loud as the guardian stared. "We should head back to the tower and report what we've found. Who knew that we'd stumble on a bloody battleground like this by just exploring the moon."

The guardian rose, putting the gun in his backpack, and still said nothing, only looked at the ghost and nodded in agreement.