Eyes Up, Guardian

Chapter 23

"I'm Theresa Archon." She said after Balendin had finished and a few moments had passed, "But you all can call me Tessa. I'm not exactly one of Cayde's scouts, or at least at the moment, I'm not. I got into all this Taken stuff with Damian when Oryx took the Cabal base on Phobos. I had to fight my way out of it after he drained me of my light." She saw a flicker of worry on Edon's features. If the others had felt it, they hid it from their faces. She knew from the recognition on their faces that they all knew at least a bit of who she was, so she didn't bother getting into anything they already knew. She would leave it to Damian to tell them of their attempt on Oryx's life, and how it had quite painfully failed.

"And I'm Damian." He said, raising his hand from where he sat on her left. "I killed Crota, and I've seen firsthand how dangerous the Hive can be." He told them, "A week ago, Tessa and I set out to kill Oryx. We nearly killed him, but he used his taken energy to escape and Tessa brought us back to the tower. We were lightless and basically on our final deathbeds, if not for the tower hospital. Oryx will not go down without a fight, and there's a high chance that when we go to kill him, he might just drain our light, the same way he drained me and Tessa of ours. He wants vengeance, and he wants to finish what Crota started. He's not going to stop until he gets them."

"So we take him out." Balendin said firmly, though there was something in his gaze that was asking for the details of the challenge.

"It's not that simple." Estella interjected, happy to oblige. She stood up and strode for the wall screen. "Oryx is gathering his forces on the dreadnought." She told them, turning the wall screen on with a hand and typing into a hologram of a keyboard as it appeared in front of her. On the screen, she drew up a map of the dreadnought, and tossed a hologram of it onto the center of the table, where Edon began to pull at it, inspecting the inner structures while she spoke. "Ikora sent me and some of her other hidden to investigate the dreadnought last week. We gathered what we could, and assuming Oryx doesn't change anything before we fight him, it should all hold."

"We'll likely start in the Hall of Souls, here." She marked a spot on the map and drew up an image of it onto the wall screen. "There, we'll need to use a series of relics to charge up a bunch of Hive statutes." She told them, swiping to a view of a row of statues. "The relics will be dropped in groups of two, and each drop will be accompanied by a hoard of Hive. Once the statues are charged, we're going to head out onto this platform here-" She moved the picture forward to show them a large platform below the hall of statues. In the back, directly across from them was a tall, raised platform, two swept staircases leading up to it on either side. On the platform was an enormous archway.

"A rupture." Tessa interrupted as she recognized it.

"Yes." Estella said. "The rupture will open up once we charge the statues. It's going to drop out a ton of Hive, so we'll want to get in there fast. There will probably be some loot just inside- the hidden have left that stuff for us- but after that, we'll be headed off to the next challenge Oryx has put together for us."

"Which is?" Ada asked, her eyes narrow.

"It's called the Crux, it's a bunch of swinging columns that we have to jump from, one to another." Estella told them.

"That doesn't sound too difficult." Balendin said, frowning.

"It's not." Estella said, "But they take a while to come into alignment after they've crossed, so you can get stuck there sometimes." Balendin nodded in understanding. "And, if you're sick of jumping at that point, you won't be too excited about what's next. We have to jump from one ship to another in Oryx's hanger. Luckily the ships only fly in specific patterns, but the hidden got stuck on this for ages. We're just lucky we can learn from their mistakes. And, I found some hidden chests at the end, so it will be at least decent compensation for our efforts.