“Where to next?” I asked Echo as I sat down in the cockpit of my ship. “Back to the Hellmouth,” he said, a little uneasy, “The Chamber of Night.” I sighed, “Just like old times then.” We jumped into warp, on course for Luna, and I went back to the hold to pass the time. I took out a shotgun Banshee had given me, the Shadow of Starfall he called it. It was painted black, navy blue and dark purple to match the name, it was stockless and had simple two pronged iron sights. I’d been tinkering with it for a while now, trying to find the right balance of weight and accuracy for crucible matches. The ship gave a slight shudder as we dropped out of warp and began to descend on Earth’s moon. I put away the shotgun and slid by helmet over my head, booting up the display. I walked back to the cockpit and took a look at the ship’s wide array of scanners. Since our last visit, the Hive seemed to have upgraded their defenses. Shriekers lined the platforms that ringed the seemingly bottomless pit. “Echo, new plan.” I said, “No way we can get the ships close enough, I-” “No.” Echo responded, “No, we’re not jumping.” “Do you have a better option?” Nothing but silence, “Exactly.” As our ships flew above the Hive fortress, I told Sierra on the comm, “We’re dropping in from here. Can’t get the ships much closer without pulling their attention.” And with that, I was in freefall. I was at least three klicks above the surface, and plummeting like a stone. I looked above me and saw Sierra’s figure close behind. The ground became ever clearer as we rapidly fell towards our landing zone, a ledge that ringed the Hellmouth. The surface of the moon shot past in the blink of an eye, and I started to glide and slow my decent as we came in right on top of a group of acolytes. I focused arc light into my hands as I made forceful impact with the ground. I released that light into the stone beneath me, and it came back with a vengeance up through the bodies of the Hive. Sierra landed ahead of me, guns blazing, slinging lead into a wizard a few dozen meters away. We both broke into a sprint as the shriekers came to life with a deafening wail. Bolts of void energy tore up the ground beneath our feet as they sought their target. We reached the door that lead deeper into the fortress, and as we followed the tunnel, the shriekers’ cries faded behind us. We caught most of the Hive in our path by surprise, knights and thralls alike. Eventually, we reached the all-to-familiar corridor that lead to The Chamber of Night, the place where we once stopped Crota’s rise, and set on the path that had brought Oryx upon us. The air seemed thick, too dark to see even feet ahead of you. I heard Sierra take a shaky breath over the comm. This is what she feared, these places where the air was heavy and still, and darkness seemed to surround you, like it was trying to break through your helmet. Places where things worse than your nightmares could be lurking oh so close, and you would never know. I brushed up against her, and she took a deep breath. Echo and Scarlet shone their narrow beams of light ahead of us, and we slowly, quietly walked through the darkness. Along the edges of the hall, the husks of thralls sat, hunched over and covered in some kind of crusty, cocoon like web. I knelt down next to one, looking at the skin and bones creature inside. “It’s alive,” Echo sounded puzzled, “in some kind of stasis though. They’re absorbing darkness, like some kind of metamorphosis.” “Transmit the scan back to the Tower once we’re out of here.” I said. We kept on our way until the air began to lighten again, and the path ahead was clear. We checked that our weapons were loaded, and climbed the low, loose gravel hill that opened up to the chamber where we struck our first blow against the Hive pantheon. Prologue/directory [url]https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/139146382/0/0[/url]