Truths and Lies Table of Contents:https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/253518460?page=0&sort=0&showBanned=0&path=0 Just in time for the end of the holiday season, the final part of Truths and Lies. All they felt was cold. A stifling, malicious cold. Sapping the strength from their bones. Normally they would have turned back, but almost hidden in the cold presence was an urge to continue onward. So they did, among the bones of hundreds upon hundreds of Hive. Suddenly they turned a corner and found the source of the cold. A large circular room with an altar in the middle. There were times engraved on every surface in the room, slowly and painstakingly carved into the metal. They burned with the intensity of a bonfire. Near the altar lay Teren, dead or unconscious. Above him stood a Hive warrior more terrifying than any they had seen before. He had glistening black armor, glowing green eyes, and massive claws. He was the source of the power they had felt. "Do you see the size of that thing?", Darek whispered. "Yes". "I can hear you little ones, no matter how quiet a whisper, I can hear you." Zach stepped from the entrance and into the room. "Then you know we have to kill you." "Have is relative. There is a possibility that you could talk me out of", he gestured to the room around him, "this." "Your strength is sourced from the sword logic, there is no possibility. From your point of view the weak die and the strong live. If we tried to talk you out of it you would just kill us." "Truth. You speak the truth. I'm surprised you have such an understanding of our logic. You realize that you cannot kill me?" "What's stopping us?" "You feel the cold, yes?" Zach nodded in response to this. "The moment you felt it you had passed into an extension of my throne world." "How." "It took a lot of energy, mainly this one", he nudged Teren with his foot. "Dead?" The Hive grinned for a moment, then the center of the altar exploded. Zach blacked out. ----------------------------------------------- Zach found himself in a hazy gray room. The walls were smooth and monotone. Four doors stood in the wall in front of him. Also gray, but with markings on them. Strangely, he could read the markings. The leftmost door said only, "Authority". The second door on the left said "Disgrace". The third door, now on the right side, said "Heretic". The fourth door, near the rightmost edge of the wall, said "Prophet". Once he had read each of the engravings a sentence of burning green text appeared over the doors. "Choose wisely unbeliever". Zach sat on the ground and thought. While he thought he fell asleep. When he woke all of the doors were gone. Instead, the room was full of people. "I hate crowds," he growled. As he searched the room he noticed something. Despite the writhing crowd of people the room was completely silent. In the place where the burning text was a new sentence appeared, this time glowing red. "Surrounded by people, and yet, so alone. Pathetic." "Who are you! Show yourself!" Out of the corner of his eye he saw something dart through the shadowy corners of the room. Then he realized all the people had disappeared. Instead he stood in the middle of a circle of perfectly even spaced glistening black pillars. Reaching from floor to ceiling. Each of them had text engraved in it all burning a different color. "What?" Then they shattered and he stood in a pile of rubble. He saw a green glow coming from below his sight, he looked down and nearly collapsed. He was now covered in burning green text. A booming voice suddenly sounded from all around him. "Just like anyone else. A pawn in a game of war." The walls began glowing green, he woke up. ----------------------------------------------- "What's wrong with him", yelled Darek. "The warrior simply smiled then cut open a rift with his claws. It took one step and he had completely disappeared through it." "Where'd he go?" "I don't know." Then Zach woke up. "Welcome back to the complete and utter disaster we've gotten ourselves into." "Yep, we should leave now." "I'll grab Teren", Kryn jogged toward the center of the room. Zach looked at Teren then adopted a surprised face. "What?" "Th-that altar exploded. I saw it." "We didn't see that but the Hive cast some sort of spell. That's probably what happened." "Yeah, let's get back to the Tower. We have lots of work ahead of us. Teren appears to be alive and… I need to call a few friends. This is going to be a lot bigger than I thought." "When I was unconscious I had a dream, in the dream that creature said I was "a pawn in a game of war". Does that bother you too?" "Yes. But all I know is that if we're gonna stop that thing we're gonna need some help. And I know exactly where to find it, we're not going to back out of this. Whoever that thing is, we're gonna find it. And we're gonna kill it. But until then… we need to think this through. Then maybe we'll have a chance." Continued in the "A Game of War" arc... Note: Not sure when A Game of War will begin or end. I am going to try and start it off with more of a plan and a lot more stuff already done. So basically I'm saying that it might be a couple or more months before the first part surfaces.