Encrypt. Begin Record. My name is Saris, Saris Karm. This memory fragment is a log of my thoughts, a simple device, crude but all I had to hand. Shards of empty data housing, designed to record Warlocks dreams as they walk the phantasmal world in our minds to search for answers, that they might be studied later, and shared in the name of progress. I felt it should be said and known, my story and those of my friends, for my time is not long and there is nobody else to tell the tale. We are not likely to be spoken of by the Tower, our sacrifice ensured a great evil fell. But I suspect the Tower will only speak of praise for the group that descended and killed the one they call Crota. But let it be said and quietly whispered of our story, for it should be known what we did to ensure those Guardians made it to the realm of the Hive Prince. I will tell you how we stood, how we fought and how we died… most of us at least. Ghost told me, 127 Guardians came to heed the call, some friends, some rivals, all brothers and sisters in arms. When the chosen group descended to the Abyss, myself and others, brave Guardians, stood behind to defend the descent, for when the Hive learned of the daring raid on their master’s realm, they would come, to claw their way to the 6 that went below, we had to stop them. For the fate of our World lied in the result of this desperate attack. We were the only Guardians close enough to answer the call, all that could be spared. When the Hive would come, they’d fall upon the descent like a tidal wave, vicious and unrelenting, solely consumed by their need to protect Him. I know not what Horrors the Abyss fire-team encountered, only that they were victorious. I am glad we did not die for nothing. It was called upon us to give ourselves, that the Abyss fire-team might be granted time enough to break Crota on his throne. We stood against a storm, an endless wave of darkness, flooding into the descent like water. We made our stand by the timeless craters surrounding the Hive rune podium on the edge of the Abyss. We did not fully understand what it was or how it worked, only that it was the only way for anything, Guardian or Hive, to enter the Abyss and cross over into the Realm of Crota. We gave our lives and our light to stop them, to stem the tide and deny them passage. We burned our Light bright, even in a sea of clamoring Darkness. Our losses were great, and many suffered, but we denied them, we ceded no ground, we felled an uncountable of their number, but they were unending, and we grew few. So few. I remember how it ended, the harrowing scream as loud as anything imaginable, piercing and nauseating, threatening to tear your mind from your Light. He had fallen, the Crota was undone, and the Hive cried out. I thought it terror at first, then heard it in my sinking heart, and it was fury. The dead fell upon what remained of our desperate stand like the dark of the void engulfs a dying candle. We were broken, beaten, but we had held them back, ensured a Hive God had died that day. But it was us who would pay the price, in blood, in mind, in life, in Light. They did not kill us, we were weak and weary, they tore through our lines like a wildfire, and those few of us that remained were taken, utterly. First they took our Ghosts, mine has been a faithful companion since I was given life once more, they took them… and they… crushed.. those little lights into fragments, and drank of their dying essence. Then they took our hearts and our hope, they brought the most defiant of us, those who refused to stop fighting, when they had emptied their weapons, dulled their blades, tired their struggles and gave their very being to cry out rebellion against the Hive... They were brought forth, broken, and the hiss of the Wizards spelled their end, we were made to watch… their screams sicken my soul, as loud in my mind as they were while it happened. No names, no faces…All I can remember of them was what the Hive did…scything, rending, slicing and tearing into their Light, peeling it from their very soul. Until there was only mute blackness, empty faded husks. Then what little remained was cast into the Thralls, I could not look, my eyes could see, but I could not look. We had been given ruin, we had tasted worse than death, and any dying would be sweet release from what has happened to us that were left. Those that remained were taken away, we could not stand for ourselves, we could not fight for our lives, we could not cry for our lost, they had taken our spirit, and then they took us down into the dark, the Dark Below. Our Ghosts lie alone in twinkling ashes on the surface of Luna, wasted and dead. Our friends and comrades were killed, torn and devoured until everything that marked their existence was gone. I have only lived so long in the clinging hopes I might record our story, I cannot bear to die knowing that we are forgotten. But my time is nigh, and I wallow in grief of how we fell, who we lost. All I can think of now is broken, creeping thoughts chased by the shadows, my Light is all but dowsed, I fear my thoughts aren’t even my own. I see only doubt, for our kind, and our future, and our God. As I lie here, cold and fractured in the dark silent prison they confine me to, nothing more than scraps, leftovers of our force, a plaything of the Witches. They have plucked and probed at my soul with harsh blinding dark and skittering claws, seething poison fills my heart and mind, I don’t know what will happen, only that it will happen soon, and I am scared. So scared. I feel that my final thoughts are swaying, falling. I am lost and full of doubt, regret, sorrow and… and hunger. Voracious and desperate hunger to taste the warmth of Light again, to savor it and devour the spark. The Hive and we Guardians are one and the same, driven by a ceaseless and desperate need for light, devoid of a future. Praying that our Dead Gods will absolve us and deliver us a paradise, a better world… but this is only a dream, and one that will fade in time. There will be no escape, the hunger is all we have. We can’t look to the Traveler to save us anymore, we were supposed to save it. It shames me, a Guardian to speak ill of what gave me life, but I cannot stem my fears, something terrible is coming and I sense it may be nearer than we think. Something scares me to the core of what I am, for if the Traveler is so full of Light, why does it cast such a shadow through these eyes? What if it is not coming back, what if it is faded and dead like everything above me, and all the lies below? All light fades, and I fear mine is sputtering and dying too... It won’t be long now, they are coming back... I ca- _____________________________________________________________________________________________ - [b]TRANSMISSION: Signal located[/b] - SOURCE: Memory Fragment STATUS: Partially damaged contents remain non-compromised - Located: Luna/Mare_Imbrium/Hive_Catacombs/Sector_61 - Guardian Corpse not located - Guardian/Warlock: "Saris Karm" Classified: MIA - Transferring information... ... Vanguard/Warlock/Ikora_Rey - Addressee confirms receipt - [b]CLOSE_TRANSMISSION[/b] _____________________________________________________________________________________________