HALL OF SOULS, THE DREADNAUGHT, RINGS OF SATURN

The Guardian enters the Court of Blades.

Echo of Navigation: You killed me. Sword logic dictates that I love you for it.

Echo of Navigation: My communion with the Deep left me branded. A mark of knowledge, earned through strife. Seek yours now.

Echo of Navigation: Your paracausal will has buried entire armies. What if they kneeled instead?

Echo of Navigation: Behold the worlds that lay ripe to be Taken.

Echo of Navigation: These domains are yours to navigate. The beings within them are yours to Take.

Echo of Navigation: Those here are willing sacrifices. Use your budding power to grant them new shapes.

Echo of Navigation: In Taking, I see truth, for it drives me. In Taking, you will see power. Ascend, King.

Echo of Navigation: To Take is to free what has been offered to you. In service, the weak may share our strength.

Echo of Navigation: Here you will learn to cleave flesh from will. They are lured by a whisper, sunken into their mind.

Echo of Navigation: A challenger awaits. Only one may take my throne and quell the unrest in the Ascendant Plane.

Echo of Navigation: Take up the knife. Do you hear it? They yearn for your blade.

Echo of Navigation: When I Take a being, they kneel broken, to discover themselves. They stand, flayed of the weakness that clung to their flesh. Bloodied with potential. Soon, the knife will be in your hand, and the bone — scraped by your blade.

Echo of Navigation: A shift has occurred within the Deep. What once offered recognition is now tinged with apathy. Arrest its attention.

Echo of Navigation: Taken slain here are not all called back to me. There is another well of want, drawing them in. I shall seek it out.

Echo of Navigation: We are not alone in the Deep. Something I cannot see stands between the Winnower and the Taken. Carve these offerings free from their weakness, King. Before something else does.

Echo of Navigation: I know the wills of every knife in this realm. I hear them scream as the strong metastasize the weak. And I feel a strength I do not know, carving paths that should belong to the Winnower. But don’t.

Xivu Arath: A CHAMPION TO PLAY VESSEL FOR MY BELOVED BROTHER. BECOME THE FLESH OF MY FLESH.

Xivu Arath: THIS COURT IS A CIRCUIT. A DESCRIPTION OF MY SIBLINGS. OF YOU, AND ALL CHILDREN OF LIGHT.

Xivu Arath: ORYX FORGED THIS COURT WITH THE HAMMER HE STOLE FROM ME. HE INTENDS ITS VICIOUS CYCLE AS A DISTRACTION, MASQUERADING AS FRATERNAL LOVE. IT IS A VERY GOOD DISTRACTION.

Xivu Arath: WARRIOR OF THE SKY, YOUR WILL WAVERS. I FEEL THE TAKEN RECOIL FROM YOUR CLAIM.

Xivu Arath: I AWAIT THE DAY WE CROSS BLADES, WARRIOR OF THE SKY. I WILL SLAY YOU UPON MY BROTHER’S THRONE. AIAT!

Xivu Arath: A SHADOW IS CAST OVER THE TAKEN. THEY QUESTION WHEN ONCE THERE WAS SILENT OBEDIENCE.

Xivu Arath: THERE IS A WOUND IN THE DEEP, A FISSURE OF LUST AND HATE AND GREED. ITS SHAPE DEFIES DESCRIPTION LIKE COLOR IN THE DARK, SO I CANNOT FIND IT. CANNOT CRUSH IT. CONSIDER MY BROTHER’S THRONE, SKY WARRIOR. FOREVER A BLADE IN THE HANDS OF ANYONE ELSE COULD DESCRIBE A NEW HIGH WAR.

Xivu Arath: A FALSE PROPHET LURED THE DARK INTO BRIGHT CORNERS. AND YOU REAPED IT. NOW ANOTHER LURKS WITH THE DEEP. LIKE TRUE LOVE, SWORD LOGIC PERVADES, INVOKED OR NOT. NOW A THOUSAND, THOUSAND MOUTHS YEARN TO BE FED. THEY WILL NOT WAIT FOREVER.

Echo of Navigation: Grow in strength and knowledge.

Echo of Navigation: Power belongs to those who take it.

Echo of Navigation: Blood begets blood.

RATHMORE SUBTERRAIN, IO

Xivu Arath: CRUSH THEM. CRUSH THEM UNTIL THEY CEASE TO MOVE.

Xivu Arath: WAR! WAR! WAR!

REMNANT OF SILVER,EUROPA

Xivu Arath: WAR! WAR! WAR!

Xivu Arath: LET THEIR PATH END HERE, AT THE TIP OF YOUR BLADE.