The Sea of Oblivion Mission 1 Part 2: At The Shores of Madness [spoiler]Want to read what came before? [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/234208454]Master Post[/url][/spoiler] Asher: "Peculiar. Assistant, there is one of those weird web structures near you. Scan it." You scan a web sphere the size of a small truck nearby. Asher: "Lets see... the webbing is a scleroprotein laced with calcium carbonate that also has fiber optic properties." Ikora: "So extremely hard webbing that caries information." Asher: "Yes. I will have to study it some other time. Now let's see. I'm cross referencing it against everything we know about the Hive, Vex, Cabal, and Fallen. And... yup. Neutrino scattering are normal. Photon wavelengths are standard. This is not Hive or Vex. And it is not in Calus' index of the Cabal. The Fallen have never done anything like this-" Zavala: "So whatever this is, we have never seen anything like it?" Asher: "Yes. But just because we haven't seen it before doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. I recommend a full scale quarantine of Titan until we know what it is. " Zavala: "Agreed. Initiating a Type 5 Quarantine Procedure of Titan. Guardian, push further to see what this is. And whatever you do, do not use hostile force unless in self defense. We don't know what this is but I don't want to piss it off and we don't have time to send in for a diplomat." You are then sent down a part of the wall using the webbing as a sort of jump puzzle. Your lift your gun up into the non combat position so you cannot shoot. Asher: "A Titan recommending not using force? How novel." You reach the bottom on a decrepit roadway. Zavala: "Make your way to one of those black structures. Get inside. Lets see if we can find any intelligent life." You enter an unusually tall building that starts as a square that morphs into an off center cylinder. You enter through a doorway the shape of an offset right triangle. The room is all black but doused in a deep violet light. There are carvings on the wall with exquisite detail depicting cities and celestial bodies. Ghost: "Zavala, are you getting this?" There is no response. Ghost: "Whatever this is made out of, it must block our signal." The door shuts and you are trapped in a circular room with nothing in it but you. Suddenly a group of creatures scuttle down the walls from the dark above you. They look like a harvester spider where a bunch of stiff legs converge into one body, but instead of having a little circle as the body, their legs converge into what is the bottom of a large dark opaque cylinder that grows more narrow the higher up it gets. At the top of that cylinder is a 7 small tentacles that radiate outward. This picture is pretty on point https://imgur.com/a/JWHtH. The creatures quickly form a circle at the edges of the room. All of them are labeled as "Fallow". You cannot injure them. Ghost: "Um... hello... creatures. We mean no harm. " The creatures make a deep whine noise, like a whale. Ghost (whispering to you): "Maybe they are friendly." Suddenly another one of those creatures scuttles down. This one is different, and has red fire coral like structures growing all over it's body. It is labeled "Effete". It scuttles to the center of the room. All of the creatures make that deep whale like noise, with a seeming intelligent communication between them. Effete (in the Ghost's voice: "Um... hello... creatures. We mean no harm. Maybe they are friendly." Ghost: "Well that isn't creepy." Effete (in Ghost's voice): "Well that isn't creepy." The Effete pauses for a second. Effete (In Ghost's voice stitched together from what he said previously): "Home" A cut scene begins. It shows the Almighty from that cutscene from Titan during the Red War Campaign. Effete (In Ghost's voice, now less choppy): "We are the Ufiliuum. In your tongue that is "Bloom." As in the original cutscene, the Almighty collapses and the star implodes. Instead of following the ensuing supernova, the camera speeds up and zooms into that bronze and green planet that gets destroyed. It is covered with those same black structures, forming cities that spread past the horizon. Egg shaped ships made out of that webbing ranging from the size of small cars to towns move in unusual patterns without seemingly having reason. The black buildings rise out of the bronze colored water to pierce the deep green sky. In an instant. It is all gone. The camera lingers on the remnants of the obliterated planet and begins to zoom out. Effete (with Ghost's voice): "We simply wish to find a new home." As the camera zooms out, it shows the remnants of at least 3 other planets from the system. Effete (with Ghost's voice): "And that is why we must do this." The cut scene ends. Your eyes open. You are in the middle of the room. There are no Bloom around you. You are alone doused in violet light. Ghost: "Guardian, I don't know what is going on, but we have to find a way out." There is a crack in the wall that wasn't there before. After shooting it, it will be destroyed and you can leave freely. Ghost: "Zavala, how long have we been out of transmission?" Zavala: "About a minute. Why? What happened in there?" Asher: "Did you commune with it?" Ghost: "They're called the Bloom. I'll fill you in on the details later but right now-" Suddenly a bunch of Fallow crawl down from the top of the building and engage you. Fallow will attack you by excreting cryo grenades through the top of their bodies and throwing them at you with their tentacles. Their critical spots are the top if their body at the base where the tentacles stem out from and their legs. Destroying the legs will immobilize them but make them much more aggressive. They lack any melee ability so they keep their distance. Zavala: "What happened in there?!" Ghost: "I don't really know. But whatever it is, the Bloom is a hostile threat." More Fallow emerge and engage you. As this happens, several of the web ships begin to lift off in zigzag patterns heading for the hole above the area (https://imgur.com/a/1Ku0J). Zavala: "That is all I need to hear. Engaging altercation 711, this is a Type 2 Hostile Quarantine. Use any and all measures to contain the treat to Titan. Guardian, Sloan, I need you in the air now!" Ghost: "Bringing ship down now." Your ship flies down, avoiding the web ships now leaving the Arcology. It lands nearby the building and you go to it. Once inside the ship, you are given full control over it. The controls are the same as Halo Reach, left bumper to do aerial maneuvers, left thumb stick controls speed, right thumb stick controls pitch and direction, left trigger boosts, right trigger shoots, and y switches between fully auto cannons and homing rockets. Zavala: "Sloan, hold them off until reinforcements can arrive. Guardian, get out of the Arcology and hold this Bloom off." Asher: "And don't come into direct contact with that sclerolattice. It seems at least partially designed to consume organic matter. No wonder the hive see them as a threat! Basically everything they make is at least based on chitin!" You are tasked with escaping the Arcology through the hole in the roof. The smaller Bloom ships the size of your ship are egg shaped and called Drivel. The larger ships, the size of Fallen Skiffs, are called Tripe and are more of an oval shape with a flat concave side. Drivel will solely try to attack you through contact, ramming into your ship and quickly evading. If they damage you, they will slow you down for a short time. Tripe will simple fire quick automatic cryo blasts from a small black pyramid on the from of them. They also can ram you, however avoid doing so. Once you manage to break your way through the arcology, you meet Sloan in the atmosphere. Sloan: "Whatever you did pissed them off something fierce. I'll hunt Bloom that got away, you contain them as they try to escape the arcology." She flies away. Zavala: "I have Hawks inbound. ETA 4 minutes. If you two can keep the Bloom contained on Titan until then, we can maintain quarantine. Your objective is to contain the Bloom. If one leaves atmosphere, you lose. After 1 minute of fighting, Hive Tombships appear and begin to combat the Bloom. They will fight you, however you do not need to fight them and the Bloom is their primary target. After 3 minutes an extremely large Bloom ship called a Banal emerges. The Banal begins as a rotated rectangular prism in the back but fuses into a cone with a round tip at the front. This ship, the size of one of the Hive's mini dreadnoughts, will glow red around the ridges that fuse at the tip into a singular solar laser beam that will shoot for a few seconds before a short cooldown. Getting too close will allow the ridges of the ship to fire a continues laser at you that does less damage but won't stop until you get farther away. You have a minute to kill the Banal or you fail. Once the 4 minutes is up, several Hawks appear and begin doing work against the Hive and Bloom. They manage to push the Bloom back into the arcology and set up a perimeter around it while others fan out to find any that may have slipped through. Zavala: "Good work. I am assembling a debriefing with the Consensus now. Asher, I will have a Gull pick you up on Io. I want all of you here to discuss this." The mission ends. [spoiler]Want to see what comes next? [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/234208454]Master Post[/url][/spoiler]