Pre-Game Quotes

[be_notorious]

Quotes Pt. 1 Lore snippets from the dark ages to his in-game introduction.

Ace in the Hole Guess you better hope I didn't tell anyone about the crypt. Or about the, uh, what was it? Oh yeah… Long Slow Whisper. That's the whole idea with the operation you're putting together, ain't it? MY idea by the way. Had it, like, a million years ago, back when you were still handsome. So, uh, you're welcome. -link Heaven or Hell The man stood up in the evening light. He looked down at himself and saw that someone had dressed him for his own funeral. He didn't laugh, but he thought it was funny. -link Dogma "You're not going to pick a name?" Ghost asked. "Everyone picks a name." "You talk too much." "Some people pick names for their Ghosts, too. What should I call you, if you don't want a name?" He had passed out. The sun beat down directly overhead, a searing marble in the sky. He died a day later after a scorpion stung his prone body. Ghost allowed it. A complete restart would be less complicated. -link Home pt I "How you livin'," Judson greeted the Risen, holding his finger high. "Settle down, Judson," Germaine called out. "Shut your hole, Germaine," Judson returned, hand still in the air. "Your name is stupid, and you're stupid, too." Germaine shook his head and grinned ruefully. -link Home pt II She stopped pacing to consider it, and looked up at the sheet metal ceiling. "I don't want to die." "You won't," Germaine said. "Why don't you go see what your parents are up to? I'm a little beat." "OK," she said, shrugging. She left. Germaine opened a small box of water from the pile of ration packs and poured a tin-full. Yu hadn't noticed because it was difficult to see in the flickering lamplight, but his hands shook. -link Home pt IV "Are you all right?" Ghost asked. He stood up, straighter than he had in a long time. Easier to seem like people when you slouch. "Germaine?" Ghost asked. "That's not my name." "You let them call you that." Judson reached out to grab his throat. The man caught his hand in a vice-grip instead, a crushing handshake. Judson frowned and struggled, but he was exhausted. Dying. And the man had strength that belied his frame. The man lifted his other hand, smoldering from a Solar glow, and held it against Judson's wound. His former friend managed a high-pitched wail, but couldn't break the man's grip, though he tried and tried. The man nodded at Judson, addressing his Ghost. "Do you see how he never gives up? Because he knows this one life is all he has? No fear." "Those Risen out there?" The man finished cauterizing the wound and used his suddenly-cool hand to wave indiscriminately into the darkening night. "They'd be long dead if they were him. All they know is war. This man survives." Judson made a gurgling sound. He had stopped struggling, but the man kept a grip on his hand. "You wanted me to save him? Even if this works, he could never show me how to live. Not like he lives. And that's on you." The man walked past his Ghost and brought Judson's corpse to the center of town. As he began digging again, he noticed the bloated, spherical husk that dominated the sky. It had been out of his life for a while, but it seemed a lot closer to earth tonight. He raised a hand to salute it with a single finger, as Ghost looked on. "How you livin'?" he said, and gave a smile to the heavens that ended at his eyes. -link Lightkin Gloves "I got no qualms with them shackin' up here, but you ask me, they're wild for lookin' up to that big ball in the sky again. Didn't end well the last time around. Fool me once and all that." —The Drifter -link Loose Ends, pt. I Wu Ming's bar wasn't always bustling, but it was this afternoon. Wu served anyone who could pay, but his clientele were often Risen. Not because he provided a menu particularly suited to them, but because he had built his bar at the foot of a mountain called Felwinter Peak. Felwinter was a former Warlord—the only one, it was said, to hold an entire mountain all by himself. He now rode with the Iron Lords, and Felwinter Peak was staunchly the territory of the Iron Wolves. They had never given Wu permission to build the bar. He had never asked. -link Loose Ends, pt. III Wu Ming told him a story about a long-forgotten town far away called Eaton, early in the age of Iron Lords. A Lord called Dryden had brought food for the town's starving people, but in return, asked to use them as bait to bring a local Warlord into position for an ambush. This, Wu had learned, went against the code set out by Lord Radegast, the founder of the order. Dryden had broken the rule of involving Lightless individuals in Iron Lord business, because it was those people the Lords had unified to protect. The town had agreed, of course. What choice did it have? But the ambush had gone horribly wrong. The Warlord target had brought a whole fireteam to the fight. Eaton's erasure was utter and complete. Though Wu later learned that Dryden won the battle, he lost every Lord under his command, Ghosts and all, and he committed the additional sin of inflicting final deaths on the Warlords he defeated, in an act of bloodlust and rage. In the intervening years, Wu had learned that Dryden kept this under wraps, and that he and his Ghost were now among the most decorated of Lords, next to the likes of rising champions like Lord Saladin and Lady Efrideet themselves. -link Loose Ends pt II Wu chuckled. "Nah, a mere mortal at a Risen fight? I'd just get in the way." He thought for a second. "Would you like to dance before you go?" "Nah," she said, imitating his tone. The helm came down. He cocked his head over the music, then leaned in to ask, "Wait, what did you think I said?" "Would you like to dance before you go?" she repeated. "I would love to," he said, stepping forward, arms wide. She side-stepped him and kicked his leg out from under him. He went tumbling to the ground, and someone spilled their drink on him. "I had to try," he called from the floor, watching her go. The plume of her helmet rose above the crowd, and was already halfway out the door. "Take the bodies!" he yelled, still on the ground. -link Loose Ends pt III "I heard you care very much about right and wrong, and the delivery of justice to those who deserve it." Felwinter's eyes glowed brighter. "I can't think of a more human act," he said after a moment's pause. "I don't know that anyone has a right to that. But I believe in revenge with all my heart. And I have a request, knowing that you do what you do." -link Illicit Reaper Cloak "I want out, man. I just want out." —A Dark Age drifter He sat with men who went by the name "Dredgen" in a ritual at least one man had completed before. Together, they heard whispers. They heard voices. A thousand. Maybe more. He had always thought they had picked their name for themselves. But they hadn't. The whispers had given it to them. He would have found out either way, sooner or later. Because in another lifetime, he would hear the Cabal Emperor describe his demigods with the same word. Shadows. Of Yor. Of Calus. Of nothing, as far as he was concerned. -link Opulent Scholar Boots Thus did the Shadow of Earth slay the Rogue Lightbearer known to some as Dredgen Hope. With the help of Brighus, the Emperor's personal chef, the Shadow of Earth prepared a splendid feast, and then went to the rogue and said, "Brother, come with me." How marvelously they dined, upon soft-fleshed brackenclams and salty fruitmeats! The Shadow partook with the stamina of a great Cabal primus, but the rogue ate even better, so well that even the generous Emperor, watching through his Shadow's eyes, was impressed. -link Illicit Reaper Mark She knew him then as Eli. And the second time he met her, he asked, "Would you like to dance before you go?" "Not now," she had said. "Wait, what did you think I said?" he asked. "Would you like to dance?" she repeated. "I would love to," he said, and stepped forward with his arms in the air. She chuckled. He paused. "This has never worked before," he said. He joined her in the Pilgrim Guard. They fought alongside each other. He saved her life. She saved his. He was convinced she was his best friend. He was wrong. One day, he never saw her again. -link Sunbreak Mark "I feel like I knew you," Wu Ming says, careful and slow, like he's snipping the wire on a bomb. Orin searches his face for hidden meaning, but she sees nothing but exhilarated fear. "Yeah?" "Yeah," he says. "You remind me of someone I used to crew with. Back in the Dark Ages. You came up back then, right?" She chews on her lip and the sensation causes her mind to buzz with the same number, over and over: nine-nine-nine-nine-nine-nine-nine-nine-nine… "Yeah," she says, centering herself. "I did. I, uh…" She looks at Gol for validation. His wings are tucked tight against his shell, small and wary. "Gol rezzed me somewhere east of New Whulge. Made my way south from there." -link Synesthesia Wu Ming is ravenous for her stories of the Nine. He asks whether she's met them, whether they can give a man power, whether they know a way out of this solar system. Orin cannot answer any of his questions but she cannot keep her own stories down. She is sick with them; they come out in a compulsive bilious stream and when she is emptied, she talks of herself. Of her grief. Of her restlessness. How she feels the most alive in the empty spaces between blinks. How she feels she is a snake perpetually sloughing away its skin, except this last molt is all wrong and she is caught in the ghost-throat of her old self. Wu Ming leaves his questions by the wayside as he is drawn inexorably into the gravity well of her desperate honesty. Her confessions lower his defenses. He talks of himself. Of his fear. Of his loneliness. How he feels he is one fingernail away from plummeting into an abyss. How he feels vicious resentment every time he is brought back from the dead: He never asked for the gift of the Light. -link Mystery and Potential Visit 7 Orin: I'm leaving. I'm going to go find them. Drifter: There is nothing out there for you, Orin! Orin: Please don't pretend you care. This is a courtesy, Dredgen. Drifter: I don't use that name! Not anymore! Orin: Your friend Callum says otherwise. Drifter: Hand to my heart, I'm not lying. -link Breakneck "Well, Cen—my eyes might be shot, but this…" He tapped the side of his nose. "Just fine. And I smell a rat." He sniffed. "A whole mess of 'em, actually." Cenric stood up. That vein of his looked about ready to pop. Drifter let his feet down as he reached for his rifle, asp-quick. "And you know what we do with rats, don't you, brother." -link Ancient Apocalypse Hood I had a crew once. My best friends. Which isn't saying much, trust me. They're all dead now. Almost to a man. So what does that mean for all you lil' Guardians out there who are my new best friends? Don't think about that one too hard. Anyway, my crew, or a little subset of it, we leave the system together. Dawn of the City Age at the time. We were looking for somethin' greater than Light. 'Cuz we had seen that Light can be the cause of… so much strife. -link Ancient Apocalypse Robes Anyway, this thing—the creature—looked like it shared common bioenergetics with the Hive, but there were no records then or since that I've ever seen of humanity's encounters with them. And the creature had a property the Hive did not have. It produced a field that repressed Light—like a Darkness Zone but contained to a gooey, vacuous form with no head. The anti-Light fields we had detected from orbit that spread across the planet? It was these things. Our ship's scanners indicated thousands of them were on this planet with us. We were ecstatic. In hindsight we all could have done with a few less of them. -link Ancient Apocalypse Gloves My crew and I quickly learned that the creatures in the monolith facilities were not the only ones on that damn rock. Plenty of 'em roaming around out in the wild, where it was cold, but less cold than the frozen cages that contained the ones in the monoliths. How'd we find out? Well, one of us died in our sleep. Not that uncommon or tragic, actually. Happened a lot. Damn cold out there. Except this time that fella's Ghost couldn't resurrect him. Turns out one'a those creatures just slithered by, and close proximity to it from inside our shelter just… silenced that poor bastard's Light. It was unfortunate, but it also lit a fire under us. The next morning we realized we had a potential weapon on our hands that could change everything in battles of Light versus Light. -link Ancient Apocalypse Boots We started to blame each other. Someone must have lured one of those things near crew quarters. To this day, I still don't know for sure. Why kill just one of us? For what? It was more plausible that the creatures did it knowingly. A punishment for our intrusion. But there was no malice there that we could detect. Only biology. At the time, we didn't care. Eventually, one of em drew a gun. I knew it would happen, and I had prepared a soothing speech to smooth things over just in case. I told 'em to holster that smoke wagon. And the next time any one of 'em tried it again, I'd kill 'em all without a second thought. I didn't speak plainly often. But when I did, even that crew listened. -link Ancient Apocalypse Bond Anyway. Four of us were left. We were raving psychos at this point. Only the four of us and the howling wind and icy slopes for company. The occasional scurrying, vacuous creature to argue about. One day, when we had settled in for the night in another monolith, something swept over the planet. I later learned it swept across the system. All'a you hearing this felt it. You were there at the source. All four of us lost our Light. And we knew it. We looked over at the monolith-creature in its frozen cage. It seemed to stare right back. I think I mentioned we're all raving psychos at this point. Well, we did what all measured raving psychos would do. We thought we each had been betrayed by the others. We drew on each other. To this day, I'm not sure how many of those guys drew intending to kill. But I'll tell you this. I was the only one who walked out. -link Illicit Reaper Bond But they were killin' us, one by one, robbing us of the Traveler's gift in sub-zero temps. We each thought the others were to blame, somehow luring the creatures to camp during the night to claim victims. Could've just been bad luck. The place was riddled with beasts. Even now, I couldn't tell you either way. It was dark, it was cold, for days, weeks, months. Just as tensions between our group reached critical mass, on the other side of the system, Ghaul and the Red Legion took out the Traveler. Even out in space, it cost us our Light. But we didn't know that. We all felt it, blamed each other without sayin' a word. I could see it in their eyes. If I didn't draw, they would. So—ol' Drifter was the only one who walked out. Final deaths. All of them. -link The Sundial Drifter shrugged. “We’ve all had to flex a little. Win a gun fight or two. It’s why we’re still here.” “We all gain strength. But some Lightbearers never grasp a wider view of the world. They’re happy to stick to their ways… languish. When they could be so much more.” Drifter chuckled and spat, saluting Osiris with a single finger. “I get by.” “Of course you do. I’m like you.” Drifter smirked. -link Artifacts and Old Friends "He says he's seen the deep side of Jupiter. Been to the Core Mines of Saturn. Name drops old myths no one's heard—the Luvial Crux, the Shift Chasms Below Elios, the Fourth Tomb of Nezarec. Goes on about the Idols of Lower Sul, the Treasure of Exodus Prime, the Solar Engine of Dead Star-Six. "I think he's making most of it up, but he's got relics and etchings. He's got materials not of this system—odd metals, obsidian flames, thought engines, edible null cakes and a stuffed something that looks like a rabbit bio-fused with a cephalopod. He keeps all this stuff to himself—his 'gets,' he calls 'em. "If they're for show, they put on a great one. But to what end? The clutter of oddities he's got ship-side ain't nothin' compared to what he's haulin'—that big, black mass of nothing you ain't ever seen before. "He calls it an 'artifact,' but it's more than that. Just don't know what, exactly. He said he got far out as he's ever been. Said it was from a place cold enough to snuff out your Light. I ask him, was it Vex? Hive? Cagey as all, he said no, it was just 'other,' and it was powerful… maybe. "That was his qualifier: 'maybe.' "Why the hell bring it to the inner system then? 'Maybes' are trouble. But he's got an answer for everything. He says… "'Brother… maybes are where the real treasure hides.' -link