[url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/257857257/0/0]Link to Chapter 6 Part 1: Doors[/url] [spoiler]All chapters can be found in the [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/253302742/0/0]OoT table of contents[/url][/spoiler] “Lead me to Praedyth,” I commanded. “William, he couldn’t still be-“ Rush began soothingly. “Wether or not he’s alive, he’s still the only lead we have,” I interrupted, “…And our best chance at figuring something out.” Following waypoints that Rush left up on my HUD, I snuck through the Gorgons’ Maze. Several times I had to stop for awhile or take a longer path to avoid the Gorgons, but I was not spotted. We went down a trail I knew I hadn’t seen before from our last time down here, following a canyon-like route that actually had a decent amount of lights illuminating the way. The Gorgons were still patrolling, but I didn’t have a hard time avoiding them with so many tall rocks and Vex structures providing cover. Eventually the enclosing walls widened to be more like the cavernous spaces from earlier, large tunnels splitting off in several directions. Rush led me down one of said tunnels until we came to another of the circular doors. It was sealed shut. I waited for a moment, seeing if it would open because someone was standing in front of it, but it didn’t budge. Not giving up, I stepped up and grabbed the twisting circular lock that clasped the two sections of the door together, trying to force it open. Even Rush tried messing with the lock, but couldn’t do anything about it. “Blast it!” I smashed my fist against the metal barrier angrily, then sighed and let my arm fall, “Let’s keep going, Rush.” Just as I was turning around and stepping away, I heard a scratch. “Hello?” a voice called, although it was hardly audible through the door. “Praedyth?!” I exclaimed, rushing back to the door. “Kabr! Kabr is that you?!” the voice cried back. “No,” I was yelling now to make sure I was heard. If a Gorgon was near enough to hear, I would deal with it, “I’m William. Are you Praedyth?” “Yes! Yes, I’m Praedyth!” the other man answered, “Where’s Kabr?” “Dead,” I answered, not wasting tine sugarcoating it, “We thought you were, too.” “Dead?!” Praedyth responded, “But Kabr knew this place better than anyone! And I’ve only been in here a handful of days!” “Days?!” I yelped, “Praedyth, you and Kabr came in here decades ago!” “That’s impossible!” Praedyth scoffed. “Unless…” I muttered to myself, then shouted for Praedyth again, “Unless the Vault has dragged us both into the wrong time and space right now.” “Wait wait!” Praedyth seemed to realize something, “Where’s Pahanin?” “In my time he escaped but died a long time ago,” I told him. “No need to talk to me about that time business, that was Kabr’s specialty,” Praedyth replied, his sadness evident even while he was yelling to be heard, “Can’t believe it all fell apart so badly.” “What happened to you down here?” I questioned. “We were split up and I got locked in here,” Praedyth explained, “Have you seen my Ghost?” “I’m sorry Praedyth, we found it dead,” I confessed. A metal [i]thunk[/i] let us know that Praedyth hit the door. “Get yourself the hell out of here, right now,” he ordered. “But we can’t leave you,” I protested. “If it was possible for me to get out, you or I would’ve done that already,” he said sternly, “Leave before you end up dead.” “Okay,” I gave in, “But Praedyth. Do you know how I can get back to my own time?” “Your own…?” Praedyth trailed off, “By the Light, boy, you’re as stuck as I am, aren’t you?” I didn’t say anything, just clenched my fists as the weight of my helplessness sunk in. “Good luck,” Praedyth called one last time through the door. “You too,” I replied, then turned and left, forcing down my feelings of despair. I couldn’t help him and he couldn’t help me, so we both understood it was best if we parted ways. Deciding that now was as good a time as any, I headed back out. It took time, but since we hadn’t wondered far I eventually made it out of the Gorgons’ Maze and through the Templar’s Well without any problems. It was at the entrance to the Vault of Glass that I was stopped. The massive doorway remained closed as I approached. “No…” I fretted, “No…no, no, no no NO!” Desperately pulling at the segments of the gateway, I bellowed my rage at the Vex. I don’t know how long I spent trying to force the door open, or how long I sat waiting after, but eventually I gave up and headed back down. If it wasn’t open now, it would be open another time. Right? But when I walked down the Trial of Kabr to get to the Templar’s Well, I found that my path was blocked by boulders from where part of the tunnel ceiling had collapsed. The barricade looked like it had been there for decades, if not centuries. Panic was setting in now. I searched everywhere for another path and even tried pulling some of the rocks aside, but they were too many and too large for me to make it far. “William!” Rush called, halting me during an attempt to scrape out a way past the rockfall, “Look!” My companion was floating out above a little part of the path made by a piece of Vex structure that stuck out into an apparently natural underground chasm. Up above us, where the ceiling stretched higher into a narrow crevice of the chasm we were in, I spotted what Rush had. Ledges of stone provided a path that could be climbed, eventually giving way to some of Vex design that led off above the blocked tunnel. Running back to check the Vault’s entrance and finding it still closed, I immediately returned to the blocked tunnel and began leaping up the ledges. Surprisingly, I found that many of the platforms high up still had plants growing on them, even after I had hopped across them for a few minutes deeper into the Vex’s territory. Below me, the narrow crevice I jumped through gave way to massive caverns that I couldn’t see the bottoms of. This space I was prancing through like a mountain goat was a maze of its own. There were many places where the platforms provided different paths for me to travel, and there were probably many hidden secrets and passages that I missed because of the peculiar layout, but I stuck to the path that I felt led most directly to the Templar’s Well. Being able to see slivers of the chasm below didn’t help me figure out if I was above the Well or not. And knowing this place, it was possible that taking this path would never lead me to the Well at all. Rush and I didn’t speak. There was nothing to talk about but Praedyth, and Rush seemed just as scared of having that conversation as I was. I never did find my way to the Templar’s Well, leaping from ledge to ledge high above the chambers of the Vault. Maybe it would’ve been better if I had kept looking for it. But after finding the Vex Gate embedded in the stone walls of the winding shaft, I didn’t see a better option than going through. [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/257969090/0/0]Link to Chapter 7: Conscription[/url]