Visions of a Thanatonaut: Temple of Savathûn

[b]*I encourage other thanatonaut to share their own dreams in the comments below*[/b] While I am not the best warrior, I think I am fairly accomplished warlock: I've defeated Eliksni kells, conquered the Vault of Glass, and even slain two Hive gods in their throne worlds. Lately though, it has not been combat that grabs my interest, but instead a growing hunger for knowledge. The world is full of mysteries that I want to—NEED to—understand. I've studied the writings of respected scholars, exiled madmen, and even those of the very Hive gods I've battled in hopes of uncovering some hidden truth that connects everything into a cohesive framework. For a while now, I've felt close to something big, but the epiphany has eluded me like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces that I can't complete. Inspired by Pujari's writings on his visions of the Black Garden, I sought out a sect of thanatonauts to learn their ways. These warlocks intentionally end their lives to pierce the veil of existence and gain visions of truth before being resurrected by their ghosts. After weeks of death and rebirth (to the annoyance of my ghost), I finally saw something. [i]Avid readers of the Grimoire, especially those familiar with the Books of Sorrow will recognize many elements of my visions[/i]. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ I found myself in the dark jungles of Venus among Vex ruins, but I was observing from outside myself as a passive spectator. Perhaps this was a slightly different version of me from another timeline, or perhaps it is a me that I might yet become. I sat before an inactive Vex gate as my ghost repaired it; she said it must have been dormant for at least a few million years, and that the Vex should not notice it's reactivation. The dark quiet of night was broken by the flash and hum of the reactivated gate. The ghost turned around, and I—this other me—pulled out a Vex mind core belonging to a Sol Imminent hydra containing a set of coordinates; I'm not sure how I knew this, it might simply be the logic of a dream, but I knew these coordinates were referenced in the World's Grave that this version of me had previously deciphered. I watched myself pause and nervously stare into the gate before stepping into the portal of pulsing light, and in a flash, I emerged . . . somewhere. I felt so light that I could almost drift away; the gravity was less than a eighth of Earth's. I looked up in awe at the sight of an unfamiliar stars and saw a field of rock debris drifting in pious orbit around this dwarf world as if to worship it. There was no atmosphere, but this barren sunless world floated through the bloodred haze of a nebula enveloping this region of space. There was a single large gap in the sanguine hue; it was a pitch black circle positioned at the center of the permanent night sky, and surrounding this dark sun was a halo of bright red gas being devoured into into it's blackness. It was a singularity—a black hole. I shook as I stared in awe at this cosmic titan, and I felt a great dread threaten to swallow me whole as if orbiting the event horizon of my own madness. I pushed the fear to the back of my mind, and I focused on my goals. As a voidwalker, I could manipulate gravity well enough to adjust to this low gravity environment, and so I walked across the dark jagged peaks and hydrocarbon pools of this world in search for knowledge. Aside from the gate through which I arrived, only a few towering ruins of Vex geometry and some goblin scraps remain to even hint at a Vex attempt at transforming this world—clearly the machines have failed here, 'but why?' I heard myself think. After the equivalent of four earth days of searching, I found nothing on this cold dead world, and I decided to journey back to the Vex gate to return to the Solar system. On the fifth day I was completely lost on the path back to the gate; it was as though the terrain itself shifted to deceive me, and I was beginning to hear whispers mocking me. I feared that I was going mad, but I was terrified that I wasn't. My ghost tells me it must be the effects of Hawking radiation from the black hole affecting the circuitry of my exo brain, but her attempts to repair the supposed damage yielded no results. On the sixth day the voices grew too loud to ignore, and a singular whisper urged me to smash my ghost to pieces to devour its light. I resisted and ran aimlessly as I tried to escape the feeling of a hand upon my mind. It was on the seventh day that my panic led me a vast lake of liquid methane, and floating in it's very center was a great structure of jutting obsidian. This black tower was comprised of tall jagged monoliths joined together by a series of elaborate buttresses. The oppressive architecture was clearly of Hive origin. I glided across the lake like a skipping stone until i reached the base of the tower, and from there I continued my ascent to find a doorway to enter. There was no roof inside. I was in a large circular room filled with the skulls of great dragons arranged in it's circumference, and each skull was carved with Hive runes. I remembered myself thinking it must have been from the Hive's slaughter of the Ahamkara in the Harmony system. Is this where I was? Centered in the room is titanic statue of what looked like a wizard both unusual and menacing in its appearance—it held in its stone claws a blade that appeared small relative to the statue's size, but it was large enough to be used as a sword by a guardian. I approached the statue with a terrifying curiosity, and before my ghost could translate the runes inscribed in the stone, I felt the voices call to me again and guide my hand to the blade. "Wait, what are you doing? STOP!" My ghost yelled, but it was too late. As my fingers made contact, a layer of ash and dust slowly fell away from the blade to reveal its red hot glow, and my ghost yelled at me to run as the weapon emitted a high pitched ringing. I could no longer heed my ghost as the voices and the ringing noise drowned out all thought, and all that was left was a primal fear saturating my very being. I urgently grabbed the blade from the statue to defend myself from whatever horror I felt was with me. The runes carved on the dragon skulls burned green, and I began seeing the strange wizard comprised of white fire appear before me, and she moved through the air as if taunting me. With surgical precision, I swung of the blade and sliced through her. She vanished in smoke, and instead of her death, I saw my ghost falling down in pieces where I had just cut. All that remained of my ghost were ashes, and this was the shape of terror. As the fear of what I've done set in, I began noticing a wound begun to open from the space where I had cut, and knights of an unknown sect poured out from this wound. I watched as the very first of them diagonally cleaved my metallic body faster than I could react. I watched from outside myself as half of my upper body slid off and hit the ground with a clunk. My sensory functions were gradually starting to shut down, but it was then I recognized a set of runes spelling out [b]"Savathûn, Witch-Queen, sister of Oryx."[/b] I died with my eyes raised high beyond the statue, and the last thing I saw was the black hole suspended in the sky. This was when I woke up screaming, and I later remembered this from the Books of Sorrows: [quote]She flies her war-moons into the black hole.[/quote] ___________________________________________________________________________________________ I believe this towering temple exists to summon her back from the black hole, or perhaps it is merely an arcane means of communication between her and her priests. There were times when I wondered if this was just a dream—after all, the black hole, the dragons, and the name of this Hive god were all details I already knew from my studies on the Books of Sorrow, but it was the scar from the burning scalpel that remained seared across the shell of my ghost that convinced me of the authenticity of the vision. I hope that this dream shall never come to pass.