Part 12: The Vault of Glass

This week, I've tied the Grimoire update with the actual update, because this is the Vault of Glass, and there's a few lore bits about this place that I wanted to make sure didn't get left until entirely too late.

Grimoire Card: A Rising Tide posted:

"Of all the tactics we have to use against the Vex, shutting down their gates may be the most effective. You may have saved Freehold from being overrun. I sense a pattern here - a connection between this Vex outbreak, the Black Garden, and the Vault of Glass... I need to know more." - Ikora Rey

Grimoire Card: The Black Garden posted:

"At last the Heart of the Garden has been destroyed, its stranglehold on the Traveler released. Our Light brightens. But the power of the Vex is not broken. Look into the Vault, Guardian, for it is said to hold powers the Progeny were meant to bring forth." - The Speaker

Grimoire Card: Precursors posted:

Sol Primeval

Those who delve deep into the Vault of Glass have seen time itself torn asunder. Awestruck Ghosts report encounters with ancient Vex, their casings built long before the age of humanity.

It would be easy to assume these Vex are the ancestors of those we face today - but with the Vex, it is never so simple.

Grimoire Card: Descendants posted:

Sol Imminent

Survivors of the Vault of Glass report sightings of ancient Vex - ancient in the sense that they have endured for eons. Convergent analysis from multiple Ghosts suggests that these Vex exist in our future.

If the Vex exist in our future - or in a possible future - should we take this as evidence that their defeat is impractical or unattainable? The Guardian Vanguard is quick to point out that time travel remains a mystery, and that the continued existence of the Vex is not remotely a sure indication of humanity's extinction.

Grimoire Card: The Templar posted:

Even among the Axis Minds, the Templar is extraordinary. Fragmentary glimpses and scattered reports suggest a Hydra of impossible capabilities - a creature out of time.

The Templar and the Oracles guard the way into the deeper Vault. Legends say that the Oracles foresee what is to come, a world as the Vex desire it - and that the Templar has the power to shape reality to match the Oracles' design, expunging any threats.

The power of the Vault flows through the Templar. It will take something extraordinary to shatter its shield.

Grimoire Card: The Gorgons posted:

Deep in the Vault of Glass, the fabric of reality bends to the will of the Vex. Warlocks speak in tones of awe of the Gorgons - creatures that seem to possess a dreaded, almost unimaginable strength: an ontological weapon.

Like the Oracles and the Templar, the Gorgons reputedly possess the ability to define what is and is not real. Whatever they perceive becomes subject to erasure at their will. Until a countermeasure can be found, Guardians must avoid their gaze at all costs - or reply to any detection with immediate overwhelming force.

The Gorgons' ability must be tied to the nature of the Vault of Glass. We can take some solace in the clear fact that the Vex cannot manifest this power in the world outside.

Grimoire Card: Atheon, Time's Conflux posted:

To speak of Atheon is to accept certain limitations. We are ill-equipped to understand an entity that defies simple causality. Let us accept these limitations and proceed.

Atheon waits in the Vault of Glass. Just as Atheon sidesteps 'past' and 'future', it is impossible to say whether Atheon created the Vault or the Vault created Atheon. Causal pathways converge on Atheon from every axis in the space-time bulk.

Atheon has a function. We hazard that it regulates and oversees the Vex conflux system. What are these confluxes? How do they relate to the physical Vex network that has devoured so much of Mercury and Venus?

We might guess that the Vex confluxes represent the extension of this network across space and time. Perhaps the Vex use closed timelike curves to solve unfathomable computations. Or the Vex may seek to transcend a physical substrate, and move their thoughts directly into the fundament of the universe.

If physics is a set of rules that the cosmos uses to calculate itself, perhaps the Vex seek to worm their way into these calculations: to become a law of reality, inseparable from existence. A virus in the system. Perhaps Atheon was the centerpiece of this project, a command nexus that unified efforts across time.

But we must accept that all of this is speculation.

Grimoire Card: The Vault of Glass posted:

His name was Kabr. He wasn't my friend but I knew and respected him as a Guardian and a good man.

He fought the Vex alone. This destroyed him. In the time before he vanished he said things that I think should be remembered. These are some of them:

"In the Vault time frays and a needle moves through it. The needle is the will of Atheon. I do not know the name of the shape that comes after the needle.

No one can open the Vault alone. I opened the Vault. There was no one with me but I was not alone.

You will meet the Templar in a place that is a time before or after stars. The stars will move around you and mark you and sing to you. They will decide if you are real.

I drank of them. It tasted like the sea."

That is all I can remember.

Pahanin

Grimoire Card: Relic: The Aegis posted:

These are the last words of Kabr, the Legionless:

I have destroyed myself to do this. They have taken my Ghost. They are in my blood and brain. But now there is hope.

I have made a wound in the Vault. I have pierced it and let in the Light. Bathe in it, and be cleansed. Look to it, and understand:

From my own Light and from the thinking flesh of the Vex I made a shield. The shield is your deliverance. It will break the unbreakable. It will change your fate.

Bind yourself to the shield. Bind yourself to me. And if you abandon your purpose, let the Vault consume you, as it consumed me.

Now it is done. If I speak again, I am not Kabr.

I'll be explaining more about what's going on in the Vault with this upcoming week's Grimoire update. But, now that we're through this, next up is The Dark Below. We'll see you in the depths of the Hive's deepest pits.