Nyriad

1. Nyriad "You. You, who hears me, eons after my time. I have set these words down, even as my mind fractures under the weight of what I have done. Find my words, and remember their truths in my place. For I am the one who put the Destroyer in it's chains. I am the one who killed the Eridians. I am Nyriad" 2. Change "I have seen Guardians change their own bodies, lengthening their blades or strengthening their armor as their require. I wonder how far they might change themselves now, in the absence of their makers." 3. Sleep "The Soul of a Guardian is little more than data to be transferred from one shell to another. I have never seen where they reside is not in their physical bodies, and I suspect I never will. A soldier who cannot be killed in their sleep is a dangerous one." 4. Uncountable "Since the Guardians are not bound to individual bodies, it is nearly impossible to known how many the Eridians might made. And uncountable army, hidden below the surface of a hundred worlds. We are fortunate that they rarely stray far from their ward." 5. Keen "I suspect that some Guardians are keener than others. I have seen them acting of their own accord and even heard them speak. What spark do they have that the other lack? Was it freely given, or stolen like the fire of the gods?" 6. Free "What will happen, I wonder, when all the Vaults are empty, and all their terrors dead? Will the Guardians still stand their Vigil? will they find a greater purpose? And what is stopping them from finding it now? 7. Consciousness "The Vaults operate as self-contained prisons. The Guardians have no need to serve as jailkeepers, only as sentinels at the walls. Why, then, bring them so close to consciousness? what purpose has a thinking spear?" 8. Guardians "The Eridians left their mark on countless worlds, but few of their creations are as uncanny as the Guardians. They are quasi-life, a half-truth, driven by instructions they only partially understand. They are hardly the ideal custodians one would choose to guard the leashed terrors of the universe. But in their resolute imperfection, they at least mirror their creators." 9. Tools "I do not believe the Eridians intended the Guardians to be their heirs. Though they are technological marvels, they are held back from true emergence, kept in the dark to be of greater use. I wonder is they resent their creators for it. Even the sharpest knife is still a simple tool." 10. Witch "I am a Siren. Like the Destroyer, my kind has been called by many names. Oracle. Angel. Witch. Rarely are the names used kindly. I used to hate the ones who feared us, believing them ignorant. I think now, after what i have done, I better understand." 11. Purpose "As the Siren sisterhood, we were the keepers of many answers, but out own nature remained elusive. We never knew our origins, nor our purpose. In this way, we were still undeniably mortal." 12. Deal "When the Eridians found me, my sisters tried to fight them off. But I stopped them. I saw what lay behind their open hands. I knew that anyone who would ask for my help was already lost." 13. Burden "To inherit a Siren's gift is also to inherit her curse. This is the choice of a siren presented with death - pass on the gift and burden someone worthy, or release it, and burden and unknown soul who has no idea that the entire universe is about to want them dead." 14. Knotted "No thread is every truly cut. It can be tied to another, whether knotted by careful fingers or tangled by chance. Every siren must decide what will happen when their thread reaches its end." 15. Hunted "Sirens have been hunted for as long as they have existed. Hunted out of fear, out of jealousy, out of misguided greed. The sisterhood is out way of passing down the craft of staying hidden, and staying alive when hiding is no longer and option" 16. Braid "I have never known a time without my sisters. Even when one passes and a new Siren receives her markings, she always finds her way to the sisterhood. It seemed the will of the universe that Sirens be together, our lives entwined like and unseen braid." 17. Building Pandora - Part 1 "The prison known as Pandora is the most incredible cage ever constructed. An unbreakable lock meant to hold and unceasing evil for all eternity. Even for the Eridians whose reach could pluck stars from across the void, it was the work of centuries." 18. Building Pandora - Part 2 "The creation of Pandora took the minds of generations to assemble. It was an impossible task, the scope unthinkable, the cost of failure to great. Still, they worked diligently, even as the stars in the sky above them began to wink out." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

19. Mantle "Pandora's upper mantle is made of solid Eridium. It is this shell that now holds the Destroyer tightly in its bonds. The pressures and energies at work beneath the surface of the planet are titanic in scale. If the cycle is disrupted in any way, it is entirely possible that the Eridium will force its way to the surface. I fear such a thing might attract the wrong kind of attention." 20. Lure "The momentous task of caging the Destroyer was made all the more difficult by its intelligence. It understands the beings it consumes and the cultures it dissolves. To trick such a being required a great sacrifice - a lure. Millions of lives that entered Pandora ahead of it captive, tempting it further inward. I can only hope they were already dead when I closed the gate behind them." 21. Feeding "All prisoners must be fed, even the Destroyer. The Eridians devised of a feeding slot that calls wayward souls to open it every two hundred years. A cruel surprise for those who open this false Vault, but in exchange the small morsel will keep the Destroyer sedate over the eons. In any case, the victims will not be in pain for long." 22. Names of the Destroyer "The Destroyer. A practical name for and incomprehensible evil. Surly it has had a million names more poetic or subtle. But none of the civilizations who coined them survived to pass them on, or anything else for that matter. Only the Destroyer itself knows for sure how long it has been tearing though the universe... eating its own name." 23. Gnaw "The Destroy is ever hungry. Perhaps it is obvious when regarding a horror that gnaws on the edges of galaxies. But its appetite only grew as it ate the stars only stopping even to swallow." 24. Contained "What is the Destroyer? It is a mouth with an endless appetite. it is hate that never cools. it is the long shadow case by our universe against the mouldering sun of time. It will never truly be contained. Merely made to wait until its chains slip - or are slipped for it." 25. Key "The Eridians knew of the flaw in their design. The cost of putting the Destroyer in its chains meant that there was no one left to throw away the key. All they could do was disguise it. And so it will forever hang in the sky, a small, cold, tidally-locked moon, unremarkable even to the dwellers on the surface of the planet." 26. Secrets "With Pandora sealed, and the Destroyer within its chains, the greatest of the Eridians secrets is put to rest. It would be folly for me to think, though, that this is the last of them. There are countless other wonders or terror they hid across the stars before my time. For every Graveward, Traveler, or Timekeeper, there are surly a dozen more slumbering in forgotten Vaults." 27. Warrior "Not all shared the desperate optimism of the Eridians. There were some who hoped to appease the Destroyer and save their own souls by attacking the yet-unfinished Pandora. They were met by another of the Eridians' creations - the Warrior. Though their coup was obliterated, the Warrior now sleeps in its own Vault, ready to defend it from any who would further trespass against Pandora." 28. Curiosity "I do not know how the Eridians became aware of the Destroyer. They never spoke of a time before it. But I suspect that they went searching for it, or something like it, and for their curiosity they were rewarded with doom." 29. Reflection "Even death will not end the Destroyer. So long as dark and light, true and false, something and nothing continue to meet and annihilate one another, there will be a Destroyer. I wonder if it, too, has a reflection that it might meet someday. And though I shudder to think of unceasing hunger, my blood runs cold at the thought of unstoppable creation." 30. Language "I may be the last to ever learn the Eridian language from one of their own. I have so many questions i should have asked them while I had the chance. Like why the Eridian term for "homeworld" also means "first landing". 31. Erased "The Eridians were neither gods nor demons. They were simply a people whose abilities outpaced their need, so in their curiosity, broke down walls that should have stayed up. They were, perhaps, fated to be erased at their own behest, like the forest that grows so that it may burn." 32. Side by side "We once lived side-by-side with the Eridians, though already the forgetting has begun. There was no fear of one another. Only awe on one side. They never said if they knew their fate before it fell. But they also never said any of us had a choice. 33. Crypt "It was here that I killed them. A billion lives to power a machine. Should it comfort me that they will thrum in its heart forever? Perhaps oblivion would have been kinder. It would have been for me, at least." 34. Watcher "There was a single Guardian present when I killed the Eridians. It stood and watched from above us in that mechanical crypt. I feared, and perhaps hoped, that it would seek to avenge them and strike me down. But it made no motions to save its life-givers as they died. It merely... watched." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

35. Brighter
"When my atrocity was complete and I returned home, I found no family to rejoin. The others had fled. Our braid was unraveled, my sisters scattered to the stars. But they left me a parting gift. They told me where to die, that my thread might never be picked up again. When I have written my last, I will go back to the Eridian world, to the Vault there. I hope it works. This would be a brighter universe without a leech."

36. Warning
"You. You know now all that I know. This was an epitaph. Not for myself, but for the world I knew. I have brought ruin to the sirens, killed the Eridians, and imprisoned a primordial force in the universe. Perhaps I have earned your hatred, or your sympathy. But that is not why I write these words. I have told you the truth, no matter its hard edges. Before I can put my fractured mind to rest, I must pass one more warning...