Wahei

# Wahei Ohr

## The Seeker of Insight

**Wahei Ohr** (pronounced "WAH-hey") is an Awoken Warlock, and the focal character of *The Wahei Transcripts* series. She is renowned-- notorious, perhaps-- for her endless quest for insight into the Darkness and the enemies of humanity, something which has brought her into conflict with the Praxic Order.

## Wahei

### Aliases

Seeker of Insight, The Haruspex, Kingslayer, Hivebane, POI #0247

### Affiliation

Forces of the City, Vanguard, Awoken of the Reef

## Appearances

### Debut

Transcript of a Poker Game & Back Alley Conversation

### Appearance

Wahei is a tall woman, with Awoken purple skin and silvery hair, which is woven into thin dreadlocks on one side of her head, the other side shaved clean. She had luminescent deep blue eyes, but in moments of anger or intensity, they will shift to a cold, paler hue. Recently, however, her eyes have become dimmed and clouded over, leaving her blind.

She wears an eclectic set of armors, usually covered over by a dark-hued Wildwood robe. She favors the Verity's Brow exotic helmet, and if not wearing this, usually wears an Awoken Pathfinder's helmet.

### Personality

Wahei often tries to project a friendly and approachable manner, but she can also come across as "weird" and distracted or distant. She can often start speaking at length, and with great detail, about whatever subject comes to mind, and will usually continue-- even in combat situations-- unless interrupted. (Commonly, the phrase used to interrupt her is "Breathe, Wahei." Her teammate Rega-7 usually favors, "Not the time, Wahei," given it tends to happen in combat situations.) When studying or researching something, she can often become absorbed in it, sometimes working for days at a time, to the point of exhaustion as she will forego sleep.

She is an ardent defender of humanity, but shows an openness to working with alien races such as the Eliksni or Cabal. However, she has a profound dislike for the Hive, especially those seen as "aberrant" like Nokris's Brood or the Lucent Hive. This hatred has also extended to the Scorn. When confronted with these races, she will expend great energy to put them down and suppress them with ruthless force.

She does have some indicators of PTSD, owing to two traumatic events. The first was Lightloss during the Red War, when she was trapped in Hive spaces in the Catacombs of Old Paris, where she encountered a Deathsinger. The second was via a psychic encounter with the Witness, during the conclusion of Operation: Catharsis, after driving off the psychic imprint of Calus from the Lunar Pyramid. The latter still affects her, leaving her prone to brief panic attacks.

### History

#### First Rez: Reef Exile

Details of Wahei's first life are sparse, but it is known that she had been a member of the Queensguard, and fell at some point during the early Reef Wars. She was found by her Ghost, Vizier, but they were soon caught by Reef patrols and brought before Queen Mara Sov. Mara identified her, but exiled her from the Reef to prevent more trouble from following a Lightbearer to her people. Wahei left and came to the Last City, where she trained as a Voidwalker under Ikora Rey, and later distinguished herself with some sorties during the long siege by the House of Devils, but she was primarily active working under various Warlock Orders-- Gensym Scribes, Thanatonauts, Cryptarchy, and the Praxic Order-- but did not commit to full membership in any of them. It was during this time that she developed her relationship with her fireteam-- Rega-7, Donovan Morgan, Yurei, Sergei Bolvan, and Shaman-9.

#### Becoming the Kingslayer

It was not until Eris Morn's return from the Hellmouth that Wahei began to become more active in the field, and studied the Hive under Eris Morn's direction. She and her fireteam defeated the Hidden Swarm and then dove into the Hellmouth to defeat Crota. Wahei dealt the final blow to the Hope-Eater with his own sword. She then responded to the Reef's call for assistance to deal with the House of Wolves uprising, helping hunt down some high-value targets, but opted for payment in information instead of glimmer or loot, seeking to learn more about her forgotten home in the Reef, or lore of the Eliksni.

She once again worked closely with Eris Morn during the Taken War, helping decipher the knowledge contained in the fragments of Calcified Light found aboard the Hive Dreadnought, then battling and defeating Oryx, going into his throne world alongside her fireteam, once again dealing the killing blow to slay the Taken King. She took Oryx's ravenous heart and worked with Eris to contain it within the rifle Touch of Malice. Following the defeat of Oryx, she continued explorations of the Dreadnought, seeking more knowledge of the Hive and the Darkness, and preventing any of Oryx's followers from rising up to replace him. This occupied most of her time during the SIVA Crisis.

#### The Hivebane

At the advent of the Red War, Wahei was exploring the ruins of Old Paris, going down into the Catacombs beneath the old city, where Hive forces had entrenched themselves. She was struck by Lightloss at this time, and spent weeks trapped down there, on the run from Hive forces led by a Deathsinger called Ir Tasarakh. Wahei managed to defeat Ir Tasarakh, but still took time escaping from the catacombs after her Light was restored. Wahei was traumatized by these events, but details about what she did down there are sparse. It was only by the time of the Season of Plunder that Wahei finally opened up in psychiatric therapy sessions about what happened down there. Constantly fighting or on the run, Wahei was subjected to frequent psychological pressure and torment from Ir Tasarakh, unable to find her way out due to a Hive "maze spell." Forced to tap into her knowledge of Hive rituals, magic, and customs, Wahei began to channel her right as Hivebane and Kingslayer to cow the lesser Hive, using their own magic against them, slaughtering the Deathsinger's consort, and then slowly torturing and killing Ir Tasarakh herself, eating her tongue in the process, before the Light was restored. It still took her nearly a week to find her way out before returning to the City.

She was heavily involved in Hive suppression activities in the Hellas Basin region of Mars, battling the brood of Nokris, and then hunted down the Hive broods loose on the Tangled Shore, especially the hybrid brood sired by Hiraks the Mindbender and In Anânh. She was not involved in the raid on the Dreaming City to put down Riven, but she was frequently requested by Reef forces in helping battle enemy forces there, as well as helping to charge the Blind Well.

She was personally requested by Emperor Calus when the Crown of Sorrow corrupted Gahlran, leading her fireteam to defeat the Sorrow-Bearer, and then spending several weeks aboard the Leviathan, studying the Crown. She tendered a detailed report to Calus before leaving the Leviathan, and it's now known that the knowledge she imparted through that report helped define his later experiments aboard the Glykon Volatus. She feels responsible for what happened on the Glykon, and then on the derelict Leviathan when it returned.

#### Searching for Insight

Wahei returned to the Moon following the emergence of the Scarlet Keep, exploring the newly exposed Hive spaces there and below in the Necropolis. She and Eris helped construct the anti-phantasmal "Dreambane" armor to help other Guardians battle the Nightmares that were plaguing the system. However, her interest was taken by the Lunar Pyramid, which she did enter at some point, but details are unclear. This time period started her heavy interest in seeking insight into the Darkness, which only stepped up further when evidence arose that the Black Fleet was encroaching on the Sol System. She contracted the mercenary thief Charlie Tango to break into the Praxic Order's Secure Collection, to steal the artifact called the Traitor's Die and Toland's unfinished compendium, the *Umbranomicon*.

The theft of these items put her on the radar of the Praxic Order again, and the concern that she was delving so deeply into study of the Darkness brought her troubles (chief of which was a tense encounter with Shin Malphur), but Wahei remained one step ahead of the Praxic dragnet, even acquiring a Splinter of Darkness on Europa from the Fallen assassin, Loveks the Light-Hunter. She spent some time on Europa studying the Pyramid and Ziggurat, developing her ability to wield Stasis.

#### Battling the Shadows

She ran across Aunor Mahal, her main opposition from the Praxic Order, while investigating the Glykon Volatus. Wahei was on the ship to retrieve a component of some kind from the Crown of Sorrow-- a piece of plating with Hive text inscribed upon it-- but the two ran afoul of Dredgen Bog. Bog had already stolen the same panel that Wahei sought, and escaped with it while Wahei and Mahal were distracted fighting the Locus of Communion. Wahei escaped shortly after putting down the Locus, and her attention shifted to tracking down Bog and the Shadows of Salvation.

Wahei gathered intelligence on the Shadows of Salvation, recruiting Shin Malphur to the cause, and the two worked to track them and remove their access to resources and safehouses. The only interruption came when she happened to be in the Last City during the Vex invasion of the Endless Night, helping fight off the Vex alongside other Guardians.

At some point on Europa, Wahei attempted an automatic writing ritual to glean insight, and perhaps view the future. It was during this ritual trance that Wahei experienced a vivid vision of Elsie Bray's Dark Future, where she beheld a future version of herself, serving the Witch Queen alongside the Shadows of Salvation as a court soothsayer, calling herself "**The Haruspex**." This version of herself could perceive Wahei's psychic projection and taunted her that she would one day become the Haruspex herself.

She eventually tracked the Shadows of Salvation to the ruins of Eventide on Europa, and recruited a large fireteam to combat them-- Malphur, Morgan, Rega-7, Elsie & Ana Bray, Aunor Mahal, and Revenant-19. The battle that followed wrecked several sections of Eventide, even collapsing several buildings and bringing part of Riis-Reborn down with it. In the end, all of the Shadows were put down except for Magda-9 (Dredgen Vergift), who surrendered. At this time, Wahei took notice of a forecasting device, the Scryer, that Magda had built. During Magda's tribunal, Wahei argued in favor of commuting her sentence to life imprisonment, supporting Magda's argument that her knowledge of engineering, and weapons design, will be necessary to combat the Black Fleet. She secretly visited Magda in her cell, acquiring knowledge of how to build her own Scryer from an amused Magda.

#### Returning to the Search for Insight

From there, Wahei's attentions shifted to helping defend the Reef again, especially as the enemy forces included the Hive & Taken forces of Xivu Arath, alongside newly Stasis-empowered Scorn. She expressed clear distrust in Savathûn's statements and claims, and at one point swore to end the Witch Queen herself. Wahei led the final charge in suppression Operation: Exorcism, using insights from attempts at scrying the future to help curtail the enemy forces' attempts at disrupting Queen Mara's ritual.

The escape of Savathûn did not sit well with her, but she was distracted with working alongside the Hidden to investigate the return of Mars and the temporal distortion effects in the Scablands. The revelation of Savathûn's Lure and Throne World prompted a fresh investigation into both, and a vicious hatred for the Lucent Hive, especially their Lightbearers. The Sunken Pyramid and the new information concerning the Disciples drew a new line of inquiry from Wahei, interspersed with her future-scrying attempts.

The return of Calus and his derelict Leviathan took priority in Wahei's attention, as her knowledge of the Crown of Sorrow and the Nightmares was invaluable. She took part in many Nightmare suppression activities, though a Nightmare of the Haruspex attached itself to her, and brought up her own insecurities, preying on her doubts that she was staying in control of her delving into Dark knowledge. She eventually acquiesced to Eris Morn's binding ritual, enabling Wahei to sever her Nightmare's connection to the Lunar Pyramid and convert it to a Memory, though it did not seem entirely benevolent. When the time came for a final severing ritual during Operation: Catharsis, Wahei opted to separately go into the Lunar Pyramid, to perform a ritual there to prevent Calus from taking it over, while her fireteam went into the Leviathan to do a ritual there. Wahei, using a tincture of Queensfoil infused with egregore spores, tapped into the psychic plane and the egregore's mycelial network to track Calus's psychic presence. She was able to cast her Light into the network to enable Memories of Uldren, Ghaul, and Safiyah to assist her fireteam, then delivered a crippling blow to Calus, collapsing his psychic command over the Pyramid.

However, in doing so, she brought down the notice of the Witness. The Witness's mere psychic attention was torturous, and the encounter left Wahei blinded, via some manner of paracausal curse. She has not been able to cure this blindness. During Calus's final broadcast following the conclusion of the Derelict *Leviathan* incident, Wahei was seemingly gifted a piece of Resonant material, left behind when the egregore fungus overtook the H.E.L.M. Later experimentation on this item revealed it was attuned to the Deepsight ability, briefly granting Wahei the ability to see again. She would later take the Resonant item to the Hidden's Enclave on Mars, where she used the Relic to shape the item into the Resonant Visor.

### Abilities

**Voidwalker Mastery:** Wahei has mastered the art of Voidwalking, foregoing training in wielding any other form of the Light. While Ikora Rey is considered one of the most powerful Guardians alive, she believes that Wahei's mastery of Voidwalking may surpass her own.

**Stasis User:** After acquiring a Splinter of Darkness, Wahei learned how to wield Stasis, and has learned how to combine both Stasis and the Void to craft traps and bind and suppress enemies.

**Esoteric Expert:** With her study of Hive magics and lore, Wahei is capable of reverse-devising Hive enchantments, and combines this knowledge with Voidwalking to conjure paracausal portals to transport herself over greater distances than Blinking alone. This is in addition to her already powerful paracausal perception, something that's only gotten stronger with the development of Deepsight.

**Paracausal Perception:** By using tincture of Queensfoil, Wahei's perceptive abilities only get stronger still, making it easier for her to interact with dimensionally-adjacent architecture and objects. She eventually further developed her perceptive capabilities to no longer need to make use of Queensfoil consistently, though it still provides the necessary boost to "reach through the veil" into Ascendant spaces.

### Equipment

Wahei uses a number of weapons and other equipment in the field. She tends to prefer scout rifles and breech-loader grenade launchers, along with swords or linear fusion rifles.

**Touch of Malice:** Wahei constructed this exotic scout rifle with the help of Eris Morn, after deciphering the knowledge of the Calcified Light fragments and the Books of Sorrow, using Oryx's ravenous heart as the core of the weapon. The whereabouts of this weapon are unknown following the destruction of the old Guardian Tower at the onset of the Red War, though Wahei claims it is somewhere safe.

**Bad Juju:** It is believed that Wahei acquired this exotic pulse rifle while staying aboard the Leviathan as she studied the Crown of Sorrow. But this is unconfirmed.

**Penumbra:** Wahei's personal sword, crafted bespoke for her by Ana-1 before the deactivation of the Black Armory Forges. Resembling an officer's saber, it uses an adaptive frame and channels Void Light.

**Hard Light Decoy:** Wahei obtained a device not unlike the one used by Pirrha, the Rifleman, which allowed her to generate decoys constructed of hard light, enabling her to flank her enemies, or slip away from combat.

**Umbranomicon:** This book is an unfinished compendium by Toland, the Shattered, and contains all of his knowledge. Wahei had this stolen from the Praxic Secure Collection, and has been using it in her search for insight. There is a belief that the book is "cursed," as other people who have read the book have experienced psychological divergence, either going insane or becoming corrupted in some way, but the evidence is not compelling enough to accept this as truth. Later, after acquiring the Resonant Visor, Wahei returned the book to the Praxic Order.

**Traitor's Die:** Likewise stolen from the Praxic Secure Collection, the Die resembles an avian skull made of waxen material, covered in scrimshaw and runes. It is alleged that the Die has fortune-telling capabilities. The Die seems responsive to external influence, as it has shown a tendency to roll of its own volition in strong Dark presences.

**Umbral Rosary:** Wahei herself crafted this. A long leather cord, knotted at irregular intervals, on which are beads, hand-carved from various materials. Wahei uses this as a focus for manipulating paracausal energies, lesser forecasting attempts, and especially when opening portals.

**Resonant Visor:** A recent acquisition, seemingly gifted by the Darkness, shaped by the Relic out of Resonant Material and sporting two curved horn-like protrusions positioned where the eyes would be. While wearing the Visor and channeling Deepsight, Wahei is able to see again, with some limitations. The color palette she sees is muted (akin to how colors are washed out in the Ascendant Plane), she has trouble seeing through otherwise transparent barriers, and there is often a "lag" between events transpiring and what she perceives. It is believed with time, Wahei will be able to reduce the "lag" and perhaps use the Visor's capabilities to further expand her perceptive abilities.

## The Haruspex

The Haruspex is a potential future version of Wahei. She first saw the Haruspex in a ritual trance to try to see the future, beholding the Dark Future as experienced by Elsie Bray. In this future, the Haruspex served the Witch Queen as her court soothsayer. The Haruspex describes herself as "slaying the false potentials" and "casting the bones, foreseeing the way forward in the entrails of dead possibilities." She titles herself as She Who Sees and the One Who Found Insight. It's possible that the Haruspex is in actuality a Disciple of the Witness, but not enough evidence has been gathered to support this. The going theory is that the Haruspex exists across multiple timelines, with each iteration being functionally identical to one another.

The Haruspex appears to have even more powerful perceptive abilities than Wahei does now, being capable of detecting Wahei's incorporeal presence during her ritual trance vision, and also seeming to see anyone who attempts to scry the future, regardless of the method. She can effortlessly cast Hive cantrips and dispel attempts at obscuring her vision.

The Haruspex shrouds herself in armored dark robes and hoods, leaving her features obscured. Beneath the hood, however, she still resembles Wahei, but she wears a horned crown of Pyramid metal, which appears to have grown out of her eye sockets to encircle her head. Her mouth stretches too wide (like a "Black Dahlia" smile) and her eyes consistently drip a black ichor, which stains her lips black.