When the Turian scout ship X-592 failed to return to the Fifth Fleet home port, Admiral Fedorian made the decision to dispatch two light cruisers to look for it. Passing through the newly activated Mass Relay designated relay 314, the Indomitable and the Resolute to track it down. Unlike X-592, they dropped a comm buoy in each system they entered and sent a status report back to the fleet as they slowly traced the path of X-592. Eventually, after a week and a half, the Indomitable and the Resolute stopped responding.

At this, Admiral Fedorian had to act. He assembled the Fifth Fleet and set out to track down the missing ships. When they emerged from FTL, they immediately noticed the presence of an unactivated Mass Relay. A clear indication that this is where the missing ships must be.

However, the vast piece of Prothean machinery was frozen. Never before had anyone encountered a frozen mass relay.

But that wasn't where the strange occurrences stopped.

The gas giants were surrounded by the debris of long-destroyed Helium 3 mining facilities. The Fifth Fleet's rudimentary experts in the field of xenoarcheology dated the ruins back to the late Prothean era, near the time when the ancient aliens had simply vanished from the face of the galaxy. However, the ruined space stations did not share any of the similarities to known Prothean technology.

The smaller terrestrial planets were all lifeless, the environmentally sealed colonies below having been destroyed and buried beneath the shifting sands of the gray, orange, and blood-red worlds. The Fifth Fleet only knew that they existed thanks to the latest in Salarian LADAR technology.

The third planet present in the system, however, was the strangest.

For the past several days, there had been no sight of the lost ships that the Fifth Fleet had sought out to rescue. On the seventh day, several Turian landing shuttles were detected on the only life-bearing world within the system.

The Turians themselves, along with the cruisers, were nowhere to be found.

Still, for whatever reason, the planet below was awash with electromagnetic signals with no clear discernable source. It was possible that the Turians could have been forced to abandon their shuttles by local predators and forced to flee.

It was possible that they could still be down there, unable to transmit a proper distress signal due to the strange electromagnetic field of the world.

So, a landing force was dispatched to the planet below. Admiral Fedorian had learned his lesson. No more half-measures. Now, they were coming out in force.

The full force of three Turian Legions was dropped onto the planet and was ordered to scour the area surrounding the landing shuttles until their lost comrades were found.

No sign of the missing Turians was found.

The local predators were inferior to that of Palaven's, so much so that a Turian could fight them off with nothing but their bare talons. Most of them were weak, underfed, and could not crack the natural carapace of a Turian, let alone their combat armor.

Nothing could be found.

Whats more the ruins present on the world of whatever long lost alien species had inhabited it were in pristine condition, despite being dated back 50,000 years. Usually, they would be rusted and run down. Usually they would be irradiated from reactors that had not been properly maintained and that had begun to leak. Usually they would be overgrown with flora, reclaimed by the nature present on the world.

They were not.

They were in pristine condition.

There was no damage whatsoever.

There were also no bodies.

Of Turian or alien kind.

In fact, given the placement of the objects found, it was as if the people living there had simply disappeared.

When the Turian fleet left the world, archaeologists and scientists and sight seers and thrill seekers flocked to the newly dubbed Sol System.

The ghost system.

Full of mystery, wonder, and horror.

The only thing they found was horror.

Many did not return home from the world. Many went missing. Many went insane from hearing purported 'whispering' in their heads.

Eventually, except for a small outpost of intrepid Salarian scientists, the world was abandoned. Deemed haunted by everyone who had ever lain eyes on the world known as Terra.

Tali didn't care.

She was an admiral's daughter and a lot was expected of her.

Whatever was happening on that world had to have had a rational explanation. And whatever it was would involve tech.

Powerful tech.

Powerful enough to give the Quarians an edge against their age-old enemy in the form of the Geth.

And she was going to find it.

—-

Tali stepped off of the Salarian supply ship with nothing except her enviro-suit and backpack. Across the asphalt tarmac she could see an old withered Salarian walking over towards her with a strange stick with smoke coming out the end of it. Tali closed the distance between the two of them and greeted him.

"Hello! I'm Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. I'm-"

"The new scavenger. I know." The Salarian cut her off. He placed a hand on his chest and bowed slightly. "My name is Vodok Gerbane. But you can just call me Vodok."

He took a long draw on the small paper stick in his mouth and blew out a puff of smoke. Tali waved the cloud away frantically as it drifted over to her. Vodok let out a small chuckle as she did so.

"My apologies. Ever since we found these things in the ruins, I haven't been able to put 'em down. The doctors say that they're filling my lungs with tar, but I'm already 38. I haven't got much time left. Might as well enjoy it while I can." He said before turning around and began walking over towards the collection of prefabs in the distance. Vodok waved a lazy hand in a signal for Tali to follow him.

As Tali walked with Vodok, she took a look at her surroundings. The small Salarian outpost consisted of about 50 or so prefabs and a small landing pad. The entire outpost was positioned about a kilometer away from the nearest city. The bright silver steel and glass are surprisingly dull despite the bright, sunny day. They must have been caked in some form of microscopic dust or dirt. Not large enough to be visible to the naked eye but also numerous enough to reduce the buildings' reflectivity.

That was the only logical reason that Tali could think of.

Surely, it couldn't be because of a supernatural reason.

"So what brings you to Terra?" Vodok asked in a raspy tone before breaking out into a coughing fit. "Not many people come here anymore. Especially Quarians."

"My Pilgrimage," Tali said conversationally. "I'm looking for"

"Some tech or super valuable artifact to bring back to your people. I can imagine." Vodok cut her off again. "That makes sense. Well, it's your funeral."

They stopped in front of a small garage prefab. Vodok threw his hands up in a lackluster gesture of presentation. "Here's where you'll be sleeping. As long as you get stuff fixed, I don't care what you do. Neither does anyone else. Though I imagine it'll involve going out to explore the nearby city ruins."

"Yes," Tali said, walking inside and beginning to get unpacked. Vodok didn't seem too bothered by Tali turning her back to him while he was talking.

"Well. We only have one rule with regard to city expeditions." Vodok held up a single finger. "Get back before dark. Bad things happen at night or… well, in the dark in general. So as a side tip, I'd suggest that you avoid the darker areas within the city. You know, building basements and sewers and the like."

"I didn't take the Salarians for the superstitious type," Tali said, looking over her shoulder as she unloaded her nutrient paste tubes. "You don't seriously believe in ghosts, do you?"

Vodok let out a defeated sigh. The sigh of a man who had tried for years to get people to see reason and who had failed. "I don't know what I believe anymore. But I do know that a lot of people have died here."

The old Salarian turned around and looked out towards the nearby city ruins. "I was in STG, you know."

Tali froze. She turned away from her backpack and gave Vodok her full attention. "Y-You were with STG?"

"Yeah…" The Salarian's eyes glazed over for a few seconds. "I've done a lot of things in my life that I regret. I… I think that's why I've been able to do so well here. There's a somberness to this world. Like the planet itself, weeps for whoever once lived here. If you don't give it the respect it deserves… well, just try to treat the ruins with respect. I don't think this world likes tourists."

Another Salarian called out Vodok's name, and the old Salarian began limping away from the garage prefab. "Stay safe, kid. And try to stay out of dark places."

—-

One thing that the reports had not lied about was how well-preserved the world was. Despite the cities lying abandoned for millennia, they looked as if people had been living here yesterday. The buildings themselves were spotless, inside and out. Tali had even done a microscopic scan with her omni-tool and found none of the dirt or dust particles that she had predicted would be present.

The only problem was that they were without power.

Tali turned on her omni-tool's flashlight and waved it around the interior of the latest building she had entered. Despite being sweaty and exhausted from working in the garage for the better half of the day, she had decided that it would be better to just get out and do something rather than sit around and lounge on her cot.

Despite being here almost a week, she had only managed to search a couple of blocks of the city ruins. During this, she had found herself frustrated. Frustrated because during her entire search, she had found nothing of interest. She had only found household or convenience store appliances that were on par with what the rest of the galaxy had. Deep down, she knew that archaeological digs took time and that it took even the best in their field decades to find anything worthy of proper notice.

But she also didn't have decades. Her father had told her before she left to be back in a year's time so that she could get back to helping him with his work. Even though she had done her research on how much had been discovered on this world, which wasn't much, Tali had still taken a gamble on coming to Terra. All of her peers had been skeptical of her, not for superstitious reasons, but rather for the fact that the chances of there being something valuable in an ancient tomb world with rather contemporary technology, even a well-preserved one, were slim. The ancient Terrans were not the Protheans. They were nowhere near as advanced as they were.

Nevertheless, Tali couldn't help but think that there was something here. There was no such thing as the supernatural. Therefore, all the strange occurrences here must have been explained in a logical way.

Although she couldn't deny that there was something disconcerting about this place.

The fact that she was currently standing in an old school library, with paper books and everything, in a world where an equivalent of the extranet had existed was proof that whoever had lived here had been… eccentric, to say the least.

Still, eccentricity had its place in the Migrant Fleet, and the Salarian's language codex for the ancient Terran languages that they had compiled was extensive enough for the Quarian to understand the script she was looking at.

She wandered down the aisles of bookshelves in the scientific section, feeling the way her fingers thudded up and down as she ran them across the spines of the ancient tomes. None of the titles caught her eye. They were all textbooks of one form or related to something that her people already knew about.

With a huff, she decided to move on to a different part of the library. Emerging from the labyrinth of bookshelves, she walked down a hallway and into a section marked…

RELIGION

SALVATION

Again disconcerting.

The plaque that said 'religion' had been struck through with a dash of red liquid, and the word below it was written in that same liquid.

An involuntary shiver ran up her back.

"Oh-Okay Tali. You've got to remember that this was a civilization that must have ended suddenly. Like in a day. It would make sense that people would go a little…" She forced her throat to finish the statement. "...crazy."

As much as Tali wanted to turn around and walk back into the useless but mundane Science section, her natural curiosity as an engineer got the better of her. She wanted to know what in the ancestors' name these people must have thought their 'salvation' was.

Slowly, step by step, she walked deeper into the library. Her flashlight's beam shook with her hand as it traced around ever more increasing amounts of red…

Tali was sure of what the liquid was now.

She was just scared as to why it all looked so fresh.

Shakily, she reached down into her tool belt and yanked out her pistol, and put it up over her omni-tool C-Sec style. The hallway had several rooms that broke off from it, despite being trained to thoroughly search each and every single one before proceeding in order to cover her flanks, she only spared a quick glance down each one. Her legs refused to move anywhere but forward.

Also, those rooms had a lot of red in them.

Eventually, the hallway ended, and she reached the…

RELIGION

DeLIvEranCE

section.

The room was circular, with a table in the middle surrounded by toppled bookshelves. On the table was a pristinely clean book opened to a page that read 'GUARDIAN' and had an illustration of a large bulky figure standing in a circle of fire over a smaller, skinnier, weaker figure. Within its text, it described a… summoning ritual, wherein the summoner had to give some of their blood in order to summon a demon. Next to the book was a picture of two Terrans.

Tali lowered her gun as she looked at the photo.

Keelah, they look almost Quarian.

A woman with golden yellow hair stood next to what Tali could only assume was her daughter. As she walked closer to the picture, she holstered her gun. It was starting to come together, though that didn't make it any less morbid.

"Faced with the apocalypse, a group of people must have bled themselves dry in an attempt to summon a demon for protection. It's the only explanation for why there's so much blood. Of course, it doesn't explain why there aren't any bodies… but that's a planet-wide mystery, so who cares? Right?" Tali spoke in a shaky tone as she stepped up to the table and placed her hand on the book. The Salarians would be interested in this. Stuff relating to Terran religion and all that. Nevertheless…

"I'm not a grave robber," Tali told the photo. "I'm just umm… helping the Salarian expedition. I-I-I have to make myself useful if I want to stay here. I-I n-need to find something for my pilgrimage."

Her own words felt hollow in her ears. And as she spoke, it felt like the friendly smiles the mother-daughter duo was giving her were becoming more malicious.

"Yo-You understand, right?" Tali's voice was becoming more desperate. "Y-Y-You d-do anything for your people too, right? I-I-I me-mean look at this place. Y-You totally understand."

Forcing herself to look away from the photo, she closed the book and put it in her satchel. When she looked up, however, her eyes were drawn back to the photo.

The mother and daughter were gone.

In their stead were two skulls caked in blood and gore.

Tali screamed as she slipped on the blood underneath her feet and fell backward onto the ground. She looked up again at the photo to see that the mother-daughter duo was back in the image. Not that the Quarian cared, of course. She got up and ran as fast as her bow-backed legs would carry her.