(I got nothing to say, other than enjoy the read)
Three days, it had been three days since the tenno carried out their first extermination mission on this planet. The witcher had long since gone his sepretate way, Geralt had no more reason to stay, seeing as how the contract was finished, and they needed to make repairs to the orbiter.
After spending a day trying to excavate the mantis landing craft, the tenno finally succeeded, but only after having to switch to the atlas warframe. They disliked masculine warframes, some were powerful, true, but the tenno never felt comfortable using them. They prefered warframes like ember, saryn, and mesa.
After spending another day with Ordis repairing the orbiter's avionics and anything else that required repairs, the ship was spaceworthy again, only for the tenno to find out that there were no solar rails anywhere near this primitive world. This meant that they were essentially stuck here, without their tenno brothers and sisters, and without the Lotus.
The tenno slumped against the back of the market terminal, they were alone now, with only Ordis and Laila at their side...
But they would not give in to these depressing thoughts, the Lotus would find them, they just had to sit tight. Meanwhile, they had planned an expedition to the large settlement known to the locals as "Novigrad". When the tenno looked down at the city from the orbiter's navigation console, they were instantly reminded of the Red Veil, a syndicate in wich they was ranked exalted.
The inhabitants of Novigrad seemed to revere fire, they were worshipping it, at every street corner was some sort of monument to fire, they really did resemble the Red Veil, all the way down to their cruelty. The humans living in the city had a severe case of racism, wich was very uncommon in the origin system. the humans here seemed to hate all manner of pseudo humans with a burning passion, litterally. Because there were many pyres with charred corpses of pseudo humans tied to them, it disgusted the tenno.
They had charred many enemies with the ember warframe, but they were left to crumble in peace. These humans put them on display, like the tenno did, with the drawings of the child that the tenno had rescued from Nef Anyo.
Seeing a great oppertunity, the tenno started planning out the best way to bring death to these beasts in human skin.
For them, it would be a truly harrowing experience.
They didn't like using masculine warframes, but the tenno made exceptions every once in a while. Like the time they finally developed the 'harrow' warframe. It was a warframe in the likeness of a priest from ancient times, with thurible and everything. They had learned that the humans here were hostile to any religion other than their own.
Thus, deciding to provoke them as much as they could, the tenno equipped the harrow warframe, as it was based on a religion from long ago. They had decided to go all out and equip the Scourge javelin and Knell pistol as well, but they kept their nikana prime, cloaked as usual.
These humans thought of their religion as an excuse to murder pseudo humans, and even their fellow humans, on a near genocidal scale. Thus the tenno had decided to tear down a monument dedicated to it, but just any monument wouldn't do, it had to be big, it had to be impressive, and it had to be destroyed in an impressive fashion.
The tenno made up their mind, the temple on the section of the city called "temple isle" would fall today.
(Line break)
Having the orbiter drop them on the roof over St. Gregory's Bridge, the tenno watched the orbiter activate it's void cloak as it flew away from the city.
The tenno went undetected over the roof of the bridge, and decided announce their presence by dropping loudly on the ground. A human in a leather greatcoat and a strange hat aproached them "Oy! You there! You's the look of a mage about you! You're coming with me!" The man didn't get much further than that as the tenno aimed Scourge at the man's chest and pulled the trigger, the corrosive projectile ate away at the man's clothes and skin.
The man fell to the ground, a big hole was present in his chest. More men in the same clothing style ran up to them, swords drawn "don't just stand there! Get 'im!" One of them shouted, before they could attack, the tenno drew their knell pistol, shot one man in the head, and used the fire rate bonus to eleminate the others.
After quickly dispatching the humans, they quickly made their way to the temple, slaying any human soldiers who got in their way. It was rather large, but it wasn't unbreakable, mission priority scans had identified weak points in the building's architecture, mainly overstrained pillars and masses of flammable material.
Setting the temple aflame, it would be the height of poetic justice, wouldn't it?
Not wasting any more time, the tenno got to work.
(Line break)
Meanwhile, Geralt was planning to visit the disguised alchemist for potion ingredients, while he could indeed refill all his potions and bombs using any kind of strong alcohol, any upgrades and improvements still required actual ingredients.
Geralt was currently crossing St. Gregory's Bridge, it was quiet, in the sense that notning tried to attack the witcher. He reached the end of the bridge, only to have panicking people run past him. Geralt, wishing to know what could have frightened the citizens of Novigrad, went to investigate.
He stepped on the only to find the corpse of six Redanian witch hunters, He aproached the corpses and knelt down, attempting to discover the cause of death.
"Hm, big hole in his chest, something tore right through his armor, and the rest of him. strange wound, like someone threw acid at him" He deduced, he moved on to the rest of the bodies. "This one was hardly touched, but there's a small hole between his eyes, continues all the way to the other end of his head, the rest have similar wounds, but they were hit mainly in their chests." Geralt stood up, renembering what Ordis told him about guns. "Let's see, puncture wounds, but no bolts or arrows, and acid that seemingly flew in out of nowhere, hinting to a projectile weapon that's not a crossbow or a normal bow. The tenno, it's gotta be, but why's she in Novigrad?"
The witcher's attention turned to the biggest tower on temple isle, because it suddenly collapsed along with fiery explosion. The top half of the tower became unbalanced, and fell into water that surrounded temple isle. Geralt rushed to the burning ruin of the temple, and he saw a lone figure standing among the fire, they didn't look anything like the tenno, but Ordis had said that their armor, their warframes, were simply conduits for a tenno's energy, not a protective shell for their bodies, this might simply be the same tenno using a diffrent warframe.
This one looked very diffrent from the first, the helmet was somewhat rectangular, a dull red plate with white details was on it's forehead, the face area was covered by a mask that split down the middle, the right side was colored red, the left side white.
It's torso had a mixture of red, white, and dark grey colors, modest shoulder pads decorated it's shoulders. Under wich were two rather undecorated arms, these were only white colored. It's legs were hidden by a long skirt, like the rest of the warframe, it was colored red with white details.
The assumed tenno held one hand over their chest, the other hand held a strange looking thurible, they were waving it around in a hypnotic fashion, until they noticed the witcher. The assumed tenno put the thurible behind their back, after wich it simply vanished, and proceeded to wave at Geralt.
Given way they were waving, Geralt was now certain that this was the tenno from three days ago. Geralt didn't wave back, but simply walked towards the tenno. "I'm guessing you're not a fan of the eternal fire?" The tenno shook their head, the witcher wasn't surprised. "Did you really have to destroy their temple?" The tenno gave a shrug, to wich the witcher sighed "Look, you're going to be a wanted man- woman- whatever, are you sure you can handle the consequences of what you did here, today?" The tenno gave a solemn nod. "Alright, i'll trust your judgement, just don't say i didn't warn you, but something tells me you wouldn't." The witcher said, rather out of character, the tenno simply walked to the edge of a nearby cliff, took a step forward, and let themselves fall.
Geralt ran up to the cliff and looked down, he had to hold his arm up to shield himself from the wind caused by the tenno's orbiter, wich steadily rose up from it's hiding spot underneath the cliffside, then turned away from him, and blasted off into the distance, leaving a thin trail of red light. Geralt didn't know it, but he had a surprised look on his face. "Show off." He simply said as he walked away from the burning ruin of what was once the grandest temple of the eternal fire.
Taking a temple dedicated to fire, and burning it to the ground, poetic justice at it's finest.
(Line break)
Quickly switching back to the comfort of a feminine warframe, saryn this time, the tenno allowed themselves a moment of rest. They had dealt a crippling blow to that abhorrent religion that they now knew as "the eternal fire". They were surprised that they ran into Geralt, how nice, and what he said was worth noting too. The humans would not take the destruction of their temple lightly, they would hunt the tenno, but they would be ready to repell any oposition, and should the worst come to pass, they could simply hide away in space.
But now the tenno's greatest enemy had returned, boredom. Usually, after a mission, they would watch the interplanetary communications network often simply refered to as "the chatroom" or "chat" for short, to see if anything interesting was happening.
But now the tenno was cut off, now it was only silence, and they hated it.
They walked over to the foundry, wich had finished the boltor prime. Holding the weapon up, they began admiring the orokin design, another prime for the collection. Moving on they went to customize their loadout.
The tenno stayed in their standard saryn warframe, equipped their new boltor prime rifle, the despair throwing knives, courtesy of the stalker, and, as usual, the nikana prime. As a rule, the tenno cloaked all of their weapons when not in use, as to deny the enemy knowledge of their arsenal.
To eleminate their boredom, the tenno had planned a little trip to the human stronghold known as "crow's perch", it wasn't for any mission, they simply wished to know how the humans there acted in contrast to the ones in Novigrad. They looked down onto the small stronghold from the orbiter's navigation console, it looked crude, very much so. The outer walls of the stronghold were made of simple wood pillars, some sections of wich had already collapsed, beyond those walls were primitive huts made of wood and straw.
Beyond that was a keep made mostly of red bricks, it looked to be in slightly better condition than the rest of crow's perch. The tenno sighed, or they would if they could, this stronghold, somehow, looked even more primitive then that village where they carried out their first extermination.
Summoning into mind the reasons for that extermination, they began doubting their choice of warframe, thus, they switched to ember. Perverted people, rare as they were in the origin system, were best roasted, rather than poisoned.
Without wasting any more time, the tenno set the orbiter's destination to crow's perch.
(Line break)
Meanwhile, Geralt was just exiting the city of Novigrad, where the most sacrilegious act of the century was just committed, the grandest temple dedicated to the eternal fire had been burned to the ground. The reactions of the people of Novigrad were varied, the believers were in outrage, they demanded that the perpetrator be punished like none before, the nonhumans and nonbelievers were celebrating, singing the praises of whoever was responsible. The poor temple guard were struggling to contain the nonhumans, and the witch hunters were deprately trying to track down whoever destroyed the temple.
Geralt, in the meantime, was trying to locate someone who could replenish his alchemy supplies, as the disguised alchemist was no doubt slain by the tenno.
The witcher sat upon his trusty mare wich he creatively named "roach", by now, he was already halfway across Velen, seeing as how the pellar was the only person that was far away from Novigrad and could replenish Geralt's potion supplies. Why didn't Geralt go to the other alchemist at the outskirts of Novigrad? Because that one, too, was too busy celebrating the destruction of the temple.
The witcher turned his head to a familiar sound, then he saw the tenno's orbiter flying overhead, coming to a halt over the forest near Blackbough, using his enhanced sight, the witcher saw a lone figure drop from under it, with a flip. Geralt sighed, and simply kept riding.
(Line break)
The tenno had landed in a forest near a village that lead straight to crow's perch, in hindsight, maybe they could have chosen somewhere closer to their destination, but they were here now, may as well see what else this world had to offer.
Moving through the forest, they ran into a pack of wolves, eight strong, they circled the tenno, who briefly flashed world on fire, incinerating all wolves, quickly ending the encounter.
Reaching the end of the forest, the tenno came across the village they saw during their entry. As they walked through the village, they could once again feel the stares of the humans on them, then they recalled Geralt's words "you get used to the stares eventually." They echoed in the tenno's mind. They seemed to hold some truth, as the gazes of the humans carried less weight then they did before, standing a little straighter, they pushed onward.
The tenno stopped when they saw a human smashing a small hammer on a heated piece of metal, the tenno had read about this once, it was supposedly how people in ancient times crafted metal weapons, "smithing" as it was often refered to, it seemed woefully inefficient.
But, now that they were here, the tenno thought it would be nice to get a souvenir or two, it is perfectly normal for any person to be a collector, isn't it?Thus, the tenno aproached, the man looked up as he saw them "well you're definetly the weirdest customer i've ever had, you buying anythin'?" He said, an odd tone was present in his voice. To answer his question, they took a round, red crystal about the size of the ember warframe's palm, after taking it, the crystal was identified as a "ruby", it reminded the tenno a little of rubedo.
The man looked like he was about to say something, but found himself looking at the tenno's back as they were already continuing through the village, the man looked down at his anvil to find a pile of fity credits neatly stacked there, he decided to forget it ever happened, his job just didn't pay enough sometimes.
Moving further through the village, the tenno spotted another man, looking at the table with wares in front of him, they had deduced this man was a vendor of sorts, perhaps a general salesman. The tenno aproached, prompting the man to look up with a curious look on his face "Well hello there, fancy a look at me wares?" He said with a poorly hidden tone of bewilderment, the tenno took him up on it and decided to do a little browsing.
There was an deck of cards among his wares, the backs of wich were decorated with white flowers on a field of blue, the man must have noticed their fascination as he remarked "fancy the temerian gwent deck, eh?".
To this, the tenno tilted their head slightly, prompting the man to say "I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you're not from around here." They nodded "I figured as much, you ever hear of the game gwent?"
A shake of the tenno's head lead the man to explain the rules of gwent, he seemed surprised they understood all the rules in one go, wich was later proven as he was figuratively destroyed in a round of gwent. As it was the tenno's first match, no bets were placed, much to the relief of the shopkeeper.
"Well you certainly seem to understand what gwent is all about now, i'll let you have that deck for free, consider it your winnings from the match, anything else you're buying? More cards perhaps?" The tenno shook their head, and indicated the cards that had been played in their game, the shopkeepr understood it well enough, they wished to play for more cards.
And so they played another game.
(Line break)
The tenno had reached crow's perch after a brief hike down the path, their deck was now several cards stronger. They walked up to the bridge leading into crow's perch, the one guard that stood there looked too drunk to stand without using his halbert as a crutch. They cast a brief glance at the tenno, but quickly diverted his gaze to the ground, wich was then littered with his breakfast from three months ago. Not sparing the man a second glance, they walked inside.
Crossing the wooden bridge, the tenno was amazed it had not collapsed yet, the wood looked like it was rotting, and some boards were missing. Moving along, they reached the small town, it was disgusting, revolting, repulsing, and many other words that could be used to describe a town as dirty as this one. Excrement covered the streets, the houses looked half collapsed, and a vile stench was present in the air.
And the people were not much better, in fact, they seemed to reflect the state of their home perfectly, rotten teeth sat behind boil covered lips, their eyes were soulless, and the veins there were much too pronounced. Their clothes were moth eaten rags, and one person wore little more than a leather apron.
All summed up, the tenno hated it.
The tenno did not shirk from unclean enviroments, after all, they did regularly clean out infested ships, but to think that humans were capable of such disgusting feats, it apalled them. Placing their steps very carefully, the tenno moved over the streets, catching the eyes of some townspeople and most guards, some of wich whisteled as they passed.
The tenno raised their foot and looked under their sole, yet again, the tenno wished they could sigh. As it seemed that, despite their carefulness, they still stepped into the excrement wich was spread over the road with abandon. Scraping their foot on the nearby post, the tenno continued onwards.
At the end of the road, there was a rather large wooden gate, it couldn't stop a tenno ofcourse, but for once, the tenno wished to resolve something without having to kill something. So, with high hopes, the tenno aproached the gate, the two guards had a familiar look in their eyes, the look that had caused the massacre of a village.
"Who goes there?" One of them asked, at the tenno's silence, he turned to his comrade. "Oy, i think we's got us a deaf wench here, what'd you think we do?" He said, to wich his comrade responded. "Do ye need to ask?", the tenno simply failed to comprehend how they were always the victim of sexual assault. The two guards aproached, but didn't get further than three steps as the first found a kunai stuck in his neck, the second didn't have time to react as another kunai embedded itself within his skull.
Slumping their shoulders in a somewhat dissapointed fashion, the tenno moved on, eager to see how well the keep itself was maintained. Walking past the two dead guards, the tenno opened the gate with relative ease, compare to the town, the keep didn't seem all that bad.
Walking along the path to the keep, the tenno started taking in the scenery, a muddy path led through the center of the keep, at it's sides were two stands, one looked like it sold most things a person could need, the other one looked like it dealt in armor. there was an abnormally small person standing there, with large beard and a piece of cloth around the top of his head, he was using the same techniques as that other smith the tenno encountered.
But it was the other person that stood next to the small person who made them raise an eyebrow, if they could, it was a blonde woman in a simple green dress, she was using what looked like acid to fortify the armor, a very curious, but effective, technique.
As the tenno passed the two armourers, the woman couldn't help but stare, she had never seen armor of that make in all her life, after all.
Moving onward, the tenno saw what looked to be the main building, it didn't look impressive, in fact, it looked like it was about to collapse. Looking to their minimap, they noticed several more guards inside. Not wanting a repeat of what happened at the gate, they turned away from the keep.
On their way back, they ran into the armourer girl in the green dress, she appeared to be waiting for the tenno. "Hold up, i want to talk to you!" She said, her voice had the same accent as the first humans the tenno had killed on this planet.
At their silent stare, the woman continued. "My name's Yoana, i make the armor 'round here, but i've never seen armor quite like yours, could you tell me how you made it?" The tenno shook their head, the blueprints for the ember warframe were fought for with tooth and nail, they wouldn't just give them away, but Yoana seemed determined.
"Look, i'm sorry, i shouldn't ask you to simply give away the secrets of your armor," they were curious as to where Yoana was going with this, even more so when she held up a pack of cards, these ones were decorated with a sun over a field of black. "So why don't we play a round of cards over them? If you win, i'll teach you how to make acid hardened armor." The tenno nodded.
(Several rounds of gwent later...)
Yoana and the tenno sat at a modest table, gwent cards littered all over it, Yoana had her head on the table, face down, while the tenno sat as straight as could be, they were radiating with pride. "Another game!" Yoana called, but was silenced at the tenno's raised hand. They didn't want to put her into poverty over a simple set of blueprints. Yoana looked defeated, but later joined them in cleaning up their respective cards.
After wich, they rose up. A sack that would make santa proud was slung over the tenno's shoulder, it was filled with winnings from their gwent matches.
They had a feeling that they would greatly enjoy playing more of this 'gwent' game.
(Line break)
Feeling done with their little sight seeing trip, the tenno returned to the woods where they were dropped off, the trip was uneventful, but it provided them with time to reflect upon the day's events...
...and where they might go now.
(So i gotta be honest with you guys, i have no idea where to take this story, right now i just chained together a bunch of events that resemble a story. But plot-wise, i've hit a wall, that's why this took so long to write, so please give me some inspiration in the reviews, or pm me.)