Hearth and her squad returned to the Extinction without incident, much to my surprise. Their find was equally surprising, mostly because I expected it to be bigger - maybe the size of a whole Corpus container? I guess size was irrelevant here - how big the artifact was did not determine its value, that went to what exactly it contained.

Before I examined the device, I moved it to a room isolated from the rest of the ship - not access ports, no data panels, nada. Only a traditional push door and some vents connected to this room, so that, if it could somehow damage my ship, it wouldn't get far. There was also a monitor and connection system in the room, but it was not plugged into the rest of the ship - it had its own power supply and would solely connect to the artifact, so that if I had to view images through this machine, I wouldn't need to squint...event if I could focus my sight down normally to the point I could see single celled organisms without any assistance.

Once all the preparations had been made, I put my hand on the device. Given that nothing had happened when Hearth picked it up, I expected I would need to do some fiddling around to get a response, but instead, the device reacted, and after a moment of static, the monitor I had attached to the relic lit up, revealing a spiral of characters. One of them, in particular, was glowing blue. According to my database, connected to me via nanotech implants in my brain (cause why not), the character meant 'Dusk'. Seeing no reason not to, I tapped on the monitor.

Yes, it was a touch screen.

A moment later, and a voice began to speak. A female one, too.

So, here we are, in the dusk and twilight of the Orokin. The end of my people's reign over the Origin System.

Surprised? I doubt it - you knew this was coming, but you didn't do anything to stop it.

Not that I can blame you, though. We deserve to fade. We created to many monsters, and I am sure you will agree.

After all, you made horrors of your own - beasts of cold metal, meant to overpower and crush any foe they met, then assimilate their strengths. Much like our blasphemous Sentients, actually.

And then there are the others, the ones of twisted flesh and gristle...

That was when the transmission ended, much to my chagrin. Oh so many questions it had opened up, while answering none.

Perhaps as some form of compensation, though, I also received a set of images while the words had been spoken. The first few sentences had been accompanied by a golden picture of a Void Tower, ever so slightly cracked, with golden lines flowing into it. Following that, pictures of the Grineer, Tenno, Sentients, and Infested had taken up the screen, with the lines flowing into them. Last to appear were a commander, along with one of the organic things I had seen in my visions from the artifacts. Once again, the golden lines were flowing into those pictures. I got the feeling these were going to be a thing if I examined anymore of the characters.

Of course, that still left me unaware of what, exactly, this machine was called, or of how the Progenitors related to all of this. It looked like I was going to need to do some more asking around to find some answers. Maybe Etran would provide some help?

XXXXXXXX

Okay, apparently, the artifact I had found was called a Vitruvian, and it seemed to be some kind of recording device, but that was all I now knew. Etran had provided me with its name and function, but he seemed really uncomfortable on the subject. I knew better than to push my luck, so I had not pressed him further, but still, that wasn't much to go on. So where should I look next?

"Maybe right next to you."

Oh joy, Melissa had intruded again. Also, why did she smell like mud and jungle?

"I was looking around Silvana to see if I could find a Serberis - I thought it would make a nice pet."

"...You thought I highly venomous, wild, predatory lizard would make a good pet?"

"Yes. Plus Cassidy wanted something she could put bows on that wasn't a cat, a dog, or vaguely looked like either."

"How about a goat? Or a sheep?"

"Already got those. Cassidy get bored quickly, plus I may have dyed them all pink and pastel blue and red. And Cassidy already put ribbons on our Kodiak Bear. And the mako had to go to the vet after Cass fed it too much junk food."

"...I suppose you also have a xenomorph as a pet."

I suppose the insult was rather obvious, but Melissa's parenting left much to be desi-

"Yes, but I accidentally turned her into a girl and now Cassidy won't stop trying to dress her up."

…...What?!

"Something wrong, my pawn?"

"..…..Can you please just go? I have important decisions to make."

"Okay. Bu-bye."

She winked at me before leaving.

Yeah, I was pretty sure she was trolling me.

That was why, as soon as I had locked the room containing the Vitruvian, I promptly flew down to Cetus and, after running some biometric calculations, got just enough wine to get me drunk. For the record, alcohol is an acquired taste.

Just before I passed out, though, I quickly set my forces up to begin searching for more information related to the Vitruvian - related artifacts, symbols, anything. Whatever was on here might be my only lead to finding out more about the Progenitors, as well as how, exactly, they were involved in my travels across the multiverse. Finding that out was my number one priority, especially if they had any leftover technology in this universe.

After all, the Sentients were already enough of a problem in this universe - no need to let them get loose in others.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

AN: Read and Review. This is Flameal15k, signing off.