Having at last unlocked the power of the Warframes, as well as the secrets of the void, I decided to try and do all I could to acquire more of them, so that I could have an easier time deciding what I wanted in warframes of my own design. After all, now that I knew how to control them, I might as well make my own.
I'd already acquired Revenant, Excalibur Umbra, Regular Excalibur, Ash, Ash Prime, Frost, Equinox, Mirage, Ember, Gara, Oberon, Valkyr, and Zephr, with the prime one being a gift Melissa had given me*, as well as quite a few weapons. Of all of those, only Ash Prime, Umbra, and Revenant had been ones I had not acquired in game. The rest were proving slower to acquire, with Mag and Volt being somewhat more accessible, but I doubted Teshin would give them to me even if I joined the conclave (which I had). Plus I REALLY wanted to build them rather than buy them.
As time dragged on, though, the holidays arrived, and I found myself realizing that I needed to prepare for that. The Origin System was readying for Tennobaum (basically Christmas by some other name), and I refused to deny my kids that indulgence. Plus, free gifts are always awesome!
First, though, I had one last bit of work to do - apparently, a friend of Tenno by the name of Eudico had asked me to come to some place on Venus called Fortuna, saying it would be worth my time. Well, who was I to ignore her request? Plus I hadn't actually seen much of Venus besides a few Corpus outposts there, and I wanted to see what, exactly, this 'Orb Vallis' was.
Also, it provided me a nice chance to try out Umbra.
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I had been asked to enter Fortuna the same way as the Tenno had: via a vent shaft. Smiliing in my starship, I flew in Umbra and had him jump down the rabbit hole - now I could infiltrate like a real Tenno.
As we fell, though, I heard a strange noise coming from the shaft. Was somebody...whistling? Or were they humming?
...Actually, I think they were singing.
[MEDIA=youtube]I2SpNZ52VMY[/MEDIA]
Cold, the air and water flowing
Hard, the land we call our home
Push, to keep the dark from coming
Fell the weight of what we owe
This, the song of sons and daughters
Hide, the heart of who we are
Making peace to build our future
Strong, united, working 'til we fall
Cold, the air and water flowing
Hard, the land we call our home
Push, to keep the dark from coming
Fell the weight of what we owe
This, the song of sons and daughters
Hide, the heart of who we are
Making peace to build our future
Strong, united, working 'til we fall
And we all lift, and we're all adrift
Together, together
Through the cold mist, 'til we're lifeless
Together, together
….What a catchy song.
As the singing ended, Umbra finally hit the ground. As we stood up, I found myself staring a guy...who was missing his head! In its place was a rather crude looking piece of cybernetics. Looking around, I noticed more people like him, some with additional cybernetic limbs. In fact, the only ones who didn't have cybernetics on them were, well kids.
I'd seen some people like this aboard the rebuilt Strata Relay, but to see so many was, well, a shock.
I quickly pulled up the local equivalent of the internet (which was run by a bunch of Cephalons) and began looking up information on Fortuna. What I found was...disconcerting, to say the least. It appeared that Fortuna was known as a 'Solaris Debt Internment Colony', which was a fancy term for 'penal colony for people who hadn't paid their debts'. Also, apparently, the cybernetics were given because the ruler of the colony, one Nef Anyo, could take away their organic parts as collateral for the debts. Yikes.
Fortunately, though, the Solaris objected to this, and had created resistance group known as Solaris United. Led by the one known as Vox Solaris, they fought tooth and nail to make sure Nef treated them fairly. Also, behind Nef's back, the Tenno secretly paid off a fair amount of the Solaris' debts. From what I could gather, Nef knew about this, but really didn't care - either way, he got paid.
Speaking of paying off debts, the middle man...woman...PERSON...for this was named Ticker. She more or less sold the debts to the Tenno, who would receive debt bonds for their trouble. Apparently, the Solaris were only willing to help those who had both proven themselves to Fortuna and acquired a number of debt bonds, which wasn't surprising at all. She also sold secondhand Solaris orbiter decorations, some of which I wasted no time in acquiring, after acquiring a few debt bonds from debt purchasing.
I also used the bonds as a way to acquire a solaris ore cutter from the man called smoke finger, a few parts for a weapon called a kitgun from a lady called Rude Zuud (who apparently had a malfunctioning rig, given she was hearing voices that I could also hear as static, and some animal conservation gear from the one called The Business. I also browsed the wares of someone know as Legs, who was the only Solaris that was entirely made of machinery. That probably had a story, but I wasn't interested in hearing it now.
Oh, and there were also a bunch of kids who had made a clubhouse in one of the vents and rode hover boards called k-drives I may have wasted some time riding with them out of boredom and a desire to acquire a k-drive for myself.
Eventually, though, I managed to reach Eudico, who was apparently the foreman (Floor Boss, to use Nef's speech) of Fortuna.
"So, you're the stranger I've heard so much about?" She asked. "The one who isn't a Tenno, but figured out how to master a Warframe."
"That's me. I trust you have a reason for calling me here?"
"You guessed right. Listen, Nef's not exactly good at keeping some secrets. Ever since you showed up and threw a wrench in his operations, he's been trying to find a way to stop you. Most of the leads he got dried up, but now I think he's onto something of value."
"And I'm guessing you want me to stop him from finding it?"
"Give the man a prize, he's correct. Anything that ruins Nef's day is fine with me, so long as we don't suffer for it."
"So, what's the plan?"
"Nef's men are gathering intel on some kind of Orokin facility hidden in the void. They've got evidence indicating a void key needed to access it is here, and one of my teams is trying to beat them to it. See if you can't help us along."
"On it. This just between us, or I am doing this with a team?"
"Two Tenno asked to join up with you. Said their names were Etran and Cyreesia. You familiar with them?"
"Yes." Familiar faces are always nice.
"Good...also, do you know a girl named Melissa?"
"...Yes, why?"
"Because she asked to join in on this mission. I think she was just bored."
...Oh dear...
"I can manage."
"Good luck. From how you sounded, I think you'll need it."
"Thanks."
With that, I walked toward the lift. Waiting for me within were two Tenno (wearing Revenant and Valkyr)...and my ROB, who had already turned to face me.
"Before you ask why I am here, you are going to slowly, so I'm here to speed you the hell up. Even Celm is with me here."
It took me a moment to process what she said. "Well, thanks for the help. Now let's go."
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When we finally exited the loft, we were greeted with the beautiful sight of the area known as the Orb Vallis. Eudico's words described it best:
"Welcome to Venus. It'll kill you."
Once we were topside, Eudico laid out the first part of our plan: disable a Coildrive (car version of the monocycles from Men in Black III), steak its data, then work from there. Eudico already had a team looking for the void key, so we just needed to help them along.
As we set an ambush for the drive, I called up Eudico.
"What do you need?"
"What happened to the guy named Legs? Why is he more or less a robot?"
"...Oh, him. Look, his real name's Thursby. Few years back, he asked a Tenno, Etran to be exact, to help him steal Moa parts so he could sell them off to pay off debts his parents owed - you die, and your debts are passed onto you children. Anyway, Nef caught wind of what he did and decided to punish him by taking away most of his organic parts. I...might have played the Tenno for that."
"Really?"
"Yeah. See, a while back, Nef got fed up with us, and tried to wipe out Dolaris United at Dock 12. We lost a lot of good people that day...And I think a part of me died back there. I gave up trying to fight back, thought that maybe I could prevent more suffering if I licked Nef's boots and made him think we were an asset. But what happened to Thursby, and everything after that...look, I hate to say this, but I think it was necessary all of that happened. All those events finally opened my eyes to the truth about Nef - he's nothing but scum who'll use and discard us however he sees fit. If we want to be treated properly, we have to force him to do that.
"Oh, and the coildrive is almost here."
A moment later, the coildrive was ours. A few minutes later, we had everything we needed, and blew it up.
"Good job, now let me look over this...hmm, it has some intel on the facility, but mostly just security details and a map of it - no idea what is inside."
"So, any ideas where to next?" Asked Melissa, rather impatiently.
"Yes, actually. Go West, there's a drone there with more intel. Take it down, hack it, and let me analyze it."
That didn't take long, but we still had to defend the drone from quite a few corpus, plus a few spider robots they pulled out.
"What the hello are these Spider bots?" Yelled Melissa and she punched one to pulp.
"Raknoids. Those ones are just mites. Bigger ones are comparable to the Eidolons, or so I'm told.
Eventually, though, Eudico got what she needed, and the drone flew off.
"So, what'd you find?"
Once again, Melissa sounded impatient.
"Getting there...alright, look's like this facility has a name: the Repository. Some kind of Orokin-era armory hidden in the void. Must be filled with good guns if it's there...wait, hold on, the lift's headed down now...oh shit."
"What?!" I asked, now very worried.
"Some of the team just came back - they found the void key for this place. Unfortunately, Nef's men caught the rest. Listen, the key's stored in a container that needs an access code to unlock. The Corpus got the man with the code. See if you can't break him free."
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It didn't take long to locate those Solaris. In mere seconds, we'd killed the guards and started the hack to free them. Unfortunately, the Corpus were quick to respond, and started calling in a lot of reinforcements.
"Any idea how to speed things up?" I asked Eudico.
"Well, unless you have some way to work the supposedly godly hacking powers I've heard that you possess, kill any Tera Jailers that head your way - they should be carrying data keys to speed up the hack."
We did and they did, and soon, the Solaris were free, unfortunately, there was now an army between us and the lift.
Then I heard a loud roar coming from in front of us. Looking toward it, I think I might have soils my underwear: there, resting on a nearby building, was what I presumed to be an Orb Mother.
And, possibly, a way out.
Accessing the terminal I'd used to start the hack to free the Solaris, I used it as an entry point to hack into the Corpus systems. Minutes later, I tore through the network until I finally found our location, then looked for a specific set of systems. When I found them, I modified command directives and IFF, before giving activation orders.
A moment later, a Condor dropship exploded as the Orb began to open fire on the Corpus.
"WHAT THE HELL?!"
"That, Eudico, is an example of my hacking prowess."
"But...but...okay, okay, that was impressive. Now get back here before Nef calls in more backup."
You didn't have to tell me that twice.
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AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!