When I first was introduced to Warframe, I didn't expect much in terms of story content. I was mistaken. Again and again, the folks down at Digital Extremes have surprised me with the depth and quality of their plot. No matter where you travel, every personality is unique in their own way, the in-game lore is richer than you'd think, and the ambiance of the locations, from the neon-soaked grunge of Fortuna to the windswept Plains of Eidolon, inevitably became more than I could resist.
What follows is an anthology collection of stories, quests and incidents scattered across the Origin System.
Because reasons.
Enjoy!
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Silent Night
Tyre considered himself moderately intelligent. He knew mechanisms well enough not to stick a coolant cell in backwards, and could clean and maintain his rifle without discharging the power pack into the floor, unlike so many of his tube brothers. He also liked shiny things, things like gemstones and distant, twinkling stars. When the rest of the station is slaughtered by the personification of the night itself, what's a single, unarmed Grineer to do?
Hiding was a good start.
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Son of the Sun
While Baro Ki'Teer tended to exude the aura of some exquisite glass thing, there was steel in his spine and cunning in his fluttering fingers. He could not have repeatedly entered the Void and returned unscathed by mere luck. Why, then, would he require the services of a bodyguard? Perhaps because he couldn't bear to face the sands of Mars alone…
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Spit and Hope
The Tenno had one more delivery to make. This time, however, his services hadn't been bought. There was no contract, verbal or otherwise, that had compelled him visit the hazardous jungles of Old Earth. He'd undertaken this one simply because the scrappy little Grineer had asked.
A deadly shotgun. A luminous flower.
The gifts of spit and hope.
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Fata Morgana
A frozen, desolate moon. An elite Corpus squad sent to capture a mirage flickering between shards of ice. Director Harr had canceled a shochu tasting and two second-quarter audits for this, a front-row seat into the depths of Alad V's insanity. As the body cams went dark one by one, he was regretting that decision more than ever. There's no stopping what can't be stopped. No killing what can't be killed.
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The Weight of What We Owe
Ain't no victims on these lists, Stardust. Every one of them workin' against the impossible to make things right for them and theirs. Makes them a hero in Ticker's eyes. Still... like the man said... show me a hero and I'll write you a Void-damned tragedy.
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Into the Void
To the surprise of many, Baro Ki'Teer was an audacious man, a collector of rare antiquities and lover of the exotic. Self-styled master of the Void – and of the myriad of dangerous things contained within. Site 4 was meant to be an expedition like any other. After all, he'd peered into the abyss more times than he could count.
What he didn't expect was for the abyss to blink.
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The Burning Cold
Winter itself seemed to emanate from the Warframe's presence; neither the crystalline needle of ice nor the chill grip of space, but something else entirely… almost indescribable… as if the frozen, fathomless dark between the stars could somehow burn.
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Morituri Te Salutamus
Prosecutor Shiv had faced every opponent the Origin System had to offer, from Corpus machines to leathery Ostron warriors, as he humped the front lines from Earth to Saturn to Phobos. None had given him a challenge worth remembering. That was about to change.
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Jar of Greed
My name is Canto Denarii. Whether this account serves to condemn or exonerate me, I will catalog the incident as faithfully as am I able to recall. I have already been judged, not in any court of my peers, but by a remnant of the Orokin Empire-that-was... and have been found wanting. I think it knew that even as it saved me.
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Their Butler, Commendable
The servants were gone. The housemaids and the valets. All gone. Only Loid and Otak remained. They had served House Entrati since the beginning, and would do so until the end. All across the System, heads turned to behold the lost moon of Mars; a pulsating tumor with a burning, embered heart, silent but for the ancient carrier wave pulsing out from its seething core.
He was doing this for everyone's own good.
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The Spider's Stratagem
It was not the first time he'd experienced such visions, except this one had been much more, not just a composition of memories from a past that had come and gone, but something concrete. Something real. A bargain had been levied, the Executor's hand extended in invitation – and oh, what a familiar invitation it was.
How strange it was, to miss someone you despised.
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No Fate (But What We Make)
Five dice, painted and worn, tumble through the rain, symbols spinning, destined for an unknown roll. The Dream always begins the same.
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Ora e Sempre
One would think, given the commonality of mirrors and the fact that humanity had evolved past daubing ocher on the walls of caves, the sight of one's own likeness would have ceased to hold any kind of supernatural power. But there was a certain, special terror in seeing oneself, not in reflection or painted likeness, but duplicated. It dragged one hand down the banister, glancing at it's fingertips in disgust. The gaze that bent itself on Loid over the rims of an identical oculus was as blackened as the stars it'd felled.