Chapter Text
Drifter, the man who’d demolished a brainwashing cult that spanned the Solar System with nothing more than a dinky pistol and an electrified machete (and help from a few friends), relaxed in his forest camp. Tropical birds squabbled over the fruiting vines and jungle trees that concealed his two stolen dropships. A waterfall provided constant background thunder as it poured over his Orbiter in a radar-fouling veil into the lake from which he’d fished up dinner. He sat down to fish strips, fresh from the crackling fire, and then his comm unit snarled.
“So help me, if it's the Corpus spamming the emergency frequencies with advertisem*nts again…”
He checked, just in case it was serious. It'd take an emergency, like his friends among the Tenno informing him that the Narmer cult was back, to drag him away from fresh fish dinner.
His Orbiter’s Cephalon Ordis answered. “Operator, the Tenno request your help. They say that Parvos Granum, founder of the Corpus, has gotten his hands on an artifact they fear could corrupt reality and the Void itself. They want your help recovering it.”
If glares could cook, he'd have blackened fish for dinner, not crispy. The Corpus were a cult far older than Narmer. They worshipped Profit, and their founder was the sort of man who believed no door should remain shut if there was money to be made by opening it. Whatever he desired, he would grasp. No matter the cost to himself or anyone else.
Unfortunately for Drifter's plans to enjoy his dinner, he also knew firsthand that reality and Void corruption did not play nice, and “not nice” included a range of possibilities where failure resulted in insanity and *success* resulted in permanent changes to body, soul, and the universe. The last time a Tenno mucked around with the Void hard enough to bend the laws of physics, she'd punched a hole through space-time to connect Mars and Venus.
He had no choice.
Well, he did, but sitting around waiting for the other shoe to drop just wasn't in his nature.
“Warm up the engines for launch.” He carried his plate back inside, eating as he went. Delicious, flaky, filling. No sense in jetting off on an empty stomach.
Ordis reported back. “Setting our course for Deimos.”
To everyone not in the know, Deimos, the second moon of Mars was a hellhole crawling with infested beasties. Drifter was in the know. It was also the super-secret Void research station of the super-secretive Entrati family, and defended by a full roster of Tenno like bees would their hive. Unfortunately Parvos Granum also knew all that, and had somehow gotten in anyways.
Their ersatz war council convened in a laboratory that dripped with gold. The absent Entrati patriarch, Albrecht, had been a man of genius and of ostentatious tastes. His personal assistant Loid, was a painfully neat, dapper man with gold-rimmed spectacles and a matching nose ring. Loid welcomed Drifter, four Tenno Warframes, a giant bird, a goldfish who's brain was bigger than his own, a depressed goat, and a Cephalon's glowing hologram to the lab.
Drifter said, “You called me out of the next best thing to retirement for this. How'd Granum get his hands on your artifact?”
Loid explained, “Not content with the research that my Albrecht freely shared, Granum sent his thugs to steal our work on the Void. When I saw them off,” he patted his sidearm, a Zylok pistol far larger than Drifter's own pistol, “he went after my friend instead.”
Cephalon Drusus was Loid's old friend and the caretaker of a museum in dire need of cold hard cash to pay for its upkeep. In a moment of despair, he took out a loan. From known loan-shark Parvos Granum. With exorbitant interest rates. And then while Granum was presumed dead in an assassination, fell behind on his payments. The only way to pay back the debt and save the museum was sending valuable Entrati artifacts to Granum.
“How much do you owe? Nevermind, I don't want to know.” Instead, Drifter focused on the four warframes.
They were all of them humanoid-shaped, sword-steel armored, Void-powered battle envoys for their Tenno Operators. Each of them was purpose built for one reason: to be a walking war crime. Labcoat-wearing Lavos could alchemically transmute the flesh of his foes while the skeletal Xaku turned their own guns against them. Qorvex was a concrete block of a man with a nuclear reactor for his core. Citrine was a crystalline defender and healer. His own firepower was a drop in a bucket compared to this squad capable of slaughtering the crew of a kilometers-long fleet ship if that’s what their mission called for.
He rephrased his question. “What do you want me to recover that the Tenno can't?”
Bird 3 rooted around in its nest with a beak as long as his arm. It delicately pulled out a black-bound book. “Rawk. Be careful. Rawk!”
It shimmered with silvery Void corruption. He reached for it.
The fish warned, “That grimoire is dangerous! You should wear gloves.”
He opened it. The void that covered the pages like grafitti itched and burned, trying to seep through his fingertips and into his veins, only to be forced out by the Void power in his own body. “No offense, Fish-”
“Fibonacci.”
“Okay, Fibonacci. I have more in common with the Tenno than I do a normal human like Loid. I'll be fine.”
Wearing gloves and using tongs, Loid brought out an otherwise identical book. “And this is similar to the Whispering Tome we’re afraid we accidentally included in an artifact shipment to pay down the debt.”
Oh, it whispered to him, alright. Its wrong-tongued voice drilled deep into the base of his skull and rattled around in his ears. He shuddered. “I’m not touching that sh*t.”
It laughed at him. Mocking, scathing laughter.
The goat said, “Yeah…Albrecht left some bad things behind.”
Loid put the book away, silencing it. “Quite right, Tagfer. A Whispering Grimoire like that one corrupted the warframe Dante. Burrowed into his brain and broke his mind. We hope that Drifter can avoid his fate, since you are like to the Tenno but not bound to a warframe.”
Drusus said, “Drifter, when Parvos Granum took advantage of me, he was looking for “an artifact that spoke to him.” He wanted this book or another like it. Do you understand? Will you help us?”
If glares could melt gold, the lab equipment would be dripping. “Let me get this straight. Either I risk my mind and soul to recover a corrupting, corrupted book, or Parvos Granum gets to keep said corrupting, corrupted book to do who knows what with it?”
The four Tenno nodded. Loid nodded.
“Rawk.”
“Blub, glub, well, in a manner of speaking...”
Tagger interrupted, “The fish means yes.”
He didn't have a choice.
Well, he did, but Parvos Granum and the Whispering Grimoire were a partnership made in hell. The damned book would be like catnip to the void-obsessed technocrat. Whatever secrets it contained, Granum would happily unleash on everyone else, no matter the cost.
“Fine. I'll do it.”
Before they'd even gotten through the chorus of relieved sighs and thank yous, he added, “If I were Granum, I'd keep a void-corrupted book like that in a void pocket. I happen to know that he's got a handy portal to his own pocket realm inside every shrine to himself on every ship in his fleet. Attacking a fleet ship means I need my Railjack. My railjack needs a crew.”
The lean interceptor fighting craft needed a crew of four. All four Tenno raised their hands.
“I was hoping you'd volunteer.”
His railjack’s cephalon, Cy, brought the ship as close to Deimos as they dared. Qorvex headed straight for the Engineering station. The others slid into the gun turrets and the low-swung Tunguska cannon.
Drifter climbed into the pilot's chair and informed Cy, “Parvos Granum got his greedy hands on something he shouldn't. Find us a fleet ship leaving his city of Corposium on Pluto.”
Scans and crosschecks soon found a likely target: a Corpus Obelisk who'd left Corposium after the grimore was accidentally delivered and it’d idled in Pluto's proximity ever since. “Hmm,” Drifter said. “It's not like Granum to leave his ships sitting. He hates idleness.” That Captain was surely in hot water with his boss.
Cy announced, “Engines hot. Guns hot. Prepare to jump into enemy territory.”
Cy lined their ship up for the punch. Their reliquary drive ripped a hole in space-time and into the Void. The engines kicked the ship in the ass, drove them into the Void at screaming speed, and back out through the second hole, dumping them into Pluto Proxima in a matter of seconds.
Their target was a hammerheaded ship five kilometers long. Its full complement of fighters and crewship escorts glittered in the dark of space like so many stars.
Drifter had a bad feeling about this.
Cy said, “We're being hailed.”
A really bad feeling. “Of course we are.”
The Corpus Captain was a tall woman with dark hair woven through her headset and blue tattoos that proclaimed her commitment to paying dividends. “I am Captain Vala Glarios, Sister of Parvos Granum.”
“Hi. I'm Drifter. Fancy meeting you here.”
She purred like a female lion; the real hunters in the pride. “Brother Parvos’ opposition research is quite thorough. We've been expecting you.”
