Volt stared at his navigation panel, then at his wallet, then back at his navigation panel. His Star Chart was mostly completed, except for the last few planets – Pluto, Sedna, Eris, and strangely, Europa. He had made a beeline for each junction on each planet, leaving out the awkward offshoots. A lot of them were Spy missions, which Volt hated to the point that he did an Archwing Rush mission to avoid one.
Again, Volt stared at his wallet. He had just hit the one million credit mark. In his foundry, he had all sorts of shinies being built. An incubator for a quest, the parts for various other ‘Frames and a LOT of bows. Why Volt had decided to build four bows, he had no idea. But there they were, being built. The previous night of fighting hordes of Toxic Ancients had probably made him hallucinate or something.
But something about those one million credits was bothering Volt. He wanted to craft some Spectres and rank up some mods, but that would have taken him below the one million credit mark. Part of him also wanted to open up relics and build more shiny primed things, but that would cost credits down the line as well. Everything seemed to cost credits. That’s why Volt was looking at the Star Chart.
The best way to make credits was a place called Akkad, but Volt didn’t have access to it yet – it was locked away on the dark side of Eris. His next best bet was a place called Hieracon, located on Pluto. It was a Dark Sector map, which meant that it gave extra experience and credits for what would be an otherwise normal Excavation mission. There’d be swarms of infested, but that didn’t bother Volt. He had his Ignis.
With a sigh, he selected the mission and put on his Prime armour. No point using his normal ‘nooby’ self, he’d need the extra armour and energy. After a moment, a message beeped, telling him a team was ready. He climbed into his Liset and headed off.
Weirdly, Pluto looked exactly like Venus. Except Pluto would obviously be cold and desolate because it was pretty far away from the old, dying Origin System sun. The rest of his team didn’t seem to mind. They consisted of a Frost Prime, a Nidus with a full set of infested weapons apart from his melee, and a Mirage, using the same loadout every Mirage seemed to use. He hadn’t SEEN the Mirage, but he could hear that horrible sound.
“Ah, you should be handy,” the Nidus waved an infested arm. “The excavation sites happen to be quite a way away.”
Volt blinked, then activated Speed. The three of them ran off after the Mirage, pausing only to pick up a power cell each. The first excavator landed and Frost Prime placed a snow globe around it.
“So how long are we farming for? 300 cryotic? 500?” Volt asked as he set fire to an Ancient Healer. He knew that they were the most important ones to take out first, followed by Toxic Ancients, those horrible gas-spitting mutated Ospreys and Parasitic Eximi.
“1200,” Frost Prime replied bluntly. “2400 preferably.”
“Huh…” Volt’s reply seemed muted, but he was just hiding his surprise. 1200 was a lot of cryotic. Even alert missions only really asked for about 500 cryotic before everyone buggered off.
Thankfully, the first few excavations went off quite well. Three happened to be really close to each other, so Volt’s speed was more useful for making Nidus and his Telos Boltace spin around like a demented demon. But as they reached the 1000 cryotic mark, Volt realised that something was wrong. His weapons were no longer being effective. At the start of the mission, Volt’s beloved Ignis tore through things with relative ease. It wasn’t as powerful as the rest of his team’s weapons, but it was alright. Now though, it was taking half a clip to kill a single Ancient.
“Sorry to ask another question…” Volt was about to ask, just as he was interrupted by cheers.
“FINALLY!” Mirage shouted, the first thing she’d said all mission. The 12th excavator had dug up an Axi E1 Relic. “We do 2400?”
Frost Prime and Nidus both nodded and rushed off to excavator number 13. The Mirage followed, only to be knocked down by a Toxic Ancient. Volt rushed over, emptied an entire clip into the Ancient then helped the Mirage up.
“Tnx.”
“You’re welcome,” Volt sighed. “I admit, this is getting a little…”
“HURRY UP!” the Frost Prime shouted. “We need that speed, Volt!”
Volt rolled his eyes and used Speed, so he and Mirage could catch up, then used Speed again once they arrived so that everyone got a full buff. Nidus went back to spinning around killing things, but Frost Prime had to erect a second snow globe – his first one had fallen.
The team continued on, but all the while Volt was struggling to kill anything. The hordes of infested only increased. By the time the 16th extractor landed, Volt’s weapons were no longer really harming the many Ancients that were swarming in. On the plus side, that Simulor was still killing things, despite it giving not just Volt, but Frost Prime and Nidus as well, a headache. It wasn’t just Volt who was struggling though. Frost Prime was having to make more and more snow globes. And Mirage had to be picked up several times.
The 24th extractor landed, and Volt activated Speed. As he sprinted past a Mutalist Osprey carrying a power cell, his Speed stunned it for a moment. Volt too this as a chance to inspect the enemy he was shooting at.
“IT’S LEVEL 100?” Volt exclaimed.
“Yeah, so?” Frost Prime grunted as he erected a second snow globe, and Nidus sprayed an infested garden all around the excavator. In his excitement in using his other abilities he’d forgotten he could do that.
“No wonder I-ooph!” Three Toxic Ancients had grabbed Volt and knocked him to the ground. He instantly tried to crawl away as fast as he could, moving outside of their horrible, health-draining range. Nidus dashed over and helped Volt to his feet.
“You alright, kid?”
“Not really,” Volt admitted. “I am in over my head! And none of my weapons are doing any damage!”
Behind them, the 24th extractor exploded, revealing its loot. A crappy mod that made Frost Prime groan.
Nidus smiled. “I noticed. Don’t worry, this place gets hard really quickly. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Volt smiled back, then once again activated Speed. The four Warframes raced to the extraction point, where their Lisets were waiting for them.
As soon as Volt made it back to his orbiter, the squad disbanded, leaving him alone with his loot. After all that, he’d only made 50,000 credits.
With a roll of his neural sensors, Volt opened up the Star Chart and headed to Seimeni, his favourite, and much easier, farming spot.