“You want to farm Ash parts? Specifically the Ash Systems?”
“Yep.”
It had been some time since Smolt had evolved into Smallnaros, and it had been even longer since Volt had seen the former newbie he had picked up and trained a while back. Things had clearly happened since then, what with Volt having switched away from his bright yellow looks and Inaros having finally gotten over his Kuva-coloured addiction.
“Do you need help?”
“I do.”
Volt shrugged and headed over to the Codex on his ship, looking up a specific enemy which Volt knew horded Ash Warframe parts.
“Hm…”
“Hm?”
“Hm… Hmmm. Hmmm…”
Inaros crossed his arms, slightly worried. “That was far too many Hms. Is this going to be a pain in the ass?”
Volt glanced at Inaros through the holographic screen of the Codex. “Yep. We need to kill Manics. Lots of them. And only 7% of them use Ash Systems.”
“Great!” Inaros clapped his hands together with glee. “Let’s go fight Tyl Regor! He’s got a-”
“Tyl Regor’s Drekar Manics are upgraded Manics and don’t carry Ash components.”
The joy that had briefly lit Inaros’s heart suddenly fled. “So… What does that mean?”
Volt visibly shuddered, then disappeared in the back of his ship. Inaros waited, then waited some more, then started tapping his foot impatiently, leaving sand all over the floor of Volt’s ship. Finally, a Warframe appeared, but it wasn’t Volt.
“We have to do… Defection…” Trinity whispered, clutching an Ignis Wraith.
Inaros’s neural sensors widened. “GOOD! LET’S GET STARTED!”
After a brief delay of Inaros getting back onto his own ship, the two Tenno plotted their courses and headed down to Yursa, a collection of Corpus megaships that had been taken over by fleeing Kavor Grineer, only to be attacked and taken over by a swarm of Infested.
“So, what’s the plan?” Inaros asked, rubbing his Zarr cannon happily. “Go in, blast everything, get out?”
“No. Go in, protect the Kavor until a Manic spawns, get the Kavor to safety, kill the Manic and move on to the next sector.”
Inaros gasped. “Really? We can’t save all these Kavor?”
Trinity shook her head sadly. “I wish we could, but there’s seemingly an infinite number of them that need saving. And the more we save, the more Infested there are.”
“Oh. How… many Infested?”
“All the Infested. A soup of infested.”
Inaros shrugged, then headed over to the control panel that unlocked the doors to the rest of the ship. “Alright, let’s get this started.”
The two Tenno stepped inside, to immediately be greeted by swarms of Infested. They plowed through the swathe of mutated bodies, towards a small life support tower, where a small crew of Kavor was slowly plodding towards them.
“This is… an escort mission…”
“Worse…” Trinity tutted. “It’s an endless escort mission!”
Inaros sighed, then suddenly jumped as an Infested Charger leaped up at him. The Charger exploded in a pretty spray of gore, which amused Inaros greatly. He then followed Trinity down several corridors, until they bumped into a group of Grineer.
“Tenno… Not skoom?” one of the Grineer exclaimed.
“Tenno here to save you!” Inaros beamed. “Come along now! Trinity and I will keep you safe!”
The Grineer did as commanded, pausing only to catch their breaths at various life support capsules scattered through the rubble. Just as the third group got to the extraction pods, a voice echoed through the sector. A horrible laughter.
“MANIC!” Inaros shouted. “KILL IT!”
Trinity did as was demanded, spraying the Manic against a nearby wall with her Ignis Wraith. The Manic disintegrated, dropping a familiar purple shimmer.
“It’s a… an Ash Neuroptics blueprint…”
Inaros rolled his neural sensors. “Fuck.”
“Okay, let’s extract and try a different sector…” Trinity sighed.
But after countless sectors, Inaros was still without his Ash Systems blueprint and both of them were losing their will to live.
“How many of these have we done?” Inaros asked.
“No idea. We’ve been going for like two hours? Lots of liberated Grineer though…”
Inaros tutted. “Has it really been that long? Heck. Should have brought my Hek.”
“Okay, one more, then I’m done for today…” Trinity grunted, reloading her Ignis. “One more. For grofit. Or whatever, since we’re in a Corpus ship.”
“For GROFIT!” Inaros wearily shouted as he charged onwards, murdering Infested as he did so. Yet again, they waited patiently for the Grineer defectors to plod and stumble towards extraction, while holding out for that crazy echoing laugh.
Suddenly, just as the third set of Kavor extracted, a Manic appeared, clawing and just missing the last of the four Grineer. Both Inaros and Trinity stampeded towards the Manic, who tried to teleport away and crashed into a pack of Infested Ancients. Panicking, it clawed at the Ancients, only to be incinerated by Trinity’s flamethrower.
“What is it what is it what is it?”
“… IT’S AN ASH SYSTEMS BLUEPRINT! FINALLY!” Trinity gasped.
“YES! GROFIT BE PRAISED!” Inaros roared as he grabbed the blueprint and bulletjumped towards extraction. “FUCK THIS MISSION! I’M GONNA GET MY EPHEMERA!”
Trinity tutted as she chased after Inaros. “Yeah, shame we’ll have to come back here to get a second Systems.”
“Don’t care!” Inaros beamed. “GROFIT! Grofit be praised! Now let’s get the fuck out of here!”
“Great idea…” Trinity smiled weakly as the two Tenno extracted. “Fucking escort missions…”