#no hanky panky on this ship. only of the platonic kind anyhow

[riftwalker-limbro]

stolen dreams

masterpost

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"-which means this Maroo might be in real trouble," the Lotus finished.

The Operator was already nodding and strapping their skana onto their back, They had no idea what an Arcane Codex was, and apparently, neither did Ordis. "Why have I never heard of them?" he asked, seemingly talking to himself. "Ordis needs to do some research."

Ordis seemed to have gotten over his major resentment of Grineer to not even comment on a mission rescuing someone from their grasp - or the prospect of this new thing was really just that interesting to him. The Operator was glad for him to direct his focus outward for once, and not on running endless diagnostics to find out what was wrong with him. The glitch in his voice hadn't gone away even after they'd finished fixing the Orbiter up, after he'd indicated all of his segments had been returned to him. They were a little worried about it - but whenever he did glitch, it sounded like he was speaking more from whatever his equivalent of a heart was, less politeness wrapped around his often-blunt message, so they couldn't be too heartbroken about it. Still, something about it bothered them.

He dropped them off on Venus, without any of his usual parting words or well-wishes. He must have been really absorbed by the research. Nonetheless, their target was marked, and they hunted down Maroo quickly.

She had some more information about the mysterious Arcane Codices for them - or, more accurately, their current market value. She blustered and swaggered, and eventually, they managed to pull the location of the Codex she'd sold to the Corpus out of her, and off they went to retrieve it. Ordis had kept his thoroughly-engrossed-in-new-things silence all this time, but once they returned with the Codex, he spoke up again.

He let them know the Corpus have three codices and the Grineer two - and the Lotus revealed the plan: to retrieve all of them and examine them together, something which has never been done before.

When Maroo pronounced Ordis' name as Ordo, and he did not manage to restrain an annoyed glitch in her digital direction, the Operator felt laughter bubbling up in their chest. Weirdly, there was no way out for it, so they just felt giddy for a minute while they finished discussing the next course of action.

They stole the Grineer codices, and then the ones acquired by the Corpus. After the first few, Ordis spoke up again.

"Operator, have you looked at these codices? They're absolutely beautiful! Composed with such elegance and grace, I have never seen anything like them. Is there even an Operator capable of writing anything so perfect?" He sounded absolutely mesmerized by them, and it fired off a little pang of something inside their chest.

"Writing?" they signed at his camera, curious and surprised at his enthusiasm. "The Arcane codices are writings?"

"Of a sort," Ordis replied, excited, "it's code! As in machine code, that something could execute! I don't think we have enough fragments for me to be able to emulate its intended receptacle yet, but-"

"Whoa, I don't think I'd want to plug some random code we stole from Grineer and Corpus into you," they interrupted his train of thought. "Who knows what that might be, if it could cause harm?"

Ordis halted, considering. "Ordis thinks the Operator is probably right," he eventually said, sounding almost disappointed, before quickly perking up, finding another way forward. "But we have to find the original machine for these codices! I simply must see this work of art in action."

"It is done," the Operator signed, feeling giddy again, excited as well, before asking Ordis for the coordinates to the next target location. Something about this discovery, that the codices were readable code, shook loose some old memories in their brain. Examining them could wait, though. They were almost as curious as Ordis was.

With the final codices also in their possession, they trekked back to the machine that Maroo extracted the codex from that had started this whole mess. Maroo herself, in charge of the mission as she was the only one who had ever been to the machine and made it back alive, was so distinctly focused on getting treasure, getting rich, making a profit - it rankled the Operator a little. What about finally finding out the answer to what must've been a mystery for decades before they found out about it?

They semi-tuned out the Lotus and Maroo fighting over the comms, and quietly signed at Ordis to receive directions, which he gave, also quiet, also focused. When Maroo noticed they'd reached the machine, she finally shut up and tuned in to what was going on again, right as they inserted the combined codices into the dusty-looking machine.

What assaulted their ears next was an unimaginable noise, distorted by the passage of time and, undoubtedly, the buildup of Infested grime within the machine. There was a pattern to the static, but the only thing the Operator could glean was that there was a message the noise was obscuring. They were about to hit the machine with their skana in frustration, but-

"All is silent and calm," a voice repeated, now almost clear. "Hushed and empty is the womb of the sky."

For just a moment, they were stunned silent. Then, something in a more distant part of the derelict howled in agony, the Lotus yelled "watch out!", and an Infested, larger than any other they'd seen so far, was barreling towards them. With some trouble, they dispatched it, and then ran for extraction, not waiting to see if anything else would be after them or willing to investigate the howling.

Maroo made a lot of noise about treasure, or rather, the present lack of any, but the Lotus seemed unsettled enough to not be needled by it, and neither was the Operator. Once safely back on the Orbiter, they were finally able to relax again, to shiver and discard the Infested remains upon their skin.

"So you're saying," Ordis mused, "there was no treasure? No cure for cloning syndrome, no lost Tenno Cephalon?"

A pang went through them. Was Ordis still thinking about another Cephalon to replace him? Before they could reply, Maroo made a quick exit, now that there was no profit to split.

"You're still thinking about other Cephalons?" the Operator signed up at Ordis, as soon as Maroo and the Lotus' lines went dead, and they were alone once more.

"Well, in this case, Ordis was rather hoping for another Series-2 Cephalon," Ordis shared, sounding a bit embarrassed, but also tired. "You see, there are many newer Cephalon around now, and I've been talking to them over the Weave since you returned to me, but there's not really anyone like Ordis, anymore."

The melancholy in his voice was tangible. They dropped down to the floor, leaning against the wall of the Liset, and patted the metal plating with one hand, raising another to reply. "Was there, in the past?"

"Oh yes," Ordis began, enthusiastically, "there was- there… Hm."

He stayed quiet for a moment. "There was?" the Operator prompted.

"Ordis feels like he can almost remember them," he said, "but not quite."

"Aw," they signed. "I'm sorry."

"That's okay, Operator. The new Cephalons are interesting, too, and they have so many new capabilities - they might even…" and he suddenly trailed off.

They tilted their head, and when that didn't work to bring their Cephalon back to the present, they crossed their arms as well, amused.

"Oh!" Ordis suddenly said, surprising them a little. "Operator, I know what we should do next."

"What?"

"One of the newer Cephalon - one called Simaris, and he is so great, so knowledgeable - he sent out a request for help, just now. Some of his sentinels have been trapped in a Grineer prison block."

They clapped their hands together once, and stood back up from the floor, fluidly turning back to the nav console. "Sounds easy! Let's go rescue some sentinels. Reckon he might let me keep one?"

"Oh, Operator, imagine," Ordis said, sounding star-struck. "That would be so gracious of him!"

The Operator shook their head at the console in front of them, thoroughly amused. "You want to get your head out of those clouds anytime soon, or should I input the coordinates myself? I might make a mistake if I do, though."

"Oh, uhm-"

"The sooner we might get this done, we might even be able to go speak to him!" they encouraged him, warmth suffusing their body at how fun it was to poke at Ordis.

With a flustered silence, the nav coordinates appeared on the console, and their course was set.