Sentient Worm

Shopping

Shopping

Taylor picks her way carefully through the roots and water that make up the forest covering much of what should be the USA. Once again, she curses the fact that all the secret bases on Earth seem to be in these massive overgrown forests. Oh, she understands the reasoning, the tree cover is so dense that these facilities are virtually invisible from space. Only the odd Grineer industrial site is easy to find, and suicide by Tenno is even managing to teach them to tone down the pollution, slowly. In hindsight she should probably have brought a Warframe with her, it would have made this part of the trip much easier. But she couldn't be bothered to return to the obiter just to return to earth again. After a bit of judicious void jumping she finally makes her way into the compound without getting soaked. One of the Red Veil members walks her to Palladino's chambers, whether out of politeness, or the fact she doesn't have the best relationship with the Red Veil faction, she wasn't sure.

Taylor looks around the chamber, Black and Red, ugh, it leaves the place looking so dark. On the far side of a round table, sits Palladino with her veil in place.

"Thank you for coming so quickly. We were afraid that you'd leave us to clean up the Tenno's mess."

"Actually, I'm here to find out about Rell, as the last I remember was being held back while he was being kicked out again. I was this close to leaving with him, but it seems I was too valuable to just let go."

"Maybe things would have been different if you had gone with him. It has been our sacred duty to keep him anchored to his humanity, while he holds the man in the wall at bay. A task that has been increasingly difficult recently."

"I remember something about that."

"I will try to contact Rell, but we don't have his Donda so it may fail."

Taylor tips her head back and looks at the ceiling in exasperation, "You don't have the thing that he used to focus, and you expect him to be able to focus? Don't bother, where is it and I'll go and find it."

"I, ah."

"Look, Palladino. I told Rell the stories about mediums, actually I summarised the film Ghost. That then led on to seances and other means of talking to the dead that people tried where I came from. Honestly, I'm surprised you don't have an Ouija board and glass." – Palladino shuffles uncomfortably – "This is classic. Once you know where I need to go, give me a call and I'll pick up Rell's toy."

With that, Taylor gets up and walks out. Unfortunately she doesn't make it back to the lander dry.

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A bedraggled Taylor arrives back at Cetus, just in time to see The Lotus, no Anet, walking to the village with Saya. A bundle of white fibres in their arms. Jogging, she squelches up behind them.

"Hey, did you have fun?"

Saya nods, "I think so, Tanzan has a couple of dresses for Anet, one of which reminds her of stars. You'll need to barter for them."

"Cool, I'll go do that. How much do I owe you for the fibres?"

"It depends on if you want to buy anything else from us. We would normally expect 40k credits for this much fibre as well as a shipment of food."

The Lotus shakes her head, "I can pay for this."

"Anet, you're not on duty right now. So no, you don't actually have any of your own resources. Saya, if you've got a couple of people that don't mind a bit of danger, I need to retrieve a pod from Lua, so I'll pay them 5plat each."

Saya looks thoughtful, "You'll provide protection?"

"I will."

"An additional 5plat if they're injured, 20 if it requires a prosthetic. 100plat to their next of kin if they die."