RIFTWALKER @operator-riftwalker - Tumblr Blog

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[REDACTED] // Operator callsign CERISE

++ Primary Warframe [CYTE-24] LIMBO ++ Secondary Warframe [UNKNOWN] N̷I̴D̸U̶S̸

Umbra has wandered up from the quiet shrine-slash-garden chamber they maintain for him in the Dojo.

This is not that unusual.

The communal spaces are far from populated at this hour, and it wasn’t as if their clan was a large one to begin with. Registered Warframes outnumbered their stewarding Tenno, of course, but they were far from the kinds of margins seen in the larger, better funded operations.

Tonight, however, Umbra is not patrolling for potential intruders or looking for his Operator.

Tonight, he wants to look at the stars.

#.umbra [ic]

operator-riftwalker

There was something in her vents.

She knew it, she had heard it multiple times. Which is why she was balanced precariously on a chair and peered into the vent. A handful of energon candies were placed into the vent in hopes of coaxing whatever it is out.

"Hey? Hello? I know your in there? Can you stop haunting my vents?"

Something deliberately knocks against the wall of the vent in the dark.

Rap-tap-tap.

Whatever’s coiled in the vents is… it doesn’t seem stupid. A fleshy, flexible tendril slowly emerges from the gloom, curls around a single chunk of candy (which looks rather enormous in comparison) and then yanks it back into the dark.

Pale pink lights glow and dim in a ripple as Nidus opens his chest with a slick squelch and shoves the candy into it, his body knitting back up around it quickly after.

circuitry-and-chaos

Scorch strains herself to see more into the vent and has to stop as the chair wobbles under her pedes. Yelping a little and getting her balance before she peers back into the vent. Squinting at... whatever it was. Weirdly fleshy?

"Cool, you like the candy! I can... break it up? Or I have scrap chunks I can spare?" She looks back at her messy work station. She needed to clean it it up, but there was plenty of scrap and some left over stuff she could spare.

"Uhm, may have to come out of the vents for it though. There's a lot of clean up i gotta do and if i stand on this chair for much longer I think I'll fall. That uhh, sound good?"

operator-riftwalker

“Kuhhhh,” it rasps, inching further out to observe this construct. “Khan-di.”

This is the second ‘Cybertronian’ Nidus has met, and this one is smaller, less dense compared to Springer. He would not go so far as to assume less armed; all of the files he’d managed to glimpse at in Springer’s systems suggested the constructs were also in some sort of forever-war of their own.

But they haven’t run shrieking from him.

So Cybertronians have not had much, or any, contact with them. (That is, Orokin and their bastard progeny.)

Very interesting.

The tendrils splitting off from his spinal column twitch and shoot forward to twine around her fingers, and Nidus uses this as leverage to haul himself all the way out and plop onto her palm like a wet sock. The very image of grace and beauty, yes.

#.nidus [ic]#still need to steal another larynx when the situation arises.

operator-riftwalker

" You gonna stay up there or come down with me. Nidus is it?"

Hmm, but the overhead compartments have been so interesting…

Nidus pokes his head out from the opening he’d crawled into after parkouring his way up the wall, a few clinging tendrils from his back sticking to the shelf as he slips out further and, with a weird sticky ‘shlup’, plops down onto Springer’s shoulder.

He doesn’t have much of a functioning larynx (note to self, steal another one), but the awful gurgling could probably be taken for laughter.

springingfromnothing

Springer is chuckling himself. He gently pets a digit over the top of Nidus' head. Rumbling quietly at him," I have something for you to try. Since you liked scraping my palms for metal shed..."

He holds up a small dark grey lump.

" Iron Truffle. Thought you might like it. Wanna taste?"

operator-riftwalker

Interesting. Had he more dignity or self-preservation, Nidus might have felt a touch reluctant to be handed a treat like a little domestic pet.

Alas. He has ego and self-interest instead, which are similar but not the same.

Little clawed hands reach and grab for it out of curiosity and blatant greed as Nidus’ fronds fan out to try and get a better sense of the chunk of raw, dense metal. Mostly ferrus, with some interesting carbide inclusions… trace amounts of phosphorous and nickel.

His chest starts to ooze clear, viscous spittle.

#disgusting! (affectionate)#.nidus [ic]

“I’ve gone and made dear Alad upset again, haven’t I? Oh, mean Cerise. Terrible Cerise. Breaking all his new toys out of spite, boo-hoo.”

#.operator [ic]

chaumas-deactivated20240115

I’m in the woods placing cardboard cutouts of morels in the leaf litter to trick and bamboozle people

chaumas-deactivated20240115

I’m about to ruin someone’s whole life

elodieunderglass

Scamp

chaumas-deactivated20240115

tee hee hee hee hee

yuzupool

gnome ass prank

nicdevera

arthur conan doyle: the fairies are at it again

#.nokko [ic]

" You gonna stay up there or come down with me. Nidus is it?"

Hmm, but the overhead compartments have been so interesting…

Nidus pokes his head out from the opening he’d crawled into after parkouring his way up the wall, a few clinging tendrils from his back sticking to the shelf as he slips out further and, with a weird sticky ‘shlup’, plops down onto Springer’s shoulder.

He doesn’t have much of a functioning larynx (note to self, steal another one), but the awful gurgling could probably be taken for laughter.

#.nidus [ic]

kaiserouo

ignore your original objective come back and cuddle lotus

Behold: a fan of cards.

Limbo holds them out gingerly in both hands, suites hidden.

Do you pick one?

#.limbo [ic]#HEY KIDS WANNA SEE A MAGIC TRICK

xtlm

four eyes

#there he is. Mr handsome.

operator-riftwalker

{ @springingfromnothing }

:: Do you need to yell on the open Comm line? ::

There’s a mad scramble for the HAM radio receiver. It ends with the older girl in the rolly chair, holding the younger back with an untied boot against the kid’s chest, using superior height and limb length to her advantage as she clicks the audio over to ‘personal’ rather than ‘loudspeaker’.

“…Good evening, strange Libertarian voice,” Red drawls, looping the cord around her fingers. “Who are you, exactly, and how did you get access to this signal?”

Cerise smacks at her older quantum duplicate’s knee with her palms. “Let me hear! I can’t hear! You’re being a witch!”

springingfromnothing

:: Libertarian? I ain't been on Earth in a while. They still got a Lib party? If you're talking about Cybertron I ain't a voter cause I ain't a citizen.::

Oh boy whoever it is on the line sounds fucking young. He frowns around his cygar, brow furrowing.

:: Seriously though. Your signal was shouting down the general galactic access line. Be careful and set your comms to private. ::

operator-riftwalker

“The general galactic… I’m sorry, is this a prank? Are you one of Amir’s little friends?” she asks, before losing the fight— the younger one nabs the receiver and flips it back to ‘loudspeaker,’ clutching the receiver to her chest and ducking under the desk to make it harder for Red to grab it back from her.

“YOU. What year is it, right now, for you? Be honest or I’ll triangulate your signal—”

“STOP threatening everyone! For Sol’s sake, what is wrong with you, are you feral? Did the Lotus never teach you manners?”

There’s more scuffling and then the younger girl yells, “He’s an alien and he’s REAL,” which gets spluttered annoyance from the older one, who finally yanks the receiver back. “I am so— you are SO lucky I can’t kill you, you little twat— so sorry about that, haha! Do you mind, uhm, running that by me again? The what? Cybertron?”

It’s not that she didn’t hear him.

It’s that this is, objectively, insane. Even for them.

springingfromnothing

Yup, they're younglings.

:: Lotus is a Flower that's all I know. Why would it teach anything manners? It's like, 2026 or something in Terran Years.::

He picks up his datapad. Resuming his reading.

:: Look If you got the galactic line you can take a private comm. What's your frequency?::

Well it'd kill some time.

operator-riftwalker

“She doesn’t have one,” Cerise exclaims, partly muffled by her ‘sister’ as they scuffle. “It’s 1999 in this sector! She doesn’t even have a cellphone! You’re getting conducted through the Helminth, I. Think. The tech-rot— it’s all over everything.”

Red grunts as she gets elbowed and drops the receiver again. At least they’re both on the floor now, and not fighting over it as she grabs the brat by her bun to hiss at her. “Don’t just tell them that.”

Cerise elbows her again and yanks at a tangle of fleshy roots sneaking up the back of the desk to socket into the HAM radio set to make her point to the Drifter, who rolls her eyes and drops her.

Awful.

“…It is 1999, here,” she amends, “But we’re originally from much further along. Much, much further along. That you can reach us means you’ve made contact with the Helminth, somehow, so if I may hazard a guess… You’ve met Nidus, Mr. Cybertron?”

springingfromnothing

:: Whats a Nidus? Haven't heard of that. Or this Helminth. Tech Rot I know; that's Virdigris or Cyber Rust though. ::

Springer chews on his Cygar. Humming quietly as he ads. :: Can you describe what you're talking about? ::

operator-riftwalker

Ugh. This was a headache and a half already. Red’s quietly grateful that Arthur was out handling his chores for the day rather than hanging around the flat, because it would rather quickly become not just them but the entire rest of the Hex, and Flare and Kaya, and— well, that would be a proper pile-up, then.

The kid’s fixated, though.

“Nidus is an experimental offshoot of the Helminth organism,” Cerise explains, rather smug about getting to… brag. (Teenagers.) “Cultivated in a laboratory environment after being isolated from a mutated strain discovered by a civilian science team. I grew him in a jar and he’s very fancy.”

Red rubs a hand over her face and groans. “It looks a bit like weird fungus… meat… person? Very fleshy with glowing bits. Mostly pinkish and gray with a thin layer of mucus on top. Frondy bits that can pop out of the body. It can interface with electronics and it can be… overly friendly.”

Such as spooning her in her bunk without making a noise, so Red woke up to it plastered to her back with its hands under her shirt, pressed to the scarring webbed across her chest. It wasn’t even being malicious, it just— wanted to heal her. In a weird, slimy, very uncomfortable way. That she could feel its intentions somehow didn’t make it less unsettling.

springingfromnothing

:: Huh. Yeah I've met 'em. Fun lil guy, likes Emojis. He gives a great joint clean out. Paint on my palm ain't ever looked so good. He doesn't seem so bad with all that. Even if his frequency sharing method wasn't so startling. ::

Grinning just thinking about him.

:: You tell him Springer said hi.i hope ge gets more than a jar now? ::

Tone taking a subtle turn. Because if hrs still being kept like some sort of subject or prisoner... Well Springer would cross that bridge.

operator-riftwalker

“Oh, no. It’s free-range, that one,” Red scoffs, sarcastic enough that Cerise scowls at her. “Couldn’t keep it anywhere if we wanted to. My darling little sister fed it her own blood and now it can deactivate all her security systems on a whim. Isn’t that a fun little trick.”

Cerise tries to smack at her again. “Stop calling him an it.”

Before more fighting can break out, she grabs the receiver to set it back on top of the radio and claims the rolly chair again, leaving Cerise to get up and dust herself off to chatter at… ‘Springer’.

She’ll keep an ear out, but there’s no way this odd fellow is telling the truth, because Red knows what Cybertron is. That’s one of the factions in Amir’s dinky robot shows.

Or something. It’s definitely made up.

“She doesn’t like any of my Warframes except for Excalibur,” Cerise confides, voice dropped low like she’s tattling as she fixes herself up. “But I think that’s because she’s snogging Arthur, and Arthur’s kind of partly Excalibur, so it’s a bit like thinking your boyfriend’s handsome because he looks sort of like a famous person, except neither of them is famous. My name is Cerise, by the way. Her name is also Cerise, but no one calls her that since I was here first. It’s very pleasant make your acquaintance, Mr. Springer. You’re my first real alien I’ve met. Are there more of you?”

There was something in her vents.

She knew it, she had heard it multiple times. Which is why she was balanced precariously on a chair and peered into the vent. A handful of energon candies were placed into the vent in hopes of coaxing whatever it is out.

"Hey? Hello? I know your in there? Can you stop haunting my vents?"

Something deliberately knocks against the wall of the vent in the dark.

Rap-tap-tap.

Whatever’s coiled in the vents is… it doesn’t seem stupid. A fleshy, flexible tendril slowly emerges from the gloom, curls around a single chunk of candy (which looks rather enormous in comparison) and then yanks it back into the dark.

Pale pink lights glow and dim in a ripple as Nidus opens his chest with a slick squelch and shoves the candy into it, his body knitting back up around it quickly after.

#.nidus [ic]

operator-riftwalker

{ @springingfromnothing }

:: Do you need to yell on the open Comm line? ::

There’s a mad scramble for the HAM radio receiver. It ends with the older girl in the rolly chair, holding the younger back with an untied boot against the kid’s chest, using superior height and limb length to her advantage as she clicks the audio over to ‘personal’ rather than ‘loudspeaker’.

“…Good evening, strange Libertarian voice,” Red drawls, looping the cord around her fingers. “Who are you, exactly, and how did you get access to this signal?”

Cerise smacks at her older quantum duplicate’s knee with her palms. “Let me hear! I can’t hear! You’re being a witch!”

springingfromnothing

:: Libertarian? I ain't been on Earth in a while. They still got a Lib party? If you're talking about Cybertron I ain't a voter cause I ain't a citizen.::

Oh boy whoever it is on the line sounds fucking young. He frowns around his cygar, brow furrowing.

:: Seriously though. Your signal was shouting down the general galactic access line. Be careful and set your comms to private. ::

operator-riftwalker

“The general galactic… I’m sorry, is this a prank? Are you one of Amir’s little friends?” she asks, before losing the fight— the younger one nabs the receiver and flips it back to ‘loudspeaker,’ clutching the receiver to her chest and ducking under the desk to make it harder for Red to grab it back from her.

“YOU. What year is it, right now, for you? Be honest or I’ll triangulate your signal—”

“STOP threatening everyone! For Sol’s sake, what is wrong with you, are you feral? Did the Lotus never teach you manners?”

There’s more scuffling and then the younger girl yells, “He’s an alien and he’s REAL,” which gets spluttered annoyance from the older one, who finally yanks the receiver back. “I am so— you are SO lucky I can’t kill you, you little twat— so sorry about that, haha! Do you mind, uhm, running that by me again? The what? Cybertron?”

It’s not that she didn’t hear him.

It’s that this is, objectively, insane. Even for them.

springingfromnothing

Yup, they're younglings.

:: Lotus is a Flower that's all I know. Why would it teach anything manners? It's like, 2026 or something in Terran Years.::

He picks up his datapad. Resuming his reading.

:: Look If you got the galactic line you can take a private comm. What's your frequency?::

Well it'd kill some time.

operator-riftwalker

“She doesn’t have one,” Cerise exclaims, partly muffled by her ‘sister’ as they scuffle. “It’s 1999 in this sector! She doesn’t even have a cellphone! You’re getting conducted through the Helminth, I. Think. The tech-rot— it’s all over everything.”

Red grunts as she gets elbowed and drops the receiver again. At least they’re both on the floor now, and not fighting over it as she grabs the brat by her bun to hiss at her. “Don’t just tell them that.”

Cerise elbows her again and yanks at a tangle of fleshy roots sneaking up the back of the desk to socket into the HAM radio set to make her point to the Drifter, who rolls her eyes and drops her.

Awful.

“…It is 1999, here,” she amends, “But we’re originally from much further along. Much, much further along. That you can reach us means you’ve made contact with the Helminth, somehow, so if I may hazard a guess… You’ve met Nidus, Mr. Cybertron?”

springingfromnothing

:: Whats a Nidus? Haven't heard of that. Or this Helminth. Tech Rot I know; that's Virdigris or Cyber Rust though. ::

Springer chews on his Cygar. Humming quietly as he ads. :: Can you describe what you're talking about? ::

operator-riftwalker

Ugh. This was a headache and a half already. Red’s quietly grateful that Arthur was out handling his chores for the day rather than hanging around the flat, because it would rather quickly become not just them but the entire rest of the Hex, and Flare and Kaya, and— well, that would be a proper pile-up, then.

The kid’s fixated, though.

“Nidus is an experimental offshoot of the Helminth organism,” Cerise explains, rather smug about getting to… brag. (Teenagers.) “Cultivated in a laboratory environment after being isolated from a mutated strain discovered by a civilian science team. I grew him in a jar and he’s very fancy.”

Red rubs a hand over her face and groans. “It looks a bit like weird fungus… meat… person? Very fleshy with glowing bits. Mostly pinkish and gray with a thin layer of mucus on top. Frondy bits that can pop out of the body. It can interface with electronics and it can be… overly friendly.”

Such as spooning her in her bunk without making a noise, so Red woke up to it plastered to her back with its hands under her shirt, pressed to the scarring webbed across her chest. It wasn’t even being malicious, it just— wanted to heal her. In a weird, slimy, very uncomfortable way. That she could feel its intentions somehow didn’t make it less unsettling.

operator-riftwalker

{ @springingfromnothing }

:: Do you need to yell on the open Comm line? ::

There’s a mad scramble for the HAM radio receiver. It ends with the older girl in the rolly chair, holding the younger back with an untied boot against the kid’s chest, using superior height and limb length to her advantage as she clicks the audio over to ‘personal’ rather than ‘loudspeaker’.

“…Good evening, strange Libertarian voice,” Red drawls, looping the cord around her fingers. “Who are you, exactly, and how did you get access to this signal?”

Cerise smacks at her older quantum duplicate’s knee with her palms. “Let me hear! I can’t hear! You’re being a witch!”

springingfromnothing

:: Libertarian? I ain't been on Earth in a while. They still got a Lib party? If you're talking about Cybertron I ain't a voter cause I ain't a citizen.::

Oh boy whoever it is on the line sounds fucking young. He frowns around his cygar, brow furrowing.

:: Seriously though. Your signal was shouting down the general galactic access line. Be careful and set your comms to private. ::

operator-riftwalker

“The general galactic… I’m sorry, is this a prank? Are you one of Amir’s little friends?” she asks, before losing the fight— the younger one nabs the receiver and flips it back to ‘loudspeaker,’ clutching the receiver to her chest and ducking under the desk to make it harder for Red to grab it back from her.

“YOU. What year is it, right now, for you? Be honest or I’ll triangulate your signal—”

“STOP threatening everyone! For Sol’s sake, what is wrong with you, are you feral? Did the Lotus never teach you manners?”

There’s more scuffling and then the younger girl yells, “He’s an alien and he’s REAL,” which gets spluttered annoyance from the older one, who finally yanks the receiver back. “I am so— you are SO lucky I can’t kill you, you little twat— so sorry about that, haha! Do you mind, uhm, running that by me again? The what? Cybertron?”

It’s not that she didn’t hear him.

It’s that this is, objectively, insane. Even for them.

springingfromnothing

Yup, they're younglings.

:: Lotus is a Flower that's all I know. Why would it teach anything manners? It's like, 2026 or something in Terran Years.::

He picks up his datapad. Resuming his reading.

:: Look If you got the galactic line you can take a private comm. What's your frequency?::

Well it'd kill some time.

operator-riftwalker

“She doesn’t have one,” Cerise exclaims, partly muffled by her ‘sister’ as they scuffle. “It’s 1999 in this sector! She doesn’t even have a cellphone! You’re getting conducted through the Helminth, I. Think. The tech-rot— it’s all over everything.”

Red grunts as she gets elbowed and drops the receiver again. At least they’re both on the floor now, and not fighting over it as she grabs the brat by her bun to hiss at her. “Don’t just tell them that.”

Cerise elbows her again and yanks at a tangle of fleshy roots sneaking up the back of the desk to socket into the HAM radio set to make her point to the Drifter, who rolls her eyes and drops her.

Awful.

“…It is 1999, here,” she amends, “But we’re originally from much further along. Much, much further along. That you can reach us means you’ve made contact with the Helminth, somehow, so if I may hazard a guess… You’ve met Nidus, Mr. Cybertron?”

operator-riftwalker

{ @springingfromnothing }

:: Do you need to yell on the open Comm line? ::

There’s a mad scramble for the HAM radio receiver. It ends with the older girl in the rolly chair, holding the younger back with an untied boot against the kid’s chest, using superior height and limb length to her advantage as she clicks the audio over to ‘personal’ rather than ‘loudspeaker’.

“…Good evening, strange Libertarian voice,” Red drawls, looping the cord around her fingers. “Who are you, exactly, and how did you get access to this signal?”

Cerise smacks at her older quantum duplicate’s knee with her palms. “Let me hear! I can’t hear! You’re being a witch!”

springingfromnothing

:: Libertarian? I ain't been on Earth in a while. They still got a Lib party? If you're talking about Cybertron I ain't a voter cause I ain't a citizen.::

Oh boy whoever it is on the line sounds fucking young. He frowns around his cygar, brow furrowing.

:: Seriously though. Your signal was shouting down the general galactic access line. Be careful and set your comms to private. ::

operator-riftwalker

“The general galactic… I’m sorry, is this a prank? Are you one of Amir’s little friends?” she asks, before losing the fight— the younger one nabs the receiver and flips it back to ‘loudspeaker,’ clutching the receiver to her chest and ducking under the desk to make it harder for Red to grab it back from her.

“YOU. What year is it, right now, for you? Be honest or I’ll triangulate your signal—”

“STOP threatening everyone! For Sol’s sake, what is wrong with you, are you feral? Did the Lotus never teach you manners?”

There’s more scuffling and then the younger girl yells, “He’s an alien and he’s REAL,” which gets spluttered annoyance from the older one, who finally yanks the receiver back. “I am so— you are SO lucky I can’t kill you, you little twat— so sorry about that, haha! Do you mind, uhm, running that by me again? The what? Cybertron?”

It’s not that she didn’t hear him.

It’s that this is, objectively, insane. Even for them.

{ @springingfromnothing }

:: Do you need to yell on the open Comm line? ::

There’s a mad scramble for the HAM radio receiver. It ends with the older girl in the rolly chair, holding the younger back with an untied boot against the kid’s chest, using superior height and limb length to her advantage as she clicks the audio over to ‘personal’ rather than ‘loudspeaker’.

“…Good evening, strange Libertarian voice,” Red drawls, looping the cord around her fingers. “Who are you, exactly, and how did you get access to this signal?”

Cerise smacks at her older quantum duplicate’s knee with her palms. “Let me hear! I can’t hear! You’re being a witch!”

#.operator [ic]#.drifter [ic]

“You’ve got to be joking. I’m- I don’t even— I can’t deal with this right now.”

Absolutely boggled.

Behind her the kid chimes in with, “At least they’ve got a better taste in graphic design than you do.”

“Oh, piss off!”

#WHO GAVE WALLY A BLOG. WHO GAVE THE INDIFFERENCE AN EMAIL? HELLO?#IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE #.error! [shitpost]#.drifter [ic]#.operator [ic]

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