Asher Mir shifted uneasily. He just stared at Void, unsure of what to say or do.
Void stayed still and let the silence do its job.
Eventually, Asher exhaled through his nose and looked away. "Fine," he muttered. "I suppose...I." His voice trailed off as he stared into the distance. Eventually, Asher took in a breath.
"I will help you." He rubbed his face and pressed his palms over his eyes, holding them there for a brief second, as if draining out his exhaustion.
Void's shoulders eased a fraction. "Good."
"Don't look so relieved," Asher snapped, already annoyed at himself for agreeing. "Helping you doesn't make this easier. A Vex Gate Lord doesn't just appear. It's not easy to find, not even for me."
Void nodded. "I know. We need to try anyway. Believe it or not, you're my last hope. I've already done what I can."
Asher's jaw tightened. He rubbed his chin, eyes narrowing as he turned the idea around in his head. "I thought you'd have at least planned it out more. But you're just insistent on finding this key."
"Well, it's the one method I am sure will work," Void said. "We need that access to the restricted space."
Asher clicked his tongue. He paused, then looked back. "Do you even know any other way into that Vex space?"
"No," Void replied.
Asher muttered something under his breath that sounded like a curse and a prayer combined. "Fine. At this point, there's only one thing left to do."
"That would be?" Void raised a brow.
He took a deep breath and cleared the table in front of him. Asher took out a satchel from a nearby cache and searched through it till he found an old codex. Asher took one look at the book's cover, and his eyes flashed with a century of memories long forgotten.
A moment later, he set it down on the table and gently dusted it open.
Asher smiled
"The Vex are mysterious. Far too mysterious. There is much we still do not know. And much that might never. Fortunately for you, I've compiled my knowledge." Asher flipped to the next page. "Well, at least for the first century or so, after that, I lost track." He shrugged.
Void leaned closer, examining the frail pages of the book as Asher skimmed through the words. His eyes widened.
It was an old logbook, filled to the brim with mentions of strange Vex sightings.
"First, we must know the basics. Vex are creatures of patterns, probabilities, and predictions." Asher explained. He continued, "Their actions, be it seen or unseen, eventually boil down to their current understanding and estimates. In short, aside from a few outliers, if we analyse the context, then a simple mix of reason and relation can easily be derived from the actions of the Vex."
"And once we have that-"
"We'll uncover the underlying variables that actually make them tick." Void stepped closer and leaned over to read the codex.
"You're not as dumb as you look." Asher gave him a simple nod back. "Overall, yes. As such, in your case. What you're looking for, is not just a gate lord, but the reason that follows a gate lord."
"See here..." Asher muttered as his fingers danced along the lines. "Ah. A somewhat recent one. A warlock spotted a Gate lord for a brief few seconds. Yes.." Asher hummed, "I faintly remember this. Interviewed the man myself."
"Is it...The Stoic?" Void cut in.
"Huh." Asher's eyes darted towards the name, "You...how'd you know that?"
"Because I already asked him." Void sighed. "As far as I'm concerned, the man has no leads."
Asher's eyes narrowed. "As I said, it's not about the leads. All we need to do is understand why the gate lord showed up in the first place." His focus shifted back to the page. But as he read the incident report, his face scrunched up.
There was simply a profound lack of precedence.
Nothing unique had happened before or after the Gate lord had shown up. There had been no indicators, no strange sightings. Nothing.
One second, it was there to trigger a Vex warp; the next, it was gone.
Watching Asher read the same passage over and over again, Void shook his head, "Look, there's nothing there. The man himself didn't know why either."
"Fine, fine...Just..look for the next one."
"Hmm this, Kyoko Swiftriver..." Asher tapped the name with a finger, "No..she's already..."
"Then maybe...."
Asher's words trailed off as he entered a trance, going through the book page by page to look for any mention of a gate lord that he had logged.
But no matter what he found, nothing had any concrete leads.
It was as if no one in history had hunted down a Gate lord. Or even if they somehow had, there was no record of them in Asher's book, which spanned across decades.
As Asher's finger lingered on the last and earliest mention of a Gate lord, he frowned. "This...would be the end of all guardian encounters with the Vex. If we go back any further, we might as well start frisking through Golden Age records."
"So that's it? There's simply no way to find a gate lord. At all?" Void's brows furled.
Asher snapped his fingers, and the codex vanished. Instead, his ghost appeared.
"I didn't say that. Not yet anyway." Asher cut him off. "Besides, it's ridiculous to expect to solve your problems this fast. I can't perform miracles."
"Well, looks like I'll need one for this to work." Void stepped back and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I still haven't looked through some other old datasets. I had hoped I wouldn't need to. But, with how we stand, there isn't much choice."
Asher swiped his hand, and his ghost projected a few lists. Centuries hold, half-decoded transmission
"These are.." Void instantly recognised the odd symbol at the top. A strange semi-circular lilac stamp.
"The guardians weren't the only ones who fought the darkness, ghostsword." Asher chuckled wryly. "If anything, the awoken have been fighting far deadlier battles on the edges of space. Their records must be far more detailed. As long as it was in the solar system, if anyone encountered a Gate lord, it's definitely listed here."
"Still, to think you have access to their archives." Void nodded. Working in the Reef, he knew how impossible it was to get the Awoken to share anything.
"Please. I was once a part of the royal court. It won't be hard to pull a few strings. However..." Asher glanced at him.
"The awoken Techeuns...aren't a fan of the existence of this encrypted data. So keep your mouth shut about these records."
"What records?"
"Good." Asher turned his attention towards the projection, his eyes flickering with long forgotten memories. "For now, just give me some time. The moment I learn anything, you'll be the first to know."
"I trust you," Void said.
Asher chuckled. "Not much of a choice there."
Void smirked and sent him a comms ping.
"My workshop. Reef-side. Thieves' Landing. If you want access to real equipment and not whatever you're building out here in the dirt, you come." He paused. "And if you don't, fine. But the door's open."
Asher didn't answer. He just stared at the coordinates. A few breaths later, Asher begrudingly saved the coordinates to his nav.
Void turned away before he could change his mind. "Thanks." The next instant, Void triggered his transmat and vanished.
Asher watched him scatter away, eyes following the black ship on the horizon.
A moment later, he faintly muttered.
"Don't make me regret it."
—
[Workshop, Thieves' Landing]
Void stepped through the workshop door and immediately heard something scream.
A jetpack roared down the hallway like a bad idea that had gained momentum. It clipped a hanging light, spun sideways, and slammed into the wall beside Void with a crunch that shook dust out of the ceiling.
Void stopped dead.
He stared at the smoking wreck. Then he pressed his palm to his face.
"Pahanin," he groaned, voice flat. "Can I have one day. One single day. Without a droid trying to rip me in half."
From deeper inside, Pahanin and Kaviss emerged mid-conversation, both holding a datapad as they murmured about their experiments.
Pahanin glanced at the crater in the wall. Then back at Void.
"What droid?"
Void lowered his hand slowly. "That one."
Pahanin leaned to the side and gestured with his chin.
The metal shifted.
A figure crawled out of the rubble, coughing and laughing at the same time. He dusted himself off.
Marcus Ren straightened up, grinning from ear to ear. "That was sick," he said, eyes bright. "It worked. It actually worked."
Void's stare went past him to the man-sized hole in his wall. Then slowly back to Marcus.
Void cursed under his breath.
Marcus didn't even notice him and simply looked back at Pahanin. He gestured wildly. "Okay, so it needs stabilisers, yeah, and maybe… maybe less fuel on ignition, but the lift was clean. Clean. You saw that right."
Void pinched the bridge of his nose. "Marcus?"
"OH! Ghostword, you're back? Took you long, huh? I came to visit as you suggested, but you see-" Marcus started rambling.
Void cleared his throat and instantly cut him off. He pointed at the hole.
Marcus followed the finger, saw the damage, and paused. His smile faltered for half a second, but then he sheepishly scratched his head. "Well, y'know. Shi* happens."
Void exhaled slowly, like he was counting down from ten.
Kaviss clicked his mandibles in what sounded a lot like amusement.
The workshop lights flickered once, like even the building was tired.