A 2% Drop Chance

Volt rolled all four of his neural sensors as a text message came in. After waiting until the various spam and trading messages stopped coming, Volt picked a gold message at the top of the pile and began to read it.

“Hello, can you help me with something?”

With an organic snort, Volt picked up his little keyboard and started typing back.

“Hi, Wukong, what’s up?”

Volt had known Wukong for quite a long time. In fact, Volt had been the one to help train Wukong as he slowly climbed levels of mastery. Both Volt and Wukong had ended up being some of the first Tenno to reach the level of True Master, and Wukong always credited his achievements to Volt.

“Alright, listen, I have a plan. As a final preparation for whatever those Sentients are planning. And I’m going to need your help, senpai. You know more than I do.”

“Please don’t call me senpai,” Volt tutted. “Makes me feel creepy.”

Wukong shrugged, swiftly returning to the help he needed. “If you say so, master. Anyway, I need help with a thing. An important thing.”

“Like what? Railjack missions? Farming for Cetus Wisps?” Volt asked, quickly checking his own supply of weird, stony mini-sentients. “Surely you’re all set? I saw how much work you put into your Necramech.”

With a small giggle, Wukong posted a picture in the chat. “I need this for my collection. And to make myself look beautiful.”

Volt inspected the picture, unsure about what it was. After all, both he and Wukong were True Masters, the elite rank of Legendary 1. It took a few moments for the image to sink in.

“Is that the Saturn Six mask?” Volt finally asked.

“Yes. I need it. For endgame reasons!” Wukong explained. “And fashion reasons.”

“You do know that it’s a 2% drop chance, right?” Volt exclaimed. “That’s worse than finding gold inside unrefined relics!”

Wukong shrugged again, then sent Volt an invitation to join his squad. Volt accepted, and both ships headed to the nearest Relay, so they could talk in person.

Larunda Relay was quiet, as always. Ever since Fortuna had opened its doors, Larunda stopped getting traffic, and things worsened further when the Strata Relay was rebuilt. Still, Larunda was a good place to meet, and Volt felt a tad nostalgic about it. As he stood in the hangar, he watched Wukong’s ship park up, and Wukong stepped out. Behind him was Wukong’s Celestial Twin, who mostly just copied Wukong’s actions.

“So what is this plan of yours?” Volt immediately asked.

“The plan is simple. We find the easiest and fastest mission and use summoning beacons to lure the Wolf out!” Wukong exclaimed. “I’ve got 3 beacons ready to go but we’ll need more.”

“Only three?” Volt seemed surprised. He then quickly flicked open his gear wheel, then shrugged. “I have Wolf 14 beacons for some reason.”

Immediately, Wukong’s excitement grew. “That’s a ton of beacons!” he exclaimed, bouncing around.

“It’s still a 2% drop chance. That we can’t even use a Nekros for.”

“Never tell me the odds!” Wukong beamed as he grabbed Volt and set course for a new mission. Within just a few minutes, they’d be on Mars, capturing special targets with secret information on them.

For their first attempt, things went smoothly. They captured the target, found a nice space and Volt deployed a beacon. The Wolf of Saturn Six appeared, tanked three or four Kuva Bramma barrages, then buggered off again, leaving nothing but a Wolf Sledge Head and a Molten Impact mod. Not the most exciting fight, but it was simple enough.

Unfortunately though, as Volt burned through his beacons, a pattern began to form. Despite having used 10 beacons already, he and Wukong only managed to get a handful of useless mods and only two other Wolf Sledge heads.

“Alright, one more…” Wukong muttered as he loaded up one more mission. “After that, I need to buy more. Somehow.”

Volt nodded. “Yeah, me too, luckily Nora Night is stocking them. Shall we get going?”

“Yes, yes. All we can do is try again.”

This time round, the two Tenno had captured the target in almost record-breaking time. Rather than find a large room to drop the beacon though, Wukong placed his final beacon in a small, sandy area. He and Volt waited patiently for the Wolf of Satrurn Six to appear, then immediately blasted him with yet more Kuva Bramma barrages. The same way they had done it, every other time.

But as the Wolf teleported away, this time though, something remained. Something white and somewhat sentient-looking object, surrounded by a green aura.

“AAAAAAAH THAT’S IT!” Wukong nearly screamed with joy, while Volt fell backwards with laughter. “WE GOT IT! WE GOT THE MASK!”

“2% DROP CHANCE AND WE GOT IT!” Volt giggled. “Fucking hell, I never thought I’d see that damn thing!”

Wukong helped Volt up, and Volt gave Wukong a speed boost.

“Come on, my lucky charm!” Wukong grinned via Transferance. “Let’s get out of here before anything bad happens! I knew your luck would rub off on me!”

All Volt could do was continue to giggle as they sprinted to extraction. “I really am a lucky charm, aren’t I?”

“Indeed you are! Now I can truly make myself beautiful and ready for the New War… After all, looking great is a big part of our morale!”

“Oh definitely,” Volt sighed, finally calming down. “Now we’ve got that damn Saturn Six mask, we can do anything…”