World Tree MUSH

To say Ordis felt guilty for what he had done would be something of an understatement. What if the Operator got hurt? What if he went off and did something reckless and Ordis could not find him? What if?

No Ordis you silly bucket of bolts. you put your foot down and now is time to let things play out.

So Ordis had set about diligently cleaning and fixing what of the ship he could. Truethfully the damage done looked far worse than it actually was. Yet he was still /INCREDIBLY ANNOYED/ with the Operator, so he would allow Ash to stay in place. In that time he would clean the ship.

Surprisingly perhaps to some Ordis had music on as his small drones went about cleaning the interrior of the ship. Specifically as of this moment ORdis was busy performing mantinance to the somatic pod and all the little interfacing componentsas soft soothing strings played. 

The lighs were dimmed low ad not for the first time Ordis checked the transponder in Ash's communications equipment, again confirming that surprisingly his Operator was doing as directed and staying within this universe. He wanted to send the host migrator out, but Ordis lacked the range.

He went back to cleaning and enjoying the quiet music.

And then, as she was want to do, the raven appeared in the middle of the ship. And Raven appeared out of it a moment later.

Cue the alarms. She cringed. "ORDIS! Will you shut those things off before I tear out your speakers?" she yelled. "I swear, why do I even set those things off?" she grumbled.

She then glanced around the ship. The damage didn't seem bad, but... For now she was huffy as she started walking. "Surprised I still trigger those things. Can you direct me to the most comfortable seat? I was down on my world... Then you left your idiot there," she said dryly. "So I decided to come up here for some peace and quiet." She'd start walking... but then... Stop...

"How are you holding up? I didn't hurt you to much, did I?" Her tone had softened then and she sounded... concerned. Awwwwww. She was coming to check up on hiiiiiim!

THe alarms were an automated thing. Something mostly beyond Ordis's direct control. As soon as it was apparent it was indeed Raven the alarms shut off. and while Ordis patiantly allowed Raven to scream and vent she would tell he was growing annoyed at her tantrum, followed by a spike of anger when she outright addressed the Operator as 'your idiot.'

"Ordis assumes since you aren't," Then the glitches happened, "COVERED IN BLOOD," for just a moment before resuming his normal entonation, "pannicked it would be safe to assume the Operator is safe?"

As Ordis unlocked the door to Ash's quarters, or was it more of a lounge? Ordis was not sure of such things. the lights brightened slightly, just enough to show that all of Ash's thigns were where he had left them. Howevere there seemed to be a roughly woven rug at the niche where the window sized display was apparently to act as a kneeling pad or perhaps a meditation mat.

Then the question on how Ordis was. "Ordis is..." THere was a touch of concern, threaded through with doubt all topped off by surprise with a splash of comfort someone other than the Operator would even bother asking. "Fine." Then a digital blurt. "No... to be honest Ordis feels terrible for stranding the Operator."

Raven would walk into the room and take a seat, before flipping through the book. She twitched a bit at the 'glitch'. That didn't just sound odd. That FELT odd. She sat in his chair and opened her book. "He is fine. I would have brought him with me if he was in any danger. And yes, don't you get huffy at me over it. He actually tried to grab me. AGAIN! While I was in the middle of healing someone. AGAIN! I mean, can he NOT learn?" she asked, shaking her head. "Bah. And don't feel bad. He's fine. The mushroom kingdom has, as far as I can tell, one enemy. And they apparently play GO-KARTS with the guy, so he's not that big a threat," she said with a shake of her head. She opened her book and... 

"Frankly, of the two of them, you're probably in more danger, since you're kicking yourself over this whole thing. You did the right thing, trust me. He needs to learn a lesson. I can't imagine what it must be like working with the guy. I can feel how he feels, and it's not altogether wise." She paused. "I guess he's... honest, a bit." Then leaned back and closed her eyes. "And loud. Obnoxious. But the mushroom kingdom is safe for now. He's safe. Hey. Ordis? What can you tell me about the tenno? About all that you guys do? Do you have.... books or anything? Well... no. I guess you probably wouldn't...."

IN response to Raven's outburst Ordis'svoice was calm, along with the rest of him. "He didn't though did he?"

Then a question about the Tenno. "Before I provide this information do you recieve any emotional feedback from recordings?" Ordis's tone grew serious as he focused entirely on the sorceress empath. "Ordis would not wishto accidentilly subject you to material that would trigger another... episode. Ordis knows what these Fuge states must feel like."

then a small drone, no larger than Raven's hand, floated into the room holding a data-pad on lines of energy. "Ordiswill provide instruction if help is required to work the controls."

The preface to it all seemed to be a recording by Darvo giving a shor t tourist guide version of 'how we got here' going back from the Old War to Now. Then after the peppy and amused voice settled and grew more seriously. "Look, if you'rereading this then the Tenno have decided they can trust you with things that a lot of people would want to either kill you or torture then kill you for knowing. Past this point i make no gurentees for your safty."

Raven sighed and shook her head. "No. He almost did, though. He would have..." She took the datapad and started going through it. Listening... "No. Only emotions from people works. I can feel your emotions, for example," she mumbled. She listened and then sighed...

Listened, listened, closed her eyes and... "Huh..." she mumbled, once it was all finished. She closed her eyes and leaned back. "That's... interesting. And of course nothing is going to kill me for knowing. And my life is torture so I'm not really afraid of the grinner. There are far scarier things," she mumbled as she kept going, listening in and.... "How old is Ash, anyway? I'm guessing he's.... not my age?"

"Age is relative." Ordis's mood went down a couple notches. "I know the Old War raged for centuries, possibly longer before the Zairman was rediscovered, and since it had been sent out before the Old War started... It all depends on how time passed while it ws in the void." Ordis grew thoughtful. "Then there's our time in the war which going by standad earth-years would have been centuries." A pause as Ordis gathered himself. "However the operator and i both suffer memory loss, likely irrepairable damage suffered from long duration cryosleep on his part and where i sat waiting in case he didn't," Anger and rage and betrayal flaired bright when he glitched again, "ABANDONED ME."

An audible breath was taken as Ordis stilled his emotions. Seconds passed before he spokeagain. "If you are asking what experiance he carries? it is probably best to treat him as his apparent age for the time being. He respects you a great deal but because he is reckless and has little experiance in what passes for 'normal' societies even if his mind were intact, he's left grasping at straws."

Then a loud beep from every speaker in the ship followed by Ordis, cold and emotionless, speaking. "CONDITIONS SATISFIED."

Then Ash's voice came from the tablet. "Hello there..." He looked the same, was dressed in the same sort of dark tunic he seemed to favor. However there was something about hsi voice, the way his eyes looked that would give the impression of age and weariness to the person Raven would normally see as reckless and well meaning but irresponsible. "If you're listening to this than the worst case scenerio has happened and the Lotus is either dead, Gone, or planted a knife in our backs and I've forgotten everything."

Raven nodded, listening to all of it. Hundreds of years old... Heh. "Maybe he and my father would get along well..." she mumbled, flipping through things as she listened. "He respects and cares for you a great deal as well. He's more upset that he disappointed you, than he is at having hurt me."

She nodded. "Very well. I'll continue to treat him as the reckless, mildly annoying child he appears to be. I suppose some people never grow up."

She'd watch it and pause for a moment. "Ordis, who is this lotus? I keep hearing about them, but... I've not seen anything about them." Once she got a satisfactory answer, she'd make it continue on, listening intently.

"The Lotus," Ordis would cause the window display in Ash's quarters to transition from displaying the ship's exterrior relativeto that room's location to a display of a woman dressed in purple with her head covered by a purple helm with a styalized lotus motif connected to.. .Things off screen. She was a woman of perhaps middling years, tall, clean. Very motherly. THe strangest thing perhaps was that the helmet covered her eyes completely. "THe Lotus. the Tenno's handler during the Old War against the Sentients. She now also coordinates tenno efforts within the system to preserve wht she calls stability." A glitched and mangled noise erupted from Ordis's speakers. "While Ordis personally does not completely trust the Lotus, she has been one of the few entities that have universally attempted to keep the Tenno safe. There are theories, or rather were theories that Margoulis did not in fact die ad that she becamethe Lotus as a lifelong punishment, doomed to die in the war. Another theory was that she was a clone made in her immage to engender good will amongst the Tenno to keep them controllable and docile. Perhaps there is some trueth to the latter, but the short of it is, in Ordis's opinion, the Tenno have relied on her for entirely too much, and intentionally or not it is all by her design."

Then the message would continue. Ash's weary and tired voice continued as he pointed whatever was filming towards a golden construct suspendd above a pool of water and surrounded by several attached crastaline structures all interconnected and perhaps designed to close around the central golden device. "I do not know who you are, save that Ordis has decided you are trustworthy enough to see this. So I'm trusting his judgement with what I'm making before I take a short nap while the worst of the fire the others and I started dies out. With luck it won't be that long, a decade, maybe two or three, and then we get the wake-up signal and start getting the Corpus and Grineer both to have a nice sitdown on rebuilding and doing away with those stupid gene locks on everything keeping normal folk corralled in their own little section of the ssytem."

Ordis would pause the video to explain that no craft had faster than light travel and the stationary 'rails' that would send ships and material to specific destinations were locked so that only the Orokin themselves or anyoen the Orokin had coded to have access, could easily travel between planets or other colonies.

"However, this mesage is in case that doesn't happen and I'm having to start back at square one. The tablet you're holding has a primer on Tenno culture." Ash chuckled softly as he paced within the image before picking up a gold trimmed white teacup, "Which coincidentilly very closely mirrors Dax culture."

 Another pause as Ordis explaiend the Dax were elite soldiers hand selected and groomed by the Orokin to serve as their bodyguard, errend runners, and essentially astheir hands to be made dirty with tasks the Orokin themselves didn't wish to perform that wasn't research related.

"I ramble. I'm sorry for that as it's ery annoying. However what I need to impress on you, especially if you're looking to help is this. IF i'm starting from scratch please whatever you do. /DO NOT JUST HAND THIS TABLET TO ME./ That is incredibly important. If i'm starting raw I'll bereckless. I'l lbe stupid and careless about how I go about things. I will mean well, but you don't hand a child the keys to a machine equipped for death and war connected to an entire universe of energy and instructions on hwo to use that all because they mean well." There was incredulit to hsi voice. "The kid that I likely will have reverted to needs to take things slow, one little bite at a time, one step at a time, and along the way understand the risks involved if he's careless or obsessed with growing stronger."

Ordis would pause the message. "Raven...?" There was fear in the cephelon's voice. "I am....afraid."

Raven listened and then... sighed. She closed her eyes and held the book to her stomach. She listened. And the planned. And she schemed. And then finally, ehr eyes opened. "I'm going to have to be his teacher, aren't I? And guide that idiot?"

She glanced back to the tenno and then... Closed the tablet. "I'll need to go over this, to figure out exactly what it is I'm dealing with. But who knows? An ancient civilization's own type of 'magic'. Perhaps I can put it to use. And it wasn't like I didn't already intend to aid him. And trust me. There's no one else who can better understand just how dangerous great power can be. How destructive."

She got to her feet. "Can I take this.... device with me, will it work? I'll need to begin working on him in my free time. And who knows.... perhaps some of these.... Tenno methods will help me develop my own powers. Somewhat..." She began to pace, though. Despite how calm she sounded....

She was nervous. Ash was reckless. And fool hardy. She'd need to teach him fear, first. To fear his power. To respect it. To see the danger in being reckless... the need for calm. For precision. She lifted the hood up. "Do you have any objections to me coming back ehre to study?"

Ordis thought hte matter over as a drone scanned Raven. "You have been given authorization to enter and leave Raven. With luck you should nolonger trip proximity alarms." A pause as doubt clouded Ordis' mind, "At least i hope not."

The cephelon himself had no idea how to feel. However. "I have read files on the Tenno's void... Stuff." Frustration, "Layered with five diffrent subtexts in the most flowery language possible. It feels like whoever wrote it was either hiding how little they understood, or wanted to hide how much the reader was supposed to understand. The Device will stay powered for decades. You should have no troubles."

Raven nodded, making her way to the center of the ship before holding out her hand. "I'll figure it out. I've been deciphering ancient texts and riddles since I was... well. Old enough to read. If there's anything the Azarathian's enjoyed, it was a good, over dramatic riddle. About the only prophecy that seemed fairly straight forward was the one about me."

A portal would appear in front of her. Ohhhh, no bird this time. "I'll begin his training soon. And... I'll send you a message when he'll be ready to come home. For now, it may be best for him, and you, to keep your time apart. He has a lot to learn... and it won't be easy."

"... And I suspect your guilt may lead you to coddle him." Before she walked inside and through the portal.

Raven wouldn't have heard a message start playing as soon as she walked through her portal, almost as if the trigger condition was for the ship to be empty. "Ordis." THis Older Ash-That-Was spoke. Seemingly giving Ordis time to process.

"Yes Operator?" Ordis answered in spite of himself.

A chuckle from the recording. "If this message is playing then you were left alone for a long.... LONG time. I just wanted you to know I never intentionally bandoned you. You would have been safe in deep space until I woke. That was the plan. I couldn't have risked telling you because it is likely the Orokin would have had something unpleasant waiting in your mind if it did. Even fi the me-that-is doesn't understand. I want you to know I'm sorry I couldn't tell you."

The message would again pause, giving ORdis time to wonder and process. He hadn't been willfully tossed aside. IT never had been the intent to cast him off once he wasn't needed. He felt... Relieved.

"You are my friend Ordis, and the closest thing I have to a brother. Thank you for being there and... Don't let me get away with anything alright?"