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The Pink Sheep & Lakshmi's Dreams - My First Weeks in Warframe


Laxmibai
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Prologue: The Lotus and the Queen

This is a game I wanted to play for some time but didn't get the time, and the internet bandwidth to do so for many years.

I am an IT worker in Asia who is fascinated by the little hints of tradition that still survive in our times, that is why the Warframe trailer drew me in. 
Entire years passed in my real world, corporations rose and fell, knowledge was taken over then forgotten, and then one day I realized the only thing keeping me together was those yearly trips to India to visit relics from a previous age.

The temples, the Queen's palace, the traditions. When the solutions of the modern world all fall apart, I turned to the books of ancient times for direction and found a novel ways to fight for the principles I hold dear. And I teach people these forgotten arts, so that they can break through life's obstacles, telling a story in arcane form like from one Queen to another.

One dark night as I sat by a painting of a goddess on a pink lotus flower and sing her a devotional song passed down through millenia, I remembered someone's desire to bring back the Tenno...

Week 1: Awaken, Mag

Getting into the game was quite easy and the experience was pleasant but a little overwhelming. There's a lot to take in. Numbers and words flooding past the screen like arcane literature. Swords and guns named totally unlike our modern times, like it was meant to be a totally different trans-human society. What was up with all the faction characters sounding like they had terrible sore throats like cosplay amateur vilians?

Being a corporate trainer in the real world I can understand the lack of simple explanation for everything might put people off, because a new player has to figure out how things worked the hard way.

The starting Warframe, was, however a joy to command, her powers and starting weapons are powerful and easy to use enough that I didn't run into any difficulty all the way to Mars and beyond. It would be a while before I started building the next Warframes, but I already maxxed out Mag and her basic arsenal by mostly stowing away on Railjacks engaging the Murex threat.

No one noticed the noob in the team, who was secretly hoarding Intrinsics points and affinity levels by the dozen with ease, just by helping out the battleship crews.
I tried out Conclaves and the open world map, decided I didn't like neither because clearly players with better gear would simply dominate within seconds. I liked exploring the Plains of Eidolon solo on a stolen Dagryn. Just slowly cruising around enjoying the noise and vibration like cruising on a flying motorbike after a hard day of work.

Week 2: Nyxing all the Blueprints

I was quite excited to put together the next Warframe, and I seemed to have all the resources needed to assemble Nyx and Oberon but not both together. Going with the femme fatale theme I picked Nyx and as she queued I started going to Warframe sites to check out what was the whole mobility challenge preventing me from enjoying the open world maps. As soon as I spawned I would be auto squadded and people would fly by with K-Drives and Archwings with ludricous speed, completing the bounties even before I could make it a single kilometer out from base.

I started patrolling the Recruiting chat to find myself a large clan with lots of research done but no MR requirements, and started nicking all their blueprints from the Tenno lab. Here I slowly figured out there's no such thing as a ready arsenal, one has to seek out blueprints of interest and then get the resources to craft them. Thankfully from all my tailgating and stowing away on Railjacks, neither credits nor resources were in short supply, and I was soon soaring the friendly skies with my very own Archwing.

As some reviews correctly pointed out, Nyx seemed to be underwhelming although tactically relevant and certainly usable - there's more fun to just destroy things rather than making them crazy then having to still kill them. I brought Vauban online and he seemed to be much more adept in the area dominance role by calling in orbital laser strikes with surprising accuracy, even indoors!

Week 3: The Pink Sheep 

There is a pink sheep in my office. An oversized pink plush sitting sentinel in the corner, silently observing and judging. 
No one would touch the pink sheep. If they did get close to it the people would get a sidelong glare of suspicion. I would bring the sheep to classes I taught, and the big boss seemed to understand or so he thought. Lakshmi and the pink sheep, like Mary and the little lamb. 

He was wrong. I once overheard him talking about the "black sheep" in the office, and proceeded to order online a big pink sheep. There will be no more name calling, no unfair appraisals of workers. The pink sheep had seized the means of production.

But that was a long time ago. And you would be wondering how office politics related to Warframe? Wonder no more. For the moment I set my eyes on Oberon he caught my fancy immediately. Sheep or goat's head and hooves, but a kindly, guarding presence. Easy resources to farm, interesting aerial denial and healing powers. The ability to create lush, green pastures out of a field of fallen enemies? Sold. 

I would be quite active in the region chat by this time, answering one or two questions from the newer players before I zoomed off to some never-ending war front to be someone's hired instrument of destruction. A returning player asked if Railjacks were for top level players or if it can be used to level weapons and frames, I informed gleefully I was proudly stowing away until four Warframes and their respective arsenals were quickly power-leveled with ease. 

He put a gift in my inbox, and disappeared, as though a manifestation of the Lotus himself. 

For a couple days after I looked at those gifts, and the enormous great-sword within, named War. It was hard to wield. One had to anticipate where the almighty thing wanted to go, and how to stop it after it clove through a half dozen foes like they were mere paper. I got hurt a lot in PvE against more difficult foes around Jupiter and beyond, but I got by with Arcane armor from Scarlet Spear. 

But one day on a Void Defence mission a group of Tenno were huddled together in a storage room on some regal-looking derelict, staring down an entire company of corrupted troopers heading their way. Hold fast, stay near the extraction, they said, as they frantically dug in behind cover hoping to survive the onslaught. Lakshmi, we are staying, they said, with an aura of impending doom in their eyes. 

The pink sheep trotted over, and laid down a lush green pasture. On it he danced, in circles and circles, whirling his great-sword around like the dance of the last Highlander. This is hallowed ground, and none shall pass. The team laid down suppressing fire, and everywhere the pink sheep went, they followed. When they had enough loot they fled, and the pink sheep stood alone, over 500 kills with more to show. 

The pink sheep had become one with the ways of War.

20200411150657_1.jpg?width=1061&height=5

Edited by Laxmibai
I didn't expect this to be a continuous stream of stories but here we are...
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I love this.

Thank you for writing the beginning of your Tales from Warframe. I could imagine the adventures of your ship-stowing, blueprint-knicking, charge-leading roguish character making their way in the world they live in as I read your story.

Fun stuff, reading this, and respect to you 👍

Edited by (NSW)Greybones
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This is wonderfully well-written, and was such a joy to read!

I had no idea what to expect from the post preview that only showed me the first paragraph, but you had my attention.

And this kind of adventurous exploration and discovery is such a fascinating tone to see Warframe through... It reminds me of my beginning days too :')

Well done! Please do write more :DD
And I hope you found a clan close to home!

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Thanks everyone for the kind words ❤️ 

19 hours ago, (NSW)1kSakura said:

I need a sequel.

 

22 hours ago, HappyFishxas said:

Do you write novels in your free time? I know people would love them 

I will certainly be happy to post more 'episodes' of this weekly. The in-game world is slowly opening up to me as I move past Uranus and beyond.
Many of the places and things that take time to understand are sources of roleplaying in the classic sense. Creating ridiculous tall tales to document everyone's difficulties is my cup of tea, as though writing big flowery complaints to HR 😄

I have written a lot in the last three years, finally gaining my wings of freedom, after a very depressing decade and a half of life. People have been misunderstood, suppressed all along, now death is all around, but who will fight for the principles we hold dear as Humanity?

My stories aren't for publishing, they're too much meant for a particular ethnic audience; this is how I give advice to a younger generation; but I would be happy to share some small pieces for your amusement. Or make them a piece of fan fiction in this world.

Then I will reveal at the end these aren't my stories. Nay, they were gifted to me from a land far away that's lost its traditions to the passage of modern time.
But someone, somewhere, they're still close to heart. I hold someone's name. Given by a daughter who lost her life barely a month after I saw her. I make sure no one forgets her. Telling the stories of her land and her people. From a time the names of those streets and towns you see today. They were once real and walked upon the land like you and me. 

Like the Orokin once walked the Earth... but that's a story for another time.
 

17 hours ago, 0_The_F00l said:

Hey hey lady Lakshmi, we met in the game 😄

Twice counting today. Thanks for checking on me and making sure my wishlist is well stocked with the latest "hunting rifles" 🙂
If you have an opening on your railjack crew you know where to find me! 

Hope it's enough of a self introduction and reply while I conjure the next weekly episode. If anyone wishes to chat I'm usually around in game 4-5 hours a day on weekends.

Just for lulz... Here is my sentinel.

GxVg7C-GoIycUkHygLdIhLo7w_Rj2vu38MNJ8SVm

 

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Week 4: Dreamers.

When your mind soars across those seas of forbidden thought you know you have become one with it. The places, the memories you've never seen before. Flying on the solar wind, recounting deeds and battles long ago. Or were they? You don't see a pattern, a chronology to them, but you know, there is logic buried deep in that chaos. An epic just waiting to be chronicled., and passed through the ages. As you leap across open plains at ludicrous speed, scale impossible mountains then soar off from their peaks like physics was just all theories and numbers and not a limit, you have transcended the mortal realm and become one with it.

When the deed is done your eyes open, your consciousness slither back to its mortal form. You don't see or remember anything no more, but you know, those little tendrils of curiosity and adventure, they never stop seeking. Never stop looking skyward. 

Where you once cruised the solar winds, on wings of fire and steel. 

"Dreamers."
"That's what she calls us."

***

When they question me I would feel this unstoppable surge of aggression build within me. Like my soul wanted to lash out and tell them, there is nothing in a name. You are what you are, what you do. What you are built to do! Trained to do! And so you will do your duty unto me. Never questioning, never hiding, to your last breath. If they would ask me to stand alone and fight the world for seven lifetimes because none of you... can take up arms and fight... then leave me be. 

A light shone in her face. And she twitched, brought her arm up in reflex even before her senses were awake, her outstretched hand sweeping in a wide, rising arc that nearly connected with mortal flesh. He quickly took the light away and scampered off without an apology, leaving her seething in her thoughts.

She put on an orange shawl spun from rough kubrow hairs and wrapped it around her head in the fashion of ancient ghoonghat and left the rest of its generous length draped down her back. The night was cold, the wind piercing to the bone. But it didn't matter to her, as she stood on the roof, modified Grinner rifle in hand, flicking the recon scope to minimum zoom, scanning the horizon. Watching, listening. Reaching her senses out to the far horizon, across the arid fields, past the Unum's tower where her people occasionally gathered for trade and wetwork. 

She looked below the horizon, down to the gentle lapping of the waves on the sea shore... and listened. Listened with not just her senses but beyond the material world. And she saw it. That dark mass speeding below the radar. She switched to maximum zoom and laser rangefinder, making out the unmistakable shape of a ridiculously asymmetrical fuselage that only the Grineer would dare to cobble together and fly. Incoming assault dropship! She marked the target, calling out speed, vector and likely objective off to someone in the sky. And let her senses take control.

You always trusted your instincts, even if none would believe you.

"... kya hai!?" 
The sound of a muffled little argument two stories below.
"Kali is awake..."

She smiled a little. That name the natives gave her, after their Goddess of Destruction from ancient religion. Do not question my thoughts, my actions. I will do what I must. 

She stepped off the roof and tucked her body into a ball, rolling forwards, mentally bracing for the shock of landing four stories below. 
But that landing never came, as the Warframe's cybernetic flight systems came together in the blink of an eye, all perfect synergy of flesh, metal, and power to fuse them in unholy union. In a flash of light and thunder she was gone, Archwing and rider accelerating to subsonic speed on autonomous control.

She ignored most of the symbiology that appreared in her field of view. The warnings of altitude and overspeed. She focused on just two things. The intercept course and the two green lights signaling readiness for the Elytron's aerial torpedo launchers.

The rest was just distraction.

"Valkyr One, come in," chimed a pleasant, male voice over the airwaves. "This is Oberon Prime, with 2 frames launching from Ostron."
"We are in pursuit of the bogey but won't reach there in time."
"Valkyr One, weapons free," said another distant voice, this one deep, female, and authoritative. The Lotus. 

That was all she needed to send those fatal mental commands to those rocket-powered talons on her wings. Their seekers were already slaved by attack radar to the target, electronic and neural interlocks primed and ready to let them fly, but the Operator held Valkyr's course steady until she was sure their target would never get even a sliver of a chance to evade. 

And finally, when the HUD glowed with orange text ominously announcing <WARNING: MIN RANGE>, the plasma motors ignited in blue streaks of flame, the micro-fusion warheads armed, the guidance computers switched to its terminal proportional guidance program, and signaled to the warhead the exact moment...

You know that dark night in Vaishali where you stood before me me. Where I first met you. I said if you dare challenge me then be Padmavati's guardian. 
I wish I could tell you who she is. What she means to the Tenno. But you will have to wait...

She stared wide-eyed into the expanding blossom of fire and twisted metal, power-armored bodies of Grineer shock troopers pouring out of the striken dropship's burning hull like so many helpless ants trying not to drown. In her mind there was no mercy. No compassion. Only duty.

I will do what I must, to protect you. In this lifetime and the next.

***

(Based on a real world story, the one that kept me alive through years of despair. I can't go back to the land of my dreams. Not yet. Not until this pandemic has passed. 

Where I saw golden temples in my mind's eye and told the stories of ancient times. And brought back their stories, their way of life, and dared to say yes, when they offered a companion. A daughter of Rajasthan I could adopt, and teach, and tell stories to. Stories forgotten and lost with the progress of modern times. Stories they trust me to tell to others, to save them from lost hopes and pain. Told in code like an ancient tongue. Telling them those places were real. And I stood there watching the people, receiving the gift to govern them.

And I would share that gift freely. Like from one Queen to another. While I wait for my little Valkyr to be taller than me 🙂)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just wanted to say, since I’ve read your first post, I’ve been inspired to weave my own experiences into stories for fun, and every time I edit them and tweak them I tend to refer to your writing as a guide to help make them enjoyable to read. I doubt anyone will see my adventures (except maybe my partner), they’re a personal project for me, but noting the events that happen to me and finding a way to coherently string them together with a bit of flavoured writing (if not outright retelling the event itself far beyond what the game shows) has given me a new appreciation for the few hours a week that I spend in Warframe 🙂 Thanks for the inspiration

Just felt compelled to write this the moment your topic popped back to the first page, and now I’ll gladly read the latest in your adventures 😋

Edited by (NSW)Greybones
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====\^^/====

"Lakshmi's Dream"

Have you ever felt yourself slip into a conscious dream?
The one where you just let your soul be calm,
and feel tendrils from another dimension whisk you away. 
Like a rift in time and space, be transported to another world. 

You do great things in that world. 
Swooping down hallways and stairs without a care. 
Flying with angel's wings in an alien sky.

Dream,
Like the ancient sages once done, 
Tall tales of travel between planets,
Without ship or form.

Doing the deeds of a righteous calling you never knew. 
You find yourself swept away in that dream. 
Exploring the limits of that other world. 

Until you forget where you are, who you are. 
Your mere moral mind would be drowning in tears,
Seeing spectacles of beauty no man has seen before.

You want to tell the story, from the palace of your dreams,
But nay, the calling comes for one last drop. 

You've seen the sacrifice of angels,
The fall of titans, 
Sailed the ghostly galleons from a golden age.

But now you have to adapt for a different war.
The one that unravels the layers upon dreams upon dreams. 
For there is one dream that lay beneath.

A War Within. 
"Think not of who you are.
But who you want to be."

====\^^/====

"Second Awakening"

She searched for a memory.

The elusive one, with the great expanse of red sandstone. Chiseled into forms of fortresses and temples. She walked amongst them, those ruins from a previous age, searching. Telling a tale to shocked faces, like her past life was here. 

There was a dark room, beside where the Queen would sit. All those milennia ago, a time before even the Orokin. She closed her eyes and reached out. Reached out with tendrils of invisible will, her head lowered, and eyes closed. Those mortal eyes, limited to just one tiny spectrum, no longer needed. 

Be one with the sound from a distant land.
Listen for the rhythm of the Void.
Feel the chakras opening, one by one, from head to toe. 

And then imagine. 
The great battles of the Mahabharata War
Who will you be? In that ancient saga that told of a future war. 

Seeing the land, where gods and goddesses once walked the Earth. 
She saw a great flash on the horizon, lightning the evening sky, and the countless thousands doing battle below like mere ants. 
It rose high across the battlefield, an arcing parabola, past the ghostly galleon of the Moon, leaving a trail of glowing smoke.

And then it froze. Stood still in the sky like a shining star, even as it hurtled down under the pull of gravity at hypersonic speed. 

Brahmastra. Weapon of mass destruction. Unstoppable. 
She knelt down and clasped her hands together. Reaching out. Her mind a spirit force picturing the Moon. Reaching out to it. Pulling it close. Calling the name of the one prince whom all of hope depended.

"Krishna..."

There was a flash, a surge of rising tide. Her world enveloped in pure white. Her chest heaved as she took in a breath of sterile air, dry and rough. Her eyes wide open, trying to understand, to adapt, to this new dream. It was different. She couldn't move, she felt heavy, and yet lifeless, as she was swept to shore towards the dark form of a tall woman. 

She wore a crimson hat, with raiment of red and gold. Two pistols on her hip, and another pair on her arms. Who was she, silent sentinel of the frontier? 

Lakshmi felt an urging to reach out for her. But she couldn't. Collapsing on the shore, crawling inch by inch. Faster. She told herself, and laboured on. She wanted to cough, that terrible, dry air, but she felt her neck constricted, mask and hood of unfamiliar form. There was an energy around this place, dark and foreboding, and it crept up behind her, cold and terrifying. The cold crept through her form and with it came a piercing, menacing, all encompassing laugh. 

The laughter went on and on, filling every cavity of her skull, and only her eyes could move. What was this place? Gray walls of stone, broken and forlorn. Shattered fixtures, railings gilded in gold. The cowgirl fell to her knees and it felt like all the hope in the world just sank into her belly. 

"No!" Lakshmi cried out, and clawed her way forward. Painfully, like her legs had never moved in decades, clawing forward inch by inch.
Searching in vain for those tendrils of strength, the ones that used to grant her victory.
Seeking the form of a weapon she could hold, seeking salvation, of those white knights from the sky. She held that thought in her mind. And moved. Feeling like every demon from the underworld had their evil eyes on her, and the woman before her, was the only way out of this broken dream. 

The dark laughter continued, threatening to wipe out all the good of the world, the cold seeping through her core and up her spine.
She closed her eyes and reached out again. For those mythical white knights from the sky.

A radiant glow of warmth enveloped her, and the laughter went away. 
She felt herself being picked up, by that mysterious gunslinger with the mask. But with her added weight she couldn't fight free from those evil eyes, those tendrils of evil threatening to envelope them once again. 

Lakshmi reached out once again. For those forces of Good to come back to the world. Chanting an ancient tongue, the mantra that wished victory to the Goddess of Justice. Closing her mortal eyes, letting the Void energy fill her skull, and then opened her third eye to channel it all even if the discharge threatened to burn herself to ashes from within. 

The evil presence subsided, she reached for the gunslinger's slender form, but there was no warmth, only canisters of capacitors and racks of munitions upon her form-fitting suit.
"Sleep, my child." A motherly voice floated through her consciousness, bringing waves of deep relaxation and surrender. 

She let herself be carried to safety, safe in the gunslinger's arms. 
But this time the dream, it didn't end. 
 

20200428230142_1.jpg?width=1074&height=6

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21 hours ago, (NSW)Greybones said:

Just wanted to say, since I’ve read your first post, I’ve been inspired to weave my own experiences into stories for fun, and every time I edit them and tweak them I tend to refer to your writing as a guide to help make them enjoyable to read. I doubt anyone will see my adventures (except maybe my partner), they’re a personal project for me, but noting the events that happen to me and finding a way to coherently string them together with a bit of flavoured writing (if not outright retelling the event itself far beyond what the game shows) has given me a new appreciation for the few hours a week that I spend in Warframe 🙂 Thanks for the inspiration

Just felt compelled to write this the moment your topic popped back to the first page, and now I’ll gladly read the latest in your adventures 😋

 

13 hours ago, (PS4)robotwars7 said:

damn. your storytelling ability is to be envied! you should probably write a script for the next Cinematic Quest (if you've gone through them all so far), lord knows it'll probably be better than whatever DE writes....

Thank you both. 
Some of our Dreamers may be thinking, isn't this roleplay? Should it be moved to Fan Art or RP Zone and not general discussions? 

My answer would be... no, it belongs here out in the open, because these are not stories that require submitting long character backstories no one would see outside of the stringent approval process. I don't believe in judging whether people have the "right" to write or not, every one of us should be encouraged to just let our stories be shared openly and without fear. Even if no one would read it... at first, write anyway! 

You will see that if we write together we ourselves are bringing back the stories of a lost age. 

We know the genesis of Warframe as a game, tele-operating ancient war machines from a lost age, slowly unraveling their secrets. Your secrets, Dreamers. 
And then we ask ourselves... this universe we play in. Is it not our own? Fought over by trans-humanic beings tens of thousands of years in the future, our accomplishments buried deep in the crust like the dinosaurs of a prehistoric age. 

It's time we told our story, Dreamers. Right here in General Discussions. For who of us didn't have those dreams? In our childhood, in our formative years, of soaring up and down our dreamscapes without a care.

Or like me, you were broken so much over the years, you longed to be somewhere else.
A queen in a realm of broken dreams, so far gone as to be someone taking flight on those wings of carbon composite and steel, leaving a life far away to create a new one. 
A new life, stories of red and gold, telling them behind a veil so none may see those tears of joy, the joy of simply being, You.

Until next time. Dreamers. 🙂

Rani Padmini: Imaginary beauty or a warrior queen – Qries

Edited by Laxmibai
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On 2020-04-11 at 8:31 AM, Laxmibai said:

 

I tried out Conclaves and the open world map, decided I didn't like neither because clearly players with better gear would simply dominate within seconds. I liked exploring the Plains of Eidolon solo on a stolen Dagryn. Just slowly cruising around enjoying the noise and vibration like cruising on a flying motorbike after a hard day of work.

 

 

I found this part interesting in your story. The first sense of exploration in the game is quite thrilling. Getting your first vehicle hovering over the plains of Eidolons is a good joyride. Wait until you get the arch wings and Oberon Prime. Your story will have great plot twists and intriguing anecdotes on the gas giant Jupiter. Many of these stages have a great story to discover. 

The Leverian would be suited for your search on the lore and a good guide for the story you are writing. Have fun with the game. There are lots of things to do in it. Other similar games that reminds me how you write the pace of the story is Bloodborne from the company Fromsoft. 

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"Danger Close" 
Part 1
Special Thanks to @0_The_F00l and Clan Asur0

****

Lakshmi opened her eyes into a different world.

It was a world of pink, delicate trees in full blossom in many luscious shades of the lotus flower she once saw in her dreams. She had seen that lotus flower again and again in more recent times, an omen heralding a great sacrifice. When will it be the time to fulfil her promise, that she had kept for seven lifetimes? To give her life for a worthy one?

"This is one of our favourite dueling rooms," gently intoned the Nezha, her guide, "though also used for recreation. It's a nice quiet place to meditate. We call it Sakura Sunset."

Lakshmi as Mesa Prime was easily taller than her small statured counterpart by a whole head, not counting the rest of the Warframe's regal form, five inch tall gold plated heels and delicately fitted suit demanding attention from all.

It was a magnificent "fashion frame" to match the exquisite grandeur of Clan Asuro's Dojo but Lakshmi wasn't standing exactly right in it. She shifted her weight, and sometimes wavered, grinding the ball of her feet into the floor, taking slow, laboured breaths.

"We can move on if you like, there are only about three more rooms to go."

0zAKDYn.jpg

Nezha smiled, politely refraining from commenting on Lakshmi's physical discomfort, instead trying to distract her, show her things and places she might like, even managing to pull a light hearted prank or two on her, just to lighten the mood. The little things you'd to, to help a friend mentally recover. 

Lakshmi didn't respond, much, and the unnerving glare she gave as he playfully tricked her into being trapped in a walk-in freezer was warning enough. She just stood motionless, glaring coldly back at him as he presented his prize catch with all the flair of a Corpus auctioneer, "We're having Goddess of Fortune for dinner tonight!"

That would certainly have been funny, if not for the healing pads stretched tight across her chest accompanied by various motion assist prosthesis to take the weight off her shattered body - one set attached to her clavicles with cords painfully piercing into her upper chest, the bio-mechanical contraptions wrapping around her shoulders and down down to the small of her back, the other on her left knee replacing its original load-bearing functions completely. The physical wounds would heal in time, serious in appearance as they were, but the scars of the mind was an entirely different and more pressing matter. Warframes are easily replaceable, Nezha wondered, why would the Lotus allow her to retain this broken frame?

Nehza took the wounded, but still regal lioness to the med bay soon after, just as a precaution. Transference was stable, reactor online, all systems nominal, nothing out of the ordinary. Except her expressions of pain, the refusal to suppress it with software and narcotics, something was amiss in Lakshmi, and he stood with her throughout the entire hour-long tour of the vast Dojo, bidding her stand proud like a queen atop grand vistas overlooking re-creations of Earthly villages, sit in the cockpits of huge robotic war machines, marvel at the mementos of battles past, and finally surveying the drydock of the Railjack battleship "The Old Fool", the entire shipbuilding facility impossibly disguised as a natural mountain range floating in space.

Kus4zwI.jpg

As she marveled at these grand displays of environmental engineering, she kept looking down, covering her heart with a dainty hand, as though expecting blood to be pouring out. It was a great thrust from the Stalker's viciously serrated sword, piercing right between the mounds of her breasts and passing out through her back narrowly missing the spine. And then he twisted and sawed and pried her precious chest apart slowly and methodically, silently watching her howl in agony like a child pulling an insect apart piece by agonizing piece. He watched her scream, as he slowly destroyed her. 

No one, be it organic or Cephalon could comprehend the Stalker's acts that day, for no one could see past his darkened, faceless mask nor read his thoughts. Did he derive pleasure to desecrate a prized Warframe, or was it something much deeper? A vendetta against that particular model? Or against the Operator herself. No one knew, what drove him to such acts of barbaric depravity.

By the time the Lotus severed Transference the damage was done. Lakshmi had been a shell of her former self since, her concerned handler Cephalon observing her blankly staring off into space, penning tales of emotion and pain and violence that she shared with other Tenno, recounting the ordeals of Valkyr. Years upon years of cruel torture under the hands of Alad V, with no hope of escape from his flying fortress soaring high amid the clouds of Jupiter. She had bore too much, seen too much in recent days, and wondered where her place in the world was. No longer a super-soldier swooping down from the heavens laying down justice and protecting the innocent wherever she was deployed. But a person. 

A person who needed meaning to her existence. Something to associate with. Maybe, as unimaginable as it was in a universe of eugenic supermen, she just needed a friend. 

The Lotus didn't wish to just send her into combat over and over again until she was yet another instrument of destruction, not with how Lakshmi behaved in her presence as she laid her safe and sound in the Somatic Link. She paused, watching, listening to the child sob and cry, curled into a ball in the side of her pod. Long-dormant emotions were welling up in her cybernetic mind. Memories, once thought lost. Duties of a woman and of a mother, once thought unappreciated and thus unnecessary in a post-human society, the rearing of a child supplanted by so much genetic engineering and bio-neural augmentation. One could live an honest life like a machine, guided from afar like worker ants in a Corpus hive mind. Or a Tenno, living by the sword, dying by the sword. But this Lakshmi, she was different.

She was not a machine. 
Even when she sustained pain and humiliation no girl or woman should ever endure, she held her assailant's hand, and begged the Stalker to stop. Enough. What did he want from her. No more. Please. Stop. 

For a Tenno to submit to her adversary. To plead for mercy. Unthinkable. Shame on you... Lakshmi.

"Please. Don't leave me," begged Lakshmi with tear filled eyes.

She begged not as one of the seven foot tall Warframes with unbreakable bodies and a blazing reactor for a heart, but as a little girl, who once was a normal Orokin person like you and I, seven lifetimes ago living a fairy tale in one of the great ivory towers of Earth. 

She meant something to someone, in that lifetime. Even when her judgment came, she was determined to do something extraordinary to prove herself for that someone. But she didn't come back. Not in the form anyone expected.

"So be it," sighed the Lotus, stepping close to the girl. Lakshmi was quite senior for a Tenno, tall and slender and dark-skinned. She would have grown into a fine woman if not for these horrible, horrible sins of a solar empire, sacrificing whatever last shreds of Humanity to feed the fire of ultimate power fantasies.

Turning little girls and boys into Operators of unstoppable war machines. Killing with no sympathy, no compassion, no logic. Little better than machines following orders. Her orders, corrected the matron of destruction. They followed her orders to live or die. Every waking day.

"This war is not won by fire and sword, my child," in a rare moment of compassion the Lotus took the hand offered to her, and pressed it upon the girl's heart, "it will be won here. Here in the Orbiter, Transference will be stronger than ever. I will always be with you."

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And then she slept, limb as a newborn lamb in the arms of the Lotus.
Lakshmi began to dream once again...

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Wow... that's all I can say. I'll admit I've gotten a little lost in the symbolism of the last few chapters, but this one... it's so poignant. I'm actually trying a similar story of my journey, and though I've considered the psychological impact of waking up from The Second Dream, the physical impact on the Warframe and the lasting emotional consequences here are so well written and give me some great ideas. I hope you don't mind. 🙂

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6 hours ago, (NSW)0nuku said:

Wow... that's all I can say. I'll admit I've gotten a little lost in the symbolism of the last few chapters, but this one... it's so poignant. I'm actually trying a similar story of my journey, and though I've considered the psychological impact of waking up from The Second Dream, the physical impact on the Warframe and the lasting emotional consequences here are so well written and give me some great ideas. I hope you don't mind. 🙂

I'd be honoured to read your take on the Second Dream, for each Tenno, they have their own story to tell. 
I've been thinking if anyone else wanted to write, or wanted to try, they are welcome to use this thread for experimentation. 

It's food for thought. A game review, a walkthrough, blasting through all the levels and farming in-game resources, it's only the very tip of an iceberg. 
The best way to enjoy art, is to immerse oneself in it. And to create your own part of it, something you will remember for a very long time indeed ❤️ 

I wish everyone could write, without fear of where their creativity would take them, without fear of how the finished chapter would be received. 
I would like to start such a place here 🙂

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