The Android and His Oseram

Chapter 1 - The Android

This Old Ones ruin looks like many of the others Gildun has already run across, with strange, often downright bizarre architecture accompanied with designs that he can only guess at their purpose. Cables and hard angles. Signs of metalwork that no Oseram forge can duplicate. The dull creaks of the ruins settling, days or years from finally collapsing on themselves. The steady, distant drip-drip-drip of water leaking somewhere from compromised hulls as the outside world creeps in, as vines and undergrowth venture deeper where even a delver can't go.

The good news is this ruin doesn't have the immediate signs of machines prowling inside with their usual tell-tale blue gleam. Okay, so maybe there's a yet in there but Gildun's anything if not optimistic.

Incidentally he's also adept at running.

"You'll be fine!" Gildun mutters to himself. "Even checked the door was propped open this time!"

Aloy's been gone for a few weeks but the invaluable lessons she imparted remains, with Number 1 being Don't Lock Yourself In Again. It's a lesson that Gildun's taken to heart as he double and triple checked the door was propped up open by a rock large enough to work him into a sweaty, gasping mess by the time he finished shoving it into place.

All that noise and still no machines coming to investigate. No clicking or armor scraping or bouncing blue glows of metal eyes waiting to turn alert-yellow or danger-red.

In fact the only direct glow can be found at the very bottom of the ruins, after navigating shattered shafts and crumbling stairs, past a door with the faded all-caps print of STORAGE. Past crates of parts, weapons, and long-expired food stores, the source can be found in a corner. Half-hidden, covered in cobwebs, is what appears to be a man-sized object slumped on its side, the statue sprawled from a broken crate in a curious fetal position, and wearing a strange cut of clothes that almost looks like it's real.

Correction, he thought it was a statue at first, between the dust and the cobwebs and the fact that it's highly unlikely anyone could be living down here. But there's a - a light, small and red, a tiny thumb-sized, weakly pulsing circle that's just...just...

Well, it's just begging to be touched.

So he does. Gildun reaches out and presses a finger against the red mystery light.

The "statue" whirrs, twitches, and suddenly sits up in one smooth motion, still wearing a shroud of grim cobwebs thick as an Oseram funeral veil. Gildun isn't even aware that he's yelped - and yes, it's a full-on yelp, no two sparks about it - only that he's fallen back on his behind with a gloved hand clapped tight over his mouth as he peers at The Thing, wide-eyed, and trying desperately not to choke on his own spit.

The red light flickers from red to gold to the all-too familiar blue of a Machine as what appears to be the statue's head swivels toward Gildun. For a second he has the rare, maybe not so foolish thought that he should stop poking things.

That thought flies right out the window as The Thing speaks.

"Recalibrating visual and auditory sensors...complete."

- It-it speaks! It actually speaks!

"Unable to sync time/date. CyberLife servers unavailable for patching. Memory corrupted...checking partitions."

Not only does it speak, it sounds just like a man's voice!

Gildun's hand drops to reveal his gape as he watches The Thing miraculously reach up and begin to brush away cobwebs, feathery green-gray moss soft as silk, and ancient dust. The gape only gets bigger as a young man's face emerges from the veil of the Old Ones just as his - its? his? - voice did mere seconds ago.

"...Apologies for the delay in introducing myself. My name is Connor, I'm the andr - "

Gildun can't hold it back anymore, the words exploding out in a squeak. " - You have a name?!"

Connor, whatever or whoever he is, nods, his dark head still wreathed with debris that he's still combing out with long, elegant fingers that look like they belong on a Carja noble who hasn't worked a day in his life and has the missing calluses to show for it. His hair's cropped too short, though, and there's a total lack of decorative face paint or fancy-pants jewelry. The whole time that strange light throbs in a glowing circle stamped above his right brow and for a feverish second Gildun wonders if maybe Connor's Banuk. No, he doesn't look like any Banuk I've seen, he thinks, and he finds that the strange tattoo Connor wears is downright distracting now that he thinks about it.

Try as he might, his eyes keep darting up to the damned thing.

"Yes," says Connor, "unless you would prefer my serial number but I find most humans prefer vernacular names for convenience. What's yours?"

Before he can think better of it, "Gildun. ...Wait, what?"

Connor only tilts his head, the gesture almost bird-like as he continues cleaning himself off with efficient swipes of his hands against his emerging shoulders and torso.

Gildun has to forcibly pull his eyes away from the hypnotic blue tattoo yet again.

"Let's wheel the cart around: what do you mean, humans? Serial number?"

The young man pauses in the middle of fussing with a curious strip of black cloth seemingly tied around his neck like a leash cut short. It doesn't appear to be tied to anything else, which turns the "maybe he's a captive?" thought to ash.

"Humans. Homo sapien. What you are," Connor adds like that clears it all up; there's something vaguely patronizing in his unassuming voice. "All androids such as myself have manufacturing serial numbers, as you can see right here."

Now he taps himself and Gildun realizes with a start that even his strange clothes - tailored in ways he's never seen before, unidentifiable fabrics in grays and black - is glowing, too, this time with a bright aquamarine band looped around an upper arm, a matching triangle gleaming against his chest, and angular, boxy white glyphs scrawled across as well. These he recognizes: Aloy had breezily pointed them out before, said they were Old Ones numbers, and left it at that as if wasn't the most fascinating thing you could casually drop in a conversation.

"I'd like to look around if you don't mind, Gildun."

"Uh, sure, go ahead - h-hold on, wait just an honest minute now! What's an android?"

Connor stands to his full height, towers over the poor Oseram delver still sitting shell-shocked on his butt, and says, patiently, as if it should be perfectly obvious to all parties present:

"A humanoid robot, Gildun. In layman's terms, I'm a machine."