Confused, Shango offered to transport Steeman westward to his homeland. There are 200 of his kind there, including his wife Ọya, in addition to all manner of oracles and diviners. They would know what to do. Besides Ọya presides over death and rebirths, so she would at least know what the heck was going on.
Ọya and Ṣango are perfectly matched in aggression and rage. You don't want to cross these two at the same time. You wan't one of them to be able to calm the other down. She derives her powers from the flow of the great River Niger and can control the winds. She's able to conjure up some very violent storms, complete with lightning when she's not pleased.
Side story: When they were very young, a group of mutants arrived from the oceans and took Ọya's younger sister away. Nobody knew who they were at the time, so there was no way of chasing them down. Besides, they were so young and hadn't mastered their powers yet. Now every year, round about the time of the incident, Ọya revisits the area her sister was taken - near current day country of Mali, and generates massive storms which she sends in the direction the mutants went - West.
Unfortunately, the storms take on a life of their own the minute they hit the Atlantic and keep going till they hit land on the other side, usually causing extreme devastation. Ọya's hope is that her sister will one day realise who's causing the storms and follow it's path back home.
"I'm not quite sure what this man is Ṣango. I can feel his life-force draining away, but he's not dead." Ọya said.
" He's not human, but he's not spirit either. Take him to Ọrunmila, he'll know what this is."
Ọrunmila is the very old, wise oracle. He's often consulted by the other metahumans, and humans alike, when his in-depth knowledge and wisdom are required.
The wise old oracle is also the master of mathematics and logic. On seeing Steeman, he immediately recognised the code. He could see the cryptographic pattern in the fabric of his existence.
It was a rare moment of fascination for Ọrunmila, who isn't usually surprised by much. He couldn't believe how far the technology had developed. He, Ọrunmila, invented base 2 mathematics in ancient times. It was his way of storing the Odu (The Book Of Knowledge) in logic form so it could be easily passed down to his predecessors intact. He also created a logic key to open and lock the code, so that they are only available to the initiated custodians. It was simple, but elegant.
It's a defence mechanism. If Steeman encounters extreme trauma that may damage his vessel, without the ability to immerse into the Steem blockchain, a power-down process is initiated automatically. After the power-down is complete, Steeman can power-up into another vessel minus the damage.
In this case, the suit had kept his vessel intact, even if the trauma had been fully felt.
Ọrunmila spent hours studying the Steem blockchain - which was entirely contained within Steeman. "Very clever". He thought to himself. "I suppose the Moorish alchemists did something with my base 2 mathematics eventually".
Ogun had a look at the Steeman's suit and immediately knew what it was. "Vibranium!", Ogun exclaimed, "When will T'Challa stop handing this stuff out to random people?".
Ogun is the number one warrior in the land. He has unmatched physical strength and does not need to recharge or regenerate. He can manipulate metals, especially magnetic ones, and is a master smith, as such, he forges all the weapons for the others.
"It's the metal of the ancient black cat", Ogun explained to the others, "It's the strongest in existence this side of the universe". "The suit is undamaged". Ogun pointed at his shield. "Is that the same stuff?" Ṣango asked. "Yup, it can deflect lightning, and withstand an Edun Ara strike", Ogun replied with a smug look on his face.
Ogun and Ṣango have a bit of a rivalry thing going. They once shared a love interest, and they're both strong-headed warrior types. Go figure.
"Maybe we should test that", Ṣango fumed as his eyes started to beam with electricity. Ọya had to jump in and calm the situation down before it got out of hand. The last time they fought, they caused an earth quake in the Volta Region of Ghana.
Ọya sent Ṣango away since Steeman was due to awaken any time. When the powerdown completed, Steeman immediately powered up and jumped to his feet. Initially confused, a quick cache refresh updated him to the present. The visor kicked into action with even more information, all absorbed within milliseconds.
Steeman thanked his hosts and even got a few hours with Ọrunmila with whom he talked about all things tech and blockchain. Ọrunmila even created a Steem account to keep in touch with Steeman. He found all the flag wars entertaining too. He even followed the Emperor to keep an eye on him. To demonstrate his ability to also manipulate mathematics and logic, @Orunmila backdated his account-start day by exactly 2 years 5 days and 6 hours. "256!" Ọrunmila said looking at Steeman, who completely understood what he meant.
His hosts advised him to fly straight north and not west. There is a character who is having a pretty hard time lately, following all the Thanos debacle. Eṣu, who usually had 256 manifestations, had half of them wiped out. He then further lost a few more in the grand war, and is now left with 101 "paths". He is not happy. He also takes it quite badly that he wasn't able to stop Thanos, being the gurdian of the portals between all universes and realms. He, Eṣu, however, only has dominion over space, but not time. Thanos was able to time-travel past him with the Time Stone retrieved from Dr. Strange's eye of the Agamotto.
So now when he sees anything remotely abnormal, like Steeman, he rips it to shreds. He's best avoided at all costs.
Peace and Love ✌🏿
Adé
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