《Astra Fae, Mechro Gemini》


 The stars are bright tonight

    The stars shone brightly, though most were masked by the ever-present light pollution of the city. Lucy slipped out the back door of her mom''s apartment and hiked her backpack up as she breathed in the cool summer air. She was a bit old to be running away from home, heck, her parents had expected her to move out ages ago. That was back when she was still in college, still pursuing a mechanical engineering degree. Before the existential crisis that she had avoided talking about had knocked that goal over and beat it to death with a spiked baseball bat. And yet here she was, slipping out the back door an hour after sundown, her bag packed for hiking, with several wads of cash stashed in plastic bags sewed into the lining of her coat. It was a nice coat, the one she''d been turning into a cosplay before the traveling bug hit her. It would never be true armor, but it might save her a mauling if she ran afoul of a dog. And it''s psychological armor value far eclipsed it''s monetary value. A favorite Jacket can be like that.


    The jacket was blue and green, a mix of panels sewn together to give it a segmented appearance. The edges of the panels hid the numerous pockets, several of which had thin sheets of plastic to stand in for armor plates, and a few of which held small tools Lucy liked to have access to. Denim, canvas, and a few synthetic materials were the primary textures. Lucy had gone with darker tones and a matte finish, to fit the aesthetic of a sci-fi special operator. She had even sewn a few LED straps into the wrists and shoulders, with the headcannon explanation that they allowed the agent to keep their hands free while exploring dark areas. Mostly they were an attempt to jazz up an otherwise easily overlooked costume.


    Lucy took a look at the stars, and decided to follow Orion''s aim. The constellation had guided navigation for ages, surely it could do so for her.


    The Pike residence was situated in a suburb of New Chicago. As far as Lucy knew, old Chicago was still where it had been in America since it''s founding. New Chicago shared a few traits with it''s namesake: they were both cities, they had wealthy people and crime in proportions plausible for their size, and their Citizens toiled in a capitalist economy to keep themselves functional and entertained.


    Lucy was not American, any more than she was pacific islander. That hadn''t stopped the good old U.S. of A. from declaring the shores that New Chicago sat upon their own, in the same way they had Hawaii: a Navy flotilla had declared it so. The guns pointed at Averan had been a fair bit more powerful than the ones pointed at Hawaii, according to the history books, but that all had been far before Lucy''s time. Nowadays people didn''t care whether the stars and stripes flew on flagpoles, and the politicians in DC wasted taxes, so long as the power and internet kept running. Well, they grumbled at the taxes, but to do so was a tradition upheld by the first amendment, as her history teacher had asserted. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    Lucy made good time, taking the sidewalk east towards the countryside. It eventually grew cracked and weed-covered, and Lucy started to pass rundown and unoccupied dwellings. Humanity''s distribution can often behave like a fluid, gaseous under certain pressures, liquid under others. When settlers had first come to Averan, they''d landed far from where New Chicago had sprouted. When their descendants established New Chicago, the environment had already been tamed enough to use rapid construction methods. Rather than the "hobbit holes" the settlers had lived in, New Chicago had steel skyscrapers and cellulose construction. (In the early 21st century, plywood had gone through several evolutions that stabilized into something that more closely resembled laminated fireproof cardboard. It didn''t melt, and was an excellent insulator. Time and weather still took its toll, though, and when Lucy decided to perform a light bit of trespassing in an unkempt ranch-style, the windows weren''t the only openings that air flowed through. It wasn''t supposed to rain for a few days yet, so she didn''t worry about roof integrity. Setting her pack down in what used to be the master bedroom, she unrolled a sleeping bag and lay down to catch some shuteye. Maybe tomorrow she''d reconsider things and swing back by her mom''s place to pick up her phone and ID. But for now, she was blessedly untethered from the wider network of humanity.


    #


    "No, Azeran, you can''t just go summoning humans for your army" Bralag, Duke of Molthan attempted to dissuade the Elven mage. "For one, it''s against the kingdom''s code of ethics to summon sapient beings. For another, ever since the twentieth century they almost all carry tethers. The only ones off grid are usually to stubborn or to weak to be of use."


    "Hang the kingdom and its rules! I''m summoning a princess to serve as dragon-bait!" The insane mage declared, and promptly keeled over as Bralag crushed the sympathetic enchantment that kept poison from reaching Azeran''s heart. His scapegoat thus secured, Bralag slit the Mage''s wrist and activated the summoning circle that would draw a human of "noble blood" to it by way of higher-dimensional trickery. The surface of the circle rippled with a crimson light, and a sleeping woman appeared in it''s center, her head supported by a hiking pack. The geas seemed to take hold without issue, placing a compulsion upon the sleeping woman to seek out a particular artifact from a dragon''s horde, and then return it to the elves. The Duke didn''t particularly expect her to have any success. With luck she''d be caught and added to the royal menagerie before she did to much damage. Whatever she did, it would be worth it to be rid of Azeran. Bralog would have killed the mage ages ago, but the magic commission was far to good at sniffing out perpetrators. But a case of human summoning would neatly distract them and give them incentive to bury the whole thing. The last human summoning had been so disastrous that an entire branch of the royal family tree had been struck from the history books.

 This is not where I fell asleep

    Jane woke in darkness, and belatedly realized something was wrong. She wasn''t on carpet anymore, and the room she had laid down in had gotten a bit of light from the streetlamps outside. She reached out and found her pack right where it was supposed to be, serving as her pillow. There was a nagging thought in her head, but she ignored it for now. Reaching into a pocket near her waist, she clicked the dial that activated her shoulder lights. The battery was fresh, and She''d packed spares, as well as a solar charger, so she should be set for several hours at least. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the change in illumination, revealing a stone chamber that looked like it belonged in an old European castle. Had she been caught up in a hidden camera show? There weren''t any castles like this on Averan. Concrete had been a far more popular material in the old days, and still was for underground work. Still, it was unlikely. Her parents wouldn''t spring something like that on her, and no reputable producer would kidnap her.


    Jane shivered. A disreputable one, however... It would be best to assume that her relocation had been the work of a malignant entity. Such an entity could be considered the bad guys. Jane had been hoping to make friends rather than enemies, but at least this might be interesting. She felt the subconscious itch for her handheld, the personal communication and computation device that had evolved from cellphones. But She''d left that at her parent''s, along with all its peripherals. She had an emergency radio beacon She''d rigged up, but she wasn''t confident that it would penetrate much stone. Exiting the room was therefore her first priority.


    Jane quickly and efficiently packed her sleeping bag and shouldered her pack. Then she started to move towards the door, and realized that the roll of cloth on the ground was a person. A person with a slit wrist. Oh, and there was the smell. Jane had no idea why she hadn''t noticed it before. There was this buzzing in her mind, prodding her to move, to find something. Well, Jane reasoned, She''d just found something. The likelihood of at least one malignant entity was now all but confirmed, though person probably hadn''t died soley from the slit on their wrist. They had a head wound from where they''d collapsed to the floor, and the blood hadn''t splattered far enough away for them to have been standing and then blacked out. She only analyzed the scene like that because she was treating this all like a mystery from the net library. And in such mysteries every clue was important. Examining the room closer, she noted a large engraved ring-like design centered on where she''d awoken. It reminded her vaguely of a Mandala, but with lots of squiggles that could be runes of some sort. Now, what could that be? A magic circle?


    Jane had never put much stock in magic. After all, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." And a handheld would seem pretty magical to anyone who wasn''t familiar with their theory of operation. Some of the more advanced tech the grad students studied was so far beyond Jane''s understanding it might as well be magic.


    Still, this mystery may involve something that connected to myth, legend, or fantasy, if only in appearance. She would not disregard the possibility that the technology in use here would be different than that she was familiar with. The language might differ as well. Something to be careful of. Now, the most relevant question: to loot the body or leave it be?


    Jane elected not to disturb the body, and headed towards the stairs. She did not want to get involved in a homicide investigation, her own kidnapping, should ot reach the level of the authorities, would be more than enough trouble.


    There were stairs only a few steps beyond the door, leading up to a wooden trap-door. Remembering to lift with her legs, Jane heaved, and it swung open with a crash. She was in the woods, a narrow trail threading away from the point she''d emerged. A yellow sun shone through autumn leaves, and Jane cursed inwardly. It had been the summer solstice. Either She''d been in some sort of stasis field, or she was no longer on Averan. Neither possibility was comforting. Jane reached in her jacket and clicked on her distress beacon. Hopefully this planet had EM communications.


    #


    S''Thell groaned as he woke up with a splitting headache. What was that ringing in his ears? He''d been trying to sleep. Numbly the forty-meter long dragon raised his head from the bed of woven steel cables that he''d had manufactured a century ago. Oh, it was one of the recieving crystals. The mages sometimes used them. But this wasn''t an Elven voice, nor the similar hiss of a Naga. No, this was a piercing tone of unwavering pitch that pulsed, three long tones, then three short tones, then three long. And the cycle repeated. That was a human pattern. They would beat it out when calling for help. Not that there were any humans around to answer. The elves had been quite set on imprisoning any who set foot on Selathar. That they had been the ones to summon them had been a part of their motivation.


    S''Thell growled. The human would probably die soon. But in the meantime, the pulsing noise was getting in the way of his nap. He couldn''t just smash the crystal-it was part of his hoard, and S''Thell had been a supply officer before his wing had disbanded. Unless the proper forms were filled out, or there was a fellow Wyrm bleeding out in front of him, he wouldn''t part with the least portion of it.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    He would hunt down the source of the signal, he decided. It should be easy to track- a quick scrying spell should do the trick. S''thell flexed his Mana-organ and empowered the bowl of mercury he used for such spells. A few moments later, an image resolved, drawn from one of the crystal observatories his wing had deployed in orbit prior to their war with the elves. A humanoid hiked through a forest, in a region that had once been under the domain of Elven ritual mages. The observatory lacked the ability to more precisely identify the target, but their projected course would take them towards an Elven highway.


    S''Thell weighed the pros and cons of interfering. If the wing had missed a bit of human technology in their sack of the Elven kingdoms, it''s reappearance could be inconvenient. If an actual human had been summoned, it might have something even more dangerous. The pesky tree-piranahs would use it as an excuse to wage war, as they did anything human in origin. Still bitter after their slaves had given them a blak eye. Oh, they claimed that their slaving days were over, that they were now ''enlightened,'' but elves held grudges like no other. The humans had proven to dangerous to meddle with in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A lesser-known force of humans had delivered a similar device right to Selethar''s doorstep.


    S''Thell resigned himself to an excursion. Perhaps the human would be able to tell him tales to make up for interrupting his nap.


    #


    Jane has been hiking for about an hour when she reaches the road. It''s not much, mostly packed dirt and gravel raised a few feet above the level of the surrounding forest floor, but it''s a landmark. Picking a direction at random, she sets out. It''s another hour before she heard the dull roar of a jet, and she looks up.


    "Oh. That''s new," she says with her jaw hanging open. The Jet is a dragon. Or a drone shaped like a dragon. All doubt leaves her mind accent later when it drops out of the sky and lands ahead of her on the highway. The creature is massive,even with its wings folded in on either side of its serpentine body. She''s never seen an illustration like it- the jaw splits open like that of a snake, and it has six limbs in addition to its massive wings. It glares at her for a moment, and the buzzing in the back of her mind goes away. Instead, a smooth voice speaks near her ear.


    "Human. We need to talk."


    #


    It had taken S''Thell about an hour and a half to reach the human, deep as it was in Elven territory. He''d had to dodge a few homing spells cast by overenthusiastic mages, but it had been an otherwise relaxing flight. Nothing so turbulent as the war, or the storms his wingmates had liked to chase. His thermal vision had easily identified the human from afar, and his magical sense had detected the geas as he landed. It had been shoddy, likely the work of an inexperienced mage. A quick flex of his Mana-organ and it was dispelled.


    "Human, we need to talk," he started. The human picked it''s jaw up off the ground and fixed it into a forced grin.


    "What shall we talk about? I could personally use some directions to a friendly settlement." The woman replied in accented American. American-accented American at that. Some linguistic drift was not unreasonable, after all, it had been a long time. S''Thell was actually rather surprised that she had the American accent. Mandarin had had more native speakers when the last Intel from earth had come through.


    "My communication crystal picked up your distress call. I know of no one on this planet who would answer it in good faith, and would prefer to keep any technology you may bear out of Elven hands."


    "If you''ve got communication crystals, you''ve already got more advanced tech than anything I have with me. A question, if it isn''t rude. Are you fully biological, cybernetically enhanced, or communicating via proxy? Assuming, of course, that you are not a fully synthetic entity."


    "A rather roundabout way of asking what I am, don''t you think?"


    "Hey, I''ve never met someone or something like this," the woman gestured to S''Thell."


    "I am organic, and speaking to you via a simple spell."


    "Cool. Is it culturally appropriate to exchange names? How should I refer to you?"


    "You may refer to me as Thell," S''Thell replied.


    "And you may refer to me as Jane," the woman volunteered. "I appreciate the break from hiking, but I''d really like to reach a friendly settlement. I don''t suppose you could guide me to one?"


    S''Thell sighed. Humans, always in such a rush. Still, it would be wise to get off the road.


    "I can carry you back to my lair, if you wish. It will take a few hours, but it will give us time to converse."


    "What are my choices? As you see them?"


    "Come with me, or die to predators in the forest. The elves are the most common hunters, but there are also wolves and cats that keep the herbivores in check"


    "Well, when you put it like that. How are we going to handle windspeed and air pressure? I didn''t bring a helmet."


    "I know a spell that should suffice."


    "Well then, shall we be off?"


    #


    Jane was reconsidering her spontaneous decision to trust a dragon to fly her to its lair. On the one hand, their negative reputation and the fact it claimed no one on the planet would answer her distress call in good faith. That probably meant he had an ulterior motive as well. Also, elves were a thing. Probably. On the other hand, elves also had some negative reputation, and Dragon''s were cool. And she got this view. Sure, she was clutched in the claw of an objectively terrifying jet-propelled apex predator (assuming there weren''t things that ate dragons besides other apex predators), but this way she got a much better idea of the area''s geography. Assuming this wasn''t all an illusion.


    Eventually, they reached a towering volcanic mountain, and swooped down to land in a cave opening out of a cliff face. Jane noted the massive steel doors on either side of the entrance, then turned her attention to the cavern within.


    "So, Dragon-sized Jacuzzi?" She wondered aloud.