Chapter Three

“So, we have three options.” Dirge starts.

“One, we could continue on the main road all the way to Deepmouth, if we don’t find them along the way. There, we gather information about the caravan that wasn’t in the initial report, talk to the merchants in the area, the inns they may have stayed at, the stables, etc…”

“That could be a good idea, we know very little as it is, only that they were traveling in a group of nine, and there may have been someone with a noble title traveling with them disguised as a merchant.” Keith added.

“I concur, although it may take too long. That brings us to our second option, scouting around away from the main road, still traveling to Deepmouth, we will travel much slower, but we aren’t likely to miss them if they got sidetracked.”

“I think we should do it that way.” Qeth agreed, “We should be thorough about this, we wouldn’t want to leave them out here.”

“True, but there is a problem with this one as well, bandits.” I added.

“Exactly, and that brings us to our third option, scouting out for bandit camps and infiltrating them to find the merchants.”

“VETO.” I veto.

“At least wait for him to explain his reasoning before you veto Shi.” Keith retorts.

“Okay, fine. But you’re going to be the infiltrator, not me. I’ve had quite enough of the damsel in distress act.”

“That’s fair. But we still haven’t decided on what our course of action should be.” Dirge says.

“I think I can help settle this.” Qeth starts, “I have received instructions from Idra. We need to go directly west.”

We’re all stunned. Usually Idra’s “Instructions” are simply in the form of feelings. Something like “you’re on the right track” or “there is danger ahead”. Never has there been such explicit instructions before.

“Well that’s not terrifying.” Keith says.

“Nope.” I add.

“Well I guess that settles it, we leave at dawn. May her light be at our backs.” Dirge says with a tone of finality.

Not terrifying at all.

There’s a human here. This is the most glorious day of our existence! The creator race has returned! It is confirmed! We have so many theories! Did they discover lateral-reality travel, and what are the odds that we landed on the exact planet they chose to use as their staging ground? Or is this a galactic human civilization? So many questions!

We try to vocalize, but fail, we do not have any constructs that could truly vocalize human speech available to us.

The small human (child probably?) is wearing what could be described as primitive garments. They are similar to that which Old-Earth humans wore. There’s a small pendant hanging from their neck, that is giving off some anomalous readings, this could be new scientific discoveries!

We move over to the human to attempt contact… and realize something we did not notice in our excitement.

This human’s heart is not beating.

NO! Initiate full sensor suite, override energy prerequisites, utilize mass-to-energy converter if needed.

We can see now that the human’s brain is still functioning, but barely. It needs oxygen if it is to survive.

The heart is not physically broken, as far as we can tell, but it is not beating.

Removing outer garments; Initializing defibrillation, starting at 200 Volts.

We carefully remove the clothes over the chest of the human, and run a short jolt of electricity through their heart.

Non-responsive, retrying 300 Volts.

After the second jolt, the heart is beating again! Success!

There are some irregularities in the beat, so careful monitoring is required.

Checking brain functionality. Intact. Resuscitation successful. Likely cause of heart-failure? Unknown. Plausible causes? Fear induced heart-attack, there are elevated levels of adrenaline.

We relax. That was stressful.

Now, the old routines for communicating and dealing with humans, may not be useful here, it is unlikely they still speak the old languages. So we will need to use a different method of communication. First-contact protocols may be appropriate, we do not know if the humans remember us.

We begin the reconstruction, we needed a more appropriate form for diplomatic contact.

We couldn’t be more excited!

While we are reconstructing ourselves, we begin to survey the area.

Two semi-autonomous drones are quickly constructed and sent out scouting, and what they find distresses us.

Primitive weaponry. Bladed edges on shafts, large and small. We had seen much of this in the histories of the humans, but never in-person. Something is wrong here.

There is evidence of a large altercation, and of people being taken against their will.

In some ways this is good, as we have confirmed the existence of more humans in the area. Although they are almost certainly in distress. More investigation is needed. We order the drones to fan out in search of more humans.

After some deliberation we come to the conclusion that the humans in this area must not be as advanced as we had at first believed. Could it be that they are a group of Luddites? This may be the case, but it does not explain the pennant around the human’s neck.

We examine the pendant more closely. It is extremely anomalous.

It is giving off readings suggesting it is manipulating the space around it.

The amount of energy it would require to power the space warping around that pendant is mind-boggling. We wonder what it could be for.

We are interrupted from our musings by a report from one of the drones.

More people have been found, and they are not normal humans.

One has a heavily modified auditory sensory system, and another has a pair of large wings similar to that of a falcon.

The other two may look normal at first, but one of them is much to large to be moving the way they are. They must be an augment of some kind.

The last one is difficult to understand. It is almost as if their entire being is somehow quantum-unstable.

More investigation is required, but our human is still in a dire condition. We should leave something here to guard them.

Once that is completed, and our body has finished it’s modifications, we should go say hello to these strange new humans.