“Oh boy; where should I start?” Rather than sit Sumiye opted to stay standing as she addressed the room, offering a brief glance to the botanist and the astronaut before focusing her attention back on the captain; despite the ominous opening line and the attention directed her way she managed to project an air on nonchalance as she spoke, a placid look on her face. A hand reached for the screen tucked into the waistband of her half open overalls, only to second guess herself and stuff both hands into her pockets instead; she knew the damaged enough to give a report without it. “Well, the good news is that there’s no threat of a reactor meltdown, so we’re not going to blow up. The bad news is that this ship is never getting off the ground.”

The acting-Chief Engineer let that sink for a moment of two before continuing. “I don’t say that because we can’t fix what’s wrong with it; the Thucydides is structurally sound, there are no hull breaches and aside from the FTL drives and the underside of the ship there’s surprisingly little damage to our key systems. Life support is still online, the main engines are fine aside from a coolant leak which has already been fixed; we’re running everything on low power just to be safe, but once we run some safety tests we’ll be able to bring things back up to full. Weapons, short-range communication, sensors… all banged up but nothing we can’t fix given enough time. She took a beating but in the grand scheme of things all we need to do is buff out the dents and give her a wax.”

A simplification of matters and an understatement of just how much work was involved, but it summed things up well enough. The Thucydides was in good shape, all things considered; the problem lay elsewhere.

“I say it because ships of this type were never designed to operate in-atmosphere. It doesn’t have the thrust-to-weight ratio to lift its own mass inside a gravity well; especially not one of near-Earth strength like this one appears to be. We’ve lost almost 40% of our manoeuvring thrusters but even if we repaired all of them and fired them all at once they wouldn’t move us an inch. The main engine is functional and once we restore coolant flow we’ll be able to power it up again, but even if we somehow managed to point this thing towards the sky the engines can’t produce enough oomph for us to take off.”

The days of erecting towers and pointing rockets at the sky to get things into space was a thing of the past, though maybe the Captain was old enough to remember those days. The Thucydides was constructed in space, piece by piece, from compartments built in dry docks like the one she used to work at, lifted into orbits by space elevators or short range transports and put together in the cold and empty vacuum of space. It had likely never even felt the touch of air on its hull before the crash; it was never intended to.

“Which brings us to our main problem; the FTL is down. The whole thing. I don’t know why and neither does anyone on its maintenance crew; I’ve already spoken to Senior Engineer Tomlinson about it. All we know is that the drive failed all at once, kicked us out of hyperspace and left us where we are. And if that wasn’t bad enough the drive is tied into the same system as our long range communications relay, so that is down as well; meaning we have no way to call for help other than to send out a regular, sub-light speed radio communication and hope someone picks it up sometime in the next few millennia.”

No Faster-Than-Light travel also meant no Faster-Than-Light communication, which was kind of a big deal considering that was how almost all communication across the vast darkness of space was conducted. Light speed was just too slow to get anything done.

“In short, we’re stranded and we have no way of sending a distress call. But, if you want to send out an expedition I can divert some more resources towards getting the hangar bay and our short-range shuttles repaired.”

@Kumbaris@deadpixel101@DracoLunaris

@King Cosmos@DracoLunaris@deadpixel101

---

Shit shit shit shit shit.

The Captain was already expecting the bad news to happen in a short while. But What she's not sure of was that the Ship cannot be floated. As Sumiye suspects, the Captain does remember the old days where they used to built large accelerators that span kilometers, in places like say, Siberia or Western China without a lot of people, put whole spaceships on large rockets, and then slingshot them into space with the combined magnetic and rocket force. She's even old enough to remember the days when spaceships are just crude little things, barely large enough to be launched by a single rocket. In places like Cape Canaveral or Baikonour.

She suspects that building those things will be prohibitively expensive, and she suspects that asking Sumiye to build an accelerator, in the mountains like this, is just an exercise in futility.

But more importantly, is that the FTL drive is down. And so they are on their own for the time being, sure, the Thucydides must send a report via the FTL comms system in a couple months, but that's a couple months way too long for Almira's liking. Admiralty will have to pinpoint where the Thucydides Jumped, nearby planets on the way of their jump, investigate each one of them, and... Well let's just say it'll take a long time for that.

Yeah, priority number one is repairing the FTL drive by the looks of it.

"Sumiye, once all necessary repairs on the ship's done. I want the fixing of the FTL drive to be the No. 1 Priority for the crew of the Thucydides. That goes for the EVA team as well, this ship's don't necessarily need as much chrome right now as it needs it's communicator, so coordinate with all engineers, from all sections, and get that FTL fixed in a couple weeks time preferably. Is that workable?"

"Oh, and Sumiye, I'm not sure if you heard of this, but I'm certain that if you look at the local database internet, that there is a small program the Commonwealth Exploratory force tried experimenting on in the mid 2300s. It's called... hmm, I forgot, is it the Chang'e program? Anyway, it essentially entails putting small anti gravity reactors all across the ship specifically in situations where the ship's grounded like this one. It's a canned project, but from what I've heard, the science and engineering around that project is sound. So maybe look up on that once that FTL's fixed."

"I'll coordinate the expedition myself. And I would like for you to be there as well Sumiye. Once you get the small business of repairing the FTL drive underway. There's no mechanic I trust right now to be in the field rather than you, so I'll probably hold off the expedition once the FTL drive's repaired. Now, with that out of the way, Brackman, onto you." She gestured at the robot. "How are the EVA crew's doing? You think they're ready to assist engineering in FTL repairs?"

---

@Izurich@13org@Sanity43217@Medili

The ship that travelled through the many winding rivers, and into the heart of the Dragonspine mountains, was piloted by some simple ship Captain, he has travelled through these rivers his entire life, and knows the intricacies and unique features this Cijatung river has to offer. Right now, they are traveling at the Northern Edge of this great river, and soon enough, by day's end. They arrived right near the source of this great Cijatung river itself.

And in front of them, lies the cold, high mountains of the Dragonspine.

The mountain range itself isn't the problem. Sure, these mountains are high and very cold, but it is feasible to wade through it's many winding paths and arrive on the other side. No, the problem with the Dragonspine are, well, It's dragons. An incredibly territorial bunch with no penchant on Burning, or Freezing, or Electrocuting you on the spot should you ire them. Possessing a natural baseline level of magic resistance and extremely strong to boot, there is a reason why no nation has claimed the Dragonspine mountain chain as their domain.

And right on the base of that mountain chain, facing off the party of 4 individuals, is a path that will lead into the 'Great Table', a plateau within the Dragonspine mountains that has historically served as a meeting point for various dragons. And also, by the calculations of various sages, mages, and astrographers, the place where that meteor supposedly crashed at.

One can only wonder whether the party will encounter a few, or many dragons along their way. Add on top of the various wild beasts that roam the land, this looks like it's going to be a tough expedition either way.

Q-T was glad to see she was not the only person who was a mess, with Dr Zoe being as dirty as you’d expect a botanist to be on a hard day, or maybe even a good day because Q-T thought that you probably had to like getting dirty to be one, while Acting Chief Engineer King looked like she’d been working in a volcano from all the soot on her uniform, but she did still feel bad about dropping the odd drip of coolant on her the captain’s floor.

”Yes captain, sorry captain” she replied/apologied to the orders to get a shower, before finding somewhere to stand and waiting while ACE King gave her report, the Ai splitting her focus between listening and compiling her own report from the details Riley had put together while Q-T had been busy swimming in coolant.

From what she heard while skimming through files, things were pretty bad, but it was nice to know that they weren't going to explode, and that she didn't have to worry about the ship, and therefore her, running out of power. It didn't look like they were going to be getting off the ground any time soon if ever at first until the captain pulled something out of the archives that might let them haul themselves back into space. She was briefly skimming this Chang program when the conversation shifted to her next.

”Ah, let me see here” she said, bringing up Riley’s report again, and displaying a little icon on the side of her monitor that looked like turning pages that indicated what that brief silence was being used for, her kind had learned from experience that blankly staring while doing internal stuff others would need devices for could be very disconcerting for humans, before beginning her own report.

”So. Crew first. We had one injury in the crash, and Jame’s isn't doing to bad according to the latest check in we did with him, so people wise were near fully operational. Equipment is where things get a bit worse. As you know, the more fragile transports got pretty banged up, but our more specialist and, ah, rugged equipment has fared better. The garage and EVA crews that haven't been pulled to ship duty are slowly going through repairs but numbers wise we/they have personnel number suited more for for ongoing maintenance, not retooling half the inventory, so it’ll be a while till all of the softer equipment is up and running” She explained, giving a rundown of the state of the EVA crews, their status and their gear’s status, before addressing the FTL drive and aborted expedition situation.

”For the drive, EVA teams are at your disposal acting chief King, especially for anything like that coolant leak. I’m not really familiar with FTL drives, but if there's anything like radiation leaks or other artificial hostile environments being generated by the damage, we’ve got the kit to endure that. Otherwise, if you just need more hands then we’ve got those to spare,” she spread her four hands out as a little joke to go with that last, before hesitantly making a suggestion regarding the outside world.

”Also if I could make a suggestion? While the drop-ships may be out, there’s some gear on hand that can do some of the scouting you wanted without distracting the engineers from the FLT work… or even taking EVA people away from helping out now that I think about it. We could put out some high altitude surveying equipment,” basically fancy weather balloons when you came down to it, ”to give us a basic idea of the world we’re on, and maybe, depending on the atmosphere, get us some star maps that could let us work out where it is. We could also send out some pu-” she caught herself half way through using some slang and coarse corrected to call them ”- terrestrial scout drones to check out the area around us, give the security team info about what kind of alien life they might need to ward off. Plus get some seismic readings, bacterial samples and other data we can use to make sure we’re not going to have anything unseen ruin our days while we’re working.”

”Both would eliminate some unknowns and give us some peace of mind about what’s out there, which I think would be both useful and, ah, also good for moral?” she certainly wanted to know about where they were, and she expected a niggling curiosity/concern about the world beyond the ship’s walls was something everyone was dealing with, so it would likely be nice for them all to have some peace of mind regarding that big question mark.

---

Before Zoe could manage any further awkward hello's the other crew called to the meeting arrived. A familiar face in Q-T; as the head of exploratory botanical research she'd ventured out with the EVA crew a few times during their travels, and if anyone from her sector saw them most, it would be Zoe. She fought an urge to give her a smile and wave. Q-T was a nice girl.

Then there was the engineer. Miss King. An unfamiliar face, as Zoe didn't often mingle with that crowd by chance. She knew the face of the department head though, and this wasn't it. Regardless the woman had an air about her that Zoe wouldn't deny.

As she began to speak her part, Zoe set the bot on her shoulder to record. Wanting to again catch every detail. While normally she'd be fidgeting and unravelling at the shower comment, this was business; and there she could function.

Her expressions were hardly perceptible, a squint here and a frown there at the mounting news. Much like her sector, things could be worse, but they could also be better. Aside from programming new routines into her drones and maintaining her legs, she wasn't particularly handy with machines. Hearing that the ship wouldn't take off on it's own was disconcerting to say the least. Options were presented, but they all meant the same thing; they're going to be here a while.

Once Q-T finished her report and attention shifted, Zoe took just a moment to collect herself, interacting with the small screen on her drone for just a moment.

"Well, no surprises here but we're in roughly the same condition. Things aren't apocalyptic, but there's damage. In terms of crew we haven't lost anyone, thankfully. A few injured but not so many that we can't pitch in if needed. Some of our equipment took a hit, so we have an engineer coming to take a look, but as you can guess they're quite busy right now.

Some seed storage was compromised, but not so much that planting is a problem. Our on-board ecosystem will take some time to recover, but as you know these are plants selected and cultivated for space travel, they are hardy. The biggest issue is water, with some pumps and pipes breaking we had to shut it off in that area of the ship. We're borrowing from others so keeping our own grown food supply going isn't a problem. That being said without soil samples I can't say whether or not we can expand for an extended stay without making some sacrifices in bio-diversity here.

To give you a more long term projection, we'll need to study the local air, water and soil. Simply put we just need data, and time..."

She withdrew the external drive from the approximate area a stinger might be, and presented it to the captain.

"The data my drones have been collecting."

Some part of her was fighting to not feel useless. She knew the value of her job, and she'd never besmirch it; but standing next to people who could actually figure out how to fix the biggest problem made her feel a touch small. That and her captain's reprimand was having time to seep in. Zoe hoped no one noticed she was getting a little warm under the collar. Blushy pale complexion be damned.

This feeling mixed with a bit of guilt, stemming from a bit of excitement. Getting to venture out and collect the samples she mentioned passed her mind, in addition to seeing what new kind of flora could be waiting outside these walls. This wasn't a field trip, but landing on a new planet always felt like one.

She pinched her arm behind her back a little.

@DracoLunaris@deadpixel101@King Cosmos

---

Almira listened intently on both Q-T and Zoe as both of them elaborated on their Section's current status. Her fingers twiddling and grabbing her Captain's hat as she listened to the two crewmembers. She's happy that there's only 1 injury in the EVA crew, and that the rest are busy repairing the ship and ready to assist Engineering should there be such a need. She's little bit concerned with Zoe's report though, a possible loss of biodiversity doesn't look good by the looks of it. BUT, water, at least from her simple observation, shouldn't be too much of an issue. Especially considering where they crashed right now.

"Don't worry too much about water Zoe. We're quite literally in Icy mountains and it shouldn't be too hard to chip some ice from, well, literally all around you and put it in the water filtration system. Once Engineering brings the reactor back up you shouldn't be worrying too much." She replied to Zoe's concerns. "Well, looks like I'm getting a good idea of the current situation. Take a shower and take some rest if you have time in-between all this work. I know I'll be tired as hell if I were in your shoes. Alright, Zoe, Sumiye, you're dismissed for now. Q-T, can you take me to the Hangar bay and show me the vehicles we have available, I think that we ca-"

A sudden ring on the telephone interrupted the Captain's speech. Visible annoyance was felt in Almira's face, but she took a deep breath and grabbed the ringing object. "Yeah? Captain here. Whatchu need? Uhuh... uhuh, seriously? Does that creature pose a threat to the ship? Alright alright, I'm on my way to the bridge right now."

She closed the phone and looked at the trio. "Ooookay, so uhh... I think you might wanna come to the bridge and see this one girls." She gestured and immediately walked, the three figures tailing her as she goes through the hallways, saluted several of her officers, took the lift and arriving at the bridge.

And it was at that bridge that the 'creature' she talked on the phone was very visible for all to see. 3 winged creatures, one red, one blue, and one yellow. Each of them with scaly wings and as a Bridge crew handed Almira some binoculars. Possessing visible reptilian features throughout their body.

Almira did not hesitate. Her crew's safety is priority right now.

"Comms?"

"Yes ma'am?"

"Contact CIC, VLS firing solution, 3 capital ship mixtures, focus on Armour Piercing missiles. DO NOT FIRE unless I give the order."

"Of course ma'am."

"Tell them that I want guns and shields activated, I don't care if power's redirected from unnecessary parts of the ship. APFSDS rounds on the guns, Laser CIWS at full wattage at the ready too."

"Yes ma'am."

"Get all outside crews back to the ship, don't bother about equipment, I just want them safe." She finally ordered, to a chorus of yes ma'ams too. The Captain then immediately turned, her eyes focusing on Sumiye. "Sumiye. Can you do a crash activation of the reactor for me? And make sure those final safety checks are done real quick. I don't want that." She gestured at the Dragons. "Frying the ship. It will probably complicate engineering matters would it not?"

She then turned her head back towards the bridge. "I have no idea if that thing can talk or not. Dragons from what I've read can, but I've never met one before. Hmmm... Q-T? Are you willing to become humanity's temporary envoy to the dragons should you be needed? Sorry about this, but I honestly think that you're probably the only thing that can resist dragonfire right now."

In centuries past, it wouldn't have been nigh-improbable for a boat to sail against the current, at least without the assistance of able-bodied men of extraordinary stamina, but with the advent of magitek, an ingenious marriage between magic and technology, it had become something no one would bat an eye upon. A ship braving against the natural flow of the river? Well, good, that meant the engines were working, nothing to write home about. "Did you know that "Cijatung" is Pataliputran for "Water-Heart"?" Was one of Srikandi's quips during their travel along the river, it seemed the silver-haired warrior enjoyed sharing trivia of Pataliputran culture, if that wasn't obvious enough by now. Maybe in another life, she'd have made an excellent tour guide?

It took the vessel a few hours to reach its final destination, the further it could go up the Cijatung river and from there, the party of four must travel by land. "Make you sure you don't accidentally leave anything important behind, folks." What was that about being a tour guide again?

"Hati-hati di luar sana, kawan! Gunung ini berbahaya." (“Careful out there, mate! This mountain is dangerous.”) The ship captain sent them off with a little cautionary advice.

The party finished disembarking and from there, Srikandi took a short moment to check the local map, charts detailing this mountain region, though it was far from perfect as there were plenty of areas and landmarks yet documented, but what's already there took monumental efforts of exceedingly courageous explorers, braving the harsh wilderness, hungry beasts, and territorial wyrms for the sake of collective knowledge. Not all of them survived, they were definitely one of those unsung heroes.

"We'll be heading to the Great Table, located... right here." The dragon knight pointed to a specific spot on the map, at the base of the mountain chain... on the other side, so they had quite a journey ahead of them. Not necessary the distance as it was actually pretty close if they could just cut a straight path through the mountains, instead the greatest challenges lied with the terrain and its inhabitants, and she wasn't just referring to the dragons, there were plenty of creatures here that'd not see humans, elves, and orcs as anything other than prey. Well, Anki might be immune due to not having any delicious flesh, bones, or marrow to feast on, but it'd be folly to think she'd be perfectly safe, arrogance is the path to ruin.

"Keep your wits up, everyone." Since all of her comrades weren't newbies to adventuring, she didn't need to babysit them, they'd know what to do, yes, even Catherine as much as Srikandi hated to admit it.

..........
.....
...

Hours later, deeper into the mountains, as the sun was starting to set on the horizons, was when the party could sense the first signs of trouble. It had been a relatively smooth journey so far due to their combined skills and expertise, not many passive obstacles could hinder them, but it'd be unwise to think the quest would remain so until the end.

"..." Srikandi raised a fist near the side of her head, signaling for the party to stop, then she spoke in a lower voice, "Sssh... do you hear that...?" Indeed, if they paid close attention, they could hear shuffles of leaves and grasses, made especially audible to those with keener senses, then combined with this gut feeling of being watched, pairs of eyes peering from behind the shadows of the foliage.

@Medili @13org @Sanity43217

---

"Correct! Surprising, isn't it?" Catherine said, almost as if Srikandi had answered some quiz, chuckling as shementioned the Gremarre's royal family.

Truth be told, Catherine's 'connection' to Gremarre's royal family was something that would normally, be incredibly difficult to believe to people who weren't inside the academic society or were part of Gremarre, given her reputation and how... 'problematic', pretty much everything about her was. That said, neither the royal family nor Catherine herself made any real efforts to hide that fact. After all, Catherine was, regardless of all rumors, regardless of her problematic personality, undeniably, a genius, definitely someone like the royal family could make use of, while at the same time, keeping some kind of 'leash' on her, or at least feeding the beast in order to prevent it to cause any havoc.

"I know a lot of people who would be very happy to see that happen." she said with a mocking smile as Srikandi mentioned that there would be consequences if she was lying.

"Unfortunately, It is as real as it gets." she said, grabbing the bronze emblem from one of her pockets and showing it to Srikandi.

"Quite the useful little piece of metal. Most authoritie will even refrain from bothering me with useless stuff like searcing for weapons, dangerous substances or trying to take those away from me, when they inevitably find them on my posession when I show it to them. It's great." she said, laughing as she put it back into her pocket once again.

Just as she said that though, Catherine noticed how Srikandi called the half-orc a pirate, which made her turn towards him again, with a renewed interest in her eyes.

"Oh, a pirate? Those are always fun. It's never boring when they're included." she said, raising an eyebrow as she looked at the half-orc.

"Hm, wait a second... I think I've seen your face before... Mr. Fuentes, if I recall. There used to be a LOT of wanted posters about you on most ports. It seems both of us have quite the reputation, huh?" She asked with an amused chuckle.

"Finally! I was starting to get bored." Catherine said, stretching herself as she got up from the chair, following Srikandi and the rest of the group as they gave the first steps of their 'journey', heading towards the ship that would take them through the Cijatung river.

---

It was only after a few hours of travel that they had finally arrived on their destination. Thanks to how experienced the captain was, the trip was mostly uneventful, which also meant it was incredibly boring. Catherine spent most of the time either napping or double checking the calculations about where the meteor landed, both as a pastime and to ensure they wouldn't end up in the wrong place due to someone's incompetence.

"From explosive and incendiary mixtures to toxins and healing elixirs, yup. Everything is here." Catherine said as she disembarked the ship, making sure she didn't leave any of the dangerous solutions she had prepared behind.

"No need to tell that twice... Not only the terrain is horrible to traverse, but the creatures that live around these parts are really troublesome to deal with, according to the reports I've read about the area." Catherine said as Srikandi warned for everyone to be careful.

...

After hours of walking, the only big obstacle they managed to find so far was the horrible terrain. From the tales and reports she heard about that area, the place should be teeming with dangerous creatures. The fact that they found so few thus far meant that either the meteor scared them away, which was a reasonable theory for smaller creatures, but it was highly unlikely for the bigger predators or that there was something in the meteor that was in fact, attracting the area's bigger predators...

Regardless of the theories she might have, it was true that the sun was already setting when they finally found, or better, were found by something. The alert came from Srikandi, whom raised her fist after she heard a rustling sound coming from the foliage around them. Nodding to Srikandi as she warned them, Catherine stood silent, paying close attention to the noises around them.

Sumiye hadn’t had many dealings with the captain prior to this; as a senior engineer she was fairly high up in the ships hierarchy, being nominally in charge of maintenance for the entire back quarter of the ship more or less, but as a civilian on a military vessel her place in the chain of command had always been a little fuzzy and there had simply never been a need for her to speak directly with the person in charge of it all. She answered to the chief and the chief answered to the captain; even after two and a half expeditions on this ship that layer of separation had kept their paths from crossing all too often.

It meant that Sumiye didn’t have much of a read on Captain Almira going into their meeting, with only the things Chief Gottfried had told her of the woman to base her opinions on. The chief had always had a… colourful way of speaking and a habit of blowing things out of proportion after a few drinks, so she was never really certain how much of what he had told her about the woman was true. She still wasn’t certain but there was one word that Gottfried had kept coming back to when describing their captain, a word that came up again and again any time he spoke of her and after speaking to the woman for barely ten minutes Sumiye was beginning to see why.

Almira was quite eccentric.

With a sigh Sumiye pulled the portable screen out of her overalls and opened up a voice call to her acting Senior Engineer down in the engine section. “Just so you know, those safety checks take eight hours to complete and we’ve only just restored coolant flow in that part of the ship. I’ll give you what I can, but I’m going to recommend shutting it down again after this.” This all seemed like a bit of an overreaction for a bunch of over-sized lizards, even if they did look shockingly like something out of old fairy tales. An order was an order though and this one came directly from the captain.

The device connected and the image of a red-haired woman a few years older than Sumiye was appeared on the screen. “Farris, spool up the reactor for a test run. Thirty… no, just twenty five per cent should do, no need to risk redlining it. Divert as much of the output as you can to the weapons batteries when you can.”

@Kumbaris

Q-T wasn't exactly a big plant person herself, so mentally she primarily boiled Zoe’s report down to ‘great, my friends won't be starving to death’ which was good but it was also a touch reductive. She kind of knew Zoe from going out on expeditions with her, so she was pretty confident the woman knew what she was doing regarding the other stuff. She did however made a mental note to make sure to prioritize soil and water samples back once they went scouting, because she was pretty sure the that would make the botanist happy if she wasn't allowed to go out herself at first and it would help her keep keeping her friends alive. Both good things.

As for her own report, Q-T was internally quite relieved that it had gone over without any complaints. She wasn’t exactly used to reporting straight to the captain after all. Captain’s in general? Sure, she'd done that. But that was basically always on smaller operations than this which gave dealing with them less gravitas than the captain of an explorer vehicle who had 300+ years of experiences under her belt.

Maybe the time they would have spent together reviewing the functioning equipment and then going out on a mission together would have chipped away Q-T’s wall of nerves, but unfortunately grander events called them and put a stop to that as the native wildlife she’d been wanting to go out and find decided to come knocking at their door instead.

And what wildlife it was, if it could even be classified as that.

If you’d asked her, the others were taking the appearance of mythological creatures, or aliens that look way too similar to mythological creatures than anything had any right too, way too well. Then again she herself didn’t give away the fact that she had been mentally sent reeling either. You’d have had to have be keeping a close eye on her face to see how it had gone still (and who would be looking at her instead of the flipping dragons!) as general astronaut training intended to ensure they stayed cool under pressure kicked in and was then stretched to its limits when the captain almost casualty suggested she be the one to initiate first contact if these did in fact turn out to be sentient alien dragons. Which would be wild.

”Yes captain, I’ll get ready to head out right away!” she replied to that particular while frantically messaging Neilsy.

Q: Is your jetbike fixed?

N: Yeah they fixed her right up while I was waiting on your metal ass to finish swimming in toothpaste.

N: why?

Q: I'm going to need to borrow it

N: Wow. Hey now. what for?

N: Also do you know why everyone's getting rushed back inside? it's chaos down here

Q: There's dragons

N: …

N: So like some big dinosaur things or ?

Q: They look exactly like dragons, captain's calling them dragons and she wants me to go talk to them because I'm the only one here who’s fireproof

N: On my bike?!

Q: That's your biggest concern here?

N: Well you are fireproof

Q: jnjadsbkfhjkbfdasumzxqiweu

At this point Q-T just wanted to A: scream and B: spend several hours doing the checks every Ai knew that let you figure out if you where in a simulation or not, but instead she was running through the halls to get ready to go do her job, and maybe make history. or get eaten by a dragon. Which in a way would be making history too if you thought about it.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Fei had journeyed wherever the wind would take him since he didn't really have much sense of direction nor did he know how to read maps. Luckily for him, it caused him to meet a plethora of strong opponents as well as some friends along the way. He constantly sought out opponents that were stronger than him and continued to win every fight. There was not much else to do except completing random requests people asked him to do. Fate was something Fei believed in and he thought that if he simply went with the flow then eventually it’ll take him where he needs to be. Before leaving Putonghua, Fei met a stranger that charged him all of his money so that he could be entered in a grand tournament with the reward being title for strongest human of the world. The stranger then told Fei that they would need to sail on a boat to get to Pataliputra where the supposed tournament will be held. Little did he know that he had gotten scammed and Fei was smuggled into the Kingdom of Pataliputra. What’s worse is that there was no grand tournament and every person he met was confused from his endless questioning. He had never seen the smuggler since the day he arrived but Fei didn’t really care, maybe there was something here for him.

Fei traveled all over Pataliputra and went from adventure to adventure without a care in the world. He didn’t care much for civilization since he had learned how to survive off the land rather than waste what little money he had. The most he would spend on would be food since training and fighting everyday builds up quite the appetite. Then there he was, sound asleep up in a tree in a forest not too far from the city of Cendana when something unbelievable happened. A giant meteor was falling from the heavens shining brightly as if it were the sun itself into the ominous mountains. Fei’s gut was telling him that this was his destiny, fate had shown him something that could only be believed in a fairytale. The next day, the city of Cendana became a bustling town as people from all over came with all kinds of purposes. Fei was in the middle of a request a child made of him in which he was looking for his missing dog. While everyone was recruiting and getting ready to go to the mountains, he was stuck looking for the doge. Eventually he ended up finding it and quickly made his way to the guild house where it now remains empty of life except for the staff. Fei points to one of the guild’s staff who was mindlessly sweeping the hall,

Fei points to one of the guild’s staff girls who was mindlessly sweeping the hall,“Hey, what happened to all those people that were coming into town recently.”

“Huh… oh uhhh…” said the guild staff member as they turned to talk to Fei, “Yeah they all left toward the mountains, there should be a ship leav…”

Before she could even finish her sentence, Fei had already taken off towards the mountains to see if he could make it there on time with everyone else. He ran with swiftness as he made his way towards the port where the ship that would take everyone to the mountains. He definitely wasn’t listening to the lady at the lady at the guild because he took one look at the ship and another at the mountains. It was this moment, Fei would think that everyone was already at the mountains fighting creatures he probably hasn't even seen before. Waiting for this ship to embark would probably take too long so he decided he’d rather swim.

“I don’t really like getting wet, buuuuut I can definitely get there before this slow ship can,” exclaimed Fei as he got in a divers position, “This’ll just be another day of training for me!”

He jumped as far as he could toward the water and screamed, “this is totally a great ideaaaaaa!”

*~~SPLASH~~*

With everything he had, Fei has started to swim freestyle towards the mountain expeditiously, you would think he was fish. It wasn’t until an hour passed when Fei soon noticed that the current was against him. It was not a normal current either, the force of the water crashing onto him caused him to remember the time he had to carry boulders up and down the mountains back home. Maybe he had bitten off more than he could chew, but this river was most definitely not going to hold him back.

His whole body was in constant pain but Fei just kept smiling as he yelled, “Is this all you got!”

He continued on for hours until he finally arrived on solid land where he could finally rest and let his clothes dry.

“Yeah…,” Fei said as he laid out on the ground breathing rather harshly, “Definitely WASN’T a good idea.”

He didn’t rest long as he got up and decided to explore his surroundings a bit, which had turned out to be a bad idea. The river was no longer in sight and he had forgotten how to get back and he still hasn’t seen a single living thing out there. His endless wandering had gotten him nowhere as he desperately searched for anything tasty to eat. All that swimming had expended much of his stamina and it was starting to run out. Fei’s stomach had started to growl loudly as he walked through bushes in hopes of maybe finding some edible berries.

As the sun was beginning to say goodbye, Fei had finally found some hope. It looked like a group of adventurers who had probably come for the same reason he did. Maybe they had some food and water he could get that could finally give him the strength to keep going. He eyed them carefully from a bush not too far away because he didn’t really want to get into a huge conflict with them. They didn’t seem so bad but he could definitely feel that these people weren’t just the average adventurer. He just needed sustenance, anything, he might even beg if it came down to it. He was so down bad that he didn’t even notice that he wasn’t the only one eyeing these adventurers.

Then suddenly, his stomach had growled louder than he had ever heard it before, sounding very similar to that of a tiger ready to pounce on its prey.

He finally decides to jump out in front of them and with a serious face he said, “Hello fellow travelers, I am Fei Bai Ho, greatest martial artist this world will ever see and I have only one question for you all.”

He looks them in the eye and practically throws his head into the ground as he kneels in front of all of them and yells, “Please, I need food and water desperately, you guys are the only living things I have seen all day, I’ll definitely pay you guys back you have no worries there I personally guarantee it!”
@13org @Izurich @Sanity43217 @Medili

---

Anki didn't say much more after the initial introductions between her and Catherine. Zavim arrived, but just like with Catherine, Anki didn't really know who he was. On top of that, the man evidently wasn't the talkative type as he barely made any responses of his own as well. With all considered, Anki ended up defaulting to a polite greeting again, a simple "I am Khaltesh Anki du Oberia. A pleasant to make your acquaintance."

And then just like that, the party of four left the guild to finally begin their journey to the Dragonspine Mountains.

---

Soon enough, they were aboard a boat heading for the mountains. She mostly stood on the front part of the deck during the journey, still as a statue while listening to idle chatters such as Srikandi's quips of explanations regarding Pataliputran culture. In reality, Anki were "sleeping". Sleep for sentient constructs such as herself was a very different thing compared to the sleep that biological living things needed. When Anki "sleeps", she had to stay still and not do any active actions. If she talked, then the sleep is interrupted. If she moved her eyes, then the sleep is interrupted. If she so much as actively moved a finger one millimeter, then the sleep is interrupted. However, she remained completely aware of her surroundings, not even needing to close her eyes while she "sleep". Passive functions that she possessed does not interrupt her sleep. To others not highly familiar with sentient constructs, it might be a rather weird thing, seeing her standing completely still seemingly doing absolutely nothing all throughout the journey.

It was only after they arrived that she stopped her "sleep", disembarking with the rest of the party after she gave a polite thanks to the captain and crews of the ship. As Srikandi checked the map, Anki stood near her, idly observing the surrounding.

"We'll be heading to the Great Table, located... right here." Srikandi's words put Anki out of her idle observation, her gaze moving to the map instead. She quickly analyzed the map, seeing that as far as distance was concerned their destination wasn't actually all that far. Then Srikandi told the party to keep their wits up, and Catherine pretty much clarified what they will likely face during their journey. "Difficult terrain and troublesome creatures. I see..." She had read as much as part of her preparations for the journey. She followed her words up with a nod to both Srikandi and Catherine. "I shall be sure to stay vigilant... In any case, I'm ready to go."

Thus, the party began that travel by land, into the mountains...

.............

The party had then ventured for a few hours deeper into the mountains, the sun now starting to set. Thus far, it had been a pretty smooth journey. That might just be about to change however, as Srikandi suddenly signaled for the party to stop. Being an observant individual and making true her promise to stay vigilant, Anki had noticed the noises around the same time as Srikandi did. The feeling of being watched came soon after, though the sensation was quite different for sentient constructs like her compared to people of other species. It was like something physically nagged at the mind granted to her body by the divine magic during her creation... Regardless, it was enough to put Anki into high alert as her eyes and head quickly moved around to survey the surrounding, her scepter held in her left hand ready to be used be it for magic or for more direct physical utilization.

And then it roared. Well, kind of roared. And "it" being the sound of a stomach growling. Anki's gaze quickly snapped to the direction of the noise, and in came a wild (both in terms of appearance and attitude) young man that looked very obviously to be a fighter of some sort, jumping out right in front of the party.

The stranger greeted the party. “Hello fellow travelers, I am Fei Bai Ho, greatest martial artist this world will ever see and I have only one question for you all.” His demeanor was serious, and he seemed very much ready for confrontation as he looked at them straight in the eyes. Anki wondered briefly why the man had suddenly appeared before them. Was he looking for a fight? Her sister had told her stories before of martial artists that roamed the world looking for fights whenever they met anything or anyone that they deemed likely to be worthy opponents. Was this man one such individual? Anki's posture remained calm, though she was very definitely ready for action if it was required to do so...

And that's when the fighter suddenly came into action. That is to say, the action was to literally threw his head into the ground as he knelt in front of all of them, yelling from the top of his lungs. “Please, I need food and water desperately, you guys are the only living things I have seen all day, I’ll definitely pay you guys back you have no worries there I personally guarantee it!”

"................"

Ah. So less looking for a fight with the party and more already in a fight for his life against starvation and thirst then. "Umm." To Anki, it was then the obvious course of action to help this desperate man. Anki had brought no food with her by virtue of not needing them. But she had brought some water, as water was obviously useful for so many different things. She took out a bottle of clean water from her pack and offered it to Fei as she approached him and nodded at him. "Please, take it. I hope this will suffice, Mr. Fei Bai Ho."

@Izurich @13org @Sanity43217 @Shirly Swad

@Kumbaris @DracoLunaris @King Cosmos

---

As she listened to the captain, Zoe's relief and curiosity grew in equal measures. An icy mountain hm? How icy? Were they sitting on a glacier? Is that what this entire planet looked like? Or was it a mountain like the one in her home colony? With the cold only near it's peaks? Did they happen upon the only mountain range for millions of miles? Was it a small island they were lucky enough to hit, the rest of the planet a blue marble like the one they all descend from?

Zoe gave a salute, happy to follow orders and grab a shower at the first given chance; but much like a student watching their principle have a one sided conversation with a parent, that hope changed to apprehension. Despite this she couldn't help but latch on to the way the captain spoke.

"Watchu need?"

The crack of a smile forming at it faltering when the question of threat appeared.

In a sudden whirlwind, the three of them were following their intrepid leader up and towards the bridge. The urgency of it all putting a flutter in her stomach.

Almost daring a question among all the noise, Zoe received her answer. Far in the distance, enough that their scale was hard to ascertain, flew the stuff of legends. A trifecta of dragons, among the mountain tops.

Straight up dragons. Like from movies and books and shit.

Despite the new buzzing of the crew; following orders, readying for an assault, Zoe couldn't free herself from a train of thought.

"Creatures that big would need a ton of food, carnivorous or not. That means ample life around. What mechanism do they breath fire with? Do they breath fire at all? Or would they breath fire, lightning and water? Ice maybe? If they are different in that way, interesting that they group together. My god are they pack animals?"

A near graze from a deckhand knocked her back into reality. The captain was asking Q-T to try and speak with them. Speak with them. That was a whole other can of worms she hadn't considered. Zoe set her eyes on Q-T, some worry filling her now. It made sense to send someone unappetizing as an envoy, but it felt a little wrong in some mysterious way too.

Again that feeling of being unequipped for a task arose. Zoe suddenly felt very in the way here; like a tree had suddenly sprouted in the middle of a construction zone.

Building up courage for a moment, and feeling the coarseness of her overalls in her grip, Zoe spoke up.

"Captain? Anything I can do?"

She was almost sure the answer would be no, and she was unsure if that was the answer she wanted.

Trying to talk to a dragon would be a fascinating way to go.

@King Cosmos@deadpixel101@DracoLunaris

---

CIC has done a dang good job making sure the weapons are auto-tracking the three targets. Their significant size making them relatively easy to lock and auto-track, but Almira herself was still a bit nervous. Sure, Sumiye has ordered the reactor to run at a quarter capacity, sufficient, so CIC says, to ensure full combat readiness with some power being redirected from other parts of the ship. But she still bit her finger a little bit, this is, quite literally, an unknown unknown. She doesn't know their capabilities, and hopefully the Dragons don't know about what this ship's capable of.

"Hey, anyone heard about D&D? That one tabletop RPG that used to be popular in the 21st century? Heh, who would've thought right?" She tried cracking a joke, her nervousness very visible for everyone to see. "See, I've heard that Dragons in D&D are categorized as Good, Neutral, or Evil. And they say that the Dragons with Red Coloring's pretty evil, while the yellow one's good. I... forgot about what color neutral Dragons should take. But if it's blue, then..."

"Captain." An officer interrupted. "Q-T Brackman's out in a jetbike."

"Good, track her, tell her to move 500 meters away from the edge of the bow of the ship. Stop there, signal to us if she's okay, and then signal to the dragons. Do a lightshow or something."

"Yes Captain."

"Also, can you tell Q-T to show them my face in case they land in front of her. I wanna make sure that I get to talk to them face to face. Assuming they can talk of course."

"Yes, of course. I will relay that to Q-T ma'am."

Unfortunately, she was too focused on the job that she didn't hear much from Zoe. But she only gestured for her to stay in the bridge and probably inform the crew at the Botanical gardens should something go haywire.

---

Galmira was not sure what to make of this mass of metal she's staring at. The Thunder Dragon eyed the object with curiosity, at first she thought that the meteor was just a chunk of rock that crashed into the Great Table. It visibly spooked the elders, themselves thinking that for such an object to crash at a place of great importance, a great change will come about in all societies in Friestan. While she does think that the Elders can be a bit kooky at times, this time though, they might be right.

This looks unlike anything she has seen in her very long life. Nothing, not her time spent in Oberia, Takal, Putonghua, Kumandra, nothing has the aesthetic of this 'meteor', assuming you can call it that. And this 'meteor' also has humans running around inside of it? Just what is this thing exactly?

Just then, Galmira saw a small figure darting out of the metallic object. An... automaton by the looks of it? She took interest in it, but then the Automaton seemed to... waved at her? It seems that this little metallic object wants to talk, she gestured at her friends, both of them nodded and seemingly agreed to cover her as she descended, and so she did. She is the only one here that knows how to speak in the lesser species' languages.

The Elders will certainly be interested once she goes back home with news of this. She landed at the Great Table, her fluttering leaving a small snowstorm in her wake, before she transformed herself, revealing an enchantingly beautiful humanlike form with elongated ears and three horns protruding from her head.

What language will she choose... hmm, perhaps Pataliputran might be for the best, this is pretty close to Pataliputra after all.

"Greetings little one." She gestured at the Q-T unit. "Might I ask, but where do you hail from? And why have you crashed at this Great Table?"

That strange growl... coming from somewhere around them. At this point, Srikandi knew the party was being watched, this feeling in her gut was unmistakable, honed by two decades of adventuring. However, she was no clairvoyant, she couldn't know what exactly were stalking the group. It could be goblins, hellhounds, gnolls, or even a basilisk. Regardless, her senses were on high alert as she prepared herself for a fight, but it's fine because this wasn't the first, nor would it be the last.

Thus, when the "creature" pounced out of bushes, Srikandi immediately brandished Taring, the longsword's enchanted diamond edge gleaming even without sunlight, followed by her shield. Weapons in hand, Ksatria Naga flexed her legs then charged at the... shirtless bandanna-wearing bundle of muscles of a human man.

"Eh...?" Srikandi stopped dead in her tracks, right arm still raised for a cleave, shield positioned in front of her with only the upper half of her face visible from Fei's perspective, but her slitted red eyes clearly expressed utter bewilderment.

Then the dark-haired wanderer spoke in Common, introducing himself. She... had heard his name before, yes, Fei Bai Ho, the vagabond who sought opponents after opponents to challenge and prove himself, his escapades were quite infamous among adventurers. Srikandi had never personally met him before however, until now at least.

"Wha-... what are you doing here then, Fe-" She asked, stuttering once as part of her being was still stuck in fight mode, but before she could finish, the martial artist suddenly performed his secret technique, Kowtow of the East!

"Ah... eh-...? What?" Half of Srikandi was expecting that he'd challenge one of them for a duel as befitting his infamy, him begging for someone to feed him was definitely one of the last things on her mind, but reality proved otherwise. This was definitely one of those cases where real life events were stranger than fiction.

While Eldhi was still bedazzled by the humiliating display, Anki moved first as she altruistically gave one of her water containers to the thirsting (and starving) man. Huh, did she even need to drink-...?

"...?!" Before Srikandi could ponder further, the bushes rustled once more, and this time... it was much less amusing than a malnourished martial artist. Halfling-sized humanoid reptiles skulked and slithered, quickly encircling the party. Kobolds, the colorful pack was surrounding the group of five adventurers now, chattering and snickering. One of them, a red-scaled Kobold and the largest of the pack, took a step closer to assert his presence, then it spoke in broken Common.

"Human give shines-shines, yes, shines-shines~" The pack leader stomped its scaled feet a few times, "Give shines-shines, Pack let human pass. Not give shines-shines, Pack stab human!" It enunciated with the confidence of a thousand man, then followed by its pack banging their weapons - no doubt stolen, scavenged, or extorted - against their chest, cheering their alpha. They continued for a short moment before the Kobold Alpha settled them down, then it spoke once more, licking its fangs greedily.

"So, what human answer?"

@Medili @13org @Sanity43217 @Shirly Swad

The lance shaped jetbike Q-T had managed to get Neilsy to give up after a personal appeal was a wonder of engineering when you got down to it, far superior than a mere hoverbike in numerous ways. The most important one as far as Q-T was concerned was speed. It wasn't one she was using to its full capability now, as the last thing she wanted to do was race towards the megafauna, the ‘dragons’, at a full clip and provoke them. But if things got hairy, or scaly rather, then oh boy, did the Ai want to know she had the way out of the situation they had available.

Other than herself and the bike, she also had a pod that had rapidly been hauled out of deep storage at her request, that contained a 300+ year old experimental device optimistically called The Universal Translator, built at a time where the possibility of encountering sentient aliens was still considered a possibility and not a pipe-dream. It was a dumb Ai coded with every human language that was still known at that time, and numerous theoretical ways of bridging the interstellar language gap between humanity and alien kind. It had been tested and proven to work with human derived languages, both real and fictional, but today she’d be seeing if those old folk’s blue sky passion projects would finally pay dividends. If she could convince the dragon to speak enough to fuel its need for data that was.

Other than transporting the experiment and running away if necessary, she’d also intended to use the jet bike to go up to the dragon’s level, something that became unnecessary when said dragon broke half a dozen laws of physics and shapeshifted into a human(-ish) form. She almost skimmed right past the beauty as her mechanical mind fell over itself trying to work out where in the universe the rest of her mass had gone, before she gave herself a metaphorical slap on the face to knock that off and focus on the mission. She signaled back to the ship that was going to approach, and then did so.

She slowed, turned the bike to one side and then carefully drafted it down to hover at the ground level at a polite distance from the humanoid dragon, after which the short bot hopped off of the, put on her best disarming smile.png and waved to the woman as she spoke a language Q-T predictably didn't understand. If the dragon had instead spoken to her in perfect Mandarin or English or something she would have flipped. Instead she pinged the ship with a status update, something she kept doing whenever she remembered to do so from here on out during the encounter, which went along with a direct video feed of what was going on, and then began the likely lengthy process of trying to communicate.

”Hello, I know you can’t understand me yet, and I can't understand you, but hopefully if we keep talking then this machine” she pointed to the steel sphere which was currently blinking in a computational manner ”will be able to work out-”

“Language shares features with several found on the Indonesian islands ...” the blinking sphere helpful informed her at that very moment.

”... what?!” That managed to push her over the edge for just a second, the Ai turning on the translator device while throwing one one pair of arms up in the air while the others angrily gestured it in a combination of shock and, frankly, disgust.

“Analysis complete: Language seems to be an older version of Indonesian, likely that used during the Majapahit Empire. Beginning translation process now” it then informed her, the old human’s masterwork having bridged the communication gap in only a handful of seconds. It was a little rough at first, but quickly got up to speed with more information as the conversation went on.

"You seem distressed? It is just a language issue… Why is that box speaking over me?" the Dragon, now suddenly understandable thanks to the universal translator acting as an intermediary, said, quite clearly annoyed about the fact that the machine’s way of doing the translation was speaking her words in Q-T’s tongue with only a few moments of delay, resulting in it sounding like it was speaking over her.

”Ahh, no sorry it’s translating for us while we speak. Hang on let me just quickly internalize the language” Q-T replied hurriedly, the box doing the same to her overlaying translation as she spoke, and getting an "Ahh" of understanding form the dragon, who calmed her ire before the bot had even finished explaining due to her speaking being a demonstration of what was being done. "How interesting. And quite annoying, by I suppose I can make do"

”It's ok, you won’t need to. I’ve routed the new language into my own systems, so it’ll do that translating internally and pre-translate my vocalizations. I mean you’ll still need to put up with that with most of the humans…” Q-T said in near flawless Pataliputran, though she was still babbling a bit as a result of the shock of finding out the alien dragon knew a human tongue.

"I see." the dragon replied, too proud to display ignorance on whatever the little machine had been talking about just now, and instead inquiring about her little panic attack "May I ask why you seemed so alarmed for a moment there?"

”Oh. Well. uh. You really shouldn't be able to speak a human language, so the fact that you can kinda took me by surprise?” Q-T began saying and got an affronted look for her undiplomatic efforts. The Ai shook her hands as if she could wave away the accidental insult while trying to correct her mistake ''Wait wait. I’m sorry. That’s not an insult. It's because… ok look can I start from the beginning?”

"You may," was the dragon’s somewhat terse reply, the woman folding her arms while staring down at the robot, now clearly judging her.

The bot gave her a half bow in thanks and then started speaking in a far more professional tone, wanting to try and do over the fist contact moment with the dignity it deserved ”My name is Q T Brackman, and I am currently representing the crew of the explorer vessel Thucydides and, by extension, out home, the Commonwealth of Humanity. We come in peace, and apologize for landing on your territory un-announced. You see we had an engine issue that forced us to, ah, set down here so we could repair it,” she explained, deciding to undersell just how bad things work just in case "Despite the unfortunate circumstances that brought us here, it is an honor and a marvel to meet you and your kin, and I hope this will be the first step towards a long friendship between our two peoples.”

"And I am Galmira. I speak for the elders of my kind, who are very concerned about your crashing upon our land. Your words of peace will no doubt alleviate some of their worst fears." the dragon introduced herself and not so subtly informed her that she wasn't buying the ‘landing’ part of their turbulent arrival, before saying "However, I have traveled and wide, and have never heard of this ‘Commonwealth of Humanity,’ nor seen anything like this vessel of yours. So from where exactly is it that you hail?"

”I should have been clearer. We are not from this world and instead came from space. You see the Commonwealth of Humanity is an interstellar civilization” Q-T tried to explain and then realized that the two thousand year old language did not have terminology to explain this simply, so she had to improvise ”We are. Hmmm. We come from a star. Well several. You see, the stars are just other suns that are very far away. They have other worlds around them, and on one of these, Earth, is the birthplace of humanity. From there they spread to and settled other worlds, one of which I myself call home, via craft like the Thucydides. The Thucydides itself is an exploration vessel, made to explore other stars, which is what brought us here, to you. Does that make sense?”

Galmira pinched the bridge of her nose saying "That. Is a lot to take in." before latching onto a somewhat trivial part of it that she could ask about, mostly to buy her time to take in this revelation with dignity "If you are representing the Commonwealth of Humanity, then why are you not a human? I would much rather prefer to converse with one of your creators than a mere proxy, if that is what you are"

”I am Human. Legally, to be exact. I am simply here instead of one of them because I am built and trained to handle dangers, such as yourselves if you had turned out to not be friendly.” she explained, simplifying centuries of legal arguments back and forth on the topic into the spirit they now represented.

"Hm. Well now that you know that we are friendly, would they care to speak with me in person? You could take me to your leader, perhaps?" she asked, incorrectly believing that what the bot said was not really the case. Both self assured in terms of her not being able to handle the dangers of the dragons and somewhat doubting that she was really an equal to the humans of this commonwealth she spoke of.

”The captain actually wanted to speak with you, ah, remotely. Let me set that up and you can discuss meeting in person with her?” the bot suggested, a touch downtrodden but also understanding of her desire to go directly to the woman in charge.

"You may" Galmira replied, accompanying her words with a dismissive gesture.

Rather than display the captain’s face on her face, that would be weird, she instead went for a decent sized and incredibly rugged tablet that came as part of the jetbike’s EVA equipment. She pinged the com’s officer while she was getting it, and together they quickly set up a connection from it to one of the consoles on the bridge. Then followed the officer’s instructions with how to initiate direct communication between the captain and Galmira.

@DracoLunaris@King Cosmos@deadpixel101

---

The crew of the bridge, from the helmsman to the spotter, even to the radar operator and communications officer, could only stare in amazement and turned their heads towards the Captain. Who herself was rather perplexed at the whole situation herself. Who would've thought, that in another planet, lightyears away from earth, that a creature that seemed like a dragon, that possesses all the magical properties of a fantasy dragon, from the transformation to the beautiful facial features. Would actually speak a form of language Almira could understand.

Not easily understand mind you, the language structure feels a bit off for her. But it's familiar enough, it's not Javanese, but more... old Indonesian by the looks of it.

"Ini gimana ya si naga ini bisa bahasa Indonesia?" ("How in the world did that Dragon speak Indonesian?") She visibly questioned. Looking at the crew, obviously looking either confused because they don't speak her language. But the ones that has their translators on was just as perplexed as she is. "Oke deh." ("Alright") She continued in Indonesian. "Comms officer, connect me with the tablet. I wanna talk with the Dragon myself."

---

The tablet buzzed into life. Quickly showing the picture of the Captain of the ship, no hat on, just her face on the screen. She looks rather surprised by the appearance of the Dragon. Sure she is enchantingly beautiful, but it feels a bit unnatural for Almira's very old eyes. Her skin's just a little bit too perfect, her facial features are directly proportional and symmetrical, without the horns and everything, she would make for a perfect runway model. But with the horns, well, she looks very, very much like a typical description of what a Dragon's human form would look like.

"Uhh. Selamat... sore Ibu Galmira. Nama saya adalah Kapten Almira Gunnarsson Budiman, dan saya adalah kapten untuk kapal Explorator Thucydides, uhh. Mohon maaf ya, kapal kami tabrak di daerah anda. Saya dan awak kapal saya sedang sibuk banget memperbaiki situasi kapal ini, mohon ibu Galmira tidak marah ya."

("Umm, good... evening miss Galmira. My name's Captain Almira Gunnarsson Budiman, and I am the Captain of the Explorator ship Thucydides. I'm very sorry that our ship has crashed in your lands. Myself and my ship-crew are very busy repairing the situation. I hope that you are not offended by this.")

Now it was the time for Galmira to be visibly shocked. The Captain of this ship spoke a... form of Pataliputran, but it feels off, feels very truncated and rough. But nonetheless it is unmistakably Pataliputran.

"I didn't expect that you would be able to speak the language of the Jungle Kingdom. But no, I am not offended by your crash. However, I would need to summon our elders for an assembly, for this is quite an interesting incident to happen. I am sure that the elders would be most accommodating to your current predicament, although I am not sure how they will truly react. I can however assure you that your safety is guaranteed. You might be considered as unwanted trespassers, but since you do not come here willingly. I cannot have your presence here disturbed, it is the Dragon's Code to be accommodating towards any visitor that has arrived here in accident."

Galmira wasn't sure about this whole thing. On one claw, she is handling this rather amicably, the humans from this 'Commonwealth' seems a very accommodating bunch, but on the other hand. She herself was not sure how the elders will react. They are ultimately reasonable, but this is genuinely a situation nobody expected.

"I will have my partners, Gallius and Honorius guard your ship. I would like to talk with you further miss Almira. But I am afraid that this kind of situation might be out of my depth, perhaps initial negotiations between your kind and ours can be initiated once an Elder Dragon has come through, yes?"

The 300 year old woman's face frowned, her hand rubbing her chin as she pondered the offer. It is good that Galmira is visibly showing no signs of hostility, but having two dragons be right next to her ship sounds very dangerous. Like, ridiculously dangerous. Galmira has shown the ability to somehow shapeshift, and the Captain was not sure what other kinds of unexplained abilities the other Dragons may have shown her.

I think it's time for her to make a counteroffer.

"Perhaps you can stay here with us Galmira. Inform your two friends over there about our arrival and make them send the message about our presence to the Elders. I am... personally not comfortable with the thought of being alone with two other dragons I am not familiar with."

Galmira, visibly intrigued by Almira's response, thought for a while, her hands making the same gestures Almira was when she was mulling about the situation. It lasted a good couple of minutes, but eventually she nodded. "Very well, I will inform my two friends about the situation, and have them inform the elders of the situation."

She immediately transformed back into her dragon form, and flew high into the sky. A good couple of minutes of talking with the other two dragons, a conversation in a language the Universal Translator picked up on and is busy deciphering. And she landed back immediately, transforming back into her human form once more. "My two friends are leaving for the nest as I speak. Would you prefer that I stay here or do you want me to be somewhere else?"

"Umm... perhaps you can wait there for a while. I need to speak with my crew first." Before the Captain's connection suddenly went dark and she turned her face towards Sumiye. "Hey, Sumiye. Can you perhaps set up a small tent in the meeting place? Nothing fancy, just set up a couple of chairs, a heater, a table, and we can have a nice conversation going. Don't worry, I'll be bringing my security team with me while you set up everything."

"As for you Zoe. Can you come with me to the site as well? I think you can ask about the local flora in this region to the Dragon. As good as an icebreaker as we can get talking to this dragon, right?"

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As the little girl offered Fei the fresh water he so desperately needed, he couldn’t help but smile brightly for this little group of adventurers. Kindness is hard to come by in this kind of world where everyone just kind of looks out for themselves. Of course, Fei himself was a bit selfish at times but he could never turn down anyone in need of some help. Just like how his master saved him long ago, Fei can only hope to reciprocate that same feeling to others no matter their background. Then there’s always that voice in the back of his head telling him to keep moving forward, let nothing hold you back from being yourself.

Fei finally looks up at the short little girl while still on his knees and says, “Thanks friend!” He grabs the bottle of water and practically downs it in one gulp.

With the water he drank, he managed to gain back a little bit of strength which excites him as he can finally move around more freely. He was still hungry but he shouldn’t have anything to complain about since they gave him what they could. Fei was satisfied with that but then he got to thinking that maybe he was meant to be here with these people. They had to be also trying to investigate the sun that fell from the heavens. Fate had brought these people to Fei in his time of need so maybe he should follow them… totally not because he’s lost. They definitely seemed smarter than him so he’ll just go with flow and follow these guys to wherever they’re headed.

Fei finally stands up, rejuvenated a bit from the water he swallowed and looks at the rest of the group of adventurers. He carefully examined each person now that he has a closer look to get a feel from these people and instantly got that same tingling sensation. The sensation that tells him that some of these guys are strong and he can’t help but fight strong people. But they did help him out so he’ll just save that moment for later. For now, he’ll just go along with them since he was taught to show gratitude to those who help others from his master.

He thought carefully about what he’ll say next and with the smile he still had he said to the group, “Sorry if I scared any of you guys, I was extremely thirsty and hungry but the water should suffice for now, I would like to get to know y’all better…”

Suddenly the group of adventurers were surrounded by scaly short lizard creatures, which Fei has fought before from previous adventures. He guessed he was too hungry to notice their presence before but now it looks like they intended to rob this little group. He then noticed the red lizard looking creature and realized he’d never seen one with a different color before. Fei loves uneven fights because it makes the fight more interesting and it gives him more experience against multiple opponents.

“Looks like we got company and the best kind at that,” exclaims Fei as he gets ready into the Suju fighting stance.

Fei then yells to the red kobold, “You’re just gonna kill us anyways so I don’t think I’m going to hand over anything, besides… I’m flat broke!”

Fei turns his head slightly so the rest of the group can hear him a bit better and says, “I may not have much energy left but I call the red one… y'all can handle the rest.”

He then screams, “Flame Tornado Kick,” as his leg suddenly bursts into FLAMES and Fei jumps toward the leader of the Kobold pack. As Fei is spinning towards the leader looking like a fire tornado, his flaming leg kicks the guards, who suddenly jumped in front of their leader to protect him, away and gives the leader the final kick of this skill. All the red kobold could do was block the kick with the shield it had on his left arm. The kick was powerful enough to audibly crack the kobold's arm and yet that didn’t stop the kobold from pushing Fei off of him and jumps backward to distance himself. Fei returns back into the Suju fighting stance as he lands from the kobold's push.

This one is definitely different from other kobolds, thought Fei in his head as he continues to stare at the red kobold still smiling, what shall I do now. He could definitely feel the exhaustion taking over as his vision starts to get blurry.

---

Catherine's hand was already hovering over one of the vials she carried with her when, much to her surprise, the 'creature' revealed itself to be a strange and wild man, claiming to be "the greatest martial artist this world will ever see". While Catherine wasn't exactly strange to wild, unpredictable and... eccentric people, as those were honestly rather common among adventurers, it was not always that she found one that stood out among the rest.

Despite his sudden appearance, he didn't seem to be a threat, not only given the state he was, but especially seeing how he begged for food and water, going as far as to kneeling down as he did so. Apparently, he had quite a tough time catching up with the rest of the group.
As he introduced himsel, Catherine realized she had already heard his name before, mostly from stories told by other adventurers. Fei Bai Ho. Most called him a vagabond, a wandering martial artist that was famous for being a 'battle maniac', always searching for strong opponents to battle.

"Fei Bai Ho. I heard this name a few times. A lot of adventurers enjoy hearing and telling the stories about you, despite many not really wanting to work with you." Catherine asked with an amused expression, her hand twirling the glass vial in her hand as a greenish-yellow liquid inside moved along with it.

"Welcome to the team." she said with an amused chuckle as she looked to Fei Bai Ho. Judging by the rumors and stories she heard about him, he was definitely a very interesting person to have in a party.

Before they could say anything else though, the bushes rustled once more. Just as Catherine turned towards the bushes, she saw as kobolds quickly surrounded the party. Despite their sizes, they not only were armed, but their numbers far exceeded their own. The largest one among the kobolds was the first to step forward, demanding coin from the group in exchange for safe passage.

"Kobolds! How cute!" Catherine said with a sarcastic chuckle, knowing very well how much Kobolds hated being mocked by their size.

Before anyone could say anything else though, Fei Bai Ho, staying true to the rumors about being a battle maniac, already seemed to have a clear plan on his head. After a few, simple words to the Alpha Kobold, he immediately charged at him, asking the party to deal with the others. Dashing towards the Alpha Kobold, Fei Bai Ho shouted as his legs burst into flames as he kicked the Alpha Kobold. Despite the audible sound of cracking bones and flesh sizzling, the kobold was somehow able to block his kick with his shield, pushing Fei away as the Kobold took some distance to recover himself.

"Here. It's not exactly food, but it will help with the fatigue." Catherine said knowing how exhausted Fei already was even before that kick. She was about to throw the wrong vial to him before she stopped herself.

"Hah! Wrong one. You definitely don't want to drink this one... Especially since there is not really an 'antidote' or something for this one... Here, take it." she said, laughing as she threw the correct one to him as if nothing had happened.

Upon opening it, Fei Bai Ho would notice that along with the strange, bitter scent that was hard to properly identify, there were subtle notes of herbs and spices. The scent alone entered his nose with a burning sensation, almost as if forcing his mind to think clearer. Whatever that was, it was several times stronger than even the strongest 'tonic' that was usually sold by apothecaries. While it would definitely wake him up, he could feel only by smelling it that it would definitely have quite a punch to it. It would be smart to be careful when consuming it...

"Live subjects... How fun!" Catherine said as she wore her special gloves she used for combat, sliding the vial she was playing with a while ago on one of the slots in the combat gloves. The many bottles on top of it already giving the others an idea of how dangerous it would be around Catherine.

Where did all of its mass go?

With everything that she had just witnessed you would assume that Sumiye would have more questions than that, more things going through her head at the discovery of sentient life on this random rock as well as the revelation that said life was both magical and apparently Indonesian. Really though, it was mostly the mystery of where the rest of the dragon had gone when it transformed into the woman that was occupying her attention right now.

Large flying lizards with the ability to speak? Nothing too strange there; nobody ever said that mammalians were the only ones who could develop sentience and while humans were still relatively new to the whole space travel things but the whole point of an exploratory mission such as this was that you expected, even hoped to find other life in the universe.

Big lizard aliens. No problem.

Inhabitants of a previous undiscovered and unexplored world looking suspiciously similar to humans and having a language similar to one of Earth’s own? Sure, that was strange… that was extremely strange, but likely had an explanation; none came to mind, but one had to exist. She remembered a time back in college, years ago now, when she had had a drunken conversation with a linguistics major about how languages developed, both in parallel to each other and separate from each other. A few more drinks in that then led to a long rambling tangent about theoretical alien languages and how they could potentially develop in such a way as to be similar to any one of the hundreds or thousands of languages present on Earth; she had been fun, and her eyes were pretty enough that Sumiye had stuck around to listen to the whole thing. Unfortunately most of her memories of that conversation and the rest of the night were lost to time and too much vodka, but the idea that it could happen was still there.

These aliens apparently spoke something close enough to Indonesian that the captain could converse with them.

The captain would continue to converse with them in fact, as she requested that Sumiye set up a meeting place for them outside the ship where they could talk. Easily achieved, though not by herself. Pulling out her screen again she quickly typed out a request to Air Officer Ilyina to request some extra hands to setup the tent and tables required; she was in charge of all things flight deck and hangar related and as such was in responsible for deploying the EVA crews assigned to help in that part of the ship right now. The EVA team could handle setting up a camp and they were really best qualified to move around in these high mountainous conditions in the first place and Ilyina would know who could be spared and who couldn’t.

“Aye, aye captain; the meeting place will be setup by the time this elder dragon arrives. Do you need me for anything else.”

@Kumbaris@DracoLunaris

---

Anki nodded politely as Fei thanked her and took the water bottle from her. "You are welcome, Mr. Fei." Fei then downed the water in one go, and soon looked like he had gotten a bit better already just from sating his thirst. He started to speak after. “Sorry if I scared any of you guys, I was extremely thirsty and hungry but the water should suffice for now, I would like to get to know y’all better…” But before more can be said from him or any of the others, tiny Kobolds started appearing and surrounding all five of the them. Only one, the red colored leader, was somewhat bigger compared to the rest.

Anki looked around calmly at the surrounding creatures. She already noticed that there were more than just Fei watching them earlier, thought she of course didn't know what they were. "Kobolds... I see." It was the first time for Anki to encounter these creatures directly. However, these creatures were included in a basic adventuring book that she had read before as well as being mentioned in several other books she had read as well, so she had sufficient theoretical knowledge of them. And judging from the Kobold leader's words, it seemed that the stereotypical accounts Anki had read of Kobolds resorting to banditry had truth to it after all...

To Anki's knowledge, taking out the leader of such a pack will always be the best way to quickly cause the others to retreat in fear. Course of action clear, she turned her body around and faced the direction of the leader directly. As she was mulling over whether to just bury the creature in earth and stones or to squish it between two palms of stone however, Fei declared that he shall be the one to face the leader and promptly launched an attack to engage it. He seemed capable enough, and Catherine had thrown him something mentioning that it will help him with his fatigue, so Anki decided that it was probably fine to leave the leader to Fei. "Very well, Mr. Fei. I shall entrust you with the red one. As for me..."

As far as personal tendency was concerned, Anki preferred to take the supporting role in combat situation. This was affected by the training she often received, being taught by the Lord of Gaea to always work together with allies whenever they are present (and if an ally was not present; make one from the earth itself). This time, she believed a preemptive attack would be best, though she will keep in mind helping her allies if the needs arise. Then again that might not be necessary... She knew for a fact that Srikandi was an accomplished adventurer, and the others with her looked quite capable as well. A martial artist capable of shrouding his limbs in flame, an alchemist with bottles of what looked to be highly volatile concoctions and an attitude that showed she knew very well how to use them, and an intimidating half-orc man that looked like he can snap the spines of these Kobolds with ease. Yes, this group against a band of Kobold bandits seemed like very good odds to Anki.

Thus decided on offense she turned her gaze to the smaller Kobolds, eventually picking out three that were standing close to each other, still excitedly watching as they held their likely stolen weapons in their hands. Anki nodded to herself. "Hmm. Yes. Let's start with those ones." Immediately she started manipulating the flow of natural mana around her, focusing the magic unto Ur Terra. Then, she slammed the bottom of the scepter once on the ground. "Earth Spikes." And with that simple incantation the ground under the three Kobolds immediately trembled for a split second before three large spikes made out of stones burst out at high speed the next second. Solid stones, warped and molded by Anki's Geomancy to be lance-sharp at the top ends; the very same top ends that were aimed at the little creatures' torso, skewering them like grilled lizards on sticks.

Kind-hearted as she might be, she were also taught not to show any quarter towards evil. In reality, not all bandits were evil of course. But unfortunately for the Kobolds, that fact slipped Anki's naive and young mind. So she didn't think of showing any mercy in this occasion, just like a young child not showing any mercy to an ant that bit them.

@Izurich @13org @Sanity43217 @Shirly Swad