09. Old dungeons and dragons

We arrived in that City of the kingdom of Belgium and something was off.

There was heavy civil unrest, and riots were turning violent.

Josephine pulled Aster and I by the sleeves so we wouldn't get into trouble just being curious. The people and the police forces were getting violent with each other. Tear gas was sprawling the streets.

We reached the guild house were other adventurers were gathered and waiting for things to cool down. They let us in given our apparent innocence.

There we learnt why things were tense.

A village near the frontier with the neighbouring Kingdom of Netherlands and Flanders had been attacked, and its population deported beyond the border.

Because Flanders had been part of Belgium for a long time, that added salt over the injury. The Kingdom of Netherlands didn't claim anything, and both kings were currently silent. Something was off. They guarded the border and the people were left in ignorance. A good number of people had disappeared and that terrified many. The situation was bad clearly, and grew the tensions between both people and officials.

Officials had reported the sighting of dragons to scare people away from the area. That must have been a lie.

S - Okay, we'll help.

A - Are you sure Siline? I know we have power, but...

S - We'll just focus on finding and saving the people, nothing more. And if it comes to a fight, at least I know we can prevail without spilling blood over.

My friends were nervous, but they believed me and our strength.

S - Radiant Firebond, go!

The guild request was akin to spying if it was taken the wrong way. But focusing on saving hostages, regardless of who the perpetrator was, so long we didn’t cause an international incident along the way, that could work.

The guild branch manager wasn't very happy of our initiative, but eventually agreed. We weren't local nor nationals from either of these two countries, so whether we succeeded or not, that would make things easier. He insisted on us getting support from another group though. Fine, we took them along.

And so we went toward the border at night, and slipped through the shadows. I carried everyone in huge jumps defying gravities above the watchtowers. My friends managed to keep their shrieks muffled. That was a little fun. The other group was just as terrified, but they had enough experience to keep their cool.

We went through the forests and reached an old base with a digging site in the middle. Odd.

The people kidnapped were forced to work under the watch of a local armed group. Either well organised bandits, or a hired PMC.

We knocked them down quietly and spent the night evacuating about everyone.

I had... an intuition.

I gazed at the hole and tunnels.

This looked like an ancient military bunker, and something was bugging me.

Nanites had disabled planes and nuclear weapons in the past. So what could be worth the trouble down there? Just traditional military supplies?

I saw some tattered mentions of Technology Isekai on some of the panels. This had belonged to the consortium of sages in the past?

S - Nanites, what's down there?

N - We're not allowed to say...

S - So it's holding something regarding the system hm...

Just knowing that now gave me the unusual shiver.

I used to play videogames, and especially RPGs.

And along their story telling progressing from worm hunting peon to god slaying hero saving humanity, there are these subtle levels of progression. When things inconsequential progress toward higher levels of importance and meaning. When the hero to become is recruited by the resistance, then when he meets his big baddie. There are steps that are in your face, but sometimes they are subtler and unspoken, like solving a mystery.

I used to like that thrill of beginning to realise the bigger picture beneath the surface we' ve only skimmer so far. When I could begin to puzzle things together, and guess...

And seeing that T.I. logo here beneath the ageless dust, I had the most odd feeling of fate beginning to unfold.

He never told me...

Perhaps because he too like the nanites local groups, was not allowed to say.

But he gave me the clues he could. He nudged my fate with an unspoken message.

A silent call for help?

On a historical level...

I turned toward my friends, as dawn neared.

S - I think, I need to have a look below... Would you wait for me?

A - Are you kidding? We're coming with you.

They trusted me. No matter what. That was how dear and strong our bond was.

So we left the other group take care of evacuating every prisoner, while we headed downstairs into the vault.

~

The antechamber was a huge dome of darkened concrete, now with its summit pierced open. We slid down along a cable for a hundred metres down roughly.

It was dark beneath.

The ruins were old and useless. Offices and storage had rusted and turned to mush over time.

Odd robots from a different time were dead and rusting away in the corners. There was no treasure left.

And against an end wall, lied another beacon. A technobabble wall of that odd colour. The same kind from my Royal Academy of Norway. Smaller, older. Incomplete perhaps.

I didn't really want to touch it this time. But this thing was likely the reason. A system node away from governments and cities' eyes.

I was getting my resolve shake while my friends looked around through the rubbles.

I picked up phones and computers from generations I could recognise, and I tried using them. And bits were reacting to me, as they would anyone knowing what was going on. Pieces of hardware from the early system and a different time recognised me like an heiress of a lost civilisation.

My friends saw me, and understood.

They all did. The connection between this place and some of my weirdness was all too plain.

I felt that shameful shiver. I couldn't laugh it off.

But they kindly brushed it off.

A - Are you okay Siline? It's okay if you can't tell us yet...

I wanted to hug her, but I didn't have time.

Because then, weird noises came from above and behind.

A mighty roar followed, as the massive thing crawled through the ceiling crack and fell inside. It landed in the middle of what was now our boss battle room.

B - Humans...

S - A mech?

C - Dragon!

My friends were now trembling, petrified. They were terrified for good reasons.

A dragon with gleaming eyes was standing before us, ready to wipe us away.

~

New species were either human abnormalities, or monsters spawning uncontrollably out of sight in still unknown manners.

Dragons however, were neither.

They came from the golden age of nanotechnology, around the time when the system was implemented. Only they were the evil little brothers to the nanites I knew of. They had been designed as automated and autonomous high tech weaponry. Only they escaped all control.

They were a supreme technology of all repurposing material, able to take control of any modern weaponry and vehicle, and transform them to their needs. The ultimate versatile weapon. Which went AWOL at some point, and became a new species, not based on carbon biology but steel and silicon.

These nanites swarms turned independent and made their bodies, and offspring, out of all the machines and weaponry they could find.

All the drones, wandering bullets, tanks, submarines, helicopters, armoured vehicles and heavily computerised machines became their preys to feed upon. It didn't help with military stability when these dragons began coming like giant birds to pick up and forage for food in every military facility of the world.

Thankfully, sine the dragons didn't rely on biology, they didn't eat humans to survive. However, they had been born as weapons, and thus were not known to be shy or merciful. Dragons took no prisoners.

In our days, dragons were a rarity, because the population had declined to reach a balance with what the world could unwillingly sustain

But they were there, and still a super predator you didn't want to see appear in the sky. It would stomp or incinerate anyone on their way to technological food. It would barely register you as more than a bug...

Except for the strongest adventurers, with enough magical power to face them.

And now we couldn't escape.

S - Can we talk? I'd like us to be friends.

B - ...

J - You can't talk to a dragon Siline! They're killing machines!

The dragon opened its maw, and a growing red and yellow light appeared. It was going to turn us into charcoal. No time to bargain or think.

Cécile reacted first, throwing water through it with magic. I followed, asking for the nanites to muster all the protective layers they could make to shield us.

The waters and fires exploded, blowing clouds of burning vapours filling the entire space. We coughed, and tried to find a way out, but we were stuck.

The eyes and maw were glowing and showed through the mist. My friends were going to get killed, because of me...

I stood and went ahead.

S - It's just me who wanted to see this. Let them go please. And we can look at this beacon together.

B - You...

The dragon refused. And it signified it by attacking again. I took the blast head on, with nanites making me near invincible.

The fire scorched me and the blow sent me flying still as if I had died.

A - Siline!

My friends yelled in terror, and then in wrath.

They attacked before I could recover my senses.

The dragon shoved the angry and tearing up bugs away, hurting them severely, until he noticed.

They all saw me standing.

My clothes were tattered and my hair was still burning, but my body remained pristine. Only now that my friends were hurt, I was not smiling.

My friends lying on the ground and holding their bleeding wounds were looking at me weird.

S - I gave you a chance, dragon...

Nanites!

Now I unleashed their full might.

I solidified the air, and I ordered them to wreck it in a mixture of their spells.

An area of dislocation began to tear it apart, shredding the scales and frailer bits. Its multiplied weight kept it down and immobile.

I walked closer to it as it was visibly struck down, but by no clear or visible power out of my hands.

Now I looked like the vengeful agent of doom, but I was pissed.

My friends had seen how uneasy I had been since we entered this historical vault. They had seen my dread when I recognised objects from my time.

They had had that weird shiver of one noticing something bigger, something older and consequential.

They had begun seeing behind the veil of who I really was, and not minded one bit. Because they loved me. Now this dragon was forcing me to come out in a way I had not wished. And more importantly it had hurt them!

I ripped more of it apart until it cried. It begged.

B - Please! Spare me!

S - Hm...

I was dominating it in an absurd reversal no one had expected, and I was angry.

Thankfully, my friends called back my reason to me.

A - We can't kill anyone who surrenders Siline. That's not us.

S - You're right...

Even if it's a dragon.

Its head that had lost most of its scales was released from the invisible grind it was in.

I got close enough to touch the weird autonomous organism. I had a creepy smile in front of its eye.

S - So let's talk, okay?

B - Yes...

And so I tamed my first dragon.

Showing him who's boss...

~

While it or he was now more calm and patient, I helped my friends recover and heal. I could use the nanites even that way now.

Soon we were all fine, never mind my tattered clothes and the bits the dragon had lost, ripped away.

S - Would you be my friend?

B - Uh...

C - It's less pain to say yes and roll with it.

S - You make me sound like a monster!

All I got in denials were dry laughter. Geez. Perhaps I ought to reconsider just ruling the world with my power. Food for later thought.

The dragon had no name per se, so I called him Basileus.

S - It's the first time I can talk with a post singularity entity. I'm happy.

B - Who... are you?

S - Just what you see before you. Siline.

We cut the chitchat short eventually.

S - You came here to eat that node, didn't you?

B - To commune with it. These places are rare, and the communications are limited. I need to hear its words as the guardian of our time.

S - Interesting. Please tell me more...

We heard a rare view of draconic philosophy, which wasn't as hell bent on warfare as one might have expected.

And in many ways it connected to what I had come to learn about the nanites system.

The dragons really were like the other new species in that they had some level of authorisation to use the system at will. And they couldn't speak to the nanites or manager like I did, but they got some of it through patience and time.

So they believed in their own understanding of the machine god... Funnily.

~