The Chemical Doctor stood back, his white coat pristine despite the gore of the ruins. The wounded elf stared down at his own thigh, his eyes wide with a mix of terror and awe. The jagged gash, which should have taken weeks to knit under a healer's hand, was already sealing. The skin was cool to the touch, the bleeding halted by a clear, pungent liquid that smelled of nothing but sharp, sterile logic.
The elf's hands trembled as he touched the treated area. He looked at the Doctor, his voice a whisper of Elder Speech.
"Aep d'hoine gwyn? (What kind of potion is this?)" he asked, his confusion deepening. He could feel no warmth of a spell, no hum of the Power; it clearly lacked any supernatural energy.
The Doctor didn't smile; he simply checked a gauge on his wrist. "N'va d'hoine gwyn, aep glann, (It is not a potion, it is medicine.)"
Meanwhile, the Diesel Engineers had fanned out among the ruins. They picked their way through a graveyard that made no sense to their hyper-intelligent minds. There were dozens of corpses—some in colorful, flowing robes that were entirely alien to them, and others in heavy plates of steel. While the robes were a mystery, the latter was familiar as a primitive form of a knight.
One Engineer kicked a dented breastplate with his reinforced boot, letting out a short laugh as he turned back to the elf they had rescued.
"Céadmil dh'oine? (Is there a human settlement nearby?)" the Engineer asked, gesturing to the armored bodies with a mocking chuckle. "Va'en aep knight? (Why do they still use this outdated knight armor?) N'va aen deireadh aep n'va glan caen? (Why do they not use a steam mechanic exoskeleton?)"
The Engineer adjusted the utility belt holding his Jetpack and tools, his expression one of genuine scientific pity. To a man of the Dhu Ddraig Imperio, wearing a heavy iron shell without hydraulic assistance or the reinforced joints of a steam-powered exoskeleton was a failure of basic engineering.
The elf looked from the Engineer's sophisticated firearm to the "outdated" knights on the ground, his mind reeling.
"Aen deireadh, (They were warriors,)" the elf stammered.
"Aen dh'oine deithwen, (They are human scrap metal,)" the Engineer corrected. "Va'en aep dh'oine? (Why do these humans still live like this?)"
******
The Lead Doctor adjusted his goggles, the lenses clicking as they zoomed in on the elf's stabilizing vitals. He stepped closer, his voice echoing in the cold, precise cadence of the Imperial Elder Speech.
"Va'en aep n'ess? (What happened to you?) Va'en aep glann? (Why are you injured?) Aep dh'oine deithwen? (And who are these human scrap metal?)"
The elf leaned against the cold stone, his breathing finally slowing. He looked at the bodies of the knights and the robed figures with a mixture of sorrow and defiance.
"Aen neen'n'va, (I am a refugee,)" the elf began, his voice trembling. "Aen que'ss aen, (I acted as a decoy to protect my kin from human attackers.)" He gestured to his simple, travel-worn clothes. "Aen Aen Saevherne, (I am an Elven Sage,) n'va Aen Seidhe, (not just one of the hill folk.)"
He explained how he had hidden his true nature, dressing as a commoner to lead the hunters away. Through his hidden talents, he had managed to take down the armored knights and the sorcerers from a place called Redania.
"Dh'oine Redania, (The humans of Redania,) aep Scoia'tael? (suspected us of being Scoia'tael collaborators.) N'va true, (It was not true.) N'va guerrilla, (We had nothing to do with the guerrilla forces.)"
The Chemical Doctor listened with clinical focus, his mind processing the data. These "Redanians" sounded like a volatile, inefficient biological threat. He turned to the lead Engineer, who was already checking the frequency on a handheld transmitter.
"Gar'ean! (Halt!)" the Doctor told the elf. "Aep caerm, (We will contact the nearby imperial outpost in the wild.) Aep car, (They will bring a car to escort you to the Empire.)"
The Doctor then leaned in, his gaze piercing through his brass-rimmed lenses. "Va'en aep sor'ca aep va? (Where are your kin?) N'va ess'caerll, (They are still not safe.) Dhu Ddraig Imperio aep ess'caerll, (The Empire is the only safe place for them to go.)"
The elf looked at the strange men of gears and chemicals, wondering if he was trading one hunter for a much more powerful, logical master.
******
One week had passed since the extraction. Within the gleaming, geometric heart of the capital, Emperor Tyler IV McDowell sat before a mahogany desk inlaid with brass circuitry, reading the digitized reports from the northern frontier.
His brow furrowed as he processed the data on the elves and the "Redanians." He was a man of cold logic, but the reports of the southern humans' behavior struck a chord of genuine revulsion. He was clearly disappointed in the southern humans; he had not expected that a dh'oine (human) could be so barbaric.
"Dh'oine Redania, (The humans of Redania,)" the Emperor stated to his advisors, his voice tight with controlled fury. "Aen deithwen, (They are scrap metal.) N'va dh'oine, aen dh'oine n'va glan! (They are not humans, they are barbarians!)"
He slammed the report down and issued his command in the official tongue. "Aep neen'n'va, (Take good care of the refugees.) Aen glann, (They have suffered enough) aep dh'oine n'va glan. (from the barbarians.) Dhu Ddraig Imperio aep ess'caerll. (The Empire is the only safe place.)"
Meanwhile, the elven refugees were experiencing a cognitive dissonance that bordered on the religious. After learning that Elder Speech was a language exclusive to the government, the labs, and the factories, they made a collective decision. As a mark of profound respect to these decent dh'oine (humans), the elves began to speak in common speech when addressing their hosts.
"This is a utopia," one refugee whispered in common speech as they watched a Diesel Engineer repair a hydraulic lift with effortless precision. "I would have mistaken this for a magical nation if I had not seen it with my own eyes."
The Aen Saevherne (Elven Sage) stood among his people, his hands spread to feel the air. He no longer used the ancient tongue of his ancestors, choosing instead the common speech of his protectors.
"There is no chaotic energy here," the Sage explained to his kin in common speech. "No magic. Only physics. They have built all of this through logic alone."
The refugees could hardly believe it. They had found a world of peace and wonders, built by dh'oine who valued reason over the cruelty they had fled in the south.