[Dungeon of Stories] 52 – A Galvan Trapped and Lost

[1415 Words]

Nylok was remarkably average when compared to others of his species. Still, despite that, he had one thing going for him: while most Galvans remained on their home planet of Galvan Prime, he explored the galaxy in search of anomalies, interesting planets, and even interesting species and civilizations, funneling his research back to Galvan every once in a while as he explored to his tiny heart's content.

Sure, it may not have been the best use of his intelligence working as a Curator for the Galvan Empire. Still, he found joy in his work and amassed quite the collection of alien species, artifacts, technologies, and more that would have been useful to the Galvan Empire in some way, shape, or form.

He's seen many things in his life so far, and done even more. Still, in the end, it all came to an abrupt end when he entered a system on the fringes of the Milky Way Galaxy that was considered a 'no-fly' zone by the surrounding interstellar civilizations. What he found was unusual and unlike anything he had ever seen before. 

An entire system, with one giant red star at its center, with a whole graveyard of ships floating around it. So many ships that the sheer materials necessary to make that many would have required nearly a dozen systems' worth of raw resources to make, and they all floated there.

By then, Nylok realized he was too late; within minutes of his jumping into the system, he found his ship under attack by strange spherical machines and automatons that shredded through his ship's shielding and armor plating. In an attempt to escape, he attempted to use the carcasses of the ships around him as temporary shields. It worked, but left his ship in critical condition, and on a direct crash course deeper into the system.

It was by sheer luck that he crashed on what was likely the only planet in the system. It was a red planet, a planet with no atmosphere and covered in crashed ships, space stations, and more. If it were not so dangerous, Nylok would have thought the place was a gold mine, to use a human term, of potential new technologies, resources, and who knows what else.

It was there that Nylok found himself increasingly more desperate as his ship's life support systems failed one after the other, forcing him to scavenge and tear apart the wreckage of other vessels around his crash site in hopes of repairing his life support systems and eventually his ship and get it in a good enough condition to either make a beacon or fly.

He did that for months, to no avail. It was like every ship he tried to salvage from had already been picked clean through, leaving only the hull in its place. It was all so strange, and yet he could find no answers. Then, that's when his dire situation turned for the worse. More of the machines found him, or more accurately, they found his ship while he was out scavenging, and he came back to see that everything he had gathered was gone. 

In a bout of desperation, he tried following the machines across the surface of the planet, but he quickly lost track of the machines that were capable of Space Travel. However, what he found instead brought him unimaginable hope, but ultimately led to even greater despair. A tear in space and time, one that could have led to an entirely new dimension or even a new and unexplored universe.

Instead, he found himself in what he could describe as a primordial garbage dump, one that was relatively young but continuously growing through the accumulation of garbage within its confines. At first, he believed he'd starve in the primitive city, then large creatures he later learned were called 'Giant Ants' began popping up.

It took careful preparations and planning, but Nylok found that it wasn't too hard to lure one away from its group and into a trap. As a plus, they were pretty delicious, one of the best insectoid beasts he's ever had.

When Nylok found himself in this city, he appeared in a rather large structure with the human words 'Buy N Large,' which seemed to have been a warehouse or storage area of some kind, though a strange appearing one. He thought at first that he appeared on Earth via the portal, but in the few months he was stuck in the ruins of the city, he found what he liked to call the  'Walls,' one at the center of the city, and one surrounding it, forming the city into a donut shape.

Over time, Nylok noticed that the city was growing in size, which both fascinated and horrified him, and he thinks that this is for a very particular reason. The structure he was camping in was completely swallowed up by another while he was out scavenging; this new structure appeared to be similar in appearance to a large garden with a pagoda at its center.

Having lost his workshop, Nylok decided to move bases, finding a coy factory for something called 'Cyberlife Androids' a while back, and well, he was curious as to what could have been inside, and boy was he lucky as to what he found. An entire factory seemingly dedicated to the manufacturing and maintenance of primitive Synthetics in the shape of Humans. If he could get the factory up and running again, he could secure the manpower he needed to develop an escape plan, allowing him to return home.

So, that's what Nylok did. He got to work, utilizing the Synthetics to perform much of the manual labor, scavenging, and hunting. At the same time, he focused on building the Synths' weapons, armor, and equipment, and doing what he could to repair the damaged Synthetics.

...

When a year had passed since he found himself trapped in this dimension, Nylok heard his radio come to life —a radio designed explicitly for emergency news or situations that required his attention, "Boss? This is Unit 137. We have some dire news in need of your attention and direction."

Hopping from his work desk across the room and onto another desk where he had a makeshift Ham Radio, Nylok reached down to answer and shouted in annoyance at the third radio call this very day, "What?!"

"We've spotted intruders being pursued by the Corrupted Machines, orders?" The Synthetic on the other end answered, its voice calm and collected.

"What kind of intruders?" Nylok questioned directly.

"Humans, a convoy in appearance, Father," ignoring the title the simple synthetics have given him, he asked more questions. "From which direction do they come? How many in total are there, and how many of the Corrupted Machines chase them?"

"They have come from the center; before that, we do not know. There were seven that we could count, with six Corrupted Machines chasing them. What are your orders, Father?" The Synthetic asked for guidance.

"Bring them to me, you are authorized to use all weapons in your arsenal to eliminate the Machines, mark their carcasses for later retrieval, understood?" Nylok ordered, allowing them to use their more expensive and less maintainable equipment, which could easily destroy the Corrupted Machines.

While Nylok found the Human slugthrowers that the Humans were so fond of using as primitive, it was better to make do with what he had until he could make something better, after all, until he the proper infrastructure, it woudl be redudant to switch to Energy weapons that would have been far superior in range, speed, and lethality when compared to the Slug Throwers the Synthetics scavneged and have been using since.

It did not take long for the Synthetics to return with the Humans, and when they were gathered before him, Nylok sighed. Whoever these humans were, they were not the ones Nylok was familiar with, the Space-capable Species of Humans that he knew would certainly not have dressed like...this. They wore fur and patches of leather; their weapons were cold, and even more primitive versions of projectile weapons. Some of them wielded straight-up clubs.

At this rate, Nylok would never escape this dimension and return home if all he had were primitives at his disposal. Despite that thought, at least he'd have some more manpower in the future if nothing turned up, but first things first, to find out where the Humans came from and how they got here.