this is not a spaceship | Glowfic Constellation

This is not a spaceship. This is a hilly area with a lot of soil and rocks and burn marks on the ground and occasional valiant clumps of grass. And quadrupedal creatures making vocalizations and chasing each other, over there, up the hill.

It stands up, towering over the quadrupeds at 3 meters of height. It looks around at the sky - but its ship isn't there.

There are stories about ships being lost in the gate, entering and never returning. It thought those were myths.

But no, no, don't panic, panicking will not return you to the hive. Its vision is not that great, but it has a good look and listen and sniff at the area, attempting to orient itself.

The repetitively-vocalizing quadrupeds approach.

"Houndour?" "Houndour!"

One of them breathes fire at it.

Heh. It could wade into a pool of burning fuel, and that fire doesn't look particularly hot. It raises its arms and roars at them.

The nearest quadruped scampers away.

Another one gets closer. Fire!

Augh, fire! Why in the Queen's name does it hurt so badly? It's been hit with incendiary weapons before and come out less harmed than after that short burst.

New threat assessment of strange fire-quadrupeds: Very high.
New course of action: Punch one as hard as you can then flee in the opposite direction at top speed (not all that fast).

The quadruped is punched away.

The others are mad now. They chase it! They are faster than it is and soon have it surrounded and on fire.

It climbs a tree. The tree becomes on fire. It tries to drive them away, deploying claws and poison stingers and trying to seem threatening, but for some insane reason fire is exceptionally deadly now. It backs itself into a corner and tries to shield itself with a head-sized rock.

The quadrupeds are abruptly chased away by another, smaller quadruped, which sprays water all over the place. It sprays water on the hiver too. There is a biped, accompanying the water creature. It shouts something and throws a small sphere at the hiver.

And then there is silence and disconnection from the sensation of time passing.

It tries to smack the ball away, instinctively thinking grenade! But by that point it can't move very much.

Eventually the vague shadows of pain disappear.

And then it is out of the sphere, in a roomful of more bipeds.

They use tools, build things? Perhaps they belong to a very strangely-adapted hive. It stands up tall and demands to know where it is, not really expecting them to understand.

They indeed do not understand! They talk, but to each other.

It waits until they're sufficiently distracted and sprints for the nearest door-like structure.

And then it is back in the ball.

And now it is out of the ball and surrounded by various fire-themed creatures.

Hiss! And various other angry sounds surrounding vivid profanity that they cannot understand.

Bipeds continue talking to each other.

Tactical analysis: Surrounded by creatures that can easily kill you, apparently under the loyalty of a hive of bipeds. Bound to a device/weapon carried by one of the bipeds. No tools, no weapons, you cannot understand them, violence will not help.

Trying to learn bits of the language might help, but the sounds they make are slightly disgusting. And they don't seem to be using scent. It tries anyway.

Bipeds pause in the speaking and listen to it!

It really has no idea what it's saying, just random words from their communication, and it goes stiff and silent as soon as they look at it.

It points one arm at itself and says, "I am Tk'tlz," which sounds a lot like "Kuztektools."

Bipeds resume talking, louder and more rapidly, including the string 'Kuztektools'.

Ugh. It considers making another run for it, but a wary glance at the fire creatures convinces it otherwise.

It doesn't try to talk again, instead trying to work out some basic vocabulary. Connecting concepts only to sounds and not scents is weird and difficult.

Before it has had much chance to form guesses about what sounds like "'mon" and "bug" and "legendary" could mean, a biped wanders off, and then comes back with another biped.

They think you might be intelligent, thinks a thought in its head that is not its own.

Its first response to this is alarm/threat assessment. Its second is thinking Yes. Your fire things are very concerning.