They've been ambushed. 

Ilek was leading a patrol through the far side of Kiat's radius, away from the front. Something - or someone - must have tipped the Imperials off somehow, because halfway along a whole host of them had descended on his squad. They'd been preforming a fighting retreat for twenty minutes when Jaim finally got to them with reinforcements. 

Most of Ilek's squad is dead. He doesn't even know most of their names. 

This isn't the time to mourn, however - even with Jaim's elites taking the pressure off, they're still outnumbered. He focuses on the enemy, threading and incanting a fire spell to throw at the nearest one. The remaining lieutenant from his squad, Kion, raises an earth shield behind him to block an incoming ice spear.

And then, suddenly: a woman, and some kind of strange... being? Appears a few feet away from them.

He whips around when he sees them, his eyes widening as he notices the imperial who had been sneaking around the battlefield to come up behind him, and the firebolt he'd cast at him which was now streaking towards the newcomers. 

The newcomer leaps, taking her companion with her, sailing easily out of the fire's path and ultimately putting a good thirty feet of distance between them with the one bound. She leaps again, for good measure, putting more distance between them and the fighting, and then turns, taking a defensive stance and readying some kind of sword made of red light.

Ilek is very relieved to have her farther away from him after this display. Such an advanced and wasteful use of space mana, and then that blade - it looks like something one could do with fire magic, but it would have to be fairly advanced. She must have an Artefact, and frankly he has no desire to fight her if she's not going to attack him. 

He's not the only one on the battlefield, however. An Imperial mage turns when she soars above him, and as soon as she lands throws a bolt of lightning at the sudden threat at his side's back. 

She deflects the lightning with the sword, sending it toward another combatant in the same uniform, and then gestures with it, try that again.

He does not! He tries something else, though. Pouring mana through his Blade to amplify it, he makes a sweeping upward gesture, pulling water from the air and freezing it with a shouted word to send it streaming at her in the shape of roughly two dozen knives.

She looks unimpressed, but waits for them to hit her telekinetic shield and fall to the ground before she counters with her own lightning.

He tries to shield by raising a wall of stone in front of himself. 

He manages it; the lightning grounds harmlessly against it. This makes for very little reprieve, though; the wall begins to fall before the sound of the lightning has cleared from the air, and his opponent is right behind it, already moving to close with him.

He raises his blade in an attempt to defend himself, calling up a twist of near-boiling water to throw at her while he backpedals.

She dodges the water, changing direction in a way that doesn't seem quite real, and then she's on him, wasting no time in bringing her blade to bear. She stays only long enough to make sure that he's dead before leaping away again, back to where her companion is waiting in a crouch.

He is dead! His blade crackles with energy where it falls, split in half by her own. After a moment, it dissolves into a pool of thick red-gold liquid which slowly pulls back together to leave it whole again.

No one else seems eager to take her on. In fact, the faction which had attacked her is retreating now, disheartened by the death of their most powerful mage, among others. 

The other, smaller faction starts checking over the battlefield, some vanishing off into the trees to make sure the enemy is actully retreating, and others to follow the trail of the fight and find the dead and injured members of Ilek's patrol. 

Jaim approaches her warily, remaining some distance away so as not to crowd her. 

"Are you alright, stranger?" He asks. 

She holds position for a moment, making it clear that she's not accepting his presence quite so readily as he might want, before stepping aside to let the metal woman with her address him in an entirely unfamiliar language.

He stays exactly where he is, turning his attention to the other being when they speak.

He doesn't understand a word.

Well, that complicates things. Still, he has a translation runestone. He activates it with a touch of illusion mana.

"Can you understand me?" He asks. 

"-yes sir," she replies, startled, and then signs to her companion: He's not speaking Basic, but I can understand him.

"For honesty's sake, I should tell you I can understand you when you sign as well. This runestone allows me to understand any language spoken, signed, or written within hearing or sight." 

"Thank you, sir." She relays this as well, and her companion nods and signs to him, one-handed: situation report?

"You are near the border of the Kingdom of Cialin and the Arming Empire. This is part of the warfront - the battle you apparently materialised into was between our forces - those of the Cialin military - and the Imperials. You killed the most powerful mage among them, and they were already tiring from the running battle between them and Prince Ilek's patrol, so this action sent them into retreat. Thank you for that, by the way.

"How did you get here?" 

Teleported. Different universe. She considers for a moment: can't repeat it.

He pauses, unprepared for these statements. 

"Ah. I'm not sure we will be able to help you get back, either. Perhaps a very powerful Space mage might manage it, but those are in short supply." 

He pauses again, "Welcome to Cialin, I suppose." 

The way she shifts when he suggests sending her back, away and guarding, suggests that it's probably quite a bad idea to try it.

Well, he supposes there's no reason to go looking for a Space Master, then. 

One of the soldiers comes up to him briefly, telling him something in another, untranslated language. He nods after a moment and she leaves again.

"My people require the attention of more skilled healers than those we have with us. Would you mind coming back to the fort with us? You have my word you will not be harmed or detained." 

Sure.

So they go. 

Their horses have scattered, eventually to return to the fort on their own as they were trained. Instead they must walk back, an hour long hike through the forest with injured comrades and prisoners. 

Jaim spends most of the walk cycling between the injured, plying them with life mana to keep them stable until they get to the healers at the fort. One of his elites, Istaim, walks a distance away from the strangers, close enough to hear if they call but far enough not to crowd them. 

She pauses to take the sword from the mage's corpse before they leave, handling it telekinetically rather than touching it at all. She keeps an eye on the group as they walk, and once or twice points out someone whose injuries need more attention than they're getting.