The most recent battle did not go well. For all the Enemy's long-range accuracy, the 13th should have buried them under a hail of arrows. Would have, if not for that damnable wolf.

Balcmog grumbles, and runs the whetstone along his sword-edge again. It is not a perfect sword, elegant and gleaming, such as the Enemy would make. But it's sharp, and he can put the pointy end in other people, and he intends to keep it that way.

And then comes the light.

He and his fellows cringe away from it, even though the epicenter seems to be a few hundred meters away, for it is a hateful thing, bright and hot against them.

    "You four: go investigate!" the captain calls.

And Balcmog goes gladly, for even if this is some foul trick of the Enemy, it is only through knowledge that they can hope to defeat it, and bring about peace.

There is a sourceless flash of blinding white light and a brief moment of utter silence and then -

She is disoriented, too low to the ground, her magic detection is overloaded and thinks there's magic everywhere (maybe it's right), the sun is too low in the sky and the magic signatures of her company are all gone.

Tanya shoots straight up for the cloud cover but she can do six gees at best and it will take far too long, she must assume the enemy has her locked down, tries to evade an attack she can't see - her reactions and mental processing were already sped up to the safe limit so she pushes them beyond that, gyrating wildly as she scans the sky around her - where is she where is she -

By the time the group of Orcs gets there, she is long gone. They spend a moment going over the area and poking through the grass with their swords, which gives her plenty of time to take in her surroundings.

She hovers over a green valley — although one that was probably greener before a large camp was erected in the middle of it, sight-lines roughly cleared with slash-and-burn. Two bonfires burn in the center of the camp, and the guards posted around the edge keep a weary, wary eye out. But they look to the horizon, and not to the sky; the morning sun, weak and cloud-strained as it is, seems to discomfort them.

A closer look at the guards reveal that while the camp may have made the valley less green, the army stationed there is doing their best to make up for it. The people throughout the camp are rough and deformed, their skin taking on a number of unhealthy complexions.

The valley is, perhaps, the least magical place in her sensory range. To the north, a stately forest radiates a quiet background murmur of magic. To the west, beyond the hills, a beacon of magic shimmers and pulses. To the east, a vast, slow drumbeat of magic swells and falls, almost too subtle to make out. To the south, a proud band of mountains towers over the crinkled landscape.

None of this makes sense.

The magical detection results are clearly bullshit. She's getting the same sense from her innate abilities, magic everywhere, but that must be some kind of novel residue from the spell that took her out. The more distant results are mediated by her orb and in her professional opinion mean it's broken, which is not something an aerial mage ever wants to learn while high up in the air and fighting for their life.

The terrain around her bears no similarity to the battlefield of a minute ago. Forests and mountains don't spring up out of thin air, no matter what absurdly overpowered spells you use. Everyone is gone, friend and foe alike, the radio is silent, she can't raise HQ - on a hunch she scans civilian bands and they're silent, the damn thing is fried too.

Tanya hides in a cloud, puts on a camouflage illusion, dampens the rest of her magic output as far as she can, drifts in random directions for ten minutes. The damned magic detector refuses to work.

She peeks out again.

Even if everyone was blasted out of the sky (and finished falling before she regained her senses?) there were visual observers over a mile out, there were men on the ground, trucks. Now there's a camp, if you can call it that; Imperial children do better play-acting. No (aerial) sentries, no trucks, no recognizable uniforms - she can't see any rifles and there are weirdly many swords. Even the Dacians were more modern-looking, at least they could manage nice packed squares! Was she teleported to some benighted Asian or African country - good grief, are those bows and arrows?

...is this some sort of encampment for diseased soldiers? No, that would be marked with the cross, anywhere in Europe. (Unless these are commies?)

She's going to have to speak to them, to find out where she is and what happened and get back home. Teleportation is completely unprecedented but she has no better explanation and 

As an officer of the Germanian Imperial Army, she shouldn't abduct and question a soldier from a nation they are probably not at war with. (Nations not at war with Germania! How refreshing!) But she can sneak up close under an illusion to eavesdrop.

If she's not in Europe, these people might not have a mage who could detect her, which means sneaking just above the ground is her best bet to avoid visual detection. She hates to give up the sky voluntarily, there could be an enemy mage hiding in those clouds, but the only alternative she sees is to fly in a random direction and then she'd still have to talk to people.

The sentries certainly don't react as though they can see her.

The camp is not peaceful — the inhabitants are tense, wary, and wounded — but it is relatively calm as people settle down for the day, and filled with a sense of determination.

What it isn't filled with is anyone speaking any European language. Instead, the camp's inhabitants seem to speak a dark, guttural language that sounds quite unlike any language with which she might be familiar.

...drat. Hopefully she's somewhere in Magna Rumeli and not actually on another continent? That would make it all the more important to be diplomatic.

She sneaks back out, drops her illusion, and walks from behind the nearest convenient hill towards the camp's main gate. When hailed she introduces herself as lieutenant colonel Tanya von Degurechaff of the Imperial Army, in a tone that suggests that if the sentries don't speak Germanian they ought to find an officer who does. Even if they don't recognize her uniform it clearly is one and she's holding a rifle.

The guards gesture for her to wait at a distance from the camp, two of them not-so-subtly keeping their longbows ready as the third runs into the maze of tents.

A moment later, a uniquely ugly man with protruding yellow teeth and a fancy hat comes and stands a few meters past the guards, facing her with a confident pose. A flare of magic flows from him, and his thoughts become known to her.

:Your dress is unfamiliar and your approach unexpected — when the Peace is reached, curiosity can be indulged; but in this time of War, such things must be a threat. If you speak neither Orkish nor the common tongue, then make your thoughts known in the way shared by all people, even Men.:

No (publicly) known magic enables or even suggests the possibility of telepathy. She refuses to believe that another nation would develop such a thing before the Empire. Even if someone did, they would keep it a closely guarded secret.

An army casually using magic telepathy, in public with strangers, in a war even on the other side of the world defies belief. By the time they had taught random officers in a disabled veterans' camp to use it for casual translation it would be front-page news from the Unified States to the Russy Federation. Every nation on three continents would be racing to ally with the brilliant researches who invented it, or else to kidnap those researches if they unwisely chose to ally with someone else.

...did that officer just say Orkish?

...

He is unusually ugly.

And those men are really carrying bows.

Tanya always knew Being X was a hack, but did he really just send her to some cut-rate fantasy world? 

"You idiotic imposter with your one trick!" she yells at the sky. "Nevermind worshipping you, you're not even worthy of basic respect! Human writers can do better than 'orks with bows'! Are you going to force me to worship you to escape a barrage of arrows now? I'm more threatened by a world that hasn't invented the flush toilet! Why does such an idiotic world even exist?! It is worthy of you but you don't have the power to create worlds, so you must have chosen a place where people are stupid enough to worship you! Humans are not stupid enough for you, we advanced beyond bows and religions so you had to find some 'orks'! But I am a RATIONAL MAN and I refuse to sink to your level!!!"

...oh right, there's a man - sorry, 'ork' - in front of her. Apparently she can think at him? Hopefully that will work because she has no idea how to cast it as a spell.

And because she is a civilized, rational man, she will be polite and not assume anything about his intelligence. Yet. (Plenty of humans are idiots, it's only rational to conclude that about people you've actually met.)

:My apologies:, she tries thinking at him. :I briefly lost composure when I realized what may have happened to me.:

:I am Lieutenant Colonel Tanya von Degurechaff, of the Germanian Imperial Army's 203rd Aerial Mage Battalion, and I have become lost due to an enemy spell. May I ask where I find myself?:

It is said that He watches the fall of every sparrow, and this is true.

Luckily, he doesn't feel the need to provide commentary on them. Arda is just as it should be, and resounds to the greater glory.

That is ... actually somewhat plausible. Everyone knows the Enemy has a number of Maiar on their side, and considerably less common sense. But he can't afford to assume.

:I see. Well met, Lieutenant Colonel Tanya von Degurechaff. I am Captain Dorvulk, of the Free Peoples' Glorious Liberation Army. I'm afraid that we do not give out information about our exact location for reasons of secrecy, but we stand some kilometers south of Amon Rûdh. I have not heard of the Germanian Empire — from where does it hail?:

This is obviously going to fail but she'll go through the motions. Long meetings with superior officers have taught her to look perfectly serious no matter what she's thinking and hopefully her mindvoice will do the same.

:The Germanian Empire is in the western part of the continent of Europe. Our names for the continents are probably different, since we do not speak the same language, one moment.:

She gets some paper from her pack and draws a crude map of the continents and oceans. The Germanian Empire is here.

Dorvulk squints. That's ... kind of what the world looks like? If there were a big gap between Aman and Endor, and if the dark land didn't exist. But the shapes are similar enough that it might be a simple case of bad cartography — not everyone believes in universal education.

On the other hand, she's claiming to come from Beleriand, which is clearly nonsense.

:I see. That location seems to roughly correspond to our location here,: he responds. :Although the shapes are somewhat dissimilar. If the Empire is a large place, I can't believe that we wouldn't know of it, being so close.:

Only his experience with ósanwë keeps his suspicion that she has been deceived by agents of the Enemy out of his reply.

Of course the vile hack would put the orks where Germania used to be, to defile her adopted homeland. ...no, perhaps the magic sent her to the same location in an alternate world? 

Alternate worlds are nonsense, but so are orks. So was magic, during her first life. As a rational man, she does not deny the reality she sees.

It is a thin thread of hope. Hope that she can recreate the magic that sent her here and go back.

Tanya embraces her rediscovered sense of purpose. Back home (Germania has long since become home) her men are waiting, her loyal sword and shield, the people she put three grueling years of work into. Back home she has rank, recognition, a war to win and a reward to claim once it is won. Back home there is civilization, reason, progress. The Empire's leadership may be sick, but they are no orks.

:I, too, do not believe we would have failed to hear of any nation or army by that name close to us. There are certainly no armies still fielding bows anywhere I have heard of. To put it frankly, I suspect that I may be from another world entirely. Are people who look like you and the others here called orks? Are you a different species from humans, such as myself?:

She considered telling him about Being X - she doesn't care anymore about being thought mad - but she doesn't want to make him think she has a powerful enemy who might strike at any local allies she makes.

Dorvulk blinks. On the one hand, there are no other worlds, which is why it's so important to fix this one. On the other hand, it doesn't hurt to play along.

:I see. Indeed, I am a proud Orc, as are the majority of our forces. But the Liberation Army does not discriminate on account of species — we also count Men, as we call the people who resemble you, among our number,: he explains, stalling for time.

And then another flare of ósanwë hits him from inside the camp.

:If you are from another world, then this is most extraordinary, and quite possibly of great importance to the realities of our War. Since we are not the enemy of the Germanian Empire, would you be willing to come join our officers for dinner, under terms of truce?:

Tanya speeds up her thoughts as much as she can and tries to think this through without visibly taking a minute to deliberate.

If they want to capture or to kill her, an ambush in a prepared position in close quarters is their best bet. They might have realized they can't take her head-on at the gate and asked her to come inside for that reason. They could also drug or poison her food.

But she has to talk to some locals and get their help. And the quicker the better; she is well-trained in wilderness survival, but hunting and preparing alien animals is an unappetizing prospect. 

What has she learned so far? That they are telepathic, which is excellent for her prospects. That this telepathy is magical in nature (well, it would have to be), which implies they might have other magical abilities; this potentially increases the risks they pose to her and, again potentially, reduces her bargaining value.

The soldiers called an officer; they couldn't hail her telepathically themselves. So not everyone is able or trained to do this. This is magic used strategically, a resource allocated by this army, not a native ability of all orks. This organization speaks well of them.

A rational organization would not attack an unknown neutral party who might become an ally. But it might try to capture or coerce her to get a better bargain, if it did not expect reputational losses from doing so. Reputational losses which are very unlikely, since she has admitted no-one knows she is here. 

If she refuses their offer, her best alternative is to find a smaller, weaker group of people (which would still have to include a telepath mage). Essentially, to do to them what she fears they might do to her, to coerce them where she has the upper hand.

That is not a viable long-term solution; she can't live off enemy land (or its farmers) forever, and moreover she doesn't want to, she'd rather work with people than against them. In every negotiation, agreements necessarily conform to the relative power of the parties; even if she is free to leave she doesn't have anywhere to leave to. 

They are fighting a war, which implies an enemy, and likely one or more neutral parties besides. Ideally, she would learn about all of them before picking one. The locals will naturally try to make her commit before she learns anything, and to make it costly for her to change sides later.

If she flies away and finds the other side of this war, she will be in the same position except for having burned her bridges with this group. There is no prior reason to think another side would be better for her.

However, it is likely there are more than two groups, and it is likely that the first one she encounters is not the best one. A group which is not at war would be less incentivized to turn her to their use.

This is like the secretary problem, except she doesn't know how many groups there are and she can't perfectly evaluate this one before rejecting it. However, it is very likely there are at least three large organizations in this world and so she should reject at least the first group she meets, while trying to learn as much as she can.

She will try to learn more, but be ready to bolt at the first sign of danger.

:I thank you for your offer, but I am afraid I must decline. Given my sad lack of knowledge about your world, I do not know what the implications or consequences of accepting your invitation might be. I wish to learn more in order to orient myself, if that is not too great an imposition.: Wait, no, this world might not have the convention that being long-winded and indirect is polite and conciliatory -

:Could you tell me about this world in its broadest strokes? The nearby nations and their territories, which of them are your enemies, active warzones or other areas that I should avoid.: Hopefully he will be willing to share the kind of basic, completely public information that Tanya can learn from anyone she talks to.

He cocks his head.

:To the East lies the forest stronghold of Doriath, who shoot all the messengers who come to their borders. To the West, the kingdoms ruled by Finrod and Cirdan, with whom we are frequently in active battle. To the North, past the forest, lie the mountains, inhabited by Dwarfs. They forbid entrance to outsiders, but they won't actually shoot you if you only stop at their trade posts; with them, we are not at war. Further North lies Angband, homeland of the Orcs and a beacon of civilization. To the South, nothing but unclaimed wilderness and the Andram highlands that divide our present location from the sea.:

It's a bleak picture, surrounded by enemies, but Orcs have never shied away from adversity. The best of them will survive and help usher in the destined future.

One or two clear enemies in front, with neutral and possibly isolationist parties on either side. She commends these orks for not being surrounded by enemies on all sides like Germania, and she commends even more the two neutral nations for staying out of it. Hopefully that situation will hold and she will accepted by one of those polities, or another one farther afield.

:If I may ask, what occasioned this war and what are the war goals or demands of either side?: