There is sound, and there is fury, and then, she seems all of a sudden to be entirely immersed in blood.

Oh hell! Her active shell is immersed in blood, thank you. How about she floods herself with the analgesic formula despite this probably being a Bad Idea - ahh, that's better - then tries to gain some altitude.

She will be able to rapidly emerge from the blood, in that case. She is in some godforsaken mountain range and the Rhine, and trench warfare more generally, are nowhere to be seen. Instead, her location seems to be under fire by heavy cannon, who are themselves protected by units of spearmen and swordsmen from a small horde of what appear to be giant, bloodsoaked rats (additional bloodsoaked rats are also emerging from the water as she watches).

She's the only thing in the sky.

Well. Not quite the only thing. There's also a dragon, taking flight in response to her appearance from rocky perch where it had been resting.

She keeps ascending at a nice gentle pace while she takes it in. (Speed is life in the air.)

"...What by all the fucks?"

Where the hell has she ended up, Dacia? They once sent honest-to-god line formation infantry up against the Empire's aerial mages and artillery. It was target practice. Some ungodly hell-hole in the Balkans?

Transmission formula: "Flight leader, 203, any units, respond."

She listens to the orb. Nothing. Static.

...She looks for any sign of familiar uniforms or insignia.

One side is garbed only in blood and horrific mutations beyond god or man. (Also they're still giant rats.)

The other side appears to lack a uniform outfit, consisting as they do largely of levies with spears, swords, and crossbows, but they are at least wearing roughly coherent green and yellow colours.

The dragon has a rider, who is wearing elaborate full-plate with many frills and decorations, but has no visible heraldry.

The analgesic formula makes things seem so clear. It's not so much a cold calculation in her head as a series of reflexes and heuristics that lead to an inevitable conclusion.

There is a battle, and hesitation is death. There are infantry holding a line, and she is an aerial mage.

The dragon-knight complicates things but maybe blowing up its enemies will endear her to it.

Also, she really wants to kill something right now.

That relatively compact bunch of horrors will do. Load a magazine of blast formula rounds, charge with mana, judge range, adjust aim, fire. Work the bolt to load another round. Observe fall of shot.

The horrors are not that tough. Wherever she fires, they go down, and there aren't that many of them - a steady flow, emerging as she did from the blood, rather than an army.

The dragon-rider will suspend his judgement and not approach.

And, after a minute or so, another volley of cannon-fire will occur. It's pretty clear, now, that they're firing on the waterfall of blood emerging from the peak of the mountain, which is the highest mountain in the general area.

Objective discerned: Medeival army wants to destroy the (??)command center(??)... Spawning point?? What is this, a video game?

She woke up in that thing, though! It could be important! Though it doesn't exactly look safe to examine...

She has no idea what is going on here. As soon as someone recognizes her as an officer of the Empire she'll be hunted and imprisoned for extradition. Then the Francois and Unified States will try her as a war criminal and execute her.

Not an acceptable outcome.

Okay, so she's flying blind in unknown territory. She needs to go to ground and gather intelligence. But fitting in with the local population is a hopeless task when she hasn't got the first clue where she is. Guerilla raids, maybe? That will certainly get her treated as an enemy.

The other option is some sort of parley. They have pitiful technology here. She poses a pretty credible threat to this army, dragon notwithstanding. It's worth at least attempting to talk. Just... Not while there's an active battle. She can fall back to guerilla tactics later. Probably another six hours of wakefulness in her, she judges by feeling the strains on her body.

...Okay, and in support of an attempt at parley how about she helps with their objective. She has paused for maybe a minute, but now flies parallel to the army to get clear of the mountain and starts joining her bombardment rounds to their barrage. And with the Type 95, each one of those hits quite hard.

It takes nearly half of her ammunition, but when each shot carries the explosive force of a volley from the entire cannon of the Stirland army, it's not long until the water of the spring runs clear, the mountain is clearly lacking it's peak, and the rats cease to flow. 

Well, not all aerial mages are Major Tanya Degurechaff. Ahem. Half of her bombardment shots is quite a lot of work to get whatever deep bunker was pouring out that cursed thing - it'll take her days to re-enchant it all, and that's if she can get the right caliber of ammunition. But it's not like she was going to go for close assault. 

She slings her rifle, then, and surveys the charnel house below. Good day's work, always nice to shoot at something that can't shoot back... Now to hope it's bought her some good will.

She flies closer to but not over the lines, low, and shouts out with a sound formula, "Parley!"

People will hesitantly point crossbows and the occasional musket or rifle at her, but nobody will fire unless an order is given, and no order is given. There seems to be a command tent over there, with someone waving for her attention in front of it.

She slings her rifle over her back, to show a clear sign of non-aggression. Not that it counts for that much, they'll absolutely know she's still a threat, but gestures of de-escalation are still worth making even if they're just gestures.

And she'll slowly fly over and land, doing her best to look nonchalant instead of exhausted.

...Feeling kind of twitchy. And definitely maintaining her passive shell.

She will be directed by the waving aid into the command tent, where the dragon-rider, now dismounted, and a small military staff centred on a middle-aged german-looking man. The tent is packed to almost crowded with a bodyguard of men in full plate, armed with two-handed swords. A man in a very tall hat and several priests stands to one side, glaring suspiciously and grasping icons of hammers with intent to brandish at the first sign of trouble.

The man at the centre of everything speaks: "Thank you for your help with the Blasphemy of Blood. But, uh, who the hell are you and where did you come from? We didn't ask for help from the colleges and they wouldn't have sent anyone, let alone someone as young as you are."

They're speaking imperial? Or something recognizable as imperial. Did she travel to the Empire's past somehow?

What implications does this have? What should she say? She knows of no 'college'; Presumably a mage's college, but... Bah!

You can't freeze up forever, it's just obvious you're concocting lies.

"...Glad to assist against such a blasphemy, then. It's obviously some incredibly foul magic, and the world is better off to be rid of it. Sir, I am extremely lost. The last thing I knew, I was on a different battlefield entirely, as an aerial mage protecting the lines. This place and your people are unfamiliar to me. My apologies, but it's rather shocking, and I'm fairly tired too."

"Whatever it really was, it's gone, but it's only one of a thousand horrors in these hills. With all due respect, we'd like to verify that you're not one of them."

"She's not a vampire, at least. There's less Dhar on her than there is on us, just for being in this foul place."

"Are vampires a going concern?"

"Rather. Do you really have no idea where you are?" 

(One of the battle-priests in the background: "Sir, I really think we should - " Asarnil: "If you are going to hire the greatest, and most expensive, mercenary in the empire, why are you going to just ignore my advice?". Both are soundly ignored.)

Sigh.

She still has no fucking idea how to put together a coherent set of lies, nor which ones would benefit her here, so she may as well just... Tell the truth? Maybe not the whole truth.

"I do not. My operational area was a flat river; The Rhine. The nearest mountains are some two hundred miles south of where I ought to be; Those would be the Swiss Alps. Or possibly the hills around Freiburg? And to answer a previous question, I am Tanya von Degurechaff, trained war mage, most proximately under command of Colonel Heinrich Muller, in good order of the Imperial Army of Germania. Precise operation details are considered military secrets, I cannot share everything."