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The exile was sudden.

There was no trial. No last words. No mourning. Just a gate—one I helped create—opening like a grave.

They threw me into it without hesitation. I had once built that gate to reach the stars. Now, it was the tool of my execution.

The last thing I saw of Earth was its Dyson ring blinking like a crown of judgment.

My name is Kalen Vorr. I was Type 2. Genetically sculpted, machine-integrated, born in orbit, shaped across moons. We were humanity’s elite—admired, feared, envied.

As a Type 2 civilization, we harnessed our sun, built megastructures, moved planets. The Dyson ring wasn’t just power—it was a symbol. We were the future made flesh.

Then came the next step: unity. One mind, one will. No emotion. No self. Just endless advancement. I refused. I chose to remain human.

They called me a flaw. And so, they erased me.

They stripped me of everything—implants, identity, purpose. What remained was only a fragment of who I’d been.

I fell alone, burned and broken.

Weeks passed. My body, though stripped of tech, was still made for space. Stasis kept me alive. Barely

---

I crashed like a meteor. A comet of plasma tearing through alien sky. When I opened my eyes, I was lying in a crater of shattered trees and steaming soil.

My body was bruised but intact. The fall would’ve killed any base human. Not me.

The air here was heavier. Richer. Organic. It clung to my lungs with scents of moss, smoke, and decay. I sat up slowly. No data stream. No feed. No heads-up display. The silence in my mind was terrifying. I was… offline.

I climbed from the crater and saw rolling hills and mist-wrapped forests. In the far distance: farmland. Primitive dwellings. A cluster of flickering torchlights nestled in a valley. A village.

I stumbled toward it, barefoot.

---

It was night by the time I reached it. Thatched roofs. Mud brick. Wooden palisades, if you could even call them that. Chickens. Smoke. The unmistakable scent of livestock.

They hadn't seen me yet. Good.

I knelt behind a low stone wall near the outskirts. I needed data. Language. Structure. Materials. I tapped the side of my temple out of habit, expecting the neural link.

Nothing.

I cursed under my breath in every Terran dialect I knew. The wind replied in an alien whisper. Then—

A voice. Close.

Children playing. Laughing. A young boy chasing a girl with a wooden stick. They looked… human. Or something close. Pale skin. Slighter frames. Hair like straw. Their language was strange—tonal and fluid, with sounds like breath and bark.

I didn't understand a word.

Then a door opened. A man stepped out of one of the homes. He was tall, gaunt, wrapped in furs and linen. His eyes fell on me instantly.

“Va’ser…?” he muttered, squinting.

He raised a lantern.

I stood up slowly.

He barked a command. Something harsh. Something afraid.

More doors opened. A bell rang.

I had been spotted.

---

They surrounded me within minutes. Twelve men. Pitchforks. Axes. Two carried rusted swords. I raised my hands, palms out. I had no translator. No implant to analyze syntax. I tried gestures—non-hostile, slow.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” I said, knowing they didn’t understand.

They shouted something. The tallest one—a bearded man with a wolf-pelt cloak—stepped forward and prodded my ribs with his weapon. I didn’t flinch. He poked again, harder. I grabbed the shaft before the third attempt.

The entire group recoiled as I snapped the wooden pole in half with one hand.

Then—

A sharp sting hit my shoulder.

I turned just in time to see a boy—no older than ten—hurl another stone from behind a fence. He shouted something I couldn’t understand, eyes filled with defiance and fear. One of the older villagers grabbed him and dragged him back, scolding him harshly.

I didn’t react. The stone hadn’t hurt. But I remembered his face.

The bearded man pointed toward the ground and shouted what I assumed was an order. I obeyed. I knelt. Let them bind me.

I needed time.

Time to observe. To listen. To learn their language. To understand where I was.

---

They dragged me into the village and threw me into a pit beneath the storehouse. Stone floor. Straw bed. A single torch above. I sat in the darkness, listening. Memorizing every sound, every word exchanged above me.

And soon, I learned enough.

One word. Spoken again and again. “Soruan.” The name of their land.

And another, spat with venom: “Velkar.” The ones who were coming. The colonizers. The empire pressing from the north. Steel, fire, and blood.

The village was remote. Isolated. Forgotten—for now. But the Velkar were coming. Their kingdom would fall, like so many others. They had no future.

Unless I gave them one.

---

I leaned against the wall, ignoring the chill. I closed my eyes and began to map out what I needed:

1. Basic metallurgy.

2. Black powder—if their world had sulfur and nitrate analogs.

3. Crude circuits using carbon lattice or crystal logic.

4. Protein-based data encoding if I couldn’t build silicon systems.

5. A way to convince them I wasn’t a demon.

I was a Type 2 stripped of everything. But I still had my body. My mind. My memory of every advancement from the last thousand years.

I would learn their tongue. I would earn their trust.

And when the invaders came…

I would make this village the beginning of a new age.