The last thing Aleksandr Ivannov felt was the bone-chilling dampness of a Saint Petersburg autumn and the smell of ozone.
He had been standing on the steps of the Polytech, clutching a tattered copy of Kropotkin's Fields, Factories and Workshops. He was arguing with a classmate about the failure of the 1920s electrification councils—how they had been strangled by the bureaucracy—when the bus lost control on the black ice of the Nevsky Prospect.
There was a screech of tires, a blinding flash of headlights, and then a sensation like being pulled through a needle's eye.
Then, silence.
Aleksandr gasped, his lungs burning. He expected the metallic tang of blood or the stench of gasoline. Instead, he inhaled the sharp, intoxicating scent of pine needles and ancient earth.
He opened his eyes and scrambled backward. He wasn't on the pavement. He was lying in a bed of deep moss beneath trees so massive they seemed to prop up the sky itself. The light was filtered, a dim emerald green, and the air hummed with a strange, low-frequency vibration that made the hairs on his arms stand up.
"Am I... in the Taiga?" he whispered, his voice cracking. "Did the bus fly all the way to Siberia?"
As if in response, a translucent, pale-red window flickered into existence in his field of vision. It didn't look like magic; it looked like a flickering CRT monitor from an old Soviet lab.
[ SYSTEM INITIALIZED ]
USER: Aleksandr Ivannov (Subject: 001)
STATUS: Alive (Relocated)
LOCATION: Unclaimed Territory (Northern Latitude)
OBJECTIVE: Historical Rectification & Social Engineering.
CURRENT PARADIGM: Pro-Communist / Anti-Totalitarian.
Aleksandr blinked. He tried to swat the window away, but his hand passed right through it. "Concussion," he muttered, rubbing his temples. "I'm hallucinating. This is a trauma-induced neurological bypass."
[ ERROR: Reality levels at 100%. ][ ANALYZING ENVIRONMENT... ]DANGER LEVEL: High. (Non-terrestrial fauna detected).SUGGESTED ACTION: Establish a Commune.
Aleksandr stood up, shakily. He was still wearing his wool coat and his sturdy boots, but his spectacles were gone—yet, he could see with a terrifying, supernatural clarity. He looked at a nearby tree. The bark didn't just look like bark; he could see the Electrical Current of the sap moving within it, a faint blue glow that defied every law of botany he knew.
"That... is not photosynthesis," he said, stepping closer. He touched the tree. A small spark jumped to his finger. "It's a conductor. The whole forest is a circuit."
He turned around and froze.
A few meters away, a creature was crouched over a fallen log. It looked like a wolf, but its proportions were all wrong—it was too lean, its fur matted with something that looked like glowing bile, and its eyes were a sickly, sulfurous yellow. It didn't growl; it hissed like a leaking steam pipe.
Aleksandr didn't know what a Barghest or a Warg was. He had never heard of a Witcher. To him, this was simply a biological anomaly—a predator that shouldn't exist.
"The fauna here is... highly irregular," he whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs.
[ COMBAT PROTOCOL ENGAGED ]
RESOURCE DETECTED: High-purity Silver (in pocket watch).
THREAT ANALYSIS: Spectral-Biological Hybrid.
SOLUTION: Create a Disruptive Charge.
Aleksandr reached into his pocket and pulled out his grandfather's old silver pocket watch. It was a relic of the old world, a piece of craftsmanship from the era before the purges.
"If the system is right, and this thing runs on a circuit..." Aleksandr's analytical mind took over, suppressing his terror.
He saw a fallen branch of the 'conducting' tree. He grabbed a piece of copper wiring he always carried in his satchel for his lab projects. With trembling hands, he wrapped the copper around the silver watch, creating a crude, makeshift inductor.
The wolf-creature lunged.
Aleksandr didn't swing like a swordsman. He waited for the beast to enter the 'blue glow' of the forest's natural current and then slammed the silver-and-copper bundle into the ground, shorting the connection.
CRACK.
A discharge of white light exploded. The creature didn't just bleed; it flickered. Its physical form wavered like a bad television signal before it let out a piercing, electronic shriek and dissolved into a pile of foul-smelling ash.
Aleksandr fell back, panting, staring at the charred remains.
"It wasn't a ghost," he breathed, his eyes wide with a scientist's hunger. "It was an interference pattern. This world... it isn't magic. It's just physics we haven't mapped yet."
He looked up at the towering trees. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the faint sound of a hammer striking an anvil—a settlement.
"No kings," Aleksandr said, standing up and brushing the ash from his coat. "No Stalin. No bureaucrats. Just the people, the science, and a new world to build."
He began to walk toward the sound, the red system window floating loyally by his side.
[ FIRST SOVIET PROGRESS: 0% ]
[ NEW TECH TREE UNLOCKED: "Silver-Ionization" ]
The morning mist in the northern woods was thick enough to swallow a man whole. Aleksandr tramped through the undergrowth, his mind racing with the physics of the "ash-beast" he had destroyed. He stopped to catch his breath when a flicker of red light danced before his eyes.
[ OBJECTIVE UPDATED: Establish Economic Baseline ]
[ DEPLOYING STARTER PACK... ]
The air fractured with a low hum. A heavy, brown leather suitcase materialized out of a shimmering rift, dropping with a thud into the soft pine needles. Aleksandr knelt and unbuckled the silver latches. Inside, twenty bars of high-purity gold glinted with a cold, industrial perfection.
"Capital," Aleksandr whispered. "A necessary evil for the transition period."
He lugged the heavy suitcase for another mile until he reached a clearing. The settlement was a marvel of biological engineering—dwellings woven into the living boughs of ancient trees. Shadows detached themselves from the trunks as slender figures with pointed ears stepped into the light, their bows drawn.
"Human," the lead scout hissed in a melodic, sharp tongue. "You have crossed into the Aen Seidhe lands. Give us one reason not to pin your heart to that oak."
Aleksandr raised his hands, keeping a firm grip on the suitcase.
"(In Russian) Peace, comrades! I am a traveler. I mean no harm to your collective."
The Elves narrowed their eyes, exchanging confused glances. The leader, a woman with silver-braided hair, stepped forward. "We do not know your garbled barking, stranger," she said in the Common Speech. "Speak the tongue of the world, or remain silent forever."
Aleksandr realized they spoke the language his mind processed as English.
"My apologies," Aleksandr said, switching. "I am Aleksandr Ivannov. I am looking for a place to rest and conduct a fair exchange of resources."
"We have no business with humans," the leader spat. "Your kind brings only steel and fire."
"I bring neither," Aleksandr replied. He knelt slowly and clicked the suitcase open.
The forest light hit the metal, and the Elves' eyes went wide. They gasped in unison, their pupils dilating as they stared at the sheer, concentrated wealth. These weren't the impure, clipped coins of the South; these were twenty perfect, heavy bars of solid gold.
"I do not know the currency of this land," Aleksandr said calmly, looking at their stunned expressions. "I require coins—whatever you use here—to pay for labor and materials. I wish to exchange these bars for your local currency at a fair rate that benefits your community."
The silver-haired Elf stepped forward, her hand trembling as she reached toward the light of the suitcase. "You... you offer this to us? For trade?"
"Wealth is a tool for progress," Aleksandr said firmly. "I wish to build something here. Will you help me, or shall I move on?"