Report 03:... And the second inciting incident.

So… I have Saphira's egg…. So where is Eragon? I thought as I turned off the X-ray and thought of how to get an answer.

A fine question, I didn't get any reports about someone walking around the landing site and knowing Eragon, I didn't think he would've run away even from something like the pod appearing right in from of him, just like he didn't just leave Saphira's egg where he found it despite him growing up hearing stories that if you took nothing else from, it was that you should be very careful when dealing with magic and those who used it, if you had to deal with them at all.

I'll check the drone feed, maybe he's just hiding in the shrubs while aiming with that homemade bow of his that would break once he gained his elf powers from that once-a-century blood oath ceremony. I turned from the glove box to find a terminal screen located on the wall right next to the doorway leading back to the main… room, hall? Whatever, I headed to it accessed the main menu to find out what the situation was with Exp drone 1.

But it turned out I needed to clear the glove box of the egg before I could do that. I can't say for sure why, there was no information about it, all I could do was make in the system happy and guess what the purpose was. (maybe to keep the glove box ready to analyze something new in a hurry?)

Anyway, I went back to the glove box and went looking for a way to get the egg out, turned out there were doors on the sides of the box with the one on the right leading outside.

Nice, a way to get interesting stuff inside without opening the whole airlock.

Then there was a door on the left side of the box which looks like it could and would be used to take out anything that was in the glove box, I soon found a small lever on the outside and when I pulled it the small door opened with a small hiss of air and I took a deep breath before I removed the egg.

I stopped for a moment to allow myself to be amazed by the fact that I was holding something which had always been fiction to me and in a moment of curiosity I held the egg in one hand and in the other I gently tapped the egg with my knuckles in order to hear the nice ringing sound that apparently creates. Can't say I was disappointed, the closest thing I could compare it to was the sound the Ohmu shell from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind made when Nausicaä taped it with her dagger, although it was somewhat quieter.

I know, it's generally considered exceptionally rude to knock where an infant was sleeping, but the infant in question never seemed to be bothered by even having a hammer banging down on her shell that was struck with the intention of breaking it. In fact, she even made the offender her rider and they had a pretty nice relationship while kicking ass and taking names for the rest of their biologically immortal lives.

Moral of the story: if you find a strange and potentially dangerous artifact, take it home, try to smash it with a hammer, and become best friends with the dragon that was inside the artifact the whole time.

Chuckling from those mental images I placed the egg on the beach right next to the box and headed back to the terminal screen…

*Squeak*

And I abruptly stopped, not moving a muscle while listening for the slightest noise. After a moment of being completely still, I turned around too faced the source of that disturbance, the egg on the beach right where I left it.

Could it be… no, it's probably nothing, it was said the egg occasionally squeaked during its travels and it never hatched for anyone…

Yep, said by the woman who just explained why it was the reason she didn't think anything of the last egg making those squeaking noises before it hatched for her… come on we're smarter than this. I chided myself.

I forced those thoughts out of my head and headed to the terminal, returning to the task of finding Eragon and making sure he got the egg that was meant for him.

When I returned to the terminal I found that the drone had apparently finished surveying the area around the pod before continuing to explore the surrounding forest via night vision cameras.

After some snooping around I discovered how to rewind the camera feed and see if the drone had seen anyone while exploring, even if the chances were it would have sent out a big loud message to the pod if it did. Seeing as how it clearly thought that the shiny blue 'stone' was worth alerting any and all crew to its existence, it would most likely be programmed to treat the discovery of any people and/or intelligent life forms it came across to be most certainly worth noting about if it was built by someone from my world which all evidence available suggested it was.

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure how the drone's programming allowed it to recognize that the shiny blue 'stone' wasn't normal and potentially worth its own time and that of the crew due to what little I know about programming.

Regardless after going through the recordings of the drone's journey, I found that it had gone around in circles around the perimeter several times each getting more distances from the pod before it headed out in a seemingly random direction, and it had found absolutely no one in the surrounding foliage.

Huh… doesn't look like he is around after all, I wonder why that is... Oh God, I hope I didn't squish him coming here! What would-

"Signs of intelligent life detected."

Just before I started to panic I heard that message go off and the video recording transformed into the live feed showing that the drone had reached the top of a small mound, giving it a better vantage point of the surrounding area which let it find a collection of small lights in the distance, after the drone magnified its vision to get a better look it found that the lights were fires and candles in the windows with the occasional lanterns in the streets being put out for the night, all occurring in a village that was at most a three-hour walk away.

Ok, I know for a fact that Eragon was hunting in the mountains of the spire... spine? (Both make logical sense as the name of a mountain range) three days away from... Carvenhall wasn't it? and NOT three hours away like where I am now. So what happened?

A moment later I remembered how in the books it was mentioned how weird it was, to begin with, that Saphira's egg appeared before Eragon and not in front of Brom like… Ummm… the ambassador intended it to. Numerous explanations were given all throughout the series with the final one being given in the last book, explaining that if the whole thing went. Just. As. Planned. When Eragon, Saphira and… Golden-master-dragon-as-heart entered the vault of souls via the Rock of... something.

Now you're all probably wondering. 'Wait doesn't he have access to all of modern Earth's knowledge in the back of the pod? Why doesn't he just look any of the names he can't remember?'

Well the reason for that is that while I may end up revealing that I'm not from this world, I'm not planning on revealing what I already know about it to anyone who's from here, for multiple reasons, so I decided it's best not to get into the habit of looking anything up, truth be told I probably should get around to deleting that particular knowledge as soon as I can.

Also, I find it funny how I can remember almost everything of note but almost all of the names of everyone and everything, and I figured if I found it funny someone else might get a laugh out of it too. Honestly, that banishing of names thing that happened to the traitor dragons would probably not work on me due to how bad I am at remembering names too begin with.

So like I was saying, it was stated multiple times that it was weird the egg wasn't teleported to Brom like it was supposed to and ended up in front of Eragon. And multiple theories for why that happened were given multiple times throughout the series. Until they were revealed to behind it.

Here was my idea; what if the egg appearing right next to the pod was just an honest accident this time around, while they were transporting the egg to Eragon just like they were in the books, (and I guess the movies) but then the pod came in through the veil between realities and the egg got trapped in whatever means of transportation the pod used and so reappeared next to the pod instead of Eragon.

Well, that's going to make things a little awkward getting the egg back where it belongs, still at less he most likely caught the deer that had the noticeable limp that made Eragon amazed that a wolf or bear didn't catch her for so long. Also, no angry butcher seeing the egg and rating out Eragon to the razac which in turn means no dead uncle tragedy, better yet that means no dead uncle cliche.

Hahaha… I'm such a terrible person.

It might have been a small leap of logic, one that required me to assume a few things, like the method of transportation, is similar enough for that to happen. But I couldn't think of any other answers unless they intentionally sent the egg to the pod. Which I didn't think it was very likely seeing as how I couldn't see them taking a risk like that.

Although… I do recall them saying they weren't sure the egg would hatch for Eragon in the first place. So…

Oh, come on, taking a chance with the boy who is the son of a former Dragon Rider is one thing. But putting the egg in the care of someone that as far as they could tell just popped out of nowhere is something else entirely. Do they even know what the pod is and that there is a human side of it? And even if they knew that how would they figure the guy inside the pod would have the best chance of becoming not only the chosen rider of the hatchling inside, not only ending up being someone who could do what the whole dragon Rider order plus their allies couldn't do. But also not end up being as bad or worse than the villain that brought them down.

And how did they know that Eragon would succeed at all of that?

Damn, I'm good at asking armor-piercing questions when I want to be.

No, this was an accident that needs to be corrected as soon as possible so the egg can hatch for the one it is supposed to.

Since when was I the kind of person who did something because destiny said so?

Since the destiny in question offered a solution that's certain to work. Besides, just think about the levels of imposter syndrome I would experience if I became her rider? How would I be able to look at Brom in the eye knowing I had stolen his son's immortality, dragon, and destiny for myself, even if it was likely he and everyone else would never find out about it?

There is no certainty in life, and it wouldn't be stealing if she chose me for her rider.

Just...No! I thought to myself. I'm going to make sure the egg ends up in Eragon's possession like it was supposed to, putting my foot down and focusing on how I was going to do that.

First, I needed confirmation from the first exploration drone, so I returned to the live feed to find that it was apparently waiting for someone to end up -Assuming Direct Control!-. I did so in order to scan the area around the drone one more time. I saw the village just as I last saw it, except for the noticeably fewer lights on the account of everyone going to bed. Next, I directed the camera to make a 360-degree turn after I fingered out the controls, and what do you know, the village (and by extension I) was in a valley surrounded by mountains with snow-white peaks, seeing them made me think of the teeth on a giant jaw, but that was just me being weird.

Ok, so it's a safe bet I'm in... the valley Eragon grew up in, but there were two villages in it weren't there? How do I find out whether this is his home and not the other town?

It was then that I remembered the list of drones from earlier, namely the aerial drones and I wondered if I could use those for getting a closer look at the town without drawing the locals attention to the fact there were now things beyond their comprehension just outside the confines of their familiar world.

I was just about to look into what exactly I had available in terms of drones in order to learn more about the world without alerting anyone to my presence but… I didn't get the chance that night.

*Bang* I heard from behind me.

I turned around to see that the egg had fallen from the bench and it begins to wobble towards me for a moment before stopping, with one final squeak [After rewatching the security cameras I found that the egg was making a lot of noise that I was ignoring before it dropped to the floor.] It began to crack, first, it was just a small one on the edge, then another, then another, until all the cracks converged at the top with a final crack a loose piece began to wobble and then it popped out, revealing the dragon hatchling that had been sleeping for over a century waiting for someone worthy of becoming its rider to approach it.

And after it finished climbing out of its shell, it looked at me with a spark in its eyes and released a delighted squeak.

I slid down the wall slowly while keeping my eyes locked on to the hatchling's bright-eye gaze until I could take it no more and planted my face inside my hands.

God damn it...