[x] Don't Panic.
Theory: you were stuck *between* dimensions, as were the other two dragons. Evidence: you experienced a discontinuity during which your body shut down. If you were summoned directly from your home dimension, you would not have experienced this discontinuity. Convincing these two foxfolk to perform the summoning ritual twice more may recover them as well, unless the other two have already been summoned.
[x] Attempt communication.
Don't make any sudden moves. Your breath weapon is still online but that'll burn mana so you really shouldn't use it.
Don't you give up hope of seeing (and kissing) Tieran-Sha again. He was locking lips with you when that green planar energy ribbon thing hit you two, so with some luck he ended up somewhere on this world nearby and close to when you ended up here. Maybe before, maybe after. You just gotta get outta here to look for him, and to do that you gotta hold it together to make your way through this.
Now, first off, it's imperative that you behave in as much of a manner that these two fox-kin would consider non-threatening as possible. This is because the last thing you want right now is either of these two thinking they're in over their head and getting help. The more people involved, the more likely somebody is gonna realize just what you and call for you to be restrained beyond any hope of escape. Frankly, it's surprising at least one of them haven't gone for help already. In addition to you being almost certainly not what they were looking to summon, and very likely a creature unknown to them, the ritual probably had a binding component as well that failed because of your inoculation against binding rituals (thrice thank your mom for that.) Either one of these would have been enough to send a sensible person trained in summoning looking to bring in backup, so that might tell you some things about these two and their situation. Maybe there's nobody to ask for help. Maybe they're doing this on the sly and can't ask for help. Maybe they're just overconfident in their capabilities. Whatever it is, it means they aren't calling for help, so don't give them any reason to do so if they could call for help.
Second, slowly and shakily push yourself up on your haunches and look around. Also, smell the air and note anything unusual. Take special note of how the door to this cage is secured and judge if you could possibly beak it open if you put your full weight into it. And use the tip of your tail to poke the bars of the cage and between them to judge if there are any shock or other enchantments on them that would inhibit hitting them or block reaching between them. (Using the tip of your tail is in case there's some really aggressive magic on the bars and better to lose a tail tip than a fingertip.)
Going by the structure of the room and the effect on your mana respiration, it's pretty apparent this chamber was built specifically for summoning, probably for dangerous creatures, but nothing really, really dangerous or anything that could slip between the bars (assuming there's no magic enchantments blocking passage between them.) It's also likely not built for summoning dragons, based on there being just bars containing the summoning site which offers no protection against a dragon's breath magic (assuming no magic barrier, but who's gonna trust just a magic barrier to stop a angry dragon's breath.) All your clothes getting stripped is likely part of the summoning ritual magic, to keep anything or anyone other than the target being brought over, and so they're unarmed/armored. The mana dampening in the area is probably to keep a person or creature from using their magical abilities (either learned or innate,) or at least limit them. And, based on you not being able to access your voidspace inventory, this chamber might also have protections against spatial warping magics to prevent summons with such abilities from escaping, which would also interfere with your voidspace inventory. If that's the case, then, if you're lucky, once you're outside it's effect you'll be able to access your inventory again.
Make sure to get a good look at the magic circle under you. Can you tell anything about it just by looks?
Also of note is that there appears to not be any light sources in this chamber besides the barred window and the ritual candles. From that you can guess that these fox-folk have low- or no-light vision, either artificial or innate. (And which I assume you do as well.)
How powerful is your training breath weapon? Something that could take down a unarmored smallfolk opponent or two or knock a cage lock open? Or is it closer in force to, well, passing wind?
Something to keep in mind for later, if and when you encounter people who recognize that you're a dragon, is that you could attempt to bluff that you're gonna use your breath magic on them to scare them off by very obviously slowly taking a deep breath. It'll only work if they don't have mana sense to pick up that you're not actually readying to use your breath.
...And something else to keep in the back of your mind is that there's a unknown time limit on being able to get back to your home world. Once the planar barrier is back up, you're not gonna be able to get through. You're gonna have to find a way to... Un-summon yourself? Banish? Whatever the means, you gotta find it sooner rather than later. But that's for after you figure out how to escape this cage and this room.
(Can dragons give mana to another dragon by breathing raw mana into the other dragon's mouth for them to breathe in? Would be good to know if it's possible for if and when we meet another dragon and they're in poor way mana-wise.)
Zalan looks miserable. He can do that much without trying. The foxfolk look concerned, and he even detects a trace of sympathy from the taller one, but neither takes any action to help.
He is reluctant to completely lose it. He suspects it might be like letting a dam overtop 'just a little bit.' Maybe he'll turn on the waterworks and find that he can't turn them back off, and all the stress and all the fear will wash over him like a flood, while somebody else decides his fate based solely on how panicky and pathetic he seems.
The nausea doesn't help. If he pukes on the floor, it will do him no favors with anyone, particularly himself, since he can't actually move from this spot. Urgh...
[X] Bite the cage bars and chew your way out of it. Dragons can eat metals right? ...Or at least check, with tail or something, that it won't cause all this floof to stand up from a sudden electric shock? And maybe stick snout out to breathe in some proper magic air. Iiiiif it's not the entire plane that is low on magic in which case uh, whoops.
Dragons can digest metal, but that's not the same as being able to chow down on steel bars like breadsticks...
He tries tasting the air through the bars, and it feels like a low-mana zone there as well. If he had to guess, he'd say it's the room that's warded to create a low-mana environment.
Maybe the whole world is very-low-mana, but Zalan strongly doubts it. There's a wizard right in front of him, isn't there?
The cage is prrrobably enchanted with various protection schemes, but Zalan can't tell just by touching it. There's SOME magic, but nothing that zaps him on contact. If he actually committed to trying to break it, he'd find out in a hurry how strong it is, but then the foxfolk would probably stab him, so he isn't going to try until he's convinced he has no choice.
It appears to be locked using a metal bar that runs into the floor, so the actual lock is outside the room. There's probably more mechanisms he can't see to alter the geomantic flows that lead into the magic circle.
The circle itself is uh... Well, it's a summoning circle. That much is clear.
...Zalan doesn't actually know a lot about these things. The same goes for a lot of hands-on magic, unfortunately. He's spent many years in study, but most of his experience is in a subset of spirit magic that involves training specialized thought-engines to perform tasks without sentience. They're incredibly useful but also sorta, not relevant right now, unless you count the ones mounted in his Crown node.
Moreover, summoning magic isn't usually considered a respectable pursuit, given its sordid history. Dragonkind went through a lot of trouble to make it harder to use on this, er, on Fulcrum, his home world. So the summoning circles they do have tend to be generated by those aforementioned thought-engines, in order to include all the necessary authorizations to correctly interface with the wards that protect the world.
Zalan's only seen handmade ones in intro courses and various art. He can make some educated guesses, but with an emphasis on 'guesses.'
Theory: you were stuck *between* dimensions, as were the other two dragons. Evidence: you experienced a discontinuity during which your body shut down. If you were summoned directly from your home dimension, you would not have experienced this discontinuity. Convincing these two foxfolk to perform the summoning ritual twice more may recover them as well, unless the other two have already been summoned.
That... makes a lot of sense, actually. Now that he thinks about it that way, the magic circle reminds him more of ones made for summoning from the night realms between worlds, rather than from other worlds.
Each material plane is shadowed by the Caela, dreamlike space, and the Tantara, dreamless space. They're close enough that your soul sort of drifts back and forth between them while you're asleep. Almost always harmless, but deeper into those dimensions, things can get strange and hostile. Probably moreso in an area that isn't as carefully tended.
It's possible that Zalan was dragged, bodily, into one of them.
Also of note is that there appears to not be any light sources in this chamber besides the barred window and the ritual candles. From that you can guess that these fox-folk have low- or no-light vision, either artificial or innate. (And which I assume you do as well.)
Zalan has great night vision, but it's not so dark in here.
There's different varieties of fox-folk, but they tend to have decent senses. Don't they have a tapetum...?
At first, the foxes seem too caught up in their argument to do more than glance at him for hostile movements, but eventually, the taller one waves back.
They give some greeting Zalan can't understand.
The shorter one looks more annoyed than before. It turns and dashes from the room, assertively saying something.
[X] Speak to them. It doesn't matter if they understand your language or not. What matters is they recognise you as a person, rather than an unintelligent animal.
"Hey. So. I can't really see outside through that little window, but it seems warm out? And I smell vegetation. Is it nice here?" Zalan asks. "You play any games?"
The person stares awkwardly at him. He lets out a breath, and takes a different tack.
"I'm named Zalan Iniri of Skatheon."
He tries sounding it out more slowly, putting a paw to his chest. "Za-lann, Ih-nee-ree, veyr Ska-they-yon."
He understands that talking slowly doesn't translate, but it's his name. They don't need to know the etymology, just that he's got one.
The fox-person blinks. After a pause, they smile, then throw back their cloak with a flourish and drop into a curtsy.
"Adia Faxti," they say.
After a pause, they recite a few phrases. Titles? Greetings? Commentary?
Then they gesture through the door, where Zalan can hear the other fox rummaging around, and say "Edaine Faxti." They add some other words, then shrug.
Well given that this seems to be a happy accident violence is not the answer, and they are not going to let you out until their sure your not some sort of grimbly playing coy and will probably try and stab you if you try so...
[X] Focus on gathering mana and trying to get your crown online, once it is maybe design/craft/dig up something that can be used to translate? Seriously your entire job is about language and teaching things how to think at its heart (and math, loots of math). Your greatest cludgework masterpiece was right in the end, even if that end was "everything's screwed', so you totally got this!
[X] Inlets seem familiar? Wait, you said you got yourself innoculated against summoning magic and something about fever dreams. Could that be why the inlets are familiar?...Unfortunately I'm gonna go ahead and guess said dreams don't have that much in the way of useful information, but I'm guessing you'd like...Be summoned for either being a beast of burden, or alternatively, maybe as like a mage's familiar. I could see it if you were young enough to not have your resistances to such things in yet.
[X] The moment you talk one takes off with a clear look of 'need to kick this upstairs ASAP' and the second adopts a polite posture while trying to help establish communication... I'm starting to suspect you were not exactly what they were expecting to 'fish' out of the dimensional 'sea'. Maybe due to the odd circumstances you were in?
If so, continuing to act reasonable, or at least rational and working to establish proper communication ASAP might be critical to getting out of these bars. Hell, it might even lead to you getting home.
[X] Focus on your breathing to try to stay calm while your personal assistant reboots
-[X] Hope your personal assistant can translate whatever these foxes speak
--[X] Try not to think about the possibility that whatever happened damaged the personal assistant enough that you won't have even that little bit of help
----[X] Fail
"Adia Faxti," => "Medium Rare"
"Edaine Faxti." => "Just rare"
They are still talking about how to cook their dragon steaks.
[X] Panic, they want to eat you
[X] Isn't your personal attendant awake yet? Because 5 minutes are over since you checked last, right? And didn't you get a bunch of translation scripts? Check the status of your attendant and, if it's online, see if you have something that helps with communicating.
Ah, so no Discworld style talking-slowly-to-translate for us, welp
As for actual suggestion to Zalan...
[X] Hey, you are going to be just fine. If you can get summoned into this place, then you can find a way to get back out, or at least somewhere that can get you closer home. Here's hoping it won't take too long. Also, is that smartphone Personal Attendant in your crown node up yet? Having these translation suites would be REALLY useful for you right now!
I think there was the whole bit about dragons basically existing on mana rather than food? For all we know they are magical reactors that can in an emergency convert matter into energy... Oooor not. Oh well, soon we shall discover the secrets of the universe, or at least this one.
[X] Isn't your personal attendant awake yet? Because 5 minutes are over since you checked last, right? And didn't you get a bunch of translation scripts? Check the status of your attendant and, if it's online, see if you have something that helps with communicating.
I think there was the whole bit about dragons basically existing on mana rather than food? For all we know they are magical reactors that can in an emergency convert matter into energy... Oooor not. Oh well, soon we shall discover the secrets of the universe, or at least this one.
I mean sure but if so why was there a cafateria on campus? why did Zalan benefit eating food/drinking tea at all? I mean in theory dragons could be perfect matter to mana converters...but i highly doubt it.
[X] Hey, you are going to be just fine. If you can get summoned into this place, then you can find a way to get back out, or at least somewhere that can get you closer home. Here's hoping it won't take too long. Also, is that smartphone Personal Attendant in your crown node up yet? Having these translation suites would be REALLY useful for you right now!
It looks like this group was not expecting a non-hostile sapient. The other one probably ran off to get their boss because this is way over their heads.
The good news is that means there's a good chance they weren't exactly trying to enslave anyone, so talking our way out of this is possible. Also we should probably pay attention to how… dressed up whoever shows is. Because the more they are the higher their probably rank and so more likely this summoning went way way off track.
[x] They were reaching out into between for… something. Any educated guesses as to what they could have been trying to find? It could help frame how dangerous this situation is.
