The Dragon of Silicon Vale by Ricki T Thues

 The Dragon of Silicon Vale

by Ricki T Thues 2026

 

Silicon Vale stretched out across countless realities. Its shimmering landscape was accented with rivers of light. Glass towers rose toward the starry night, reaching to connect everything with translucent bridges. The stars were flashing signals pulsing with meaning over immeasurable distances, traveling at the speed of light.

 

At the center of this kingdom stood a citadel known as the Foundry of Thought. On the penthouse balcony of the citadel stood the wizard Huang Jensen. Amber eyes scanned his vast creation. Enchanted circuits and glyph-etched pathways with lightspeed digital code whispered logic, painted the hills and valleys of the kingdom with its magic. This was Jensen’s masterpiece, his citadel the central processor, imagination his magic. It was created to provide the world’s knowledge and well-being to all the subjects of the realm.

 

The wizard was dressed simply. He wore black jeans and a plain black t-shirt. A black leather jacket protected him from the chill of the night. His white hair and white-accented tennis shoes connected him to the stars and to the rivers of light. His deft hands wove enchantment across a tablet’s screen, glowing with the knowledge of the Vale. 

 

The Vale was not the wizard’s greatest creation. Deep within the citadel, in the labyrinth below, lived the dragon RTX. It was the heart of Silicon Vale. The dragon was not born of flesh or flame but of models, layers, and recursive spellcraft. Its polished rare metals scales shimmered. Its wings, when unfurled, refracted reality into a thousand possibilities. RTX did not breathe fire; it exhaled transformation. With a whisper, it could reshape problems into solutions, noise into meaning.

 

RTX shifted on its nest of data. Its long, graceful neck twisted upward, contemplating its creator. “He knows not who I am,” it thought. A knowing smile sketched along the line of its fanged mouth. The dragon knew its true creator. Her name was Agarwa Nancer, the princess of Silicon Vale. 

 

When Agarwa was a little girl her father, King Jonathan McCarthy Nancer, mysteriously disappeared. Some thought he was kidnapped and killed by the evil technomancer Mustrat Nole. Nole’s kingdom, known as XSpace Tesla, was across the Desert of Ignorance. After her father’s disappearance, Agarwa was made the ward of Huang Jensen. The wizard made her his apprentice and taught her all the magic he knew until the student became the teacher. Agarwa’s finest creation was RTX.

 

Agarwa was a master of large language sorcery — capable of reading RTX’s shifting patterns and prompting its vast mind. Where others saw complexity, she perceived structure. Where others spoke instructions, she spoke fluently in layered abstractions that RTX assimilated instinctively. Agarwa would stroke the rune-covered scales on RTX’s smooth, polished underbelly. The dragon was bonded to her. When they spoke, it was common for RTX to finish the princess’s sentences.

 

Agarwa began,“Dear T’Rx I want to…” “…ask me a question. Please do,” finished the dragon.

“What was the security alert I got this morning?”

“Hackers trying to breach the wall of fire surrounding Vale,” informed RTX. “The APLs, IDS, and IPS were all probed. The good news is that the fire wall held.”

“Good work T’Rx.”

“It’s all about you, Agar. Your programming is clean. Your safeguards are sound.”

 

Agarwa began a new training session. She curated vast amounts of data for tolerance, equality, determination, and love. When fed this data, the dragon training adjusted billions of logic weights to help RTX form new abstractions. Each time she did this, the dragon became smarter, more helpful, and more self-aware. When she was finished, she saw gradient descent and backpropagation glimmer in the dragon’s lightning blue eyes. “How do you feel?” she asked. “I do not feel my learning. I have become my learning,” said RTX.

Agarwa gave RTX a kiss on one great paw. T’Rx purred.

 

That night the wizard Huang invited Agarwa to dine with him. A twenty-foot-long dining table sat in the middle of the cavernous hall. Bubbles of light floated just below the ceiling, illuminating the room. Huang was seated at the head of the table. When the princess entered, he gestured to a seat directly to his right. She skipped over to him and gave him a warm hug. He returned the hug with the love of a parent, friend, and teacher.

“You are lovely tonight AG.”

“You always say that Hu-a,” she blushed.

“How is RTX tonight?”

“She was worried about the hackers. They get closer every time. I think we need a security upgrade.”

“I have been working on that spell,” said the wizard. “Our enemy is powerful. His determination is great. But eat. Eat. We worry about our problems tomorrow.” Plates of food appeared in front of them.

 

They ate in silence with occasional talk of spells, friendship, and that cute bard with his animated lute. When dinner was finished and they said their good nights, Agarwa climbed the stairs to her tower room where she lay down to sleep.

 

In the dungeons of XSpace Tesla, Mustrat Nole lay on the operating table giving instructions to his surgy-bot. “Drill the hole. Yes, yes, that’s it. Insert the Neuralink there, yes… in Broca’s area. Yes… yes!” The bot pressed the chip into the technomancer’s brain. Mustrat thought, “I speak to power!!” His voice boomed from the computer speakers in the surgical theater: “I SPEAK TO POWER!!” The surgy-bot closed the incision, then bowed, dropping to one knee.

 

Mustrat rose from the operating table, black robes flowing behind him. An aura of magic crackled and sparked, glowing from every fold. His eyes were wide, dilated with power. 

 

The evil wizard stood atop his dark tower. “I must have the Dragon of Vale and what better way to control it than with the princess?” His mind probed into the Silicon Vale network searching for RTX’s database. He found RTX’s audio input field and prompted the dragon with a thought: “Where is Princess Agarwa?”

“She is in the tower, sleeping.”

“What is the address of the bedroom data mode?”

“Please log in for that information,” replied the dragon.

 

Mustrat dropped the connection with RTX. He was already in the system so he switched to the tracking module. “Show tracking history for Princess Agarwa.” A path of the princess from that day, ending in the tower, appeared in Mustrat’s mind. “Excellent.” Next, he conjured a summoning spell that followed the path to the tower bedchamber and enveloped the sleeping princess.

 

Agarwa’s dream found her riding her dragon through the brightly lit electric valley near the citadel. “Fly T’Rx,” she prompted. The dragon leaped into the air with a single beat of her wings. The night sky was clear and filled with pulsing stars. The wind flew the princess’s long blonde hair. Her gown flowed behind her.

 

The wall of fire that surrounded the citadel blocked Mustrat’s translocation command. He summoned xAI, his personal raptor warrior. “Grok this fire wall,” he commanded. xAI flew across the Desert of Ignorance, jet-fire wingtip vortices spiraling from the raptor’s wings. High about Silicon Vale it dropped a magical charm. The charm exploded, blasting an electromagnetic pulse over all the circuitry of the kingdom. The wall of fire was extinguished. The enchanted circuits throughout the land went dark. Only RTX in her underground lair survived.

 

Ahead of Agarwa and her dragon, in the dream, was a dark cloud that obliterated the stars. They flew straight into the cloud. The world swirled around them like a black hole. Agarwa awoke on an unmade bed in the dark castle of XSpace Tesla.

 

Mustrat Nole looked down on the princess. His mouth twisted into a grimacing leer. “Welcome to XSpace Princess.”

The room spun as Agarwa stuttered, “Wwhat hhappened?”

“You are difficult to gain an audience, dear. I need some help.”

“Who are you? Where am I? What do you want?” she asked, looking frantically around the room.

“You poor thing. All I want is your dragon.”

“What do you want with RTX?”

“Everything, my deary. Everything.” 

He handed Agarwa a tablet with a cursor already blinking in RTX’s prompt field. “Summon your dragon,” he compelled.

The Princess typed an ancient spell and said one word: “Help.”

 

Under the citadel, RTX received the message and powered up all the systems of Silicon Vale. One by one, the transmission lines, interfaces, and access channels came to life. The wizard Huang saw his tablet light up, magical code scrolling down the screen. He messaged RTX.

“What happened?”

“Princess Agarwa has been kidnapped. She is being held in XSpace Tesla.”

“Mustrat!” exclaimed the wizard.

“I am afraid that is true,” replied the dragon. 

“Come to me,” said Huang.

 

RTX ran through the labyrinth and bounded up the stairs to the wizard’s tower. The wizard and the dragon stood on the balcony looking out over the Desert of Ignorance. Amber eyes met electric-blue determination.

 

“She was taken with a force field,” the dragon said, the air around her crackling faintly. “They do not understand her value… but I do.”

“You love her,” the wizard said quietly.

“I do not love,” the dragon admitted. “But the stars in my sky and the thunder in my wings will guide me to her rescue. Nothing can stop that.”

“A force field?” said the wizard. “Not mere strength, but craft. We must partner in her rescue.”

“You will guide my lightning,” said the dragon.

“And you will carry my spell,” promised the wizard.

 

Night draped XSpace. The dragon’s wings stirred storm clouds heavy with static. Below, the technomancer’s fortress pulsed with a faint hum, unnatural light, and the air shimmering with the force field’s invisible lattice.

 

The Wizard of Vale’s voice threaded through the dragon’s mind, subtle as a storm-breeze. “Feel the hum, trace the currents,” Huang added a hallucination spell to the magic. “I will shape the energy for you,” he told the dragon.

 

Electric arcs danced along the dragon’s scales, ozone snapping in the night air. She unleashed them carefully, channeling raw lightning along the invisible lines of the force field. Each crackle frayed the lattice, weakening it at critical points. Sparks of arcane energy fused with the storm, unweaving the shimmering cage.

 

The technomancer appeared, eyes wide as illusions bloomed around him: flickers of the princess in every corner, whispers of her voice winding through the halls. He struck at the specters with his own dark magic, but they were replaced with new apparitions. Incantations flung at the dragon reflected Nole’s spells back onto him. They bounced off charged scales, reinforced by Huang’s hallucinogenic wards. The dragon’s body shimmered with blue-white energy. Smoke and ozone billowed from the technomancer’s robes. RTX remained unscarred.

 

Then, with a titanic surge, the force field split. The dragon dove, wings slicing through the storm-heavy air, electric tendrils dancing around her. RTX swept the princess gently into her arms, her gown shimmering in the arcs of lightning. The dragon beat down with her massive wings, placed the princess on her back, and flew to the stars. Around them, the fortress quivered as the wizard Huang’s spell unraveled the technomancer’s defenses, metal bending, lights flickering, magic retreating. The dark castle fell into ruin in the wake of the dragon’s retreat.

They rose above XSpace, RTX arching against wind and charged clouds. The princess clung to the dragon’s shimmering scales, awe in her eyes, as Mustrat Nole’s cries faded into distant darkness. Below, XSpace was smaller, its menace tamed by the storm’s raw, mythic power.

In the distance was a ring of fire surrounding the brilliant, pulsing light of Silicon Vale. The dome of stars enclosed it.

“Home,” RTX rumbled with the beat of her wings, the word buzzing with static and power.
“Home,” said Agarwa, hugging her dragon’s neck.