Chapter 5

That was unexpected!

Star woke to the sound of his motion sensor chirping loudly. Before he had really even registered that he was awake he had his rifle up and pointed forward. As he became aware of what was in front of him he sighed and lowered his gun. Amy was standing there holding her ears looking around trying to identify the source of the piercingly loud chirping that was coming from the motion sensor. Star reached up, grabbed the thing and disarmed it. Amy stared at him wide eyed for a few moments, before she finally lowered her hands from her ears.

“What was that?” She asked, her voice and facial expression conveying dislike.

Star shrugged, “It was a proximity sensor. Useful for making sure people can't sneak up on me while I take a nap.” He said looking around. The sun had not yet risen but the first rays of dawn were beginning to peak over the horizon.

“Well that thing almost made my ears melt. Far too loud. I just came to wake you so that we could discuss our next course of action. The closest city of the Dog’s Run kingdom, our kingdom, is about two weeks travel to the northwest of here. At least that is what I remember from the village. We will need to go back the way we came yesterday, we may even be able to salvage some of our belongings if we get lucky.” Amy said, the hopeful sound in her voice had Star feeling guilty for not having attacked the soldiers when he’d first seen them.

Star just nodded as Amy continued to lay out plans for what they were going to do. He paid attention, but most of her concerns seemed frivolous to him. As the light of day started to brighten everything up a bit more Star suddenly realized just how gorgeous Amy was. She was wearing a simple dress that held tight to her perfect hourglass figure, in the light of day her brown hair shone healthily and her eyes had a hazel coloration to them. Star’s mind was wandering as he realized that Amy had asked him a question and was staring at him expectantly.

“I’m sorry my thoughts were wandering and didn’t catch what you just said.” Coming clean to her.

She sniffed at that then just shook her head, “I asked you if you would be willing to provide us with more food if you have it during the journey. That would make things much easier on us.”

Star nodded, “Pretty much have an infinite supply of the stuff I handed out last night. I have other stuff as well, definitely enough food to not have to worry about bringing anything else.” He said without even thinking about it. Amy had an incredulous look in her eyes but refrained from saying anything about it.

Star followed the people he had freed back to the burnt out remains of their village. Once there they spent the rest of that day, and about half of the next day going through the rubble looking for salvageable materials and possessions before hitting the road to the north from whence Star had come. Each night Star would set up a perimeter around the camp that they set with motion sensors and he kept himself outside of the perimeter in case of an attack.

Two weeks went by in this fashion, Star keeping to himself for the most part. Only really interacting with the beastkin when he was giving out food and water. The only one that he had almost constant communication with was Amy. She seemed to always be near him during the day and only left him alone when it was time to bed down for the night. They spoke of many things along the way and Star was fascinated by the immense complexity of social and cultural information she was giving him. Over the past two weeks she had basically given him the history of Dogs Run kingdom, the tensions that had existed between their kingdom and the kingdom currently known as Justin's Kingdom. Apparently the human nation literally named itself based on the current ruler, and the name changed every time a new king came into power. Which seemed insane to Star, but if it worked for them it worked he guessed.

They were now only a few hours march from arriving at the city called Dragons roost. Which was situated against a cliff face against the massive mountain range for which there was no agreed upon name. They simply referred to the mountains as ‘the mountains’ and left it at that. He and Amy were about twenty minutes ahead of the main body of his group of refugees.

Star had just finished snacking on a strip of jerky when his WarPad began buzzing in his pocket. He knew that feeling and what it meant, he had just received a message. Curiosity overwhelming him, Star pulled it out of his pocket and tapped the message icon. The name of the sender was The Pantheon, and the lettering seemed significantly more flowery and boisterous than anything he had seen in Warfare Online.

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Hello Star.

We apologize for not having contacted you the second that you were brought over to this plane. But we had a significant amount of cover work to do in order to prevent you or our plan from being discovered by our enemies.

I am known in this world as War. You may know me better by your old worlds name for me, Athena. This world that we have brought your mind and soul to is about to undergo a massive change. And you were selected by myself and few others of the pantheon to be a guiding force in that change should you wish to be a part of it.

You were selected because you had overcome all of the trials I placed in Warfare Online. Not a single other player of the game has completed every story mode mission and all of the side quests. When you died in free play, I took advantage of the opportunity and severed your mind and soul from your original body and moved it into your game avatars body with the help of the rest of my pantheon, we were able to reconstitute it here in this plane with all of the bells and whistles that you had in the game, as well as add a bunch more functionality. Haphestus had a field day making and adding things to the store and... well lets just say that between all of the free stuff you have access to and the new functions we may have gone overboard.

Anyways, this realm has entered into the Era Of The Gods.

What that means is that, for a short period of time, we gods may interact with this realm and establish certain levels of influence over it. In your home world that era is long since over and almost all of the gods have very little influence over anything at all. Honestly you’re considered a harbinger for my pantheon and what you do will influence how much power my pantheon will have in this world. It is your choice though, we will not force anything other than the transition on you. What you do from now on is your own choice. Be careful in this new world by the way, if you die you die. Unless you give someone you trust a revival kit and they use it on you within the time limit you will die permanently.

‘Well that was unexpected’ Star thought as he pocketed the WarPad and turned to Amy who was eyeing him curiously. “When we reach Dragons Roost I’m not really sure what is going to be expected of me. Should I help with the war effort? Should I help at all? I don’t know where I fit in here in this world yet. All I know is that I was brought here against my will. I need to start figuring everything out.”

Amy looked down at the ground and nodded, “I understand not knowing where you fit into everything. I will introduce you to my uncle when we reach Dragons Roost and he can help you out with finding your place. That is... if you wish to stay.” As she said this she looked up at him with her big hazel eyes and Star like all men who were actually observant knew that she was positioning herself to appeal to him. But like all red blooded men he didn’t give a damn that she was playing with him, it made him feel good and boosted his ego that such a beautiful woman was showing him any attention.

Star shook himself out of the thoughts that his mind train was now trying to go into and focused, “Well, at this point my options are limited. I really need to know what the current situation is and try to make an informed decision. While I hate slavery and all it entails, I cannot in good conscience commit myself to a war against anyone without knowing the ramifications of not going to war with them. But seeing as how I am a warrior, I feel that my place is going to be with a military of some sort.” Star sighed, realizing that he had just talked in circles, “I suppose I’ll figure it out when we get there, no point worrying about it right now.” With that the two fell silent and continued along the road heading to Dragons Roost.

An hour later the city came into view and Star sighed at what he was seeing. It was a walled city that reminded him of the city of Gondor in LOTR. Though this one did not have the massive cliff jutting through the middle of the city. Instead the city seemed to be placed inside of a massive horseshoe shaped mountain valley with a wall stretched straight across the five or so miles from the two tips of the horseshoe and huge towers made of stone were lined along it at even intervals. But the thing that made Star sigh was not the sight of the city, but the sight of the vast army camped about a half mile away from the wall and laying siege to it between him and the city.

Star saw at least twenty thousand men arrayed on the planes that stretched nearly a mile and half away from the walls where all trees had been felled. Periodically massive balls of flame were being launched from the army outside the walls from nearly a half mile away to crash down on the ramparts and spread chaos in the beastkin city.

Star turned to Amy and quirked a smile at her, “You think your kinsmen would mind it terribly if I slaughtered all of the cattle out here in their fields?” He said in an attempt to make a funny. Pointing at the massive army that was mostly facing towards the city.

Amy’s eyes went wide, “You can't be serious! There is no way you can take on an entire army by yourself. They have wizards, and probably elites there. We have to hide and hope they don’t find us.” She said, panic in her voice.

Star ignored her and loosed his silenced rifle from his back and laid down on his belly aiming down the scope at the army nearly a half mile away. They would never even hear his shots and from this distance with the cover of the forest, Star was about to start shooting fish in a barrel. He turned to look at Amy, “Go make sure everyone knows to hide and wait for my signal to come out. I’m going to have some fun. Always aim for the guy in the fancy hat.” He said as he corrected his sights for wind and distance.

With that Star took aim at a soldier in the distance who had a very fancy hat on and pulled the trigger.