Chapter 1: Living the Fantasy
Dalaran.
The floating city that functions as the HQ for the mages, especially the Kirin Tor.
A magical city that welcomes all, whether you are Alliance, Horde, or neutral.
A city that should not exist, but I'm residing in it.
I was sitting at a table by myself in a place called A Hero's Welcome in the magical floating city that is Dalaran; it was pretty much a bar and an inn that served Alliance adventurers. I was away from the other creatures, keeping my head lowered as I scanned the large room that was jam packed with creatures of different shapes and sizes. I couldn't buy any drinks or food because last time I checked, magical fantasy worlds like this accepted gold as currency, a piece of green paper with the face of a US President on it won't mean shit to them.
Luckily, the beautiful high elf woman that was the Innkeeper didn't have any issues with me just chilling at a table. The large room was filled with loud chatter from the Alliance champions and heroes talking and drinking with each other. I can only listen to the ones that were speaking English, well, to them it was called Common and I couldn't eavesdrop on the Alliance champions that were speaking in a different language.
When I came into the bar, no one paid me no mind and were completely engrossed in their own antics, nor did they pay attention to my guns. They probably thought that I'm just some Hunter from Stormwind adventuring around Northrend. And in hindsight, it actually makes sense. I'm wearing full camouflage gear to help me blend into my surroundings and I have a gun as my main weapon, so they would assume that I'm a Hunter that is lacking a pet.
I was still reeling from seeing all the different races and species in this city. The gnomes looked like midgets, the worgen were werewolves, but given a different name, the night elves looked graceful and had an aura of aloofness around them, well, most of them did, the dwarves acted like boisterous drunken Irishmen, and the draenei made me think of the blue-skinned aliens from Mass Effect, but with a goat vibe to them with their horns and hoofs. The glowing eyes that the worgen, draenei, and night elves had unnerved me, especially from the Death Knights and Demon Hunters.
And those were the Alliance non-humans, the Horde creatures looked insane.
The orcs looked like mini-Hulks with two tusk-like teeth sticking up from their lower jaws, the trolls were blue-skinned, tall, had bigger and longer tusks than the orcs, and their accent made me think of Jamaicans, the forsaken were pretty much zombies, the goblins were like the counterpart to gnomes, the tauren made me think of the minotaurs from Greek myth, and the blood elves reminded me of every elf cliché where they are beautiful, but very prideful and arrogant.
On my way here, the Horde races that glared at me the most were the forsaken, orcs, and blood elves.
The pandarens on both factions made me think of Po from that funny Jack Black movie called Kung Fu Panda. Upright walking and talking pandas with a strong Chinese vibe to them.
Every was fucking jacked like no one's business, except the pandas who were all fat asses. The spell casters who don't fight in up close fights were athletic and fit. Everyone who fought up close was built like a shit brick house, especially the male orcs, tauren, draenei, and worgen. The human men that were built like bodybuilders were outshined by the bigger and taller non-humans.
The non-human females were hot as fuck. The female night elves and draenei were the most hottest, with the blood elves lookin' quite smokin'. Even the human women looked attractive; it also doesn't help that some of the armor they were wearing only emphasized their curves, legs, and bosom.
"You lookin' quite handsome, big boy." I heard a feminine voice with a growl said to me. I looked over to see a female worgen walking by wearing nature-styled clothes with a wooden staff on her back.
I think she was a druid.
"I would stay, but I need to help my mates out. Maybe next time we can have some fun..."
She leaned close to me with her muzzle inches from my face. I had my shaking hand clenched over my pistol in my belt.
"And you smell nice..." She sniffed a couple of times before walking away, leaving me shaken. I know that she wasn't going to bite my face off, but it was still scary to have some upright standing wolf-creature that talks hitting on you. Maybe if I was a furry that liked anthropomorphic wolf women, this would have been a major turn on.
And that was their physique, the weapons and armor that they all had would have only existed in fantasy stories. A worgen Warrior had a red glowing battle axe; the axe was awkwardly proportioned and it wouldn't be that practical in a real fight. BUUUUT, this is magical world and real sword and axe fighting does not apply. Hell, he could probably kill three enemies with one swing. A human Paladin had a golden crown floating on top of her head that she used as her helmet.
Don't know how the fuck a king's crown hovering over your head is gonna save you from someone stabbing through your face, but again...real world logic does not apply.
I pinched myself again to make sure I wasn't dreaming; I even rubbed my combat knife against my forearm that I unsheathed from my belt. I felt pain from the pinch and the cold metal from the knife touching me.
No.
This still wasn't a nightmare.
I was wide awake and this is my reality.
The Alliance humans were dressed like medieval knights and wizards from Dungeons and Dragons. The ones wearing leather would have been classified as the 'thief' class, but WoW calls them Rogues.
Yeah, I'm human, but the deal is that I'm a human that comes from a different world. I ain't from Azeroth, I'm from a place called planet Earth where these things such as purple-skinned elves and holy space-goat aliens drinking, talking, and laughing exist only in fantasy movies, games, and comic books. They ain't supposed to exist, these things are from a online video game. It was so strange seeing them in real life rather than a video game...they felt, moved, smelled, and sounded real.
The room in here was way more bigger than I remembered. In the game, there were just a few tables here and there, but this? There were so many tables the room might as well been a restaurant and it was fucking huge. I realized that it was just the game mechanic of compacting the world, everything was small so Warcraft players wouldn't waste too much time traveling; nobody wanted to wait a whole damn hour of taking a flight path to the next location.
But with the game mechanic gone, the world of Azeroth was immense. The Dalaran from the game looked puny in comparison.
Before joining the marines, I used to play WoW, but I stopped playing after Mists of Pandaria. I may not play the game no more, but I would check up on the newest expansion that came out every now and then because the lore interested me, making it my second favorite fantasy world with Lord of the Ring being the first and Skyrim being the third.
When I first came here, I was testing out this new and improved fighter jet that the scientists whipped up over at Area 51; the jet was called Titan Stryker. The first test that I was going to be put through is Operation: Speed Force where I fly the jet over the Atlantic ocean to see how many miles it can travel per second. At first, I insisted why they would have a marine like me do it and asked why couldn't they get a flyboy from Air Force do it, but they wanted to test it out on someone else due to the unique controls that it had.
I admit, the jet controlled pretty well...at first. Then the strangest shit happened while I was in the air.
First off, my com was off and I couldn't speak to the Commander that was monitoring my progress. I tried to fix the damn thing, but for some strange fucking reason, the com system was broken.
It only got worse from there when strange blue clouds started to surround the jet; it felt like I was flying through a tunnel made out of blue swirling clouds. The next thing I know, I was put to sleep by that strange fucking clouds even though I tried to stay awake. When I woke up, I found myself sitting on a bench by a fountain in the middle of the streets of Dalaran hearing the various chatter from the denizens and hundreds of footsteps.
To say that I was shocked and surprised was an understatement.
I was able to calm down and but two and two together that I was in the fantasy game I used to play a while back. I found this bar due to memory of playing the game and now...here I am.
I've been sitting here for at least thirty minutes and not having a fucking clue on what to do. I've just been people watching and eaves dropping this whole time, but after waiting for so long, I'm able to get an accurate estimate on the timeline here by observing the races.
There are no void elves, so Battle for Azeroth didn't happen yet, but since I'm seeing the pandas, that means Mists of Pandaria had happened. This means the timeline is set during Legion as I see night elf and blood elf Demon Hunters here and there.
However, a group of Alliance guild mates consisting of a human, worgen, panderen, and a draenei caught my ears from a nearby table...
The worgen drank his mug in one chug and then slammed it hard on the table.
"That Banshee bitch." He growled. The worgen appeared to be a rogue given the fact that he was wearing leather armor and had two wickedly sharp daggers holstered on his belt.
"I know we couldn't trust her. My king is dead because of the undead bitch and the cowardly Horde running away." The human wearing heavy plate armor said while clenching his fists. He was definitely a warrior because of his plate armor and the two big swords that he had resting against the table near him.
"Do you think his heir will run things smoothly?" The panderen female said while quietly sipping her tea. She was calm and serene while the two males had an aura of wrath and hatred around them. I figured she was a monk due to her Chinese-styled leather armor. Her hair made me think of Chun Li from Street Fighter.
"No, I mean no disrespect to the prince, but he will be no Varian." The warrior replied. The rogue nodded.
"He doesn't deserve it...at least not yet until he's proven himself."
"I stand by what Logan says, he has to prove himself to be a strong and capable leader without anyone to hold his hand." The draenei female said. Given the fact that she was wearing white robes and had a pretty golden staff, she was definitely a priest.
"Yeah, so what do you think of Sylvia? Also, where in Light's name is Ren at?" The warrior asked.
"Our night elf friend is in Darnassus to take care of some business, as for Sylvia? Time will tell if we can fully trust a night elf that has became a Demon Hunter." The draenei said.
"That isn't fair, Gabyrel. We have warlocks, but you distrust the Demon Hunters?" The panda monk spoke up with a raised eyebrow.
"Anything that involves demons will gain great suspicion from me. My people and the Burning Legion do not mix, you should already know that, Wong." The priest replied with a frown.
"Fine." The panda female said with a huff.
There it was.
The timeline is during Legion when Varian and Vol'jin died and the Alliance thought the Horde betrayed them when they made a tactical retreat. It also showed me that even though they are in the same faction, didn't mean the races would become best friends. Hell, the night elves didn't give a fuck about the Alliance in till the orcs started attacking them and they looked to the humans for aid and the forsaken didn't care about the Horde, but joined so the humans wouldn't kill them off and attempt to take Undercity-I mean Lordaeron back.
Alright. I rubbed my five o' clock shadow in contemplation.
Now I know what the timeline is, but what the fuck do I do now? How do I get back home? Should get help from the powerful mages so they can open up a portal that I can use to get home? Would they even know how to? I-
"Hey, why are you staring at us?"
Shit. I wasn't being sneaky when I was eavesdropping on them.
The worgen looked over at me. He had a strong European accent, I think it was British or some shit.
"Ever since you walked into here, you've been hunkered down over there watching everyone. You did not order a spot of drink, eaten anything, and you are by yourself. What's on your mind, chap? You look like you were about to shit yourself when the fine lass was flirting with you."
I began to sweat out of nervousness as the worgen's buddies also looked over at me. The worgens still freaked me out because they were tall muscle-bound werewolves that talked like European men.
He fucking knew all along? Then again, he's a rogue and rogues were made to be sneaky and crafty, so me attempting to eavesdrop and sneak up on a class that was engineered to be sly and tricky wouldn't work.
"I...I'm lost and don't know what to do." I said nervously.
"Can you...please help me?"
"Well, come on over to our table and have a drink with us." The worgen offered.
"Yeah, join us. I would like to hear about where you got those guns." The warrior said with a smile. The panda and draenei said nothing, but flashed me warm smiles.
"Okay..." I stood up and walked to their table.