Chapter 2: Slayersword24

The scouts exited the drop ship without a noise. With a fluid grace born of years of training and surgery to enhance their bodies they slipped unnoticed into the trees of the forest. They moved silently for ten minutes encountering no life apart from a few basic indigenous animal species.

Then suddenly without warning the Scout Sergeant called a halt. The remainder of the squad melted back raising their weapons in a covering fire pattern. Then he beckoned them forwards. He'd found something.

Through the trees they could see the edge of what looked like a small to medium sized village. Large blue roofed buildings with grey stonewall were the predominant structures of the village with some other smaller wooden ones. Two tethered horses bayed in front of their trough beside one of the buildings and a stray dog was sniffing around for scraps. Even from this angle they could see and hear a large number of people.

"Plan of action sir?" one of the scouts enquired

"Too many of them to take by ourselves, even though their technology looks pre-dark ages. Vox our situation back to Captain Malfurion make sure to note our current locat-"

A sudden rustling in the bushes to the scouts' right suddenly shut them up. They raised weapons once again as they absorbed themselves back into the forest. A few moments later stumbling out of the hedges appeared a human.

He was clothed in simple brown robes with short black hair and a small neat beard. The Scout Sergeant noticed that he was armed; a small knife was clutched in his hand. He slid around the trees, slipping from the shadow of one tree to another making care not to step on anything underfoot. He continued to move in this way until he was behind the human, who after entering the small clearing had not moved.

With the swift movement of a professional killer the scout leapt out of the trees and grabbed the human in a vice like headlock and at the same time, by using a pressure point at the top of the spine, forced him onto his knees. Simultaneously the other scouts materialised out the forest their weapons pointed at the subdued human.

"Hey! What the hell is this?! That's not fair I was afk!"

"Quiet. You'll spoken only when spoken to. Failure to comply will result in your immediate execution"

"…Fine…"

"What is your name?"

"Slayersword24 is my character but I can't tell you my real name, mum said I should never tell strangers my personal details online"

Slayersword must be the unit designation, the scout mused, and 24… perhaps his call sign within the unit. He also seemed to be psy-shielded in someway to refuse divulging information to the enemy

"That village through the trees what is?"

"Well I've been trying to find Goldshire, I got told it was in this direction"

"What's the population of Goldshire?"

"On this server? I dunno… I'm pretty new to the game but I think it's quite popular so probably like… a hundred or so players?"

'Server' and 'Players' odd words the scout thought but perhaps they were code phrases or a part of the local dialect.

"Are they armed?"

"Of course everyone has a weapon around here"

"What do you mean everyone?"

"every…one… you might as well have one equipped otherwise it'll take space in your inventory. Well I suppose a few NPCs don't have weapons but they don't really need them"

'Inventory' and 'NPCs' more strange phrases the scout couldn't understand. But from the sounds of things there seemed to be a large military force active on the planet thankfully their technology was almost painfully archaic.

Then the scout remembered the most important question,

"Are you a true servant to the throne of the God Emperor?"

"The throne of… who? The God Emperor? Sure you don't mean the Lich King? No haven't gotten it yet.. maybe next week when I get pocket money"

The scouts looked at the human with a look of pure shock. The sacrilege they were hearing was almost too much to bear. They all tightened their grips on their weapons and double-checked their aim. Slayersword24 seemed to notice he'd said something wrong,

"Hey now! Look! I don't know who that guy is but I'm new to the game so he might be a boss or something I've yet to find out ab-"

"Nice try Heretic"

With a sharp motion the Scout Sergeant twisted SlayerSword24's head and an audible crack was heard as his spine snapped, his body falling limply to the floor.

…