Chapter 4

Thank The Gods

Star looked to the side where the flap of the tent was still open and saw that the source of the outburst was a man with cat ears chained to the others. They were all staring at Star with either fear, anger, or hope in their eyes. The individual in question though had nothing but frustration in his face. Star blinked and turned to the man. “What’s wrong with me wanting to help you?” He asked in confusion.

The man's face adopted a heated expression for a moment, “How do you speak our language first of all? And why would a human want to help us?” The sentiment seemed to be shared throughout the group of captives.

Star shrugged, “I honestly have no Idea how it is that I can speak your language, I didn’t even realize that I was speaking it. As to why I would help you though... Because I hate anyone who enslaves others, and or, forces themselves on those who are unwilling. Rape is something I absolutely will never abide, there always has to be a choice, even if its a shitty choice there should always be free will. I don’t care if you are black, white, green, purple, a cat person, a bird man, or a fucking tentacled monster. If you are capable of thinking you deserve to be able to choose how to live your life, or be given at least the minimum amount of respect.” By the end of Star’s little rant he realized that he wasn’t making a whole lot of sense and was going off on a tangent that would eventually lead back to his point, but these people weren’t going to appreciate him giving them a full on lecture in ethical and moral behaviors and why he felt that they should be applied universally to any sentient creatures.

Sighing Star looked over the devastated camp and began rummaging through the dead soldiers' pockets and bags, looking for keys to undo the shackles around all of the beastkin’s wrists. As he went to bend down and loot the first corpse though he heard a *TRING!* sound and a vibration in his cargo pocket. Star grabbed the WarPad from his pocket and looked over the information.

You have achieved a 57 person kill streak in a single engagement. All stats increased by 2. Level up! You have five stat points to distribute. Would you like to auto loot your kills?

Star frowned, he had never liked the Auto Loot feature in the game; it just dumped everything into his WarPad inventory and then he had to spend time sorting it for anything that he did or did not want. But right this second he was grateful for it. He quickly selected Yes, then evenly distributed his stat points making his total gains come up to 3 points in every stat. 53 in each stat was nothing to sneeze at.

Star scrolled through his inventory and selected the keys for the shackles. Then tossed them to the stunned looking prisoners. Whispers were flooding across every the captives as they all pointed to the now naked corpses of the fallen soldiers. Star ignored them and began arranging his inventory. Luckily the swords, daggers, maces spears, bows, and arrows all stacked in their own individual slots and all he had to do was move them around. The armor and clothing were all sorted in pretty much the same manner. Leaving Star with the task of filtering out the personal effects and random things that a soldier might have on him.

The first thing that Star noticed was a map which he pulled from the inventory and immediately received a ping from his WarPad.

You have found a map of the region, Quality (Poor)

Would you like to add the information from this map to your mini map?

Yes/No?

Star immediately selected Yes and the map dissolved from his hands and his mini map expanded with new information. Star knew that he would need to look over the map and get his bearings soon, but he needed to sort through all of the other crap before he got to that. He saw rings, necklaces, bracelets, lockets, and a variety of other little niceties. Star moved them to a different tab of his inventory and labeled it as ‘jewelry/miscellaneous’. The clothing and pairs of boots he moved to a different tab and labeled it as ‘clothing’ he also added anything that could be applicable to clothing such as needles and thread spools.

Star was quick and efficient at sorting his inventory, and soon he found the thing that he really wanted to find. The paper orders this group of soldiers were following. He pulled it out of the inventory and began reading through it. His heart sank as he realized how little of an affect his actions here would have overall within the grand scheme of what was going on. The orders detailed that all soldiers were to acquire any and all non humans from the surrounding lands and bring them in as slaves to the kingdom of Justin, which seemed like a strange name for a country but Star was not one to judge stupid names. Gaming most of his life had shown him that people oftentimes named things in very arbitrary ways.

Star understood what was going on in this part of the world at least a little bit more. The kingdom of Justin was expanding and for that expansion it required more slaves. Star looked up from his musings and saw that the beastkin had all been freed from their bindings, they seemed to be comforting each other or wandering around with lost looks on their faces.

“Who’s in charge of you all? I need to know what’s going on and how I can help you all.” Star called out loudly.

“I guess that would be me.” A soft voice said from just behind Star making him spin around quickly to see the woman who had been held hostage, “The one in charge... I mean... Yes I should be the one in charge of the village now that my father has passed.” She was still wrapped up in nothing more than a blanket and seemed to be barely holding her emotions in check.

“My name is Star. Now, I am new around here and I don’t really know what’s going on. Not even sure who I just killed or why I should have killed them. I just heard you all suffering and I couldn’t stop myself from going apeshit there. I have enough food and water for everyone and all of the weapons that the soldiers had on them too. I can hand it out for you all. But after that I am not sure what I should be doing. This seems bigger than what I can fix.” He said truthfully. Hoping that maybe she could give him some information.

Nodding the woman seemed to shake herself out of her melancholy and a hard look entered her eyes. “If you can help feed us and provide us with weapons we are in no position to reject that offer. You are clearly a force to be reckoned with and we will not make ourselves your enemies.” She said her voice seemingly becoming stronger as she talked. “If you are still willing to help us I can fill you in on what is happening to the best of my knowledge. Now that our village is destroyed however, we will need to make our way deeper into our peoples lands and find shelter in one of the cities. If you would be willing to escort us to the closest city, I will do my best to make sure that you are given a place of honor for saving us.”

Star nodded, “Sounds like as good a plan as any at the moment.” He sighed and looked down at his WarPad, selecting the stacks of weapons he’d looted he dropped them and they popped into existence right beside him then clattered to the ground. “Here’s all of the weapons the soldiers had, just give me a second to get the food.” He said as he thumbed through the consumables in the store section. After looking through it for a while he realized there were far more options than he had ever really thought he had before. There were MRE’s from every nation on earth, and boxes of large quantities of preserved foods. It was actually very odd now that he thought about it. He remembered picking these purchasables in some of the story mode missions, but he had never actually had a use for them. MRE’s had been all that was necessary for the characters to always be free of hunger debuffs and the canteen was always there to keep your character hydrated. It hadn’t made much sense to have pallets of canned beans or the various bottled sodas/teas/water in free play, and they were mostly used for very specific story mode missions that were considered boring. Star had still unlocked them as he had insisted on completing every mission in the whole game, which meant that he could theoretically feed an entire army single handedly.

Selecting a pallet of canned chicken noodle soup, Star ‘purchased’ it as consumables were all free; it wasn’t really a purchase, and it appeared on the ground beside him as he dragged it out of his inventory. He grabbed a couple of can openers and then purchased a pallet of water bottles as well figuring that these beastkin may not like green tea or hydroaid. In the firelight Star opened one of the cardboard boxes containing the canned soups and opened a can for the woman who was the impromptu leader of the now freed people Star had rescued.

“What is your name by the way? I didn’t get it before.” He said as he handed her the opened can of chicken noodle soup.

“Thank you!” She said, accepting the can and giving it a sniff and a strange look before looking back into his eyes, “And I am sorry... I should have introduced myself, I am Amy. I am the daughter of chief Gordon... or was...” her face slumping into a brief flash of grief that was gone as quickly as it had come.

Star suddenly realized how tiny she was in comparison to himself. She was maybe a few inches above five feet tall and had, droopy, dog-like ears on top of her head. She had dark brown hair and a very pretty face. Star realized that it was no wonder that one of the soldiers had wanted to take advantage of her, she was beautiful. Star watched as she turned the can up and tasted the broth of the soup and her face lit up with surprise.

“This is amazing! Thank the gods!” She said, looking at the can with awe in her eyes.

Star just shrugged and began tossing cans out to random individuals in the crowd of freed beastkin. He showed them all how to use the can openers and then began handing them out as well. Soon everyone had eaten and looked like they were fighting the urge to go to sleep. The night was heavy and dark, the only light available was the multiple bonfires around the camp that were now waning as no fuel had been added. Star let Amy do the organizing of her people and decided to get some shuteye himself before it was too late. He found a tree and put his back to it then set up a small motion sensor alarm that would wake him if anyone came near, stabbing it into the trunk of the tree above his head. Then he sat with his back to the tree facing the dying fires and allowed himself to nod off.