An encounter with Warforged

As the two zombies beat a hasty retreat down the street, the group emerge from the alleyway at the side of the inn. With masterful skill, the two horses and Clawfoot dinosaur are ridden past the zombies and further along the street.

A t-junction is soon encountered, prompting a quick discussion of which way is the best way to go to get out of the city quickly. The group bear left and ride past a mansion that has zombie dogs patrolling the grounds. Thankfully a secure iron fence separates them from the hazardous hungry hounds.

A couple of turns later and the heroes hear sounds of a fight up ahead. Increasing their pace the group see two human women and three young human men fighting back to back against nearly a dozen zombies.

With heroic leaps from horseback, displays of divine power, bolts of freezing arcane power and vicious slashes from various weapons and claws, the heroes manage to save all but one of the humans.

The surviving humans express their gratitude at being saved and beg their saviours to help escort them out of the city. Unable to refuse such a feeble plea for help, the group of the living grows a little and moves on through the dark streets of Vathirond.

With a couple of more encounters with zombies, and picking up another straggling refugee or two, the group soon close in on the city gates. Vaelas spots shadowy movement on an adjacent street at least once on their approach to the gates, and the group get the impression that they are being either followed or something is closing in on them.

Hawk heads off down a side alley to try and circumvent the group and scout out the situation around the gate. Unfortunately the side-alley takes a couple of unexpected turns and Hawk ends up on a parallel road instead of near the gate. Whilst there though he stumbles across an interesting scene...

**

You cast your eyes up and down the street, careful to ensure you don't give away your hiding place to any unseen observers. All seems quiet initially, although after a moment or two your ears start to pick up the sound of voices approaching. You double-check your hiding place to ensure that you are well concealed.

You look to the right, fifty foot away is a crossroads, and the sound of the voices is coming from one of the roads approaching it. As they get closer you can hear other sounds, the noise of metal on stone...they must be armoured...sounds like only two people and they're...laughing? Whoever they are they seem oblivious to the danger that lurks in the city tonight.

Eventually they walk into view and pause at the crossroads, appearing to discuss which direction to take next. The two figures are quite distinctive; Warforged both of them, and more heavily armoured than most that you've seen before. They must have been designed for frontline action during the war.

Suddenly you notice two luminous.... clouds, one a sickly green, the other a festering brown in colour. The clouds emerge from the same street as the Warforged and close in on them. Soft tendrils slowly extend from each cloud before lashing out at the two armoured figures. The Warforged don't appear to even notice, or they simply don't care.

Suddenly another figure stumbles into view from an alleyway, a city guard staggering badly from numerous wounds. One of the Warforged walks towards him, sickly green cloud following close behind. Before the guard can react the cloud lashes out several times and he crumples at the Warforged’s feet.

Laughing, the Warforged quickly rifles through the guard pockets, taking a money purse and a ring. The second Warforged heads over with the festering brown cloud that proceeds to extend tendrils too and caresses them over the corpse of the guard.

After a moment the guard’s corpse twitches, then spasms. "Time to move on" intones one of the Warforged to the other. The two Warforged stroll back to the crossroads, and continue along their original course, the two clouds follow seconds later.

You are left watching the dead corpse of the city guard twitching, and then slowly getting to its feet. It stands there motionless, waiting, in the middle of the street looking gormless, like other figures you have seen too many times tonight.

**

Hawk quickly heads back to the group and in his own special Shifter way explains what he has just witnessed. "War men!...two!...clouds of death!!! one green one brown...they head back into city away from gates...guard died, they looted and twitching zombie rises!!!". After several moments of discussion the rest of the group finally begin to get a visualisation of what Hawk had seen.

With a growing sense of urgency, the group make the final push towards the gate. The dozen or so zombies surrounding the gate all head straight for the group. Janin brandishes his holy symbol and stutters a prayer three times before managing to incant it with enough conviction for it to have an effect.

With only inches to spare, most of the advancing zombie mob turn and flee into the side streets. The few zombies unaffected by the divine display are soon dispatched by a few crunches of dinosaur teeth, and with a sigh of relief the group burst through the city gates.