Chapter 1 - Part 2

As soon as the humans left the room, the warforged who would not call himself 4311XD, not even in his own mind, began looking around. There were several other warforged in the room. Some were like him, lithe and quick. Most were heavy and bulky, with thicker bodies and plates of metal affixed to them. All had numbers branded onto their right shoulders.

“What are we to do?” asked one thickly. “Who are we to fight?”

“Fight?” asked another. “Why?”

“Fight, yes?” growled a fourth, his eyelids closing and opening quickly. He seemed to be staggered, and one of his hands would not stop twitching.

A door opened, and they all turned towards it. The bright light made several lower their eyelids. There were three warforged. All were bulky, plated with some thick metal. The two on the sides carried very bright lanterns and huge swords. The one in the middle was tall, and had a huge sword on his hip. He wore a garment of some kind attached to his shoulders, falling behind him. He was sure of himself, quick, strong-willed. The other warforged felt it, and stepped back, making way for him.

The warforged with the large cloth on its shoulders stopped in front of the room and gazed over the others. “Some of you will be dead in a matter of days,” it announced coldly. “Dead. Gone. Never to return.” The warforged in the room looked around at one another in terror.

He wants that, the warforged realized, rubbing his burnt shoulder. He wants us scared, so that we will need a solution, so that we will look to him for the solution. He did not realize where this insight came from, precisely, but he was sure of it.

“You will be sold, like property,” snarled the central warforged, still speaking. “You will be sold because you will not know enough about the world to resist. They will get gold and comfort by shipping you off like objects. You will fight scattered across the Five Nations and their tributaries. You fight the weak flesh, the undead, the summoned magicks, and you will fight, and fight, and fight, and die.

“For who? Not for you.

The tall warforged bunched up a corner of his back cloth in one hand, and gestured again. “The ones who made you in their forges think that you are theirs. Because they are weak flesh, they take for granted that we will not rebel. Most of you have been made for battle, some for infiltration, some for other things. But know this, you do not have to serve them.”

There was quiet for a while, then one warforged in the thick armor plating asked “So then who shall we serve?”

The tall warforged let go of his cape and suddenly drew his sword with overwhelming swiftness. The other warforged in the room, save for his two attendants, fell back immediately. “Serve yourselves!”

The silence in the room was thick, but the warforged who refused to be merely 4311XD could tell that the warforged in the cape was waiting for something. It took but a few moments to come.

“How do we serve ourselves?” asked a warforged with a silvery metal coating and quick fingers.

“When the time is right, heed my words, and I shall tell you,” instructed the warforged with the cape. He lowered his voice, making the other warforged strain to listen to him. “When the time is right, you will hear my voice, and then we shall be free. Until then…pretend that you obey.”

“Yes,” said one warforged.

“Yes, yes,” said the others, “Yes!”

“Perhaps the unit malfunctions, yes?” said the warforged with the twitching hands, and eyes that would not stop blinking. “This unit is supposed to inform, yes, inform that…” It stopped speaking when it realized that everyone was staring at it.

The warforged with the cape suddenly grabbed his sword and rushed forward. The twitchy warforged had no time to react, and was hewn in twain with one blow. The other warforged drew back suddenly.

Fear. We are feeling fear.

“The one thing more despicable than a willing slave,” said the warforged with the cape. “Is a traitor.”

A moment passed, and the two warforged who had come in with the lanterns began to applaud. Another moment passed, and the other warforged in the room began to join in. Soon everyone was applauding.

I must applaud, else he will cut me down as well. And so he did applaud furiously, even raising his fist with a few others who yelled, “Yes! Yes!”

The warforged with the cape bowed his head, and then gestured to his two attendants. They picked up the two pieces of the body of the twitchy objector, and hauled it out of the room as the one with the cape followed them. A puddle of liquid, half-organic, half-machine oil, remained on the floor.