Chapter 10 - Part 11

Medea and her children stood awkwardly, pressing themselves against the bottles and casks of wine that poked out of the rack. They had been there for an hour. A pair of warforged had already come down to the cellar, hacking at some boxes to see if anyone was inside, and then left. The light was indeed poor, and the drop cloth’s color was very close in pigment to the wall’s color. The warforged had left, not suspecting that there were three living people right near them.

Still, they hadn’t moved. They didn’t know when the warforged might be back, and they thought they heard sounds from upstairs.

Medea’s daughter Ossai could not hold it in any longer, and she let her bladder loose. Sniffling and crying softly at her humiliation, she shoved a hand in her mouth so that the sound of her crying would not carry. Medea could only hope that the warforged sense of smell was nothing like a real person’s. Her daughter’s baldder was small. Perhaps it would escape detection.

“Points head downstairs,” came a monotone command. Heavy feet were heard as more warforged came downstairs and began rooting around.

“Only food and broken wood down here,” called one. “Hard to see though, sun isn’t coming through the small windows right.”

“Candles here,” said another mechanical voice.

Heavy feet. A click and scratch as one of the murdering machines produced flint and tinder.

“Report,” came a voice from up the stairs.

“Somewhat better illumination,” replied a voice not three feet in from of Medea. She dared not even breathe. “I see no weapons or oil down here sir, just food and kindling.”

“Look again,” came the voice from atop the stairs. “This is the biggest home in the area, they must have something our commanders would want.”

Medea stifled a sob. Only this morning she had felt so much superior to the other women because her wealthy husband had bought her a new dress. Likely those women were dead now.

“Should we try digging for loose bricks?” one voice asked. It took a step towards the drop cloth.

“No, they hide money that way, not weapons,” said the other voice.

Medea heard a clicking sound, like a metal neck shifting position. “Do you smell sewage?” That came from near her daughter.

“No,” answered another. “But it is not impossible. The breathers sometimes emit waste in their homes.”

“Disgusting,” said another. “To think that we serve such –”

“Shut the box,” snapped another warforged, with more emotion in his voice than had been there before. “None of that talk.”

The warforged rooted around in the bins of potatoes and turnips, and then went back up the stairs. Medea and her children would live for a little while longer.