You aren’t going to march into enemy territory undefended so you quickly grab control of any infected you sense until it finally turns to lunchtime and you have over a hundred infected following around you. “Old man was right; I already have a horde this big after only a few hours, this really is the jackpot for forming an army.” You keep going but stop building your horde at around 150, You could control more but you realize that it is somewhat pointless as there are simply so many around you. Shamblers in every building practically, and since every building around is a huge multistory, that makes for a lot of infected.

You carry on forward, only stopping briefly to eat the rest of the flesh you had brought with you and by dinner time you are keeping yourself occupied by swapping out horde menders, dropping the shamblers and taking more mutants. A couple feel slightly different when you force your control over them but they act exactly the same once you take their minds so you keep them too.

Finally as night approaches you sense a very large number of infected ahead who aren’t moving and when you reach out you immediately realize that they are under someone else’s control. You are still deciding how to proceed against what must be over 1000 mutants when you feel the pressure hit your mind. You force up your defense against the attack like you had practiced with the old man, envisioning slabs of steel slammed up against the pressure of the assault but most of what he showed was how to attack so you know you won’t hold out long.

You do know how to talk though, it took several days to learn but the Old Man had taught you a very useful trick and you send out a small thread of thought through your defenses and you feel the attack lessen very slightly and a voice finally enters you mind through it.

“This is unexpected, you wish to talk this time? Last time you attacked us you seemed more like the rage driven egotist than the chatty type.” The voice says.

You quickly respond, having already thought through several possible conversations. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘this time’ but I have never met you before, never mind attacked you.” You immediately feel surprise coming from the other mind. “You are actually telling the truth, you aren’t the one who attacked us before, you shared his colouring and came from the west so we had assumed it was him coming again. But in that case why are you entering our domain with an army?”

You respond carefully “I had heard there were others like me here, I didn’t intend to attack you with my horde, and I just never like to travel alone for safety reasons.”

There is silence for a time before an answer comes. “You may pass but your horde cannot, you must release them then pass through alone or there will be no entry.”

You think about this for a moment
> You let them all go and head in alone, no point making them mad now, you're playing the long game
You head further into the city centre alone and the hordes part for you, you can feel them dispersing to either side around you. “The Old Man said they keep them evenly spaced out in a ring, does this mean they knew I was coming?” You think as you walk.

Finally you see the two minds of the harbingers ahead of you without having to stretch your senses out, and you also see the minds of what seems like over 300 humans with them, the very thought makes you hungry.

As you get closer you see another link reaching out for you and as before you join in to let them converse with you. “You are only about an hour’s gentle walk away but you will need to circle a little to your left, that’s North, to get inside, only one entrance you see and everything is guarded to prevent any problems in our little haven.”

You carefully force your hunger and feelings down, if you’ve been getting snippits of theirs then they might get some of yours and that might not be good. “Of course, it’s getting dark but that isn’t really an issue for our kind, I’ll walk faster though so I don’t make you wait.”

There is a pause and you are about to drop the link when you hear one more question “You came from the West where our enemy lurked, Have you have any interaction with him, he has the feel of an old man, a very angry one at that.”

You pause for a moment; you didn’t expect this question so bluntly so you have to choose your words carefully.
> You tell some of the truth, that you encountered someone that might match that description but no details, if they push cover up the involvement.
The best tactic is a small truth to back up the lie right? Well, obviously it would be to slaughter then and feast on their flesh but for now you have to play nice.

“I did encounter someone like that, they indeed seemed very angry. Coming here and meeting you seemed like the better option when compared to staying there with a clearly hostile harbinger.”

There is a slight pause before the next question “And he didn’t attack you, no offence but I don’t see you being alive if he did.”

You tut to yourself, got to cover a little more “Well I think he was trying to recruit me, I think he would have attacked once he realized I wasn’t taking him up on the offer but I was too far away already.”

This time the reply comes right away “Oh how interesting, I presume he wanted your help in attacking us, he seems like the angry vengeful type and we did send him away in disgrace barely holding onto his life afterall. So you weren’t tempted to join him?”
> You enough is enough. They aren't buying the half-truths as the whole story so Lie outright about it
"Not at all, I got away as fast as I could to come here!' You emphasize, you can't let them know the truth

There is a longer pause than before and you get a little nervous when you hear the voice again. “Ok just up ahead you’ll see the underground entrance on your right? Good, that’s the entrance you’ll need to take, we are quite nicely set up in an old arena here, if was half underground before so makes it very defensible as you can imagine!” The tone seems jovial and the tunnel leads towards the minds you sense so you head inside.

As you walk through the tunnel which has obviously had some work done to it with reinforcements and walls removed or built you sense the humans all gathering up ahead. “Is something going on up there?” You ask down the link and immediately get the response “Of course! It’s not every day they get to see a new harbinger so this is somewhat of an event! Everyone has gathers for it. Some of the minds to the East don’t agree with our stance on the matter which is why we separated but we see that we are superior to humans and should be treated as such so we rule here like Gods in a way, when we say there is an event, EVERYONE attends, not that they’d want to miss this anyway.”

You heartily agree with the statement. You ARE better than humans, they are your prey after all, you can see their position though. Keeping them like pets to obey and serve you before eating them wouldn’t be so bad either.

You see some light up ahead and walk out into what looks like the centre of an arena with 10 foot walls of concrete topped with another 10 feet of metal and reinforced glass. The humans are all on the other side of the glass cheering down at you like fans watching a concert. Something clearly isn’t right though.

You sense the minds above you and looking up you see two cloaked figures sitting on a platform that extended out from the wall over the tiered row s of seats giving them the best view both around the room and down into the pit.

“Welcome to the City Arena! Rules by the Lords of the New City, this is the place where your post-apocalyptic fantasies can become a reality, for the right price!”

You now know that something is definitely wrong as a massive battered steel sheet slams down behind you, trapping you in the arena. Even with your enhanced strength you aren’t sure you could budge it without a lot of time and something to level with.

The announcement continues though, the speakers voice amplified through a speaker system hanging high above of the roof. “Today we have a very rare treat for you, in the ring is a harbinger folks! That’s right, like our very own Lords of the city he has superhuman abilities and can control infected, however this one tried to lie to the Lords and we know how they take that don’t we!” The crowd responds with even more cheers.
> You what you get for lying
You aren’t going to stand for this, being put on display like some animal while the humans throw money around and a large board has odds displayed! Odds displayed.. You look around as see another large metal sheet across the way beginning to rise. “That’s right folks, he might be a lot weaker than our lords but he is still a big challenge so we are sending in a big challenger! It’s Nate the Sentinel!”

You lash out at the Lords above you but their defenses are solidly in place, you try the human minds, you are certain you can affect them but it seems that the two harbingers are protecting them too. The door does not wait for your tests though and before you have time to try the walls you see a huge beast lumber through. Like a man but grotesquely mutated into something that looked more like an ogre from the old myths than a human anymore.

You can easily beat any mutant you have come across barehanded, even the large dog types but as you size this thing you realize that it must be 12 feet tall and covered in muscles, this won’t be an easy fight. The beast comes charging at you and you barely dodge in time as it moves faster than anything that size should be able to move.

You don’t have many options left
> You concentrate on its mind, if you get control of that then you can use it to let you escape.
You lash out at Nate’s mind but find it protected, you push with everything you can to force your way in and register that its stopped moving at least while your try. The defense is slippery though, every time you think you have forced a way in, you find it there again. You finally think you have it when you feel a sudden spike against your own mind. Your defenses hold but you are stunned for a second.

Your senses return just in time to register that your right arm and ribcage is crushed and you are flying at a tremendous speed directly at the wall.

You impact with a sickeningly hard crunch and feel more ribs breaking. “Oh dear me folks, the Lords just indicated to me that instead of fighting Nate, the idiot tried to attack his mind and steal him from them! That left him wide open for Nate’s punch! Give the man a hand though, I never seem anything that didn’t turn into jelly at one of those hits never mind still be moving!”

You cough up blood and stagger to your feet. Just in time for Nate to reach you again. You even see the punch coming but can’t get out of the way in time and take it full to the chest. You get slammed back into the wall and know your done for, your organs are jelly and your blood is pooling at your feet.

“And it’s over folks, even if he is still breathing, he isn’t moving! That’s a win in two punches for Nate the sentinel, always a crowd favorite even if his opponent was weak.

You want to protest and tell them you weren’t weak when just register being lifted in the air. “Oh and Nate is hungry folks!” you hear right before the crunch.


You aren’t going to stand for this, being put on display like some animal while the humans throw money around and a large board has odds displayed! Odds displayed.. You look around as see another large metal sheet across the way beginning to rise. “That’s right folks, he might be a lot weaker than our lords but he is still a big challenge so we are sending in a big challenger! It’s Nate the Sentinel!”

You lash out at the Lords above you but their defenses are solidly in place, you try the human minds, you are certain you can affect them but it seems that the two harbingers are protecting them too. The door does not wait for your tests though and before you have time to try the walls you see a huge beast lumber through. Like a man but grotesquely mutated into something that looked more like an ogre from the old myths than a human anymore.

You can easily beat any mutant you have come across barehanded, even the large dog types but as you size this thing you realize that it must be 12 feet tall and covered in muscles, this won’t be an easy fight. The beast comes charging at you and you barely dodge in time as it moves faster than anything that size should be able to move.

You don’t have many options left
> You concentrate on the two 'Lords' above you, hit their minds hard enough and you could get away or even defeat them
You mentally lash out at the Lords above you again and once more find their defenses holding you at bay. You concentrate on just one of them and try to force you way in, putting all your anger and rage into the attack. You feel his defenses buckling under the pressure but then you find the problem with your plan.

While you concentrated on your attack you stopped moving.

Nate the Sentinel did not stop moving.

You feel the impact and turn back to your normal senses just in time to register that your right arm and ribcage is crushed and you are flying at a tremendous speed directly at the wall.

You impact with a sickeningly hard crunch and feel more ribs breaking. “Oh dear me folks, the Lords just indicated to me that instead of fighting Nate, the idiot tried to attack our rulers! That left him wide open for Nate’s punch! Give the man a hand though, I never seem anything that didn’t turn into jelly at one of those hits never mind still be moving!”

You cough up blood and stagger to your feet. Just in time for Nate to reach you again. You even see the punch coming but can’t get out of the way in time and take it full to the chest. You get slammed back into the wall and know your done for, your organs are jelly and your blood is pooling at your feet.

“And it’s over folks, even if he is still breathing, he isn’t moving! That’s a win in two punches for Nate the sentinel, always a crowd favorite even if his opponent was weak.

You want to protest and tell them you weren’t weak when just register being lifted in the air. “Oh and Nate is hungry folks!” you hear right before the crunch.


You aren’t going to stand for this, being put on display like some animal while the humans throw money around and a large board has odds displayed! Odds displayed.. You look around as see another large metal sheet across the way beginning to rise. “That’s right folks, he might be a lot weaker than our lords but he is still a big challenge so we are sending in a big challenger! It’s Nate the Sentinel!”

You lash out at the Lords above you but their defenses are solidly in place, you try the human minds, you are certain you can affect them but it seems that the two harbingers are protecting them too. The door does not wait for your tests though and before you have time to try the walls you see a huge beast lumber through. Like a man but grotesquely mutated into something that looked more like an ogre from the old myths than a human anymore.

You can easily beat any mutant you have come across barehanded, even the large dog types but as you size this thing you realize that it must be 12 feet tall and covered in muscles, this won’t be an easy fight. The beast comes charging at you and you barely dodge in time as it moves faster than anything that size should be able to move.

You don’t have many options left
> You concentrate on the combat, it's based off a human so it has human weaknesses, hit it's eyes, nose and tendons, then see if it can fight you.
You can’t beat two of them mentally so you will have to concentrate on the fight in front of you for now. Nate is huge and clearly going to be stronger than you but you might have speed and intelligence on your side.

He charges you at amazing speed and swings a punch but you are prepared, you dodge it at the last second and land a punch of your on on its side as you move around it. You had punched right through metal car doors before and know it must have hurt the thing when it let out a roar and span wildly at you.

You stayed being careful though, letting it attack and only hitting on counters. Finally you see your chance and as it lunged too far you jump its punch and hit it right in the eye, feeling it pop under the impact.

You watch it stagger back and follow up with a running jump to hit the other eye before it recovers, feeling it pop too. “Let’s see you fight blind!” you sneer at the monster as it clutches its face and staggers back into the wall, making the whole thing shake.

“Oh my! What a turn of events!” You hear blaring out. “The new entry has managed not only to avoid Nate’s attacks, but he blinded him folks! Let’s see those odd rolling!”

You see a frenzy of activity as the humans obviously rush to place their bets on you as is only right. You are the Alpha here, not their ‘Lords’ or this monster and you would show all of them soon enough. You start towards Nate at a leisurely pace, it should be easy to finish off now at least.

Suddenly its hands drop and it looks at you. “Oh dear folks, the new guy waited too long and Nate grew his eyes back! He’s going to be mad now!” You swear as the Nate charges you, faster and clearly angrier than before, he clips you with one punch and you are sent spinning away feeling several ribs shatter into pieces. “If that was a direct hit I’d be a gonner.” You think as he charges again but this time you roll under the punch and tear out his Achilles as you pass.

You head the satisfying crunch as Nate smashed into the wall having lost the use of one foot and you can see he is stunned so you press the advantage and attack again, blinding it again and punching right through its flesh several times until it starts wheezing and looms like it might be a while before getting up.

“And the fight is over folks! The new guy has defeated the crowd favorite, Nate the Sentinel!” You sense the monsters movements changing but instead of coming after you it slinks back against a wall near the door it came in “Everyone give a hand for our newest entrant!” you hear as the crowd goes wild.
> You soak up the arenas glory
You get caught up in the praise for a second until you see the door begin to move, this might be your chance to escape so you race towards it as it opens only to see several humanoids blocking your way. You skid to a halt a few feet short as the announcer comes back on. “Oh dear me folks, he tried to make a break for it but He found Madglee and the 3J’s blocking his escape, That’s right folks, he faced one sentinel and now he faces two of them!” He drops his tone to a fake stage whisper “The three J’s are really three people but they share one mind so they count as one right?” The crowd goes wild as the four enter and you quickly see three of them look similar to humans, just stretched out a little and identical to each other. The fourth one looked like a cross between them and the monster from before, it also looked semi-intelligent which worried you more.

You back off as Nate slipped out the back of the area, already clearly healing its wounds and the four new entries move out towards you.

You try and plan some tactics but suddenly they are all moving to attack. You instantly see that the 3J’s are faster than you and they seem to dodge attacks they can’t see, while Madglee circles you, not attacking yet.

You start taking hit after hit, not hard but they are adding up and you feel bones breaking and bruises forming. You’ve had enough of them and suddenly charge at one, lashing out physically and mentally at the fast opponents who were dodging around you and keeping you from moving. You realize it was the wrong choice when suddenly the back of your head explodes in pain and you fly hard into the wall ahead of you.

“Oh dear me folks, the 3 J’s kept him locked town tight and Madglee simply waited for the right moment to end things instantly!”

You barely have time to pick yourself up when the last blows fall.


The best tactic is a small truth to back up the lie right? Well, obviously it would be to slaughter then and feast on their flesh but for now you have to play nice.

“I did encounter someone like that, they indeed seemed very angry. Coming here and meeting you seemed like the better option when compared to staying there with a clearly hostile harbinger.”

There is a slight pause before the next question “And he didn’t attack you, no offence but I don’t see you being alive if he did.”

You tut to yourself, got to cover a little more “Well I think he was trying to recruit me, I think he would have attacked once he realized I wasn’t taking him up on the offer but I was too far away already.”

This time the reply comes right away “Oh how interesting, I presume he wanted your help in attacking us, he seems like the angry vengeful type and we did send him away in disgrace barely holding onto his life afterall. So you weren’t tempted to join him?”
> You enough is enough. They aren't buying the half-truths as the whole story sell out the Old man, he'd be the first to sell you out if it benefited him.
These guys are clearly too suspicious to buy the lies.  The Old Man would also sell you out in a second if it benefited him, so why not sell him out first and join the stronger side?

“Ok to be very honest, he was stronger than me, by a lot. I only found my abilities a couple of months back and he recruited me when I didn’t really have a chance of fighting him. I did train with him for a while as he wanted me to help him and I got a lot stronger. Seems he wanted me to help him beat you guys as he didn’t want to risk the fight alone. I learned what I could from him and now would much rather join you guys as he is a bit crazy and would most likely kill me the moment you were defeated anyway.”

There is silence for a time before an answer finally comes. “Well that is very interesting, and actually the truth which we didn’t initially expect. We shall let you join us, do understand though that you will still be under some suspicion for a time.”

You nod, that’s pretty much what you expected “Sounds about what I expected so I’ll accept those terms.” You say as you walk closer.

A different voice joins in the conversation now “As you get closer you will see a large underground entrance, then one building past that on the right you will see a metal door set back inside an entrance way, that’s the way you need to take in. If you see anything strange, do not attack it, they are semi-autonomous but still under our control and will not attack unless provoked.”

You shrug to yourself “not as if anything could really surprise me anymore” you think as you see the underground entrance and head one building past it. You see what looks like a normal skyscraper lobby and almost wonder if you had gone too far when you see what looks more like a huge metal slab than a door part way into a side corridor. “Huge defensive door but tucked where people walking by won’t easily see it, smart.”

As you get closer it swings open to reveal a huge monstrosity holding it. The roof here must be over 10 feet high and the thing is still hunched against the ceiling to be able to fit and its bulk blocks most of the corridors width, like a human mutated to be the biggest, most muscular abomination you could imagine. “Gorram-it, I take it back, I can still be surprised, you’re like some monster from mythology aren’t you?” You mutter as you decide about what to do. Surprisingly the thing growls at you in response. “Oh, and you seem to understand me, that’s a bit worrying too.” You say.

You carefully edge past the thing as it makes no move to attack and you notice that the door is several inches thick of metal, and that the thing easily pulls it shut behind you even though it’s not on hinges. “Seems those muscles aren’t for show either, I can see why I wouldn’t want to pick a fight with you” you tell the monster which seems to take it as a compliment and grins at you, which is a truly horrifying sight.
> You welcome to the thunderdone!
You head down the corridor ahead and past several smaller doors, opened by other strange mutated humans. You make note that the walls and ceiling here is re-enforced, probably after knocking down walls to make the tunnel. You start hearing cheering up ahead as you come into a small lobby area.

“Nearly there!” you hear the first voice saying “There are doors and corridors off this room but you need the blue one marked ‘Balcony’.”

Then the link drops. You have some suspicions now about a trap, but why let you pass all the abominations which could probably kill you in the tight confines of the corridor only to try and kill you now?

You head through the arch and up the stairs and walk right out into what looks like an old circular arena, lit from above with a large pit in the middle, walled by concrete topped with glass and steel. Crowds of humans line the glass, looking down and cheering like they are at a concert.

“Welcome to the New City Arena!” you hear thundering above you, and looking up you see the suspended PA system as the announcer continues “The Lords have told me that we have a special guest here today, as so we are putting on a special show for you all!” place your bets and give a cheer for your competitors!” The crowd goes wild as you see giant metal doors in the pit opening.

You catch sight of a section sticking out of the balcony and immediately recognize the minds of the two cloaked figures sitting on it as the harbingers. One of them waves you over and you move through the crowd until you reach their little dais, sticking out over the crowd below. There are now humans near them so you walk the last few feet quickly and find an empty seat for you beside them.

“Welcome to our little community!” The nearest one begins “This is obviously our arena where we get our entertainment. Obviously living areas and all that are down other tunnels and in other buildings but we thought we would greet you in proper fashion today!” He indicates the pit and you see a pack of mutant dogs walk out into the large open space, on the other side you see a much large group of infected, shamblers and fast types enter.

The Harbinger continues “As you see, we have brought back the coliseum, we have infected fight for our entertainment, and occasionally humans who break the laws here, a small group tried to rebell against us a while back, we gave them weapons and sent them in against Nate, who you met at the front door, he is one of our sentinels. It turned Nate into a crowd favorite and he ensured that the peace was kept, no-one has tried real insubordination since then!”

You think for a moment before replying as you watch the infected standing still as the humans shout to make bets based off numbers displayed on a big screen on one wall “But the humans, don’t you eat them? That’s how we get stronger and they are simply prey.”

You can almost feel the disapproval of the men beside you and you sense new colour swirling in the glow of their minds “Not at all, it seems the Harbinger of the West has been lying to you. Eating humans has no effect on your abilities at all. Only your mind and training does. You got stronger as you believed in what he was saying and because you trained. But it is also why we nearly killed you on sight. Your decision taints your mind and we can see it.”

You don’t really know what to respond to this. But your overwhelming urge is to lash out, you were honest but now they were lying to you? Were they simply trying to indoctrinate you to use you like the old man?

You follow your urge, you know they are lying as you ate humans and got stronger, in just a few weeks of eating humans and training you became superhuman yourself. Attack physically and mentally, once they are dead, their community and the humans will be your personal living food locker.

You force your urges back down, the longer you spent with the Old Man and the more humans you ate, the more violent and volatile you became however they don’t really have a reason to lie to you right now. Find out what they are saying then decide the truth for yourself.
> You follow the urge
Tainted? You are not tainted by anything, you are the alpha predator of the weak humans below you and you will prove it by killing their ‘Lords’ in front of them and feasting on their flesh. Once you are in charge the games can continue but you will eat the humans as you watch.

You lash out at them and make a lunge towards them at incredible speed but you feel both attacks suddenly blocked. The two men in cloaks moved just as fast as you and they are now pinning your arms in grips you can’t break.

“You see, I told you we can’t trust a red, once they go that way they are ruled by the infection and lose all reason.” One says to the other “Sadly in this case you were right, I thought since his colour had shades and wasn’t set yet that he could still chance but I guess not.”

“Don’t talk over me!” You shout at them, you are about to continue and tell them of what you will do to get your revenge when you feel something slamming into your mind and you have to use all your concentration to fend it off. You only hold for a second though as a second attack shatters your defense and you feel pressure inside your mind.

Suddenly it vanishes and you don’t feel their minds anymore. “There, I left all your abilities and mind intact but you lost all of your… mental prowess shall we say.” One of them say cheerily to you “An impressive feat if I say so myself, mental brain surgery! Literally!” he chuckles at his own joke.

You are about to say something when you feel yourself suddenly thrown out over the crowd and fall right into the centre of the pit. You try and lash out at them but find all of your mental senses gone; you can only feel what you did when you were a normal human. You panic for a moment but the announcer comes back on the PA system. “That’s right folks, our special event is that our Lords have captured an evil harbinger and stripped him of his mental powers! He is still incredibly strong and fast, but let’s see how he does against our hordes! The winners are the infected who deliver the killing blow, will it be mutants of walkers!”

You looks up just in time to see all of the infected and mutants rush at you. You fight well, you still have your speed and strength and kill a large number of them but the small wounds add up. You lose your left arm first to a large mutant dog, you killed it but it had already severed the flesh. Your leg is broken by a shamber latching onto it while a fast type slammed into you. After that it goes quickly.

It ends as a mutant tears your windpipe out, the last thing you hear is the crowd cheering your death.


You head down the corridor ahead and past several smaller doors, opened by other strange mutated humans. You make note that the walls and ceiling here is re-enforced, probably after knocking down walls to make the tunnel. You start hearing cheering up ahead as you come into a small lobby area.

“Nearly there!” you hear the first voice saying “There are doors and corridors off this room but you need the blue one marked ‘Balcony’.”

Then the link drops. You have some suspicions now about a trap, but why let you pass all the abominations which could probably kill you in the tight confines of the corridor only to try and kill you now?

You head through the arch and up the stairs and walk right out into what looks like an old circular arena, lit from above with a large pit in the middle, walled by concrete topped with glass and steel. Crowds of humans line the glass, looking down and cheering like they are at a concert.

“Welcome to the New City Arena!” you hear thundering above you, and looking up you see the suspended PA system as the announcer continues “The Lords have told me that we have a special guest here today, as so we are putting on a special show for you all!” place your bets and give a cheer for your competitors!” The crowd goes wild as you see giant metal doors in the pit opening.

You catch sight of a section sticking out of the balcony and immediately recognize the minds of the two cloaked figures sitting on it as the harbingers. One of them waves you over and you move through the crowd until you reach their little dais, sticking out over the crowd below. There are now humans near them so you walk the last few feet quickly and find an empty seat for you beside them.

“Welcome to our little community!” The nearest one begins “This is obviously our arena where we get our entertainment. Obviously living areas and all that are down other tunnels and in other buildings but we thought we would greet you in proper fashion today!” He indicates the pit and you see a pack of mutant dogs walk out into the large open space, on the other side you see a much large group of infected, shamblers and fast types enter.

The Harbinger continues “As you see, we have brought back the coliseum, we have infected fight for our entertainment, and occasionally humans who break the laws here, a small group tried to rebell against us a while back, we gave them weapons and sent them in against Nate, who you met at the front door, he is one of our sentinels. It turned Nate into a crowd favorite and he ensured that the peace was kept, no-one has tried real insubordination since then!”

You think for a moment before replying as you watch the infected standing still as the humans shout to make bets based off numbers displayed on a big screen on one wall “But the humans, don’t you eat them? That’s how we get stronger and they are simply prey.”

You can almost feel the disapproval of the men beside you and you sense new colour swirling in the glow of their minds “Not at all, it seems the Harbinger of the West has been lying to you. Eating humans has no effect on your abilities at all. Only your mind and training does. You got stronger as you believed in what he was saying and because you trained. But it is also why we nearly killed you on sight. Your decision taints your mind and we can see it.”

You don’t really know what to respond to this. But your overwhelming urge is to lash out, you were honest but now they were lying to you? Were they simply trying to indoctrinate you to use you like the old man?

You follow your urge, you know they are lying as you ate humans and got stronger, in just a few weeks of eating humans and training you became superhuman yourself. Attack physically and mentally, once they are dead, their community and the humans will be your personal living food locker.

You force your urges back down, the longer you spent with the Old Man and the more humans you ate, the more violent and volatile you became however they don’t really have a reason to lie to you right now. Find out what they are saying then decide the truth for yourself.
> You force it down
There are two of them and one of you, they are also much more experienced than you. Attacking now would be suicide. You force your urges back down and after a moment you think a little more rationally again.

“It makes complete sense that the Old Man lied to me about things, he was a vengeance driven psycho afterall, he just wanted me to help him, probably the only reason he didn’t kill me.” You give yourself a moment then respond. “What do you mean?”

You sense surprise from them as one speaks “Well it seems I was wrong, he held the urge back, you were correct my friend, so long as the red isn’t set there is still some hope for him!” You look t them then add “That doesn’t really tell me what you mean by these colours, or where my abilities really develop from.”

The other one laughs “Sorry about that, were had a rather heated debate about you before you arrived and you seem to have provided the answer in my favour. We will explain everything while we watch the entertainment!”

You hear the announcer providing commentary as the two groups in the arena below you rush each other and begin tearing each other to pieces. You mostly concentrate on what you are being told though.

“You see your power has nothing to do with what you eat, you developed it the moment the infection altered your brain and body. It’s completely mental really, development is based on two things rather like a muscle. Training to make it stronger and understanding to know how to train and use it, as it were.” He pauses as you see three mutant dogs tear the limbs off a shamber right before a fast type leaps on one of their back and bites a chunk out of its neck. “As I was saying, the training is the obvious part. The other part is more understanding and belief, firstly you must believe that the abilities are possible, then you must believe in what you are and what your role in life is.”

The fight begins winding down in the dogs favor as you expected, the shamblers and fast types had the numbers but the dog pack was stronger and faster. He looks at you “look at our minds and describe them to me.”
> You understanding
You concentrate on your senses and describe the impression of their minds that comes to you “They are like two suns compared to the dull glow of the humans below us, almost like they are a deep green with some other colours moving under the surface.” You see the man lean back in his throne-like chair “Excellent, and the other harbinger seemed like an angry red with swirls of darker colours under it yes?” You nod in agreement as he continues “The colours represent how you see yourself and your role, we believe it represents how much control the infection has over your mind and decisions, The red means you have lost any shred of humanity and are more like a rage driven animal than a human. You retain your intelligence of course, but you see humans and harbingers as mere prey and you lose control to your urges, like the one you just felt to kill us.” He raises an eyebrow to you and you nod to indicate that you are following along and that he was right about the urge to kill them “You colour is nearly red you see but it is not set, there are still other distinct colours there too which means you are not yet fully set in your decision, you believed what the Harbinger taught you but your final choice to live that way was not yet made, close, but not final.”

He pauses to let you think. “So if I have given into my urges more and fully excepted that I was a preditor out to eat everything I would have been fully red? What does your green mean then?” You see the man smile under his hood “Exactly, and had your colour turned fully red we would have killed you the moment you got close, almost all harbingers would. Your last vestige of reason would have gone and the option to be anything other than a crazed killer would be removed from you. As for our green, it’s a complicated one, not one of the ‘pure’ colours as others describe them. Our green means we have accepted that we are not human and not normal infected. We see ourselves as a separate race above the others but not as their predators, as their next evolution and obvious rulers. We also see infected as nothing, hence our past-time here. They lack minds and are only good for fighting and entertainment.”

You take time to think as the infected left alive in the ring feed on the dead, then all leave and the corpses are dragged out by new infected, probably to eat later. A new set of ‘combatants’ enter. This time a huge infected bear verses a large horde of shamblers. One of the Lords whispers over the announcer’s commentary “The bear is very strong but far too dumb to act as a sentinel; it does heal well though so it always wins in the end.” You nod and keep thinking for a bit.

You can appreciate their stance, different and better than humans and infected but not their predator. It will be something to think on, you haven’t eaten anything but human in a while now though and you are already hungering for it. “So what about food, and you said ‘Pure’ colours?” You finally ask.

One of them nods as he replies, still facing the games. “Blue and red, they represent the ‘pure’ decisions as some call them. Red you know, blues are called guardians, the fastest and easiest ways to describe it is that they think they are superheroes, and I don’t mean that in a funny way. They truly believe they are humans who are granted their powers for a greater purpose to help or serve humanity. The Eastern colony is mostly ruled by them.” You smirk at the description and the idea of serving humans but one of the men responds “Oh I wouldn’t smirk at them until you see their power, their mental defense is unrivaled in its strength and adaptability they are truly forces to be reckoned with, like your old teacher is, his attack is fuelled by his rage and will be stronger than other colours, but his defense is weak. We are of one of the many in-between colours with our own strengths.”

This gives you pause, they lower themselves to serve humans but they are un-matched in aspects of their power. You truly will need to think more and come to your decision. One of the men continues “Oh and as for food, you really eat whatever you want so long as it matches your choice, we eat infected flesh and normal human food, either works. You will probably find it safest to eat infected flesh for now as normal food won’t sit well until your colour moves further from the red. Don’t try to eat any of our humans though, killing without our permission means you end in the pit.”

You watch the rest of the entertainment as you think and you are finally shown to a fairly nice room through a few tunnels and up some stairs, you guess it’s probably a 6th floor apartment in one of the surrounding buildings.
> You final choices
You spend most of the night thinking on all you had found out. There are now several paths open you and you feel that you need to come to a choice. You have thought several different things over the past few weeks and each holds interest, the only one you can’t bring yourself to believe is that you are a gifted human sent to protect them. “Too long with the Old Man to ever be able to truly believe that I guess.” You think as you cycle through things. The two Lords here didn’t give their names yet but you like their position, choosing the red is still and option of course, a very attractive one, accept that you are truly superior to all other as the Old Man did and gain massive power, you would have to eventually kill the Lords and the Old Man too but you could easily do that later.

They also didn’t go through all the possible colours or decisions, so there are other choices you could come too, they all involve moving away from the red though and accepting that you aren’t an alpha predator sent to earth to eat everything.

You consider everything, but eating humans just feels right. They warned you about going red but what is wrong with power and standing on top of the food chain on your own terms, you are already in so they won’t kill you right away and that will buy you the time you need.

You consider everything and the red is very tempting but they warned you strongly against it, you want to be on top but not at the expense of EVERYTHING else. You will find a way to rule and do as you wish, but not the red path.
> The red path
Going Crimson

You choose the red. You considered all things but you are a true ruler and you will not be bound by others ideals. You will stand on top of the world and the food chain!

You suddenly feel things crystalize around you, your senses clear and the haze around other minds reduces, you can see the humans minds clearly now, as well as the other harbingers, all of them your prey.

You’ve made the right choice and already feel more powerful for it, you could crush the Lords and take their community, eating the humans at your leisure, and when the Old Man comes, you can devour him. How pitiable that he actually was so weak that he had to practically beg for your help.

You flex your powers and see that your mind is like a fire now, as you stretch it out you can imagine the force of it crushing and burning everything before it. You suddenly notice one of the Lords sending you a link an laugh to yourself a little, the fools even let you inside and taught you how to be stronger! You accept the link to give them their final message before crushing and devouring them.

“You chose the red then?” one asks you instantly. You smirk and let the emotion carry over the link “Of course, what other real choice was there? Some weak compromise in the middle? Lowering myself to ‘protect’ my prey? No, I chose my rightful place!”

You feel disappointment and pity. Once you would have wondered at it but now that option is not there, it was an insult and that must be met with destruction, nothing more or less.

You lash out instantly, reveling in your new strength and feel your mind crashing into one of the harbingers, you can feel his defenses instantly begin to weaken. “See my power, your weakness means your death now that I am whole!” You announce as you push harder to completely cave his mind in and destroy him but you hear the other one respond. “Sadly not dear boy, did you really think we left you to make this choice without planning? Of course you did, reds do not think, they are like rabid dogs, only fit to be put down.”

You are about to respond in anger and lash out at him too when you feel an attack slam into your own mind and you are forced to defend against it, weakening your own attack. You can feel the defenses strengthening against you and know you could beat one of them but not while the other was attacking you. “If you were capable of it you should have learned from your teachers defeat, we do not have your attack or blues defense but we have a finesse each of you lacks. Like this for example.” You feel a sudden strange impact on your mental defenses and something slips through causing all of your senses to trigger at once, filling your head with pain and light.

You try to recover and lash out again but suddenly feel your arm vanish, you turn back to your normal senses and realize there are human mutants in the room with you and one of them is holding your severed arm. You roar at them and forgetting alla bout the other harbingers in your rage you try and lash out mentally and physically at the enemies around you.

Your mind explodes in pain and light again and once you recover you find yourself against a wall and see the monsters in front of you now holding both of your arms and a leg, you feel the blood draining from you as one of the Lords speaks to you. “It is too bad, we really thought you might join us, but it seems that the 3J’s and Madglee get to fest on you instead.

Your mind explodes one more time and you never recover.


You spend most of the night thinking on all you had found out. There are now several paths open you and you feel that you need to come to a choice. You have thought several different things over the past few weeks and each holds interest, the only one you can’t bring yourself to believe is that you are a gifted human sent to protect them. “Too long with the Old Man to ever be able to truly believe that I guess.” You think as you cycle through things. The two Lords here didn’t give their names yet but you like their position, choosing the red is still and option of course, a very attractive one, accept that you are truly superior to all other as the Old Man did and gain massive power, you would have to eventually kill the Lords and the Old Man too but you could easily do that later.

They also didn’t go through all the possible colours or decisions, so there are other choices you could come too, they all involve moving away from the red though and accepting that you aren’t an alpha predator sent to earth to eat everything.

You consider everything, but eating humans just feels right. They warned you about going red but what is wrong with power and standing on top of the food chain on your own terms, you are already in so they won’t kill you right away and that will buy you the time you need.

You consider everything and the red is very tempting but they warned you strongly against it, you want to be on top but not at the expense of EVERYTHING else. You will find a way to rule and do as you wish, but not the red path.
> You find your own path
Leaving the red behind

You are tempted by the red, but it is not worth loosing yourself to gain a little more power, and the Lords hinted that they might have other abilities that the reds do not. You will work on your own choice here with them until you are sure of your course.

A couple of hours later one of the Lords links to you and you join them again. They are both clearly happier with you and mention that your colour had already lightened, evidence of you rejecting the red.

You spend the next week with them, learning a few tricks that the Old Man hadn’t taught you and getting used to new food. You ate the flesh of the infected that died in the arena and it wasn’t so bad. It didn’t have the rush of fresh human but you got more used to it the more you ate and your old hunger reduced now that you knew it wasn’t even needed. You even get to really enjoy the special arena events the Lords host.

The Old Man soon makes his appearance though to make things more interesting. You are eating lunch when the Lords contact you and direct you to a ledge on one of the buildings, it is 60 stories up, which is only half way up the building they tell you that they can’t go too high or they won’t get the best view. As you stretch your senses out you see the tiny red sun on the western horizon, slowly getting closer.

“It seems he is attacking in the hopes of you following his plan to kill us as he does so, it is your move now friend, what do you choose to do?” One of them says to you. They showed you how to reveal lies In a mind by how the colours change, it is not exact but it is fairly accurate and you know they are much better at it than you, part of their being green you guess so you cannot lie to them.
> You say "I will help the Old man, I owe him that much"
You realize nearly instantly that this was a bad choice; you actually just told two harbingers that you would help their enemy try and kill them. You try and take it back but before you can open your mouth you feel the punch on your back and go sailing out into the air. Even with your toughness and healing ability you aren’t going to come out well from a 60 story fall

You do however have time to think about your own foolishness on the way down before finally hitting the road below.


Leaving the red behind

You are tempted by the red, but it is not worth loosing yourself to gain a little more power, and the Lords hinted that they might have other abilities that the reds do not. You will work on your own choice here with them until you are sure of your course.

A couple of hours later one of the Lords links to you and you join them again. They are both clearly happier with you and mention that your colour had already lightened, evidence of you rejecting the red.

You spend the next week with them, learning a few tricks that the Old Man hadn’t taught you and getting used to new food. You ate the flesh of the infected that died in the arena and it wasn’t so bad. It didn’t have the rush of fresh human but you got more used to it the more you ate and your old hunger reduced now that you knew it wasn’t even needed. You even get to really enjoy the special arena events the Lords host.

The Old Man soon makes his appearance though to make things more interesting. You are eating lunch when the Lords contact you and direct you to a ledge on one of the buildings, it is 60 stories up, which is only half way up the building they tell you that they can’t go too high or they won’t get the best view. As you stretch your senses out you see the tiny red sun on the western horizon, slowly getting closer.

“It seems he is attacking in the hopes of you following his plan to kill us as he does so, it is your move now friend, what do you choose to do?” One of them says to you. They showed you how to reveal lies In a mind by how the colours change, it is not exact but it is fairly accurate and you know they are much better at it than you, part of their being green you guess so you cannot lie to them.
> You say "The Old Man is a psycho and I owe him nothing, I will help you"
You aren’t going to help a psycho slaughter everyone here and turn this place into a giant living meat locker. Even if you were, telling two harbingers to their faces while 60 stories up was just the same as committing suicide.

They nod to you “Your job will simply be to shield, you can leave the infected gathering below to us, as well as any attacking. So long as you concentrate only on shielding and we aid you in that, we will win easily.”
> You nod and prepare for battle
You watch the Enemy get closer and closer and begin sensing his horde, you judge about 1500 infected, and a great number of those mutants. Normally this would have terrified you, but right below you were arrayed out nearly 4000 infected of various types and an extra thousand or so shamblers in a block in front of them. You can also sense quite a few of the strange infected minds that indicate human mutants “The Old Man has brought a large army today, I don’t see how he expects to win though.” One of the Lords comments.

“You really went all out on the defense then.” You comment for lack of anything better to say. One of the men laughs “Oh this is just a small part of the forces we could bring in but we knew he couldn’t have brought more than two thousand so we judged these sufficient and kept the rest in place to guard other areas.” You nod, you had seen some of the ring of defenders that these two had moved into place and it was no idle boast that this was just a part of their forces.

The approaching red mind suddenly flares and you slam your defenses into place, putting your shield over the two Lords through the link you had formed. You feel the other two adding strength to your defense as you feel some pressure pushing lightly on your mind.

Suddenly you feel rage strongly emanating from the Old Man and his attack slams against your defenses. Despite his rage and power, with your two allies supporting you, your defenses hold strong and you know you can easily hold him at bay. “It seems he knows you are choosing to support us then!” one of the Lords jokes. “Just keep the defenses up and this shall be fast.”

You do as asked and keep your defenses up but it quickly becomes apparent that it won’t matter soon. His horde was caught up in the block of shamblers, obviously devoid of fin control and will. In comparison, being free to do as they wish with you protecting them, the two Lords start dismantling his army in huge chunks while attacking him. Within minutes his attack has weakened then stops as he has to split his attention between his forces and defending.

You know it’s no use though as they pick up their attack on him once they took the more dangerous of his forces away and send in their own army to slaughter the rest. You watch him rage and fight harder but with the two of them attacking him, you can see he is losing badly and suddenly staggers back clutching his head. One of your allies shouts out “Ha flashed him! It’s over now!” and you can tell it as, before he recovers two of the humanoid mutants reach him and literally tear him apart.

You expect some shouting or celebration but the Lords simply stretch then start heading back inside while chatting “Well, we will eat well tonight at least, that was good exercise, I wonder how all the betting went?” You are confused for a moment but a quick scan shows that all the humans are in various buildings nearby watching the battle “You had them watch and bet on whether you would win or lose?” You ask after a moment.

“Oh dear me no.” one replies “We had them bet on enemy forces, losses and how long he would last. The big bet was what would kill him, us or the Army, it seems we only took the assist and the army stole the kill though.” He jokes. You shrug and follow them down inside, glancing at the screen in the arena as you pass you see that it has “BATTLE OF THE CENTURY! BZ, SETH AND SURPRISE NEWCOMER VS. PSYCHO OLD MAN!” displayed on it.

“What do you even need money for now?” you finally ask.

“Oh, not much, but it’s fun to fill bath tubs with.” BZ replies as you all head to a late lunch.
> You relaxing in the New City
Life is pretty good after that and the Lords can teach you a lot, the entertainment is good too!

*********************************************************************

Well done, you have reached another of the good endings in this version, later this arc will be greatly extended but I ran out of time so it ends here, congratulations!


You head further into the city centre alone and the hordes part for you, you can feel them dispersing to either side around you. “The Old Man said they keep them evenly spaced out in a ring, does this mean they knew I was coming?” You think as you walk.

Finally you see the two minds of the harbingers ahead of you without having to stretch your senses out, and you also see the minds of what seems like over 300 humans with them, the very thought makes you hungry.

As you get closer you see another link reaching out for you and as before you join in to let them converse with you. “You are only about an hour’s gentle walk away but you will need to circle a little to your left, that’s North, to get inside, only one entrance you see and everything is guarded to prevent any problems in our little haven.”

You carefully force your hunger and feelings down, if you’ve been getting snippits of theirs then they might get some of yours and that might not be good. “Of course, it’s getting dark but that isn’t really an issue for our kind, I’ll walk faster though so I don’t make you wait.”

There is a pause and you are about to drop the link when you hear one more question “You came from the West where our enemy lurked, Have you have any interaction with him, he has the feel of an old man, a very angry one at that.”

You pause for a moment; you didn’t expect this question so bluntly so you have to choose your words carefully.
> You lie. You can't have them know you are affiliated with him, tell them you only recently came from the North before turning East to the city centre and didn't meet another harbinger.
You Lie, can’t have them knowing the Truth.

“I don’t recall anyone by that description, although I only recently came into the West of the City from the North, above the old stadium area. I really just passed through and didn’t stay to investigate if any others were there.”

There is a longer pause than before and you get a little nervous when you hear the voice again. “Ok just up ahead you’ll see the underground entrance on your right? Good, that’s the entrance you’ll need to take, we are quite nicely set up in an old arena here, it was half underground before so makes it very defensible as you can imagine!” The tone seems jovial and the tunnel leads towards the minds you sense so you head inside.

As you walk through the tunnel which has obviously had some work done to it with reinforcements and walls removed or built you sense the humans all gathering up ahead. “Is something going on up there?” You ask down the link and immediately get the response “Of course! It’s not every day they get to see a new harbinger so this is somewhat of an event! Everyone has gathered for it. Some of the minds to the East don’t agree with our stance on the matter which is why we separated but we see that we are superior to humans and should be treated as such so we rule here like Gods in a way, when we say there is an event, EVERYONE attends, not that they’d want to miss this anyway.”

You heartily agree with the statement. You ARE better than humans, they are your prey after all, you can see their position though. Keeping them like pets to obey and serve you before eating them wouldn’t be so bad either.

You see some light up ahead and walk out into what looks like the centre of an arena with 10 foot walls of concrete topped with another 10 feet of metal and reinforced glass. The humans are all on the other side of the glass cheering down at you like fans watching a concert. Something clearly isn’t right though.

You sense the minds above you and looking up you see two cloaked figures sitting on a platform that extended out from the wall over the tiered rows of seats giving them the best view both around the room and down into the pit.

“Welcome to the City Arena! Rules by the Lords of the New City, this is the place where your post-apocalyptic fantasies can become a reality, for the right price!”

You now know that something is definitely wrong as a massive battered steel sheet slams down behind you, trapping you in the arena. Even with your enhanced strength you aren’t sure you could budge it without a lot of time and something to lever with.

The announcement continues though, the speakers voice amplified through a speaker system hanging high above of the roof. “Today we have a very rare treat for you, in the ring is a harbinger folks! That’s right, like our very own Lords of the city he has superhuman abilities and can control infected, however this one tried to lie to the Lords and we know how they take that don’t we!” The crowd responds with even more cheers.


“I like the undercover plan, they won’t know me so I can get inside and take them out personally as soon as you appear and take their attention.” You say.

The Old man simply nods and starts putting the map away carefully. “Then we leave in the morning! I will escort you closer but once we near the centre you will be on your own. Remember to act nice around them, can’t have them attacking you before you get inside!”

You nod back and snack on a bit of what you think must be a human bicep muscle before getting a couple of hour of rest. As the mornings first light arrives you grab a few handfuls of flesh and you both set out in the jeep again, this time towards the city centre.

It’s not long before you cover a good distance, riding is clearly faster than walking and before you know it you are walking away from the Jeep towards the city centre alone, the Old man heading off into a building to set himself up for a few days.

“Time to get things going then!” you think to yourself as you begin sensing infected ahead of you, already some mutants mixed in with the normal shamblers and fast types.
> You simply move them aside, might be best not to approach with an army at your back
You don’t want to appear too aggressive right away so you simply clear yourself a path through the infected, moving them aside as you walk and closing them back up behind you. “If this ring is part of their defense it’s probably best I leave it intact, and having a large number of infected might be useful in an emergency.” You think as you walk further and further in.

After a few hours you have given up counting all the infected in the area, this part of the city is made up of blocks of giant multi-story sky-scrapers which all must have had thousands of people inside each before the infection hit if not more. Now even if only 1 in 100 is left alive then that’s still hundreds of infected for every building you walk past, and the mutants are everywhere too. You have no idea if they were strays, pets or migrated here after the infection had taken over but there was no shortage of food for them here at least. You move them aside like the others, a few feel slightly different when you try to take them over but they move aside like the rest and you ignore them once you know you are safely past.

It’s nearly dinner time when you finally sense the gathering horde ahead of you. You carefully prepare your defenses and reach your mind out towards the city centre. You are just starting to sense something there when your senses show a strong green glow and you feel pressure on your mind. It’s like an attack but weaker than the ones the Old Man put you through when you were training and you are a lot stronger now than when you were training so you don’t even need to try to keep the pressure from your mind.
> You they are weak, the Old man said he was stronger than them individually when he faced them before. Take this one out here and now. The second one won't be an issue alone.
You Aren’t going to let some weakling push you around, they might have a lot of infected around them but it means nothing if their will is less than yours.

You leave the bare minimum defense against the attack then lash out as hard as you can against the Green haze in the city centre that you know represents you enemy. You know if you can crush them in a single fast attack that the second one won’t stand a chance.

You visualize your attack and send it racing out, almost gleefully imagining the moment it shatters right through the enemies weak and neglected defenses and you crush their mind.

But it doesn’t. Your attack smashes into a fully formed barrier, easily as strong as anything you could make. You feel it flex and buckle slightly but it is immediately shored up while the attack on you suddenly intensifies.

You realize your mistake too late, it was a trap to test whether you would attack and you failed. You frantically try to press your attack while holding your defense up but the enemies defense easily holds you to a stalemate while their attacks strains you defenses to their maximum. You try and think of a way out when the second attack slams into your mind and shatters your already weak defenses. You feel intense pain shooting through your mind.

You can barely handle the pain and are almost glad when everything ends.


You don’t want to appear too aggressive right away so you simply clear yourself a path through the infected, moving them aside as you walk and closing them back up behind you. “If this ring is part of their defense it’s probably best I leave it intact, and having a large number of infected might be useful in an emergency.” You think as you walk further and further in.

After a few hours you have given up counting all the infected in the area, this part of the city is made up of blocks of giant multi-story sky-scrapers which all must have had thousands of people inside each before the infection hit if not more. Now even if only 1 in 100 is left alive then that’s still hundreds of infected for every building you walk past, and the mutants are everywhere too. You have no idea if they were strays, pets or migrated here after the infection had taken over but there was no shortage of food for them here at least. You move them aside like the others, a few feel slightly different when you try to take them over but they move aside like the rest and you ignore them once you know you are safely past.

It’s nearly dinner time when you finally sense the gathering horde ahead of you. You carefully prepare your defenses and reach your mind out towards the city centre. You are just starting to sense something there when your senses show a strong green glow and you feel pressure on your mind. It’s like an attack but weaker than the ones the Old Man put you through when you were training and you are a lot stronger now than when you were training so you don’t even need to try to keep the pressure from your mind.
> You play everything safe, sure the attack is weak but the other one hasn't turned up. Hold fast and see what happens.
You aren’t going to risk everything on a blind attack right now, you don’t even know if this is a real attack of just a test so you simply stop moving and hold your defenses in place, waiting for their next move. It isn’t long before you see a thread of thought reaching out to you and you do the same just like the Old Man had taught. You immediately hear a voice.

“Hmm, you look like our old enemy but you came without an army and didn’t attack while I appeared weaker than you. Strange.”

You aren’t sure how to respond to this so go with the playing it simple option. “I’m not your old enemy; I’ve never been to the city centre before so I don’t think we have encountered each other before.”

The response comes with some small feelings of surprise “The truth is seems, you aren’t him after all, in that case what brings you to our little dominion alone as you are?”

Again you carefully consider before answering “I heard about the two of you and came to meet you.”

There is a longer pause this time before the answer finally comes “You may enter however do not try to control any infected now or once you are inside our ring.”

You had already decided to not bring a horde so you happily start forward alone once the communication thread vanishes


With first light you wake and check on your horde “Still right where I left you.” You think as you dress and head down into the street. You had left them all locked in a small hospital clinic you passed a couple of blocks South, you thought it was funny to pack it full of infected. You gather them together near the apartment when the Old man comes to you. “Interesting news, it seems they have left the stadium a few minutes ago!” You turn West and concentrate hard, it’s still many miles away but you get a faint sense of haziness there.

“Now now, don’t strain yourself, you are not practiced enough to sense properly over that distance, it’s even at the limit of my own abilities.” He looks over your Horde. “Excellent, all gathered, well you better get over to the North side and prepare to close the trap, remember that they have a jeep so just standing in the road won’t cut it!” he heads off cheerfully and you feel a large number of infected in a nearby building leave his control, they must be your part of the horde. You take control of them and along with your own horde you head North to look for some good blockade materials.

As you pass North you begin noticing a change, the closer to the Highways, the more cars there are. “Huh, they all went for the highway to escape and blocked each other in.” you mumble as you look around. “Well at least the cars might make the blockade easy enough.

You begin commanding your shamblers to start pushing the cars and taking off handbrakes when you notice the bus on a side road. A large solid looking city bus, easily capable of blocking the main road by itself. “Hah, almost too easy!” you say aloud as you redirect all of your forces to the bus and maneuver it pointing south, it would have to go round a bend to get into position but any closer and they could spot you as they pass so you put a shambler into the driving seat and take careful control of its mind so you can ensure the bus gets where it needs to go.

Then you wait, you carefully send your senses out West again a few times, not pushing it like before and after an few tries you begin to sense them coming closer and closer, moving at a solid pace. “They must all be jogging or running,” you suddenly panick and this they have enough vehicles for all of them but as they approach you realize that they are too spread out to be packed into a vehicle.

You settle back and track their progress, you have at least an hour to watch them approach and after a few minutes begin picking out individuals in the larger haze, you then start trying to assign names to them and think back to your time with them. It occurs to you for the first time in two weeks that you didn’t really need to go through with this. You could betray the old man and help the people from the stadium; they did treat you like a friend after all.

Stop concentrating on the haze; it’s causing you to think funny. You’re a predator and they are just pray

Watching the haze so closely for so long must have brought these thoughts on, however they are correct, why not help them. They helped you before and you are sure they would accept you if you saved them.
> You what have you been doing, you need to help them
You have to help them, the Old man was clearly altering your thoughts to make you do what he wanted but you were originally human, becoming stronger doesn’t change that so you should help the stadium survivors. You know that watching the haze so intently for a couple of hours brought this on but you feel like you know it’s the right thing to do.

You have control of a couple of shamblers in their path and walk them out to try and signal but they are killed instantly by what feels like intense gunfire. “The old man wasn’t kidding about the armored jeep at least.”

You start running towards them, intending to warn them in person about the trap but almost immediately feel the old man attempting to sense your thoughts. You block him out but know it will only hold for a few minutes, he can’t bring his full concentration onto you while controlling his horde.

You begin hearing them coming and are about to run out into the street when you remember the shamblers and instead hide behind a corner and start shouting to get their attention. You feel the pressure on you mind intensify and quickly send the order for all the infected you control to attack the old man’s horde. You feel it subside slightly as he has to divert his attention again.

“Who’s there?” you hear the convoy shouting to you. You step out. “It’s me! Don’t shoot!” You see all the guns pointed at you and the jeep slows but doesn’t stop, the pressure is already returning to your mind, you have little time. “It’s a trap, the harbinger has blocked the road off ahead, he has a huge army of infected ready to take you out.” You were about to say more when you feel the Old man’s mind slam into yours, your defenses hold but you are driven to your knees with the pain. You wince then speak again. “You have to change course, get away…” You feel the second mental attack and your defenses fail completely, the pain nearly blacks you out and you fall prone on the ground. You hear the Old man in your head. “Betraying me was a foolish mistake.” You hear him say sadly before he leaves your mind.

You almost celebrate, “He couldn’t finish me off” you think, you try and stand but feel too week from the mental attack and collapse again. You hear the Captain talking. “Bring him with us, but chain him up carefully. We change course, loop South near the city center to try and bypass any blockade.”

You are about to rejoice, they were taking you with them. Sadly in your current mental state you couldn’t sense the mutant dog behind you in the alleyway and in your physical state there is nothing you can do as it leaps onto your back and bites into your skull, crushing it instantly.


You hear a chuckle from inside and hear an old man’s voice calling to you. “Oh don’t worry so much and come on in, your abilities will grow stronger in time, you are simply less practiced than me!”

You start walking to the door and see and old man with a broom sweeping some near invisible dirt out of the door before standing aside for you to enter.

You walk past him to find yourself in the fanciest tailors you’ve ever seen, with suits you never could have afforded before the infection spread. You glance again at the old man then back to the suits. He is clearly well dressed but not in anything as fine as the clothing in the store.

You hear him chuckling again as pulls the shutters down and closes the door leaving everything in a dim sort of twilight. “Yes I am the tailor not the customer. I made every suit in this store to sell to others but it never felt quite right to wear one myself.” You can make out that he is looking you up and down, clearly not bothered by the lack of light. “You on the hand might need some new clothing; I’ll adjust something for you later. For now let’s head upstairs.” He heads off still holding his broom and you follow him closely, trying not to bump into anything until you reach the second floor and light from the open windows makes it easier to see.

You let him get several feet ahead of you to see him better. He is clearly a frail old man and you begin wondering if he is really strong enough to be the other harbinger when he moves faster than you thought possible and in right in front of you, pinning your arms in a grip that doesn’t even let you move an inch. “Yes indeed I am the harbinger, and yes I am defiantly strong enough.” He releases you and walks over to a small chair beside a table covered with slices of meat. “Come have a seat, and yes, I can read your mind. Your powers are developing but they are still in their infancy, I will train you to use them properly so long as you don’t disappoint me.”

You take a seat and immediately recognize the smell of the meat as fresh human. The old man smiles. “Yes I usually have a couple hanging around in old cellars to keep them fresh for me, my servants bring them to me when they find them and I divide them between myself and my horde.”

He is clearly expecting you to eat, so you do. It’s not as if you haven’t eaten humans before and its nice to have human flesh again, it makes your whole body feel better. “Oh good, I was a little worried that you had sided with humans and might refuse to eat the meat but that’s the first test past. Here is the second.” The old man says to you as a shambler comes in through a previously closed door and begins to lunge for you.

Your old reflexes tell you to go for your bat but your new practice kicks in and you reflexively lash out with your mind instead. You see it suddenly stumble back against a wall as if physically struck, before sinking down and not moving any more. “Ah, and the second test passed too, you didn’t have to kill it though you know?” The old man says to you.

“Erm, sorry about that, it was reflexive and I’ve only been using this ability for a couple of weeks, I didn’t know I could kill them.” You suddenly feel your nose bleeding again and quickly pich it to prevent the blood pouring out on your clothing.

The old man gives you a very happy look. “Only a couple of weeks, well that is great news, it means you are developing very quickly. The quicker the development, the higher the potential! Well I accept you as my student. Over the next few weeks I will be training you in all aspects of your gift, starting with shielding your mind from others, we aren’t the only ones out there you know.”

The old man pauses and looks at you intently. “That is of course if you choose to learn from me, if so I will teach you for a few weeks and you will then aid me in destroying the last holdouts in the stadium, the greater plans will be revealed after that. Or you can leave now.”

You glance around; he isn’t holding a weapon or acting threateningly. You also are pretty sure he didn’t lock the shutter and a glance out the window shows that the streets are clear. You try and sense the infected in the area again but try and block the old man’s mind out as you do so to prevent the painful blindness from before. It somewhat works and you sense that all the infected are right where they were when you sensed them the first time. He clearly isn’t making any obvious moves to trap you.

Choose to stay and learn, it’s what you are after all, a harbinger.

Back out politely and head back to the stadium, you were happier there and the old man is a bit creepy.
> Back out politely and head back to the stadium, you were happier there and the old man is a bit creepy.
You decide to leave, you’re not sure you want to learn from a slightly creepy old man and you were getting to like some of the people in the stadium, the food was even sitting better. You get to your feet. “Well I think I should be going, thank you for the offer.” You tense but the old man makes no move as he replies. “This is a shame, you had so much promise and even managed to slightly shield my mind when you checked on my horde. Clearly a fast learner. It is too bad indeed.”

Seeing his lack of aggression you  head for the door, as you reach the stairs down you feel a sudden impact and looking down you see a foot of broom handle sticking out of the front of your chest around where you no longer beating heart should be.

“Well at least you will make a very special meal.” You hear the old man say as you tumble dying into the stairwell.


You grab one of the men’s bags, partly full of tins, and carefully clean any trace of blood off your face. Leaving the guns behind, you bash in the head of the slowly dying fast type to make it look like you fought, then head back to the stadium. Once close you start running and panting a little for effect. The guards see you some distance away and they are already with guns aimed past you at the street when you get close. “They swarmed us, I was the only one fast enough to get away!” you call up. The gate opens and you are ushered inside quickly before seeing it being barricaded again from the inside.

You tell your story about seeming to be ambushed by them when you were in the store a couple more times and it seems like everyone is buying it. Just a few days before the other scavengers to loose teammates told a similar story after all.

You are given the rest of the day and the next one off from duties and spend it relaxing in your tent, simply prying with your mind as far as you could and drawing any infected you find, closer to the stadium. It seems that wherever you leave them, they stay. Sure they wander around nearby streets and buildings sometimes but never too far from where they started and they seem to usually return there.

By dinner of the second day you have a fair number of shamblers and 1 fast type in the surrounding alleyways and buildings and you hear over dinner that everyone is sure that the harbinger had returned. Seem like this sort of thing fitted right into their suspicions. Time to get to work, the food here feels like its poisoning you now the more you eat of it.

You have your army ready and know the enemy defenses perfectly; they think you are one of their defenders after all. At night the doc often sleeps in his office and there are only two guards so you are sure you can get the 4 shamblers out to go wild inside then all you’ll need is to get some on the ones from outside into the stadium to complete your victory. You are considering the best way to do this when you sense all the infected you brought close suddenly begin leaving towards the South and you cannot bring them back no matter how hard you concentrate.

The last one pauses and you can feel that it seems to be waving at you for a few minutes, beckoning you after it almost, before it turns and heads South and eventually out of your range to sense it.

“Well that’s odd.”  You think as you watch it vanish along with your immediate attack plans. “Best bet is that they were right and the original harbinger is back, seems he wants to talk to me too.”

The morning will bring a new decision to make, Go to meet the other harbinger or ignore his summons and take down the stadium yourself with your own army; you’ll just need to gather a new one first.
> You ignore him, you will deal with the stadium first then decide his fate later
Ignore the fool who stole your army for now, you can deal with him once you practice your own powers more and wipe out the stadium community. You spend the morning planning and stretching your powers as much as you can until you finally manage to detect something further North “Must be up near the highway.” You think as you head to find the Capt.

He is a little surprised at first but you carefully explain that you really just want to keep busy and heading out with a scavenging party to the North should be perfect since it’s the furthers from the city centre and so should be the safest. He reluctantly agrees with you and the team for the day gets redirected to one of the Northern targets. You get to tag along as the 5th man.

It only takes a couple of hours to get to the Highway on ramps directly North and your team raids the convenience stores there for supplies, finding a surprisingly good amount, seems like after the highway got fully blocked with cars and infected, no-one came back here.

You also get lucky with the infected, you find a few dozen can be sensed from this far North so as you grab tins of Spam off a shelf you concentrate on beginning to steer them all South. Mostly shamblers and a few fast ones. You find one mind that’s different from the rest, hazy like a normal but also cracked and venerable with twisted knots inside. You give it a test push to see if you can affect it but it reacts erratically and you immediately realize that it would be a lot more work to try and affect it in any meaningful way so you leave it alone for now. No point getting a nosebleed now just for a single crazy.

Watching the others work at filling their bags you realize you’re in the perfect spot for a meal again and the hunger begins to rise. You even have a proper little horde this time you could use.
> You call in the horde to swarm them and feed, the fresh human flesh boosts your healing so maybe your powers too.
You decide that this is simply too good an opportunity to pass up and call the little horde forward to surround your team. You simply have to eat and test if their flesh can increase your powers faster, you also need to get the taste of their rations out of your system, the more of them you eat, the worse they make you feel so it will be good to get some real food again.

You carefully begin positioning your horde to ambush the group. You’ve never actively tried to control this many at once and you begin to feel the strain after just a few seconds. However you force yourself to keep going, fighting off a splitting headache until you are all half way back and you have the horde move it, fast ones followed by the shamblers. You feel your nose bleeding again and your headache becomes nearly unbearable but once the attack has begun you releases some of the control knowing that they can finish the job themselves.

The team is almost instantly overwhelmed and you quickly join in the feeding, just controlling the ones nearest you to ensure they don’t attack you like they normally would. You rest for a few minutes after and can almost feel the fresh human flesh refilling your energy, the headache even passes a little and finally you clean off the blood and begin heading back to the stadium trying the same act as before.

Sadly the Capt. is there this time and they don’t seem to believe your story.

“It seems to me that a lot of our problems began right when you arrived here and now two entire teams get wiped out with you untouched. You can understand how this looks can’t you?”

You try and profess your innocence but your headache is back in full swing having brought your horde closer in to the North of the stadium and you find it hard to think straight never mind sound convincing. You finally get control of yourself and begin to try and reason your way out of this when you feel a sudden pain like a whip in your mind and you vomit at your own feet.

Sadly you have been eating a reasonably amount of human flesh and skin and blood is clearly still recognizable in the mess.

You don’t even get a chance to run before all the shots ring out and you fall backwards riddled with bullets.


Ignore the fool who stole your army for now, you can deal with him once you practice your own powers more and wipe out the stadium community. You spend the morning planning and stretching your powers as much as you can until you finally manage to detect something further North “Must be up near the highway.” You think as you head to find the Capt.

He is a little surprised at first but you carefully explain that you really just want to keep busy and heading out with a scavenging party to the North should be perfect since it’s the furthers from the city centre and so should be the safest. He reluctantly agrees with you and the team for the day gets redirected to one of the Northern targets. You get to tag along as the 5th man.

It only takes a couple of hours to get to the Highway on ramps directly North and your team raids the convenience stores there for supplies, finding a surprisingly good amount, seems like after the highway got fully blocked with cars and infected, no-one came back here.

You also get lucky with the infected, you find a few dozen can be sensed from this far North so as you grab tins of Spam off a shelf you concentrate on beginning to steer them all South. Mostly shamblers and a few fast ones. You find one mind that’s different from the rest, hazy like a normal but also cracked and venerable with twisted knots inside. You give it a test push to see if you can affect it but it reacts erratically and you immediately realize that it would be a lot more work to try and affect it in any meaningful way so you leave it alone for now. No point getting a nosebleed now just for a single crazy.

Watching the others work at filling their bags you realize you’re in the perfect spot for a meal again and the hunger begins to rise. You even have a proper little horde this time you could use.
> You hold off for now, they are a suspicious lot and probably won't believe that you are the only one to get away twice in a row.
You are highly tempted to wipe this team out just like you did with the last one but you know the guards would be too suspicious of you if that happened and it would make your life a lot harder so you hold off for now and instead have your new small horde hold off a few miles North of you and follow behind as you all return to the stadium.

You’ve never actively tried to control this many at once and you begin to feel the strain after just a few seconds. However you force yourself to keep going, fighting off a splitting headache until you are all half way back. You feel your nose beginning to bleed this time and quickly plug it up tight with some balls of cloth. It means the blood backs up and you have to swallow it, but it’s better than having it streaming down your face again.

You finally arrive back at the stadium and release your active hold on the infected to the North, leaving them all just inside your current maximum reach as you head inside. You receive several comments about how pale and terrible you look and quickly try to explain that maybe it was too soon after looking your other team. You quickly drop off the supplies and collapse into you tent with your head feeling like it’s going to split open where you fall unconscious for the rest of the evening and right through the night.
> You waking up as lord of your own little horde.
When morning comes you wake slowly and groggily, the last remnants of your headache still present however you immediately notice that you can sense your horde still milling about where you left them. You can even sense some of the stragglers further back that you had lost control of last night due to the pain.

Trying to direct them right now is out of the question though as you know you over-did it the day before and you don’t want to risk any more bleeding incidents right now, there is only so many times you can lose half a pint of blood from your nose before people realize something is wrong.

You find the Doc waiting for you at breakfast to check on your condition. “I heard you looked like death last night, one of the guards almost shot you before your team convinced him that you were ok and hadn’t been bitten.”

You think fairly carefully before replying. “Yeh, I think it might just have been a bit soon after losing my other team, I thought being back out there might help me get over it but I guess it had the opposite reaction. Feeling better today but still got a headache so might be best if I rest for a bit.”

The Doc nods and goes to chat with the Capt. who comes over. “We saw things like this back in the wars so don’t worry too much about it, it should mostly pass in a day or two, just let the doc here know if you start feeling overly paranoid or having flashbacks in the next week. You and your team brought back a huge haul of tins and supplies so don’t worry about the scavenging or other duties for a few days either.”

He heads off and you finally relax. They were giving you exactly what you needed to destroy them.

You head back to your tent with full permission to do nothing for a couple of days and fall asleep again, waking about lunchtime with your headache finally gone.

You do however notice that one of the hazy blobs that mark a normal is still hanging around near your tent exactly where it was when you went to sleep. “Seems they are having me followed” You think “best act as normal as possible for a bit then”

You head outside and see some of the guys you are friendlier with eating so you head over to join them, and sure enough your shadow follows, you never catch a glimpse of him so he must be one of the military ones or just very good at following people “Maybe they put an ex-stalker after me” you think with a laugh as you start joining in the conversation over lunch.

By the next morning of acting normal again your shadow vanishes and you feel up to flexing your powers again. You reach out to your horde and find that, as expected, it’s simple to control them all at once now. “So keep pushing the limits, but not too far or for too long” You think to yourself as you plan your next move.
> You hit the stadium right away, get infected inside before they can react and defend properly
You have the horde, the ability to use them and you even have a reasonable plan, why wait?

You head down into the basement on the premise of getting checkup by the doc and even get a few comments from the guards about them being glad you are feeling better. What a surprise it was going to be for them. Once in his office, you left him swing the door shut then, while his back is still turned you snap his neck from behind. “Huh, much easier than expected” you think as you carefully move his body out of sight from the corridor.

You give it a few minutes then exit the office, closing the door behind you and head back out to the two waiting guards who unbolt the door for you and let you through. “Clean bill of health then?” one asks.

You smile as you reply “Better than ever!” You punch him in the throat, planning just to crush the wind pipe but you feel his spine snap at the impact as you move to the next guard, you have your hand over his mouth and his neck snapped before the first even hits the floor. You quickly glance down at your hands before grabbing them both and half carry them down to the doc’s office to hide them.

“Ok I was fast and strong before but this is on a whole new level. Guess advancing my other powers is helping my body too.” You think as you take the locks off the cell doors and let the four shamblers out. Number 4 is barely able to walk and two are half starved so you let them join you in feeding on the Doc. And the guards while you slowly make your horde move into position.

Once you are finished you move with your little team of shamblers to the base of the stairs that lead up to the stadium and wait while your little horde surrounds the stadium, everywhere there are balconies that could lead inside.

It’s just before lunch when you start the attack, shamblers and fast types moving out of the alleys and towards the stadium as fast of each of them is able. You immediately hear gunshots ringing out from the front balconies along with occasional booms indicating the 50cal. Sniper is getting involved too. The flanks are slower to react though like you predicted and your horde is already reaching the ditches and barricades by the time they open fire.

You can feel large numbers of your horde dropping dead or injured now but you press them forward, each one that falls increases your fine control over the rest and with your guidance they are moving through the defenses at a good speed.

The fast types reach the flanks about the time you realize the front is lost, two thirds of the infected there are already down and more drop every second. Seems the military guys on gate duty today are no slouches.

You quickly try and read where the normal are and find haziness moving towards all parts of the stadium with two coming your way. The reinforcements are reacting already, that’s not the best news but you have fast types climbing up to the side balconies right now and you feel them taking down a couple of guards on the right side before the others get there.
> You head out to attack from the rear; make sure your horde gets inside
Now is the time to strike, you can take out the re-enforcements headed to the right and ensure your horde breeches the perimeter.

You rush out with your shamblers following behind and run right into the two guards who were headed your way. You punch one right away and feel his chest cave, the other manages to shout and tries to raise his gun, but you’re too fast and bat it aside, letting your shamblers take him down.

You begin heading to the right, to take out the re-enforcements however the shamblers, true to their name, move slowly and you decide to leave them behind and rush for the right flank. You arrive shortly behind the guards and feel them killing your horde but you attack from the rear and quickly kill all three, letting your horde into the stadium.

You give it a few moments for them to get the first few inside as you try and prolong the other fights, the front attack is pretty much wiped out but you keep the badly wounded moving to draw attention at least. The left side has made the walls but it’s a much harder climb there so they aren’t doing well either. “Time to attack from the inside.”  You think as you head down from the balcony with your small force.

The first thing you notice is the low rumbling that seems out of place in the normally quiet stadium, the second thing is that the noise is coming from a large armored military jeep parked right in the middle of the field and pointing its mounted gun your way.

Even with your super human speed, you can’t dodge bullets, so when the heavy machine-gun opens fire you feel yourself being torn apart along with your horde.

“They had a back-up plan.”  You think as you fall.

“I could have told you that, if you had been willing to listen.” You hear in your head right before it goes black.