"Citizens of Kaina, hear me!" The creature descends as the cloaked figure stands in the square, lowering their hood. An assortment of scars covers his face, the most prominent of which crosses from above his right eye over his nose to his left cheek. Hair once brilliantly blonde is now faded, the color muted behind a slowly greying curtain, his chin marked with a bristly goatee. Beneath the cloak lays a long sleeved white tunic and brown trousers, and across his back is strapped a greatsword, more like a slab of steel with a curved hook to the blade.

Piercing bright blue eyes scan the crowd as the creature lands beside him. A lower half like that of a lion, powerful legs carrying a furry torso as a long but thin tail swishes behind it. The upper half, however, bears resemblance to an eagle; a large white-feathered head with predatory eyes staring down the others around it, a beak made for picking up dogs rather than rodents, great brown feathered wings upon its shoulders, and front legs ending in talons perfect for snatching prey and carrying it off to some distant mountaintop, never to be seen again.

The man continues as he spreads his arms wide. "Your lives of worry and doubt are over! My master, Zerak the Terrible, welcomes you to join him as his loyal test subjects." A ring sitting on his right pointer finger begins to shimmer as the griffon drops a large sack on the ground, nearly ten feet across. The contents clunk, clatter, and splat as the man runs a hand over the edge of his blade, cutting his palm open. He makes a fist, dripping the squeezed blood into the sack, which begins to writhe and squirm. The gathered crowd shouts and screams as out of the bag steps skeletal figures and rotting corpses.

"Spread, my friends. Feed their souls to Zerak." The first slice of a skeleton's sword cuts down a young man, an ethereal form lifting from him. It screams with an unearthly howl as it's dragged through the air and collides with the ring, which seems to glow just a bit brighter. The offending skeleton turns on another citizen, followed by his dead comrades as they assault the crowd, the griffon tearing through large swaths of people as well. And as the citizens fall, their remains rise to join the army of the dead.

"The dead grow in number! Someone get the Wild Hunt down here!" A guard shouts, blocking the blow from an encroaching zombie before lopping its head off. "Private, get going! Send reinforcements!" A younger guard turns to leave.

"Halt." Comes the commanding voice of the cloaked man, and the younger guard stops in his tracks as if gripped by some paralyzing force. "Neither of you are going anywhere." The cloaked man mutters, moving to the Private and gripping the back of his neck. Hoisting him off the ground, the guard's flesh begins to rip and peel, necrotic energy filling his veins and causing them to burst. His body goes limp and the cloaked man drops him.

The older guard fires an arrow at the cloaked man, scratching at his cheek. He turns and points. "Let hellfire consume you."

The older guard barely has time to scream as his body erupts into flames and burns to cinders in seconds.

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

A few blocks away, Tyrion pulls the trigger on the Gust Shot, the bolt flying between the crook of a guard's arm to hit a zombie in the head right as it was preparing to bite into an elderly woman who had fallen. Anna lays a blast of force against a skeleton, repelling it into a wall. "I hope the others are alright."

"Reinforcements will be here soon. No way they don't hear the commotion going on." A guard tells her. "Are you from the guild?"

"Yeah. More should be coming soon, hopefully. What happened?" Tyrion loads another bolt and ducks behind a fruit vendor's stall as a zombie leaps at him, taking a bolt to the chin for its trouble.

"Not sure. This man just start spouting stuff about 'Zerak the Terrible', then he summons the bloody dead to attack the living. They must be cursed, cause even the skeletons' victims are rising as the walking dead." The guard shrugs, using a mace to bludgeon a skeleton in the chest, caving its ribcage inward as it crumples to the ground.

"Zerak?" Anna looks to Tyrion, who nods. "Same name, right down to the title? Undead everywhere? Yeah, I'd wager the guy they're talking about is HIM."

"I don't like this, Tyrion. Where are Hope and Amadeo?" Her face fills with worry and she aims another blast of force, pelting a zombie in the knee so hard that its leg comes right off.

"I dunno, lass. We've just got to hope they're ok."

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

Hope rushes through the streets, moving between the crowds of fleeing people with Amadeo close behind.

"Let's get to the square." He calls to her. "We should be able to see what-" He shouts, a zombie slipping from an alleyway and tackling him to the ground. As it leans down to bite into his flesh, Hope grabs hold of the creature by its head, pulling it back as Amadeo's hand lights with flame. He sends a bolt through the zombie's skull, burning out part of its brain, and Hope pulls him to his feet.

"Hold on tight." She tells him, and by the time he can ask what to hold on for, she lifts him into her arms, one arm under his back and the other under his legs. With haste, she moves through the streets, carrying him like a bride through the hellscape that Kaina has become. "Can you see if you can find the others? You've got a spell for that, right?"

"Not yet, but I've got something almost as good." Amadeo pulls out a small wire and speaks into it. "If you can hear me, little man, please respond. Hope and I are heading to the square, where are you two?"

There's a long moment of silence and he sighs. "They're not in range. I need to be within a hundred and twenty feet for this to work."

"Keep trying. We'll be near the square soon. Hopefully, they came to see what happened." Hope grits her teeth, leaping over a fallen skeleton as the chaos around them fills her with a mounting dread.