Novels2Search
A guide to hero killing
Chapter 4: You're finally awake...

Chapter 4: You're finally awake...

The sickening sound of bone breaking and the splattering of blood filled the unlit room.

"DIE"

The rock came down on Tony's face deforming it as if his face was a metal plate before taking its original shape back.

"DIE"

Again, the rock came down of his face, this time several small cracks appearing in his face for only a seconds before disappearing.

Tony's face remained with the same empty smile, a look of pity as he stood up.

"COME BACK!"

As Tony started walking away from her the silhouettes of the other heroes appeared on the horizon.

"DON'T!"

She tried to follow him, but her arms and legs felt numb, the further she crawled towards Tony, the further she was from him.

"Abby!"

As Tony made it to the other heroes his silhouette joined the crowd, each one casting a look of judgement upon Abby who was now sinking in the soil.

"Abby!"

She opened her eyes to see June, the mage shaking her awake, 'It was just a nightmare...' she breathed a sigh of relief.

The sound of heavy rain filled the room.

"What's up?" she asked, for once she was grateful for being woken up.

"It's Gabriel, he wanted everyone downstairs for an emergency meeting." she explained, a look of concern on her face, though not one that screamed "Tony was murdered"

"Did something happen?" Abby asked faking worry.

"I don't know, Gabriel said it was important though, so you should hurry," she replied before heading out.

"Christ, I hope they didn't realise I'm the killer already..." Abby stood up and put on her shoes before heading downstairs.

As she walked downstairs she found herself being motioned towards the table by Gabriel.

All of the twelve heroes except Kevin sat around the table.

"Alright, we're all here, what's going on, Gabriel?" The paladin demanded seemingly upset about being woken up.

"It's about Tony," Gabriel said sombrely.

'FUCK.'

"He's gone missing," he explained.

"Hold on, are you saying he ran off on us?" Asked the paladin.

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"He was always a loner..." noted the monk.

"He wouldn't do that!" argued Lilly the witch.

"No, he was murdered." Gabriel finally said.

'DOUBLE FUCK'

"How can we be sure?" Abby asked, she wanted to know if they found the corpse.

"Did you ever hear me mention my abilities as the strategist?" Gabriel asked, as expected the room was silent.

"Every one of you should have a trump-card kind of ability, for me, that ability is [clairvoyance], essentially a text-based description of the future."

The room turned silent once more.

"I can only use it once a day, and I have no idea if the future is written in stone, but when we first came to this world I received the following message."

Gabriel reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper, he cleared his throat and began reading.

"In seventy-nine days one of your party members will be murdered by another party member, their body will be in a forest."

When he finished he placed the paper on the table and pushed it towards the others to have a look at.

"In other words, if we exclude Kevin for obvious reasons, the killer is in this room with us," he said as his expression turned grim and he looked at everybody present.

The heroes starting exchanging suspicious looks, Abby also looked around like "Oh no, who would do such a thing?!"

"Now, I think that before we point any fingers, we should-" he was cut off by the berserker,

"Hold on, Gabriel! You knew one of us would die and you didn't even warn us!?"

Several accusatory stares came at him while others kept looking around.

"Think it through, if I told you the murderer could work around my ability, plus I wasn't sure the ability would work, or if it would still apply."

"Tony's dead?" Lilly asked her face looking grim as the Berserker put his hand on her shoulder.

A while of silence passed as nobody knew what to say.

"So, as I was saying, we should go and find the body." he continued.

"But what if the killer finds the body first and gets rid of it?" Asked the monk.

"I'm sure they wouldn't risk getting any blood on them, isn't that right, Abby?" he asked looking over to Abby who felt a sudden chill go down her spine.

"Yeah, I guess, why are you asking me?" she asked trying to keep up her innocent smile.

"Well, your class is the assassin, I'm hoping we could use your expertise to track down the killer," he said with a smile.

"Right, well I'd be happy to help!" she exclaimed.

"Alright, then how about a few questions? For all of us." Gabriel stood up and walked in a circle around the table.

"Abby the assassin and Michel the paladin... both of you were asleep the longest, what kept you up so late?" Gabriel asked looking at them both.

"Look, man! I was hungover all day yesterday, I guess I was just sleeping it off!" the paladin replied.

"I was feeling sick the day of the party, remember, I guess I just needed to sleep it off!" she replied.

"I guess that makes sense... what about you Adam?"

Gabriel turned towards Adam who was busy eying Abby this whole time.

"Oh, what? I woke up early today," he replied.

"True, but you had a motif," Gabriel replied.

"A motif?!" Adam exclaimed.

"That's right, I saw your fight yesterday... you did pretty well, but in the end, you got beaten, even though he couldn't use magic." Gabriel faked a disappointed sigh towards the end.

Adam sat there silently for a while before replying.

"I would never kill anyone, I'm a healer, remember!"

"True, most of your 'fight' with Tony was defensive... I guess we can't confirm his murderer without finding his corpse."

"What about you, June, I remember you telling me about seeing Tony making his water spirit take the form of many female party member in 'little to no clothing' - that really seemed to get to you."

The mage stood from her chair furious.

"Yes, but that's not something you'd kill someone over! A smack on the head would have been enough!"

A few of the guys exchanged a look that Abby couldn't quite pick up on before turning back to Gabriel.

"Here's the plan, we'll split into three groups of three and one group of two, that way we can cover more ground whilst being safe, I can even bite the bullet and be on the two-man team." Gabriel offered.

"Can we at least eat some breakfast before we head out?" Asked the berserker as Lilly and the Archer shot him a disgusted look.

"How can you think about eating, right now? One of our friends is dead..." Asked the archer.

The berserker looked down slightly embarrassed before being backed up by the paladin and Ben.

"There's no need for that, we might be searching until really late... we should eat while we can... I don't think I'll be hungry after the fact." sighed the paladin.

"Yeah, I'll make everyone something..." Ben sighed as he headed over to the kitchen.

Everyone sat in silence, Abby sat there, pale, she could feel she was about to be discovered.

'Where did my guts go?! I talked a big game when Kevin was around, but now I feel like I'm about to throw up...'

"Are you feeling alright, Abby?" Asked Lilly seeing Abby so pale.

"Y-yeah... I'm fine... I guess I don't deal with mortality..." she replied trying to fake a smile so badly, even Lilly could tell it was fake - though for once that worked in favour of her persona.

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