The party walked through the gates and found themselves in a plain of green grass. The trees appeared to be cleared for a few hundred meters, leaving a space of flat ground before the walls of the village. Soon, the path they followed led them into the trees, and the verdant forest almost immediately surrounded them.
Even though the others seemed unaffected, Orion was once again taken in by the beauty of this world. It seemed like the lushest forest imaginable on Earth, but with the saturation slid up to one-hundred percent. The colors made it seem otherworldly, which he supposed was an apt comparison, given that it was another world.
“So, where are we going?” Orion asked to break the silence. “Should we exchange abilities and classes so we know what we’re working with before we get into combat?”
“Forget the small details,” Felsteg said. “We’ll work all that out on the fly. It’s much more interesting that way. As to where we’re headed, you’ll see when we get there.”
For the rest of the trip, they traveled in silence. Orion didn’t really mind, enthralled as he was by the beauty of the forest, but he found the silence a little uncomfortable; it was as if something had occurred that he wasn’t privy to, something that raised the tension between his party members. He thought it too awkward to ask, so he tried to ignore it instead.
After fifteen minutes, they emerged from the forest into a wide clearing. The entire clearing was covered in dry dirt, with the entrance of a cave opening on the opposite side, nestled between a handful of giant boulders. The entire party stopped walking, with Arika taking a few more steps than the others before turning.
“You’re stopping here?” She shot Felsteg a look filled with hidden meaning. “Why aren’t we continuing on to the cave?”
Felsteg let out a laugh. “What’s one more, Arika?”
Arika’s face morphed into anger. “What do you mean, one more?”
Felsteg shrugged. “You had no problem with the others before. I don’t see why one more would be an issue.”
Arika let out a curse and started casting what Orion had to assume was an ability. A small, magical circle appeared beneath her as she began muttering under her breath and making strange movements with her hands.
A prompt appeared in his vision, but before he could read it, something heavy hit his knee with what felt like the destructive force of a runaway freight train. At the same time, he felt something thud into his shoulder. He was sent sprawling, and before he even hit the ground, waves of agony radiated from his destroyed knee. His leg was jarred further by the fall, and he felt pain he couldn’t even imagine. It took a moment for his eyes to clear, his vision swimming because of the sheer amount of agony he was in.
Two messages flashed in his field of view.
Arika has left the party.
You have been incapacitated.
When Orion gathered the strength to look up, Felsteg stood above him with a smirk on his face. Unlike the smiles he’d shown him so far, the smirk was a cruel thing, like a wolf baring its teeth before ripping out a sheep’s throat. Directly in the middle of his forehead was the symbol of a small, glowing white skull.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Orion knew in that moment that he’d misread the situation terribly. When the man he saw before him had first laid his eyes on Orion, it wasn’t the friendly smile of someone seeing a potential new party member on Felsteg’s face—it was the smile of a predator spotting helpless prey.
“Why?” Orion grunted, feeling his misshapen knee with one hand and using the other to feel the dagger that Felsteg had thrown into his shoulder.
“Why? Why not?” Felsteg laughed, radiating cruel intent. “Did you really think that we would help you? What benefit would we gain from teaming up with a scrawny Mage? You can see how useless that one is…” He gestured toward Arika. “And she’s almost level three, with much better equipment than you.”
Orion looked over just in time to see Arika get doubled over from a hit to the abdomen by Brick’s hammer—the weapon that was likely the same instrument that obliterated his knee.
Kauri was standing just behind Brick with a sickening look of malice in his eyes. Orion began thinking of a way to get out of this situation, but quickly concluded that he was all out of options. He tried casting Portal to gain a bit of distance, but to no avail.
You may not use movement abilities while incapacitated.
“You know...” Felsteg said, “it turns out that the ten gold we’re given upon arrival to this world isn’t an insignificant amount of money. It’s not enough to make a man rich, sure, but it’s definitely enough to betray the likes of you over. I won’t lie to you, though, well, not again, anyway.” He let out a laugh filled with venom. “I would have done it just to see that look of helplessness on your face.”
Orion let out a pained scream as Felsteg lowered a boot to his shattered knee and began twisting it back and forth. The pain was unbearable, and he felt as though he was about to pass out; he hoped he would. Unconsciousness seemed preferable to the agony being inflicted upon him by this monster in human skin. That wish, however, was not to be granted.
“You said… the others…” Arika squeezed out between groans and gasps. “You said they were all people that had betrayed and killed—”
“That’s right.” Felsteg removed his boot from Orion’s leg and sauntered toward her. “That is what I said. That’s what I had to tell you, so your weakness wouldn’t stop us from getting an advantage. After killing a few people, I thought you might gain an understanding of our place in this world.” He snarled. “But it’s clear now that you’re still too weak to do what needs to be done, even after I had you burn so many to ash…”
Arika looked stricken. “N-No. you said they’d done horrific things. That’s the only reason I attacked them. You said—”
“Quiet!” Felsteg dropped all pretense. “I’m so fucking tired of your complaining. You could have stayed with us and grown stronger. We could have had everything! We could have ascended to godhood together, but no, the second you tried to cast that explosion on us, your fate was sealed. I was hoping you’d be a bit more desensitized to this world after the terrible things you did to those poor, poor innocent people, but you're just as weak as when you spawned in. A shame, because I think you could have been an offensive powerhouse, given time. We’ll be taking all that gear of yours and finding a more suitable user instead, I suppose—one who isn’t so cowardly.” He turned to Brick and Kauri. “Or maybe we will just sell them for a bit more drinking coin, eh, boys?”
They both gave a sadistic laugh in response.
Orion’s pain-stricken mind finally caught up with the conversation. He’d thought that Arika was casting something on him... but she’d been intending to use some sort of fire magic on them after discovering their intention to attack him.
Felsteg walked back over towards Orion. “I guess I should thank you. You helped expose Arika’s treacherous heart before we could waste any more time leveling and gearing her up.” He looked down at him with a severe smile. “To thank you, I’ll grant you a swift death. I usually enjoy dragging this out a bit, but I think we’ll have our fun with this treasonous bitch instead. If we meet again, maybe I can show you my... expertise.”
He unsheathed a dagger and caressed the blade with a finger.
“I may not recall my previous life, but based on my knowledge and skills, I can guess at what I spent my time doing. Pray that you don’t get a chance to find out firsthand just how artistic I can be.”
Felsteg ended his monologue by pulling Orion’s head back and plunging the dagger up and into his brain. Orion felt only a moment of pain before he blessedly lost consciousness. The skull on Felsteg’s forehead changed from a soft white to a vibrant red.
His betrayer’s mercy was punctuated by a rather simple notification.
You have died.