The terror filled scream shocked them into a pause for a split second.

  “This way!” Ava pointed southward before kicking the ground and dashing towards the scream.

  “Wait!” Sarah shouted, running after her. Alaric followed them, though a part of him already knew what they were going to see.

  They ran through the trees and bushes for a few short moments before Ava suddenly stopped in her tracks. Sarah barely stopped before slamming against the young girl, then gasped. Not a moment later, Alaric caught up with them.

  Derek’s lifeless body lay on his side on the blood-soaked ground. His throat was torn apart violently, his eyes still wide with shock and fear.

  “Fuck.” Sarah whispered quietly, clenching her fists. “Bloody hell…”

  “He tried to take too many.” Ava’s cold voice startled him. “More than what was needed.” She glanced at Alaric over her shoulder. Her eyes were trembling slightly. She could mask the fear in her voice, but not the fright in her eyes.

  Alaric pried his gaze off of the gruesome wound on Derek’s throat and looked around him. Almost three dozen apples and pears lay scattered around his lifeless body. Ava wasn’t wrong – he had tried to take too much. But for the punishment to be death… He looked away, trying to suppress his churning stomach.

  This is wrong. He didn’t deserve to die.

  “Come on.” Ava grabbed his sleeve and slowly walked back. “We still need to get to the top of that cliff.” With a brisk pace, they walked back to the others. They found Jason and the rest of the group looking for them.

  Jason’s eyes lit up as soon as he saw them, but almost immediately his shoulders dropped. “He’s gone?”

  Sarah nodded. “Sorry. We weren’t fast enough.”

  The man clenched his fists. “What happened?” he forced the words out with some difficulty.

  Sarah shot Ava a quick glance. “He took too much. More than what he needed.”

  Jason’s lips parted. “And he died for that? For some fruit?”

  “He was warned.” Ava coldly interjected. “The system warned us – take what you need. It’s killed so many before. So believe it when it warns us.”

  Jason clenched his fists. “Yeah. I still hate it though.” He looked at Alaric. “What now?”

  As everyone’s gazes turned on him, Alaric felt his chest tighten. They were asking things, looking for answers.

  I don’t have any! He wanted to scream.

  “Should we head back immediately, or should we check if we can get up on that cliff?” Sarah’s voice rang in his ears.

  “Sundown’s in about two hours – it’s plenty of time to take a look around but…” Ava mumbled, her gaze lingering on him.

  He clenched his fists. Uncertainty was death. Staying put was death. They needed to act – to try and get one step ahead of the system and its bloody missions “We split in two – I want two people to come with me to look for a way up the cliff face. The rest of you will return to the Hallowed Ground – deliver the food, then go to the trees we first saw not far from the Hallowed Ground, a little to the north, and gather firewood. We’ll need a fire to boil water. We can’t risk drinking it directly from the river.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Sarah immediately said before anyone else had the chance to speak. Ava nodded vigorously. “Me too.”

  A faint smile flashed across Jason’s lips. “I suppose that means the rest of us will go get that firewood. Anything else you want us to do?”

  “Try and gather a few thick, sturdy sticks too. But don’t touch anything that seems like it could be dangerous.” He glanced pointedly at the stele behind him. The serpent had returned by now, and taken its place by the bowl, waiting for someone else to make a mistake before it struck them down as well.

  “Don’t touch anything a god claimed.” Jason nodded. “Got it.” He hesitated. “Same goes for you – don’t die out there.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “We won’t.” God, I hope we don’t.

  The top of the cliff seemed even farther up now that they were standing at the foot of it. The cliffs were almost completely flat – as if they were added to the terrain later on, perhaps by a godly being.

  “Yeah, no. We’re not climbing that.” Ava shook her head decisively. Alaric couldn’t help but agree – there were no nooks or crevices they could use. And even if there were, a fall from so high up would spell certain death.

  He glanced at the timer slowly counting down to the end of the mission. “We have an hour and a half of sunlight at best. Let’s move north a bit, see if we can find some other way up.”

  It was about fifteen minutes later when they noticed the cliff give way to a rather steep slope. “There!” Ava exclaimed, hastening her steps. Sarah smiled faintly, though her eyes remained clouded with worry.

  The slope took them another ten minutes to climb. The rocky dirt path was uneven and slid under their steps constantly, and relentless winds threatened to throw them off balance constantly. By the time they reached the top, just over an hour was left till sundown.

  The lands that stretched before them were foreign. The river that once flowed down from the north was now originating somewhere in the mountains to their west. He spotted a waterfall some distance north of where they were standing – flowing down the cliff, it was a beautiful sight.

  The Hallowed Ground was in the middle of a semi-circle of mountains. A sea of tall grass surrounded it, giving way to more diverse terrain the farther away it was from the Hallowed Ground. The Orchard was one example of that, and the cliffs covering the entire western side of the semi-circle were another. To the north of the Hallowed Ground he spotted hills and rock formations jutting out from the ground, and their east was a dense, vibrant forest that eventually gave way to a hill bordering a pass between the mountains.

  “Is that a building?” Sarah asked, following his gaze.

  He nodded absentmindedly as he sketched everything he saw into a makeshift map, marking the rather distant building as well. “Looks old,” he commented a moment later. It looked like a medieval keep, complete with a tower and all.

  “Bloody hell…” Ava’s voice trailed from afar. “Guys, look!” She was standing at the edge of the dense, ancient forest, pointing at something farther in.

  Following her finger with their gazes, they approached the edge of the forest.

  A stone path, old and battered, snaked through the trees, leading to what looked like an old castle. It was quite some distance away, closer to the mountains rather than the cliff.

  “Oh.” Sarah’s eyes lit up. “We should check it out! There could be people there.” Hope rang in her words.

  “Or at least some stuff we could use.” Ava added. “Alaric, we could get there in fifteen minutes, at most.” She glanced upwards, at the timer floating at the edge of her vision. “If we’re fast, we can make it back just as the sun sets.”

  He bit his lips. The castle was some distance away, and the raised metal gate gave him little confidence. It was risky, they had no weapons to speak of, and no one knew where exactly they were.

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “We can at least approach it a little.” Sarah suggested. “We won’t go in if you think it’s too dangerous, but we can at least go a bit closer. If there are people, they might help us.”

  Or they might attack us. He didn’t voice his worries – surely both Sarah and Ava were well aware of that possibility. “If I tell you to run, run.”

  Ava’s lips parted to protest, but Sarah pulled her back. “We will.”

  “But-“

  “Hush.” She pinched Ava’s arm.

  The dark, dilapidated castle seemed abandoned. There wasn’t a single light shining through from underneath the doors or the broken windows. Looking in through the main entrance, all they could see was overgrown plants that had covered most of the courtyard. Vines climbed the walls, ivy scaled the buildings and creeped in through the broken and shattered windows.

  “I don’t think we’ll find any people here,” he muttered, partly relieved, and partly disappointed.

  Sarah nodded to Ava’s words. “I’m afraid so…” She tried to hide her disappointment, but it still seeped into her low voice. “We have fifty minutes until sundown,” she added, glancing at Alaric.

  His gaze scoured the courtyard. The only movement he spotted was that of startled birds and squirrels. The rare firefly had begun to surface, defying the slowly dimming light of the sun with its own, defiant glow.

  “It looks empty.” He admitted. “We still need to secure water – which means a container to boil river water in. We might find one here. Stay together, and let’s hurry. I don’t want to be out here when the sun sets.”

  Their footsteps echoed in the empty courtyard. The fireflies quickly escaped into the building, the squirrels scurried away, and the birds flocked up the walls, landing on the fortifications. Their gazes followed the group as they stepped through the main gate.

  YOU HAVE FOUND CASTLE LORNE

  HIDDEN OBJECTIVE REVEALED – FIND THE SOURCE OF THE CURSE OF LORNE AND DESTROY IT

  The system window stopped them dead in their tracks. “The curse?” Ava gasped, then glanced at him.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” he admitted, his gaze darting from the main gate to the broken down doors ahead of them. “Maybe we shouldn’t go further.” But what would the price of failing the system’s mission be? Even if there was no price, drinking water from the river as-is was a recipe for getting everyone sick.

  “We need clean water.” Sarah insisted, almost as if she’d read his thoughts. “Boiled, properly sterilised water. Sooner or later someone will get hurt. We can’t clean wounds with untreated water. We can’t drink it either.”

  “All we need is a couple of pots.” Alaric decided. “There should be a pantry, so let’s find it, grab what we can and leave.” He glanced at the system window as it disappeared. “And let’s avoid whatever this curse is.”