Betrayal and blood.

You turn around to see what the key to the door is...and are met by the feeling of cold steel sliding into your stomach and through your body. You gasp out in pain, blood already sputtering out of your mouth as you feel your body slammed up against the door behind you. Your eyes are wide as you look up at your attacker, expecting some creature of darkness to have struck out from the shadows in a surprise ambush that caught you and your compatriots unaware. That is what you expected, but, instead, your eyes fall upon the pale and beautiful features of the paladin Acacia.

"Wh-what?", you murmur out through bloodied lips and the paladins piercing blue eyes meet yours coldly.

"The key is blood. The blood of a pure, noble-hearted mortal. A mortal with the potential to be a hero, it is said.", comes the explanation from the gnomish wizard, "And that, dear boy, is you."

"Honestly, why else would a mediocre human like yourself be chosen for this quest?", you hear the elvish ranger remark and her sister silently agrees with a nod.

"I-I...this is...wrong...", the young Dwarven squire says, but is silenced by a strike across the cheek from her master.

"Silence, girl. Would it rather it was you?", he gruffly says and the squire looks with shock back at her master.

"That's right, girly! You're the spare sacrifice here, didn't ya know?", the gnomish rogue chuckles and then turns towards you, "Lucky thing that this guy here survived all the way here, ain't it?"

"But...but does he have to die?! Can we not heal him after he bleeds?", the squire persists before being silenced again with a stronger strike across the cheek from the Dwarven warrior.

"No.", says the paladin looking into your eyes, not an emotion flickering across her face as she stares into your hazy eyes, "The prince has ordered he not return. The orders of my liege comes before any moral qualms."

"N-no...w-why?", you stutter out in disbelief as you reach out weakly towards the paladin's implacable face.

"I heard he has eyes for the sister is why, ain't that so, paladin?", the rogue, seeming to take twisted pleasure in the scene before him and your suffering, states, "I'm not surprised. I saw her when we were leavin' port. Pretty little thing. I reckon the prince sweeped her up as soon as we were gone. Probably couldn't wait to get his cock in her. Bit of a letch, that prince of yours is. He's probably fucked her senseless too many times to count by now."

"Silence, gnome.", the paladin says, but there is no denial of the words the rogue spoke as she pulls the sword from inside of you, causing blood to spill out of you in a spurt.

"N-no...Theresa...", you cough out even as you feel the door open behind you and send you down to the ground as it was the only thing keeping your failing body up.

"This is how it must be, boy. Take solace in knowing you shall know the peace of **** soon enough.", the paladin says and then steps over your bleeding body like you were nothing more than debris in her path.

The others follow after her, the elves and mage ignoring you, the rogue giving you a leering grin and the Dwarven warrior giving you a glance and a shake of his head before moving on. The only one that truly pauses is the squire and she stops and kneels beside you for a moment, pressing her surprisingly soft fingertips against your cheek and looking at you with sad hazel eyes. You manage to meet her gaze, your own eyes filled with tears and hazy with pain and blood loss.

"I...I'm sorry...", she whispers and then she's moving on, leaving you there on the ground, your blood pooling out beneath you and your life slowly ebbing.