The Order of the Skull

Chapters 28-31 (THE END)

Chapter 28: Christopher

I didn't feel necessarily hurt, or manipulated as I began to fall through the portal in Violet's iron grasp. I just felt like an idiot, that I could have fallen into her trap. She had managed to gain my trust, in order to help her agenda, and now that I had become a liability rather than an asset, I was no longer of importance to Violet. She was dedicated to her cause, I'll give her that. Funny how calm you are when you're on the way to being harvested so someone else can control all of magic or something.

Somehow, I knew we were falling, even though I felt very still. There was no wind, or anything, our surroundings were blacker than night. I couldn't even see my hands in front of my face. After what felt like hours I felt my feet touch the ground. Suddenly the surrounding environment was lit by a dim purple light in the distance.

Violet pointed at the light, "That's our destination, now walk." Violet raised her hand and summoned a purple light to illuminate the path ahead of us. As we walked I took the time to scan the surrounding environment. It was like nothing I've ever seen, the sky was completely black, no signs of any stars or clouds. The landscape was also black as night, and void of any signs of life. The whole landscape was seamless and uncomfortably smooth. There was no rubble or rocks or anything, just a dark, flowing landscape. The pulsing purple light that Violet was after appeared to be on top of a hill in the distance.

"So, when do I get to be harvested?" I asked, half joking.

"Keep moving." Violet growled and pushed me in the back. Any sign of the cynical and cleverly funny Violet was gone, replaced with a hateful woman who simply wanted to accomplish one thing, and was willing to do anything it takes to complete that objective.

We kept walking and I had time to ponder recent events. While the beasts from the portal were horrific and decimated our forces, I had been told repeatedly that we would be facing something extremely dangerous. The hundreds of people killed was horrible, but I had been the captain of the guard in Cyphol before all of this, I had been a soldier. There were tales and accounts of battles with tens-of-thousands of casualties. Although Violet had been playing me and appeared power hungry. I believed there was some truth to her words. I believe she really did want to balance the forces of magic, or at least she thought she wanted to. In any case, I was satisfied that we had managed to defeat the enemy. From what I knew, in order for anyone to try to sustain balance between magical forces, they would have had to deal with those creatures, Order of the Skull or not.

I began to wonder if I could resist Violet's 'harvesting' or whatever. I tried to conjure some magic energy to my fingertips and it drained my body, causing me to collapse to the ground. Violet smiled and held up an orb that began to glow slightly brighter now that I'd tried to summon magic. "It's too late Christopher, the harvesting has begun." Well, shit. I was destined to die in a foreign dimension, my strength slowly being drained away. All I could really do at this point was try to stall as long as possible and hope Cynthia and Darkeen would stop Violet.

Speaking of Cynthia, I was surprised to see her at the portal, even though Violet seemed to know she was coming. What surprised me most was that she'd seemed to have lost her lighthearted sense of humor. She seemed angry, but not violently angry like Violet, but more like she was tired of fighting and having the burden of stopping the Order of the Skull and stopping the rise of dark magic.

We climbed to the top of another horizon and looked behind us. I saw a golden light flicker, illuminating two figures who I assumed were Cynthia and Darkeen. Violet turned around and swore under her breath, "That bitch! She would follow me here? Doesn't she know I've already won?" She then turned back around and faced me, "Keep moving."