(A/N)Can you all pretend for this story that Joren passed his Ordeal and never died? I wanted to use him in my story, so I brought him back to life. The group gets lost on a scavenger hunt and stumbles upon an unknown castle in Tortall. This is meant to be a horror story, so future parts will be extremely gory. Just a warning! Please enjoy!
A red river began to flow down the steps of the stairs inside of the empty castle. Once reaching the bottom it began to spread its many fingers long and wide until it was fully spread throughout the bottom of the long ago abandoned room. Echoes of ghostly screams began to fill the narrow hallways traveling along their way until the castle emanated the sound of the ghastly wails from the torturous deaths that had happened within the gray, stonewalls. The castle itself thrived off of death and had not been satiated of its hunger pains for decades. It began to wake for the place knew that new life was on its way.
Twisting in her saddle, Kel began to moan from the pain that was coming from her rear. After riding for five hours straight, her butt was becoming numb from the absence of muscle movement. The scavenger hunt that the pages and squires were participating in had begun to lose its quality of fun after the second hour. Looking to the side of her she studied Neal, one of the partners in her group, who seemed to be having the time of his life. Smiling, he held the sack to his side, filled with random objects from the list: a pinecone, a leaf, and a stick. The elders who had thought up this game must have figured that they were all stupid, because a toddler could have won this contest.
"Neal, where are we?" Kel began to growl.
"Yeah, Neal, where have you taken us?" Cleon spoke up from the back. He was met with agreeing sounds from Faleron, Owen, and their knight leader, Joren of Stonemountain.
"I never should have let you lead." Joren grumbled. "You have balls for brains."
"Look, all we have left on the list is to look for a stone. Then we can go back. Don't worry, I know where I am, oh Joren of-ill-trust."
"Fuck you, Neal. We could have found a stone about four hours ago. In fact, look there's one, and there's another one. We're in the woods you moron!"
Neal continued to smile, not fazed a bit. "I'm looking for a special one."
"A special one." Kel muttered under her breath. Aloud she spoke up again. "Neal, I'm tired and I'm hot. Can we please just pick up a stone? Look there's a pile of them over there."
"Hey, let's see what's in that cave." Ignoring Kel's comment, he pushed his horse straight a head followed by the rest of the group. Reaching the destination, they dismounted from their horses, tying them to the nearest trees before departing forward into the hole.
"Hey, look! This cave goes all the way through! Come on!" Neal's voice echoed from somewhere inside. Sighing and grumbling they all followed Neal through the cave until a light at the end showed them that they were almost there. One by one, they walked outside to look at the scene in front of them. A huge castle was down the hill right before them.
"That's new." Cleon spoke up.
"What the hell is that?" Joren asked in shock.
"I don't, but since we're here come on!" Neal began to run towards the castle, not knowing what lay before him and the others.