Resolution

The small campfire crackled cheerfully, the sound interspersed with the occasional sizzle as a bit of juice dripped off the meat roasting over it.

Orion eyed it with anticipation. With the way things had been going for him, he hadn't eaten in over a day, so even the fact that his next meal was coming from a monster didn't put him off of it.

After properly wrapping his ankle, he had ventured back out into the main area of the ravine, and had managed to collect enough branches that had fallen in over time to cook the hopefully several meals worth of meat he had harvested from the boar's carcass.

The rest of the animal, he had dragged as far away from his own hideout as he could manage, in the hopes of avoid the attention of anything that might come looking for the source of the smell.

Speaking of smells, the meat he was roasting looked like it was done cooking.

He sawed a small piece off with his hunting knife, and gave it an experimental sniff. It smelled like pork, and when he cautiously put it in his mouth, it tasted about the same as well.

Orion's eyes lit up, and he cut off a much bigger piece, sighing contentedly as he ate.

If all monsters tasted this good and he could find some source of water, he'd be happy to live in this place forever!

His chewing slowed as he realized that he might not have a choice in the matter. His faction clearly wouldn't be looking for him, and without magic it was extremely unlikely that he'd be able to get out of the ravine on his own.

His faction.

The meat suddenly tasted like ashes in his mouth.

The Frost Sect had barely qualified as a faction when he'd joined, and when his master had handed him the title of Faction Leader when he was only seventeen, the rest of the sect had been convinced that he would be the last straw to finally drive it into the ground.

Still, he'd worked hard to prove them wrong over the five years he had lead, and as the Frost Sect had become a small but formidable faction in its own right, those voices had fallen silent. Their owners, however, had apparently still not been content, because barely a week after he had refused the Order of the Frozen Dawn's offer to absorb their faction into its own, he had been ambushed by a group of his own faction's people, leading to his current situation.

He grit his teeth. He hadn't done what he did because he was looking for gratitude, but this was too much.

And for what? A few faction-exclusive spells and what scraps of Core-building materials the order saw fit to toss their way?

This was unforgivable. He clenched his fist tightly, resolve flaring to life and burning away his muddled emotions.

He would find a way back from this somehow, and he would show those that had betrayed him why they had been fools to turn their backs on him.