A traitor

It was a long night for most of the candidates as some of them couldn't sleep. They were thinking of the fate of Mark and his squad.

The optimists among them reassured the others that they had probably met some obstacles on the road and were camping elsewhere for the night.

They were quickly silenced by the majority who thought that some harm had befallen them. The place had been a mess after that.

The neutral group were of the opinion that they wait till daybreak to see things for themselves.

Kelvin was of the latter group as he urged everyone to rest till the next day.

It went without saying that a large number of them were expecting an attack of some sorts while they slept so they were extremely vigilant and on guard.

They had gotten over their initial dislike of the place as they had quickly settled on the grass out of tiredness.

The place was looking like a picnic of some sorts as they were spread out on the grass.

There were no bugs or insects that they could find either which was strange for these parts. It was almost magically preserved.

That and the fact that it was well hidden made it an ideal haven.

The sorcerers among them had produced fires to keep everyone warm. The night was now cold which was a surprise given the scorching sun that had shone all day.

The watchers held torches too as they patrolled the area. Now and then, they whistled a tune which was quickly picked up by another person till they broke out into a song.

It was done to keep themselves awake and those who were up heard it.

Sarah was one of the few who had volunteered to take the next shift. She couldn't sleep a wink compared to Bryan who was soundly asleep beside her.

She had postponed the barrage of advice she wanted to give him to a later time as he went back to sleep almost as soon as he woke up.

There were two people per shift. A random person and someone from the Bishop class. That part was stressed by Kelvin. Those in Bishop class had the best eyesight as they had night vision making them valuable to the group.

As usual, he had led by example by taking the first two shifts despite others telling him to rest.

He had listened to them and had immediately gone to sleep as soon as his head touched the grass.

The next day, Kelvin woke up to commotion in the place which startled him as he was thinking about what it could be.

"What's the issue?" He asked, bleary-eyed to the nearest person when he woke up.

"A lot of people have gone missing since last night,"

"What do you mean missing? Where are the archers?" He asked, coming awake fully.

"Did anybody try to get past you guys last night," Kelvin said, turning to one of the girls he had assigned as a watcher the previous day.

"No one got past us," The girl said quite smugly as she was absolutely certain of their commitment to the job.

"Well what do you all think happened?"

It was Sarah this time around.

"For the life of me, I can't even begin to imagine what happened. Nothing eventful happened during your shift?" Kelvin asked her.

"No, nothing happened."

"How many candidates are missing?"

"Almost ten people from the reports we got."

"I know Karen. She wouldn't just leave without telling me first." A slim guy in the back suddenly cried out.

He had woken up to an empty space where his friend laid.

"You don't know anyone here. Didn't we all just meet in this place," His closest neighbor said to him.

There was a change in their expression as they both sized each other up.

"Are you saying that I don't know what I'm talking about?" The first guy said, bristling in anger as he faced the other guy.

"Cut that out, you guys are always quick to argue with each other. Let's work together here instead."

Someone said coming in between the both of them to stop them from fighting.

Kelvin nodded, glad that a lot of then had come out of their shell.

Previously they would have left everything to him to handle. He attributed that to the cautious nature of the average top chess players who preferred to watch before commiting to a cause. The game taught patience after all.

It was such a shame though that there was a traitor among them. That was the only logical reason he could think of. Someone was eliminating people in their sleep so to speak.

Nowhere was safe anymore. The woods and their camp both. Morning had come with no sign of Mark and his team. Just as he feared, they seemed to have come to some harm.

He wanted to play it safe so as not to let the culprit know he was onto them but he figured that he had to tell the others so they could watch out for themselves.

He couldn't possibly babysit all of them.

"I think we have to assume that someone or something is killing us," He said, at last eliciting murmurs from them.

"Nothing went past us in the night," An archer yelled and her words were echoed by others.

They wanted to make it clear that they weren't incompetent at their job.

"I know that."

"Then, they couldn't have run away either."

"The culprit or culprits are among us. We all have to be very careful who we trust from now on," Kelvin said looking at them.

He could see the surprise at his words as the candidates began to look at each other with mistrust.

Magnus wasn't surprised at his words as he had figured it out immediately he heard the news. His initial suspicion had fallen on the archers or an archer since it could be one person working alone. They had the skill set to kill from afar.

Suddenly there was a flashing message from his system.

<Warning >

[10 min. to Goldor's Ring deactivation. You will be reversed to your true form]