"Excellent thinking," replied Jaida. "I hope for our sake that you are correct. I'll say it again. If we choose the wrong path, we may be trapped here forever."
"I know I'm right," said Nemeth with confidence. "I just know it! Let's go through path number six now! Come on Jaida!"
Nemeth and Jaida proceeded through path number six. The passageway curved to the right much more than the previous passageway. Once again, they were surrounded by bushes and tall oak trees on both sides. The bushes appeared to be thicker and have thorns on them. The leaves on the oak trees varied greatly in color but were even more abundant that they blocked out even more of the night sky above. After travelling for about another 10 minutes, they had reached yet another opening in the forest. This opening was much larger than the previous one and there were eight passageways to choose from this time. Thick bushes covered with thorns had risen from the ground blocking the path back.
"I'm not even going to bother looking behind me," said Nemeth. "Let me guess, more bushes have grown blocking the path back?"
"Yes master," replied Jaida. "It seems that even though we are solving the puzzles correctly, we can only move forward, not backwards."
Nemeth shook his head and let out a big sigh. Once again he opened the notebook. Underneath the musical staff and the numbers, it read "Only when eight is applied many a time shall the true path be known." Nemeth looked around and noticed a square block about quarter of his height protruding out of the ground. The block had the letter X engraved into it.
"What do we do now Jaida?" asked Nemeth.
"You need to jump on the block," instructed Jaida. "Do it!"
Nemeth jumped up into the air and stomped down hard on the square block. The square block sank down and became level with the ground.
"Nothing happened!" said Nemeth angrily. "You would think that this block would be of use. There's got to be something else I have to do but what is it? WHAT IS IT THAT I HAVE TO DO???"
Nemeth began to throw a tantrum and starting jumping up and down on the block. On his eighth stomping of the block into the ground, the block no longer came up from the ground. Nemeth scratched his head. Suddenly, he was pushed forward near the eight passageways and onto the ground. He found himself covered in a sticky web.
"Help me Jaida!" shouted Nemeth.
"Slice the web with your sword and defend yourself!" yelled Jaida. "There's a Venoma that we have to take care of! I'll try and distract it while you get yourself free. Here's some information that you'll find of use to you. The Venoma is an oversized spider that shoots a large sticky web to trap its prey. Once its victim was trapped, it sinks its venomous fangs into the victim. The Venoma waits until its victim is dead from the venom before consuming it. It appears that the Venoma's overall threat score is 13,250 out of a possible 1,000,000 points. The Venoma's overall threat level to you is low."
Jaida floated into the face of the Venoma. Jaida tried to zigzag back and forth in the Venoma's line of sight to draw it away from Nemeth. Nemeth was struggling to reach his sword. He tried rolling around but kept getting tangled further in the web.
"Hurry up!" yelled Jaida. "Do not let the Venoma poison you! Do you hear me?"
Nemeth managed to reach into his backpack and grab ahold of one of the daggers he obtained after his encounter with the masked person. He began to cut away at the web while still rolling on the ground. After getting his arms free from the web, he was able to reach his sword. The Venoma finally ignored Jaida's movements and crawled over to Nemeth who was now lying on the ground covered from the middle of his torso to his feet in webbing.
"Get the hell away from me!" screamed Nemeth. "I hate spiders even more than I hate insects! And you've got to be the biggest spider I've ever seen!"
Nemeth swung his sword wildly into the empty space between the Venoma and him hoping it would cause it to retreat.
The Venoma crawled over Nemeth's torso and began to open its mouth, exposing its multiple venom-filled fangs. Nemeth tightly grasped the handle of his sword with both hands and horizontally slashed the Venoma across its front set of fangs severing them from its mouth. The Venoma let out a shriek and backed off of him. Green ooze could be seen dripping from where the fangs had previously been rooted. Nemeth used the dagger once more to cut the remaining webbing from his body and kicked up off the ground onto his feet. Nemeth twirled his sword in his hand and pointed it at the Venoma. Nemeth's eyes began to look crazed.
"You probably don't understand the words that I'm saying," said Nemeth. "But still you must listen to me. If it's not words that I can make you understand, it's going to be pain that you understand."
Nemeth looked over at Jaida with a disgusted look on his face.
"Why did this thing, this Venoma as you call it attack me?" inquired Nemeth very seriously. "Did I set off a trap by making a mistake?"
"You're overthinking this," replied Jaida. "The answer is always going to be EIGHT here. There are eight doors, you needed to step on the block eight times and the creature has eight legs! Now kill the Venoma!"
Nemeth took out one his daggers and threw it at the Venoma's shell causing it to be pierced. The Venoma let out another shriek and backed off a couple of more steps. More green ooze could be spotted pouring from the open wound on the Venoma's shell. Nemeth ran over to the left side of the Venoma and slid as fast as possible on the ground while slicing off four of the Venoma's legs one by one. The Venoma let out an even louder shriek. It flipped onto its back like a helpless overgrown turtle. More green ooze poured out of the newly opened wounds on the Venoma. Nemeth rolled over several times in the grass and got back up to his feet. He walked over to the Venoma and hacked off each of its remaining four legs one by one. He stared at the disgusting overturned body of Venoma. It was now completely immobile and oozing a green substance from various parts of its body.
"I'm giving you one last chance to speak to me beast!" bellowed Nemeth to Venoma. "So you've got nothing to say at all? I'm going to be a nice guy just this one time. Instead of having you suffer, I'm going to end your life!"
Nemeth looked at his sword, already covered in green ooze from his previous attacks on Venoma. He grasped the sword with both hands and began to perform an unorthodox series of slashes at the underbelly and the exoskeleton of Venoma. The Venoma was easily shredded into dozens of pieces by Nemeth's sword. With each slash more green ooze would pour from Venoma's body until finally the creature let out one final loud shriek and transformed into a giant pile of green ooze with nothing else but Nemeth's dagger floating in it. The eight passageways lit up brightly and converged into a single passageway in the center. Nemeth took his sword and used it to carefully remove the dagger from the green ooze. He wiped the green ooze off of his sword and dagger by wiping them on the ground. He placed the dagger into his backpack and sheathed his sword.
"Do you have any empty vials, bottles or any other sort of containers in your backpack?" inquired Jaida.
"All of them contain some sort of potion from Madame Magica's shop," replied Nemeth. "Why do you ask?"
"I highly recommend that you either use or dump the contents of one of those containers and pick up the green ooze," suggested Jaida. "It's venomous properties will surely be of use to you in the Great Temple of the Forest."
Nemeth began to search through his potion collection. It looks like I've got plenty of Healing Potions. I could certainly use one too. Nemeth gulped down a Healing Potion and wiped his mouth. Nemeth's body began to glow bright red momentarily.
"I feel completely recharged!" said Nemeth excitedly. "That certainly didn't taste as good as Pomegranate Juice, but it certainly did the trick."
Nemeth filled the empty bottle with the green ooze. He sealed the bottle and placed it into his backpack. Nemeth stared at the single large passage that was now there instead of the eight smaller passages.
"So the eight paths have converged into one," said Nemeth slowly. "Let's make our way to the next part of the forest!"
Nemeth
and Jaida made their way through the large path. The path was similar to the previous ones. There were bushes on both sides with more thorns than any of the previous paths. The oak trees were even taller and contained branches with so many colorful leaves that they completely blocked out any view of the night sky. After an eight minute walk along the path, Nemeth and Jaida stopped short. Stojan had reappeared again in front of them.
"I must congratulate you on solving all of the puzzles," said Stojan. "But don't get a big head! You were given the easier puzzles. You wouldn't have been so fortunate if you had the more difficult puzzles. Anyhow, I just wanted to let you know that I'm giving you a chance to leave the Illusari Forest. If you want me to, I can create a portal for you that will lead you back to where you originally came in. The Great Temple of the Forest is only a short walk ahead. You'll encounter danger in there like you've never experienced. So what do you choose? Do you want the portal out of here or do you want to continue ahead to the temple?"
"We appreciate your offer to let us out of the forest," said Nemeth. "But we have to decline. We must proceed to the temple. We have important business to take care of."
"Very well then," replied Stojan. "You have made your choice. Continue ahead to the temple. Good luck. You're going to need it!"
Stojan vanished once again. Nemeth and Jaida continued on the path and made it to an extremely wide opening in the forest.
"We're here master," whispered Jaida. "Look up ahead! Isn't it spectacular?"
A look of surprise came across Nemeth's face.
"This can't be it," said Nemeth quietly. "No, it can't be…"
"Yes master, this is the Great Temple of the Forest," whispered Jaida. "This is our next challenge."
Chapter Ten
"I've never seen a temple of this size before!" exclaimed Nemeth with a hint of anger in his voice. "I haven't been to many temples before but the ones I've been to were all much smaller than this one. Temples are supposed to be small and are meant for praying to gods and goddesses."
"Did you really expect that Terazhul and Vulpes would hide in a place smaller than this?" asked Jaida.
"Actually yes I did!" said Nemeth his voice growing with more anger. "I expected us to just walk into a small temple and have a final battle with Terazhul where I would come out the victor."
"Your expectations do not match the reality of the situation," replied Jaida. "Getting through the temple and defeating Terazhul and Vulpes will be an arduous task."
Nemeth walked up to a massive wooden drawbridge. The drawbridge spanned the distance across a deep river to the temple entrance. The water in the river appeared to be murky and discolored. Dead fish could be seen floating on the surface. Nemeth began to walk slowly across the drawbridge toward the entrance of the Great Temple of the Forest. Approximately half-way through his walk across the drawbridge, the vines that controlled the drawbridge's suspension began to pull the drawbridge into its upright position. Nemeth slid down the drawbridge into the first section of the Great Temple of the Forest and landed hard on his back. He carefully got up off of the ground and rubbed his back trying to reduce the amount of pain inflicted from the friction of the slide.
"Are you ok master?" asked Jaida with a concerned tone.
"Yeah, I'm just great…" said Nemeth sarcastically. "This is the best I've ever felt in my life."
Nemeth turned around to see that the drawbridge was completely closed. A large magical bubble formed a seal around the drawbridge preventing any possible exit from the temple. Nemeth took out the notebook from his backpack. The notebook was shut tightly and he was not able to open it anymore.
"I can't open the notebook anymore," said Nemeth despairingly. "What am I supposed to do now?"
"There's nothing we can do but press forward," replied Jaida. "Do not discard the notebook just yet though. I have a feeling that we can get it to open once again."
Nemeth put the notebook into his backpack again. Nemeth turned around and began to scan the room around him. The floor was covered in grass that was knee-high to Nemeth. There were a lot of large colorful mushrooms sprouting from the ground. The temple's walls appeared to be made of stone but were covered largely by a variety of plant-life. In the far left and right corners of the room, there were two large statues of eagles. Atop these statues were monkey heads with square openings carved out for their mouths. Straight ahead was a wooden door. Nemeth equipped his sword and shield and began to walk towards the door. A single wooden arrow shot from each of the monkey head statues just seconds apart from one another. Nemeth swept his shield from left to right to deflect the arrows, causing the arrowheads to break off upon impact. Nemeth ran towards the wooden door even quicker.
"This door had better not be locked," said Nemeth quietly to himself. "Come on, just open, just open…"
Nemeth pulled hard on the door handle and the door flung open. Nemeth proceeded into the next room and slammed the door behind him.
"JAIDA!" yelled Nemeth. "We no longer have access to the information in the notebook. The exit to the temple is sealed shut magically and two statues just shot arrows at me! What kind of lunatic would design such a place? And what else can I expect to happen to me here?"
Before Jaida could respond, Nemeth already started to pace forward in the new room which had a fairly steep decline. Holes opened from the ceiling and hundreds of wooden logs of various shapes and sizes rolled down the walls onto the ground. Nemeth jumped into the air and landed on one of the logs. For about seven seconds, he managed to maintain his balance and ride the log down the decline. Then several other logs hit him from behind causing him to fall off balance backwards onto another rolling log. More and more logs continued to pour out of the openings in the ceiling. Nemeth was now rolling on several logs down the slope towards an open body of water towards the end of the room.
"The water is toxic!" screamed Jaida. "Don't land in the water under any circumstances! Get off of the logs now!"
Nemeth rolled around as much as possible in all different directions. After a huge struggle, he landed on his stomach in an area with no logs on the ground with his head facing the entrance. He jammed his sword and shield into the ground at a 45 degree angle. This would hopefully prevent him from rolling down into the toxic water below and allow any logs to roll up into the air and over him instead of landing on him. Nemeth was now stuck lying on the floor. He curled his legs forward towards his body leaving his shins exposed to the ceiling. Nemeth pressed his body as closely to the ground as possible to make sure that no logs would strike him. Nemeth shut his eyes in fear as logs continued to pour downward for about another a minute and a half. Many of them rolled over his sword and shield leaving Nemeth unscathed. When the sounds of the rolling logs stopped, Nemeth opened his eyes. He pulled his sword and shield from out of the ground and got up to his feet. Nemeth looked down the slope and saw the cluttered masses of logs. Nemeth carefully approached the edge of the water. He noticed that most of the logs were now submerged in the body of water, but some of them were floating on top. It looked like there were enough logs to form a sturdy enough bridge that he could get to the other side where another wooden door was.
"What should I do Jaida?" asked Nemeth with great concern. "How badly can I get damaged by the water if I touch it? I mean, it's not like I'm going to be drinking it or anything. I think there's enough logs here for me to walk across the water easily."
"You saw what happened before!" exclaimed Jaida. "You tried to balance yourself on the logs and you fell down. If this water enters your system, you'll have to use an Anti-Venom Potion to cure yourself of its poisonous effects. There is no sense is wasting one of those potions when you can get across to the other side a much easier way. I'm going to let you think this one over."
"Why do I have to think this one over?" asked Nemeth bitterly. "You're supposed to be my Guardian Spirit! You do understand what the word GUARDIAN means right?"
"Thinking about how to get to the other side will benefit you gre
atly," replied Jaida. "Trust your judgment!"
Nemeth put away his sword and shield. He focused his attention on the left wall above the toxic water. Unlike the rest of the room, the walls above the water were free of any plant life. Nemeth dashed towards the left wall. He jumped and turned his body into the direction of the wooden door, quickly running horizontally across the wall for about five steps. He used his legs to repel himself off of the wall. These actions launched him past the water gap. Finally, he performed a forward roll to get to safety on the ground in front of him.
"Are you satisfied?" asked Nemeth bitterly. "Wall running isn't exactly the best thing to do if you want to conserve energy for battle."
"The important thing is that you figured out what you needed to do without my help," replied Jaida. "I'm more than satisfied with your performance so far. Are you?"
"That doesn't matter," responded Nemeth. "What matters are exactly two things. The first is if this door is going to open. The second is if I go through this door, what the hell am I going to have to deal with this time? Trust me, if I knew those wooden logs could feel pain, I'd be slicing them all apart with my sword right now!"
"Haven't you realized that this place will constantly be filled with traps?" questioned Jaida. "Terazhul is very well guarded here. Expect that each room you enter is going to present you with a challenge more difficult than the last one."
Nemeth let out a large sigh and put his hand on the handle to the door. He pulled the door open and walked slowly into the next room. He shut the door quietly behind him. He began to observe the room to see what possible traps could be set. At the far end of the room there was a platform elevated about 30 feet off of the ground. At the top of the platform there was another wooden door. Bushes covered in thorns lined the sides of the room. In the far right corner, there was a block that looked like it could be stepped on, similar to the one in the Illusari Forest. He was too far away to see what type of design, if any was inscribed into the top of the block. There were also several rocks about three quarters the size of Nemeth scattered about the room. Nemeth looked up at the ceiling and noticed that there was a bat-like creature hanging upside down. Nemeth brought out his lantern and lifted it up high above his head. The bright light disturbed the bat-like creature and it began to fly around the room. Nemeth drew his sword and prepared for battle.
The Orphan Wars (Book One) Page 14