Pain… Stabbing pain throughout the whole body woke Boe up. He tried to sit up, but before he could muster enough strength to do so, another wave of pain washed away his thoughts of recovering. It was incredibly hard to keep his mind clear while suffering such a torture and Boe was ready to give in, but he knew he couldn’t give Mastema another chance to control his body. Boe felt like he had already endured centuries of this torment before the waves of pain finally vanished.
When Boe had finally sat down and opened his eyes, he first saw Kamys staring at him with his usual kind and worrying gaze. Then Boe turned his head and saw both Brienne and Dale lying on the ground; their bodies were trembling from time to time, both of them were covered in sweat and blood was oozing out of their mouths. Seeing that scene, he wiped blood off his own lips and stood up.
A frail looking girl with shiny thick black hair was lying on the ground as pale as fresh snow and each time her body trembled there was the same expression of suffering on her face. But each time there was a break between the waves of pain, Brienne was opening her eyes. Boe could clearly see the determination to endure the pain and absolutely no fear in these eyes.
On the other hand, Dale’s face was terrifyingly calm and both Boe and Kamys would even think that waves of pain were of no issue for Dale if he didn’t clench his fists so tight that streams of blood were flowing out of each of his palms.
Ten minutes later, Dale opened his eyes and immediately sat himself up. Boe saw that it was extremely painful for him, but Dale’s pride didn’t let him show any kind of weakness before his peers. Just a few moments after that, Brienne slowly stood up and smiled. Three men quickly got up right after they saw Brienne standing up.
“Wh-what was that?” Brienne’s voice was weak and shaky.
“Did we all see the same scene of a gigantic tree growing in a middle of nowhere?” Kamys was noticeably in a much better shape than everyone else.
“Why the fuck did an owner of this fortress had to torture us like that before we even entered the god damn place?!” Dale was infuriated; he was a prince of the kingdom after all, it was an embarrassment for him to be lying on the ground just because of some kind of illusion.
“I think whoever did this to us wasn’t trying to hurt us… We were just too weak.” Boe’s cold and detached voice poured freezing water onto the Dale’s head. It was obviously the truth. Seeing that Kamys wasn’t affected as much as Brienne showed that enduring the pain was a matter of personal strength.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Boe moved in the direction of the entrance. Without saying anything, everyone else silently followed behind him and they all almost simultaneously stepped into the entrance of the Enthriil’s fortress, which looked like an ordinary mountain to anyone who saw it from outside.
For a few seconds, Boe felt like an invisible force was trying to tear his body apart and bright light was attacking his eyes. And as the mysterious force disappeared, Boe could finally open his eyes and see what was around him. He was now standing in a middle of a simple and yet awe-inspiring huge room. All the walls of the room were grey as if they were made out of an ordinary stone and they were all filled with incredibly realistic paintings. The floor was covered in grass and strangely shaped white flowers. The whole room smelled like a meadow, which made Boe and company feel a very refreshing feeling and all their injuries were rapidly healing. But the main thing that the company noticed was the fact that there were no doors and no windows in the room, which meant that there was no way out of here.
Before anyone could utter a single word, they suddenly felt an immense pressure weighing down on them. All four wizards tensed up and prepared themselves for a fight, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t pinpoint the source of the pressure.
“It’s a painting.” It wasn’t the first time Boe felt this kind of pressure, so he reacted calmer than everyone else, so he was the first one to understand that the source of the strange sensation was the biggest painting in the room, which was hanging all by itself on the wall right before them. Only now did everyone noticed that all other paintings were a lot smaller and were all clustered on three other walls, while that strange one was separated from the rest as if it was the ruler of an entire room.
Each and every painting of the room were unique and held an image of a different scenery. One was a painting of a house, another depicted an ocean, third was a portrait of some kind of a monster. But even amidst all this diversity, the biggest painting was definitely a special one even if you didn’t think about the pressure it was giving off. An enormous shining grey mountain was hanging in a middle of an empty nothingness of the universe. There were no stars, nor there were any kind of objects other than the mountain in the painting. It was as if it was the only thing that existed in the entire universe. Without even realizing it, all four were thrown into trance-like state and the only thing in their minds was that mountain.
"I shall forewarn you, whatever you are, for I've raised this stronghold to escape from the chaos, scale of which you would never be able to perceive. Neither could I..." A frighteningly pressuring voice thundered in minds of Boe and company as they were released from their trance-like state. As the voice spoke the last sentence, it sounded deadly sorrowful. "You can still opt to return, and never will this world open to you again. Yet, should you choose to persist through the path filled with fatal dangers, you shall be rewarded tremendously. No matter the choice, you are forbidden to tell anything about my world to anyone beside your current companions." And at the same moment, all four felt some kind of knot appear deep inside their souls; they felt that if they dared to speak of anything about this place to anyone, their souls would simply shatter and there would be nothing left of them in this world.
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“I’m definitely going for that so-called ‘tremendous reward’, what about you?” Dale was the first to break the silence with his resolute decision to grab any chance he had to become more powerful than he already was.
“I’m in,” Boe answered without hesitating.
“Why would I back down if came here for this exact reason?!” Kamys’ eyes were already burning with unstoppable desire to rush forward.
“I shall accompany you all in this reckless adventure, but we should stick together and be extremely careful. Considering that a mere painting was already that scary, whatever comes at us further will surely be dangerous even if we’ll join our hands.” Brienne was the only one who calmly analyzed the situation and tried to cool down three hot-blooded young men.
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“Boe, get out of there! Wherever you are, don’t you dare to do anything rash. Just come out or you’ll most definitely die in there!” Suddenly, the alarmingly nervous voice of The Toxin Queen resounded in Boe’s head. It was the first time Boe heard Krstvinga in such a state; she was a powerful being of the higher worlds, what could happen in this lowly world that would cause her to be as nervous as she was now?
“Eldest sister, what’s the matter? I just entered the fortress of the ancient wizard.” Boe was rather shocked by Krstvinga’s sudden change of character.
“An ancient wizard? That place was definitely created by someone of the higher worlds. It has the incredibly powerful barrier around it and even I can’t enter the damnable place! Quick, get out of there! If you’ll die there, master will harshly punish me for not being able to protect you.”
“Eldest sister, please don’t worry about me, I’ll be able to handle this kind of danger even without your help. I feel that the owner of this place didn’t harbor ill intentions toward anyone, I will definitely be able to come out of here stronger than I am right now.”
“Stupid kid! Don’t overestimate yourself. Whoever created this fortress was countless times stronger than you are. He was at least as strong as I am. You can’t even comprehend what’s a difference between that kind of power and you.” Krstvinga’s voice started becoming angry already.
“Trust me, I’ll be fine. If I’ll die here, then it’ll be my own fault. Master wouldn’t choose me if I wouldn’t be strong enough to overcome dangers with my own strength, right?” Boe wasn’t overconfident in himself, he just felt like something was calling him from deep inside of the fortress and someone was watching at him since he entered the room. And the person who was watching over him gave off the feeling of warmth and calmness, there was no enmity in that invisible gaze that Boe felt on himself.
“Hmph… Young, stupid and reckless. Do whatever you want. I guess I will just join eldest brother in case our master will be really infuriated…” Just like that, the link between Boe and Krstvinga suddenly disappeared. Boe’s life was now only in his own hands. He would have to be responsible for anything that would come at him further on his own. ‘No matter what, no one of this lowly world would be able to create a barrier this powerful. Is it really that Enthriil? If it is, then what was he doing in here? Why bother? I’ll just ask big brother about it.’ Krstvinga’s silhouette started fading into nothingness and a thoughtful look on her face looked more serious than ever before.
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“Boe, are you alright?”
“I’m fine. Let’s find a way to our ‘tremendous rewards’, shall we?” Boe’s heart started beating faster just from a thought that he was finally under his own protection and there was no one who would save his life in even the most life-threatening situation. A devilish smile appeared on his lips for a moment before he suppressed all these feelings and moved toward the painting of the mountain.
“It feels like he’s somehow different from a moment before, but I couldn’t figure out what had changed about him…” Kamys was the closest person to Boe out of three, so he immediately noticed the slight changes in Boe’s behavior.
“Don’t know and don’t care what it is, but I like the current him even better.” A charming voice of the young gorgeous maiden rang out as Brienne hurriedly jumped forward so she wouldn’t be left behind by the man she was interested in.
“For some reason, it feels like he suddenly became the leader of this group…” Dale didn’t even try to hide an unpleasant look on his face. He was used to be the leader wherever he went in his life, but with these three outstanding talents around him, he didn’t feel superior at all.
“So, how do we leave the room?” Kamys asked as he started moving toward the biggest painting.
“There are no obvious exits, so I guess we have to work around with these paintings or find some kind of a hidden passage.” Brienne started attentively investigating everything around her.
“Mister painting, can you give us some clues?” Kamys started joking around as his mood was improved a lot by the opportunity that awaited him in this fortress.
“Kamys, stop running around aimlessly and do something useful.” Dale was already pissed off and Kamys’ behavior only worsened his mood.
“I’m already doing stuff, unlike you. This painting, for example, looks like it has a hidden message for us.” Kamys approached the painting of a strange forest, filled with grey trees. There were seemingly countless trees and each one of them was unique. The only common thing of these trees was the fact that they all looked to be dead.
“Kamys, be careful. Don’t set off some kind of trap there,” Brienne said without even looking at Kamys.
“That’s definitely strange. Trees here look like they’re made out of stone! And even the grass is grey and has a texture of a stone. Why would anyone paint such a thing?” Kamys could finally peer into the painting and he was astonished by the realism of it.
“For some reason, the biggest painting is the only one that’s giving off the pressure, but it doesn’t look as realistic as any of others.” Boe was already standing in front of the biggest picture as he started investigating every bit of it.
“That strange forest looks interesting…” Kamys’ voice suddenly broke off and his body vanished from the room.
*WHOOSH*
“That damn idiot!” Dale was the closest to Kamys and he was the only one who saw what happened. Right after Kamys said his last words, the painting in front of him glowed with a bright light and Kamys’ body disappeared.
“What happened?” Boe turned around and noticed that Kamys wasn’t where he was just a moment ago.
“That idiot triggered something off and I’m pretty sure that painting of the forest sucked him inside of it…” Dale’s voice was angry and at the same time concerned. He wasn’t worried about Kamys, he only cared about himself right now and with that alarming phenomenon, he started worrying about his safety.
“I guess we’ll have to follow his steps. He found a way out of this room, after all.” Boe chuckled and started confidently moving toward the painting of the forest.