The Amethyst Flame

Chapter 8 - Dread

The place was cursed. I could feel evil all around me and thought more than a few times about going back. It was too late for that now though...

"You really think things through, Jethro!" I mockingly said, slapping him on the side of the head.

"Look, if you never take risks in life, you'll never succeed in anything."

"We won't succeed in anything when we're dead!" I retorted.

"We won't die," he said, gesturing for me to follow him. Ahead of us was a seemingly endless tunnel. There were no turns anywhere, which meant we could only go straight forward.

We walked down the tunnel for around half an hour before realizing a horrifying fact. We had never actually gone anywhere. The tunnel restarted every time you were nearing the end, which meant you could never reach the nonexistent exit.

"This place is evil; even I can sense it," I said with a shudder.

"There has to be a way around this. Let me try something real quick," he said, picking up a rock and throwing it on the ground. It teleported back to us, and that's when I realized how the system worked. You had to walk in a specific pattern, or else you'd never reach the end. We continued our experiment and found that the correct pattern was left, right, left, left, left. It took us at least four tries to get to the end of the tunnel because of its exceeding length, but we eventually, finally made it to the end.

I looked around and found three metallic doors with a wild animal figurine near each one. On the first was a hog, on the second was a wolf, and the last was a bear. I tried opening the first door, but a current of electricity blasted me away from it.

"What just happened?!" I asked, perplexed.

"A spell protects the door. There's no way to open it without removing the spell first. Usually, you answer questions to make it go away," Jethro explained.

"What if you fail the questions?" I asked anxiously.

"If you're lucky, the door remains locked. If not, you suffer an excruciating death on the spot."

"Good to know..." I murmured and went to the first door again. I asked it to give me questions, and the hog figurine came alive.

"You will have a series of five questions. If you answer any wrong, you will be trapped here forever. You may ask one other person for help, but you will be destroyed on the spot if you cheat," it said in a deep, raspy voice.

"We will not cheat," Jethro said reassuringly.

"What is the difference between the Left-Hand Path and the Right-Hand Path of magic?" the figurine asked.

Since there was no way I could answer the question independently, I asked Jethro for help.

"The Left-Hand Path actively uses black magic while the Right-Hand Path proscribes all sorcery," he whispered in my ear.

I walked up to the hog and answered with what I told him.

"This is correct! What forbidden ingredient is used to brew necromancy potions?"

I walked up to Jethro again.

"Human flesh," he whispered with a shudder.

I need to get out of this place.

"Human flesh," I anxiously answered the door.

"Correct. What metal is so sharp it can cut through stone?"

I asked Jethro for help again. He was rather amused by my complete lack of knowledge about the magic world. He whispered olivarium in my ear.

"Olivarium!" I exclaimed in the door's direction.

"Correct. What monster will paralyze anyone who makes eye contact with it?"

For once, I had the answer to the door's question.

"Beholders."

"Correct. You have one last question before you can proceed. What is the only way to revive someone without using black magic?"

You can already guess what I did next. I Begrudgingly went over to him, and he filled me in.

"You need a few drops of thunderbird blood, three phoenix feathers, and a claw from a bladefang."

"You need a few drops of thunderbird blood, three phoenix feathers, and a claw from a bladefang," I said verbatim.

"You may proceed," the hog said in a joyful tone. The door opened automatically, and we ventured deeper into the underworld.