Puss in Boots: The White Eagle

X - The Cave

The newly formed search party was still creeping through the small passage in the cave. It was all rather cold and dark inside and nothing was to be seen yet, except for the wet rocks and stones. The path was narrow and winding, often taking turns once to the left and once to the right. This was getting uneasy and maybe frightening over time, yet they still went through, not letting their fear overcome them.

Puss stepped up closer to Paweł: „If the dragon is really dead... Then what will we encounter?"

„Prepare for the worst." He answered. „I am not too sure of it myself. The scriptures and legends only told us about the labyrinth. But thankfully, there is a way of passing it through."

The journey lasted only a couple of minutes before they encountered a stone blockade wall. On it, there was a mathematical equation written in white ink:

x = 1 + 0.5x

x = ?

At first, all of the party members stared in shock at this seemingly hard mathematical question. But Paweł went to his senses the quickest and looked back to check how his companions were doing. Not to lie, they were quite a bit scared by the math they encountered.

„The numbers, Senor..." Puss said in shock. „What do they mean?"

„At first I expected it to be harder." And so Paweł took out a scalping knife and carved a „2" right next to the question mark.

Suddenly, the stone wall rumbled and opened just like an ordinary horizontal gate would. The passage thus opened and showed a large area with open sky and green grass, surrounded by rocky and very tall walls. This land filled with rich green grass was seemingly peaceful. Even the flowers were blooming and the trees were resting peacefully, their leaves free from being shuffled around by wind. On the left, there was an entrance to a cave and the opposite site had another passage. However, right in the middle of this area, between just a few trees, there was a pond.

„It's easy... Once you know how to do it. No time to waste." Paweł muttered right under his nose and moved forward.

At the same time, Puss stood still quite a bit shocked and kept staring at Paweł in disbelief. However, his gaze soon ended as Kitty playfully nudged his shoulder and explained with a smile:

„Who knows, maybe we should go and learn some maths together."

Puss frowned and moved forward. „Si, whatever."

„Uhhh..." Kitty hugged closer to Puss. „I don't like these open areas. Is this place even real?!"

„Senor Paweł." Puss spoke. „It isn't possible this place is that clear."

„I know." He responded and walked out of the stone tunnel and walked right on the grass.

Paweł kept his eye on both the cave and the pond. It was not without any reason at all. Right after that, a strange creature crawled right out of the small lake. Despite the foreign and totally supernatural, it gave an impression of being stunningly beautiful for these standards. So beautiful that Puss himself performed his best not to approach it.

After all, it was nothing other than a rusałka – a water nymph from Slavic mythology. In the watery form of a beautiful lightly-dressed women and with amazingly pretty long hair, rusałkas often preyed on unsuspecting young lads only to kill them, often by constant dancing and painful exhaustion due to that. Paweł fully knew that and that is why he turned his head back to Puss.

And, unfortunately for him, rusałka's charm was working. Puss had his eyes widened altogether and his jaw opened. But rusałka had different plans. She wrapped her liquid hand around Paweł's shoulders and began a monologue in a fascinated yet also mysterious and magical tone of her voice: