Chapter 24 : Witch Cavern

A stone signboard with a well carved image of a generic witch on a flying broom was placed at the centre of the top of the entrance to the cave.

They walked into the mouth of the cave in hopes to find shelter for the rest of the evening and the night. The cave had two openings, one where they entered and the other on the opposite side of the cave. The two openings were 70 kilometres apart. The cavern was illuminated by lanterns which held flames of all colours, making it easy but disorienting to walk through. After about a 5 minutes walk, they could see a community. Wooden and stone buildings were built into the walls of the caves, making it seemed as if the manmade structures and the natural cave walls were one.

All three adventurers had different emotions and showed distinct differences in their expressions towards the sight. Lyte was amazed at the sight. Since he was a young little boy, he had always wandered about how the Witch Cavern looks after knowing the existence of such a place. But he never dared to step into one without a companion. He had tried asking his friends to accompany him but they were more scared than him of the mysterious place foreign to mortals.

Lisa's face was one of excitement. Her elder sister, Laura, had always told her about the wonders of such a place. Every witches treat each other like brothers and sisters. No discriminations, no prohibitions to magic usage. It is a witch paradise as she was told and now she could see for herself whether the stories were true or false. Her excitement was more obvious with the stars glimmering in her dark irises.

Snow's expression was as always, a poker face. She showed no interest towards the place as she had visited there on multiple occasions. However she had always wondered why there was a cave in low grounds near a village, but she decided to not question that. To each their own as she loved to tell herself. She did not care about it as it would not affect her in any way.

Lisa who obviously knew the language of the witches better than the other two - or so she thought - became the leader of the group and brought them to a hotel. She booked a room for her and Lyte only on purpose.

"Come on, Lyte. Let's go to our room and rest. After that, we can go to a nearby restaurant to grab something to eat. I already asked the owner and he told me a great place we can have our dinner,"

"W-what about Snow? She is staying in the same room with us, right?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Lyte. I got a double person room, not triple,"

"Maybe you two can sleep on the bed and I'll sleep on the couch?"

"But Lyte..."

They kept bickering about the whole where would Snow sleep thing until suddenly, Lyte felt someone tapped his shoulder. He spun around to see Snow looking bored out of her mind. In her right hand she held up a key similar to the one to their room.

"It is alright, Lyte. I got a single room across from yours just in case. If anything happens, you can come knock on my door," Snow said while twirling the key on her hand.

"H-how?" both Lyte and Lisa piped up in surprise.

Lisa was pissed and speechless. She was so sure that Snow would be helpless and would crawl to her for help and apologies to her and beg for mercy and kindness while she would deny her any form of aid and laugh at her misery. She had the whole scenario plotted out in her mind but it was all shattered in the matter of seconds by the fact that Snow somehow managed to handle herself just fine. Lyte the other hand was beyond amazed that Snow was able to get a room all by herself.

"Languages can be learnt, guys. My mother tongue is Mandarin but here I am speaking fluent English. I was bored so I decided to pick up a few new languages, witch language being one of them,"

"B-but, the language of the witches are one of the hardest ones to master. Only those with witch's blood have the slightest chance of understanding it,"

"Like I said, languages can be learnt. And I learnt the language of the witches. Now if you will excuse me, I will be heading to my room now. I will see you at dinner,"

With that, Snow walked past them towards the long hallway in search of her room. She found hers and walked into the room and locked it behind her. Lyte and an even more frustrated Lisa followed the same path Snow took and entered their own room across from hers.

Lyte was quite surprised when he entered the room. Half of the room looked like it belonged to a witch. There was a velvet single bed with tons of pillows on it and a fluffy blanket that looked like it was made out of pure clouds. A dark brown wooden cabinet was next to the bed. Shelves of potions and spell books occupied the walls of that half of the room. In front of the bed was a small black carpet with a small white pentagram on it, big enough to fit an adult sitting with their legs crossed on it. There was even a wooden chest half opened at the corner of the room and a small cauldron above it. Lisa placed her stuff down on the bed and opened the chest excitedly to find it filled with ingredients for brewing a potion or for ritual purposes. The walls and the ceiling of that half of the room ware painted in different hues of red and purple. The floor was covered with red fluffy rugs.

The other half of the room however looked like a plain human room. A navy blue single bed with a pillow and a blanket on it. One table and one chair was placed on the right side of the bed. On the right wall was an average sized cabinet with a bathrobe, some towels and a pair of slippers in it. The left side of the bed had a nightstand on it with some books in the drawers. The was a modern looking table lamp placed on it. That was all. Quite plain but it suited Lyte's taste. The walls were painted a dark green while the ceiling was white. The ground was panelled to look like the floor of a cabin, all wooden and waxed.

"Amazing! I didn't know they customized the room for different guests," Lyte said as he claimed the more human part of the room.

"No they don't silly. All the rooms here have a shape shifting spell on them. It will morph into the ideal room for the guests whether it'd be the colour scheme or the items around. That's why my side of the room is witch themed and your side is human boy themed,"

"Oh! That's a very cool idea. I wonder what Snow's room looks like,"

"Uh huh. Me too, I guess," Lisa was displeased that Lyte thought about the reapress at a moment like that. Even when she was out of sight she was not out of his mind.

"Well, let's set our stuff and take a bath. Then we can get dinner at about 7 o'clock," Lyte said as he looked at his watch. It said that it was only 4 o'clock in the afternoon so they had all the time in the world to prepare. If they want to, they can even catch a short nap before heading out for dinner.

Lyte took a bath first in the connected bathroom while Lisa unpacked the little things she brought along. Lyte was surprised that the bathroom looked very similar to the one he used at Snow's mansion. Guess I liked that bathroom the best. Lyte thought as he took a long cold shower.

In the hotel room, Lisa finished unpacking her things and took out the stuff she would need for the bath. Her favourite shampoo, a towel provided in the room and her outfit for dinner. As she waited, she decided to pick up one of the books on the shelves and read through it.

After 10 minutes, Lisa heard a click and the sound of the bathroom door opening. She turned her head and...