8 - Entering the Temple

We stared up at the collosal structure, with stone swords carved out of the otherwise smooth walls. For some reason, it reminded me of a Greek pantheon. A single entrance lay in the center of the front, two open doors wide and eight feet tall. The passage following stretched into darkness.

"The singing stopped," Katie whispered.

"The muttering too." Thomas agreed.

"Enter." the voice I had been hearing called.

"It seems this is the place. My invitation of 'come' has changed to become 'enter'."

I looked at the entrance with trepidation. Memories of a corrupted temple in another world sprung to mind.

Someone took my hand. I glanced over to find Katie giving me a worried look.

"I..."

She waited for me to finish my statement, but I couldn't. Too many things to say, no way to formulate any of them. Something hard clenched in my chest. Fear?

"It will be okay," she said, "we've already gotten this far."

"Enter." the voice called again.

I swallowed dryly and nodded. "Are we ready to go, then?"

The others were, so I guess I was too.

Silence led the way into the dark entrance. Our footsteps echoed down the smooth stone cooridor. Torches flared up overhead, dimly illuminating about ten feet ahead, and fading out ten feet behind Thomas, who had taken up the rear.

Katie had yet to let go of my hand, which I didn't mind. She was clenching only a little bit harder than I was. Juliana was between us and Silence.

After a moderately long walk through the straight hall, Silence stopped. We stopped with her, and analyzed our options. A staircase led up to our right, another down to our left. The third path bent around a corner.

"We have a choice to make," I noted. Remembering the size of the building, it probably wouldn't be the last.

"We could split up." Juliana suggested.

"No!" I said, a little louder and with a bit more force than I intended. The others turned to me. I gave the first explanation that came to mind, "The first rule of adventuring is to never split the party."

"If you say so," Thomas said, "Which way, then?"

They seemed to expect an answer from me. "I don't know. I... I just need a moment."

I pulled away from them all, taking my hand back from Katie going a part of the way back out of the building. I sat with my back to a wall.

They started conversing, but I didn't bother to make out the words.

Images of zombies, skeletons, and other undead flooded my mind.

"This isn't the same," I whispered, trying to convince myself. I had nearly died in the corrupted temple. Was this PTSD? I didn't know.

Eventually, footsteps on stone caught my attention. I looked up to see Katie approaching. I stood up.

"You make decision?"

"No. We're having Silence scout out each of the tunnels."

"That works. We should know more about our options before we make a huge decision."

She scanned my face in the dim light. Shadows danced across hers from the torch light. "What?" I asked.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." I replied reflexively.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"It's a long story. And knowing Silence, she'll be back before I get to the part that explains it."

"Then I just want to know this for now," Katie said, "what are you so afraid of, and should we know about it?"

I hesitated. Started to speak, but stopped. Finally, one word managed to free itself.

"Undead."

She frowned. "What's so scary about a few walking bones or stumbling zombies?"

I shuddered. "Pray that you never have to see one in real life. They may be creepy on TV, but in real life, if you don't run while you can, you're crazy."

"Okay." she said, "Then... are you ready to rejoin the others? I mean, you were the one who said we shouldn't split up."

My face warmed in shame at my contradiction, but I nodded. We rejoined Thomas and Juliana. They handed us some food - lunch.

"You okay?" Thomas asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. I just had to sort through some bad adventuring experiences."

"You went adventurin' before?"

"Yeah. In one of the worlds I visited, I joined a scouting party to earn enough to pay someone back and buy the sword we've relied on to this point. One of the missions was to look into a corrupted temple. It was horrible, and this place was dredging up memories of that trip."

Thomas nodded. It seemed he understood.

Silence returned from around the corner. Juliana stopped her from going up the stairs with food. Silence nodded, and took it as a to-go snack as she continued scouting.

Ten minutes later, Silence came back. She pointed to the downstairs path.

"Was there anything that you had to fight, or that we might have to fight?" I asked her.

She shook her head. I breathed out an audible sigh of relief.

"Then lead the way."

At my invitation, Silence led us down the stairs. We arrived at another crossroads after the path wove back up a floor, and repeated the process, going level this time. After the second decision, the walls held murals.

A boy and a girl - seemingly related - hugging each other, standing over a sword. Runic script formed a circle around them.

A bit further, a man with arrows sticking out of his back, kneeling over a comrade. He also knelt over a sword, though rough and worn.

The top half of each circular mural was a person or persons in various stages of grief or power - if there was a difference - and the bottom half was a unique sword. The Runic text encircled, making rings around each image, and forming a background to each drawing.

After passing so many murals we would never remember them all, the walkway finally opened up to a square room. It was comfortable, at about 30 to 40 feet in width and length. Three wooden doors sat on the other side of the room.

The leftmost door had a red fist symbol over the doorframe. The center had a blue spiral above it. And the right door had a green arrow that zigzagged like a lightning bolt.

"Guys," I said, "I think we have a trial to pass."