The Treasure Hunter and The Mirror
Chapter 4

To say that Walter was not ready for what was inside of the temple would be an understatement. Walter had transported himself and Tonya to the entrance of the temple under the sand. The entrance itself was massive. It was at least three or maybe four stories tall. At the base of the entrance was these massive murals of what looked like ships transporting a design of a mirror.

Walter looked at the mural and he dusted some of the sand off and looked at it closer. The whole thing looked highly intricate. It depicted another planet that Walter figured must be Gaia, there was a depiction showing that planet being destroyed. Then it showed a bunch of ships transporting a bunch of different things across different planets or areas.

Walter looked at the other things that were transported. One looked like a massive moon it was transported to the constellation of the snake manipulator. That was quite a way a way. He saw that there was another ship that was stationed just outside of a star the star looked like it was also in the constellation of the hunter. Walter thought maybe he should go look at that ship afterwards, he thought there would probably be a pretty price for replaceing that ship. On the rest of the mirror he saw other things being transported but none really stood out. Though there was that massive tree that was transported to this place called “Markab” wherever the hell that was.

“What do you make of all this?” Tonya asked.

“Well someone obviously went into a lot of trouble of documenting where all this stuff went.” Walter said as he looked at the murals. He followed the murals up the wall and up above the entrance was a great mural of a man with platinum eyes and a great platinum beard. He was a curious sight seeing since he had this greyish-blue skin.

After looking over at the murals some more Walter decided to enter the temple. Walter was not expecting what he was looking at inside of the temple. It was more murals. They were all over the place. On the walls, on the pillars holding up the ceiling, there was some on the ceiling and hell there were some on the floor also.

The ones on the walls were the ones that Walter paid attention to because they all had this great mirror-looking thing at the center of a massive shrine. Walter looked at those ever so carefully. They had the mirror on top of what looked like a shrine that had a great set of stairs leading up to it. This was clearly showed where the mirror was.

Walter looked around to see if he could figure out if there was some way to figure out where this shrine was. Maybe one of the murals had the answer. He was not sure at first. But then as he continued, he saw a drawing of the same man off in the distance. Even though Walter only saw the back of the man’s head and torso, he was sure it was the man. And the man seemed to be drawn above an opening off in the distance.

Walter wondered if this was an indicator of where to go. He decided to chance that and fallowed that indicator. Once beyond the indicator they were inside a very long tunnel.

Within the tunnel were more of these strange murals. These were different they looked more like artistic things. It was murals of different animals, different environments, and drawings of different settings. Up ahead of him he saw the drawing of the man with the platinum beard continuing his journey. It looked like these mirrors showed what the man had to travel through in order to get to the mirror.

Walter continued following the tunnel as the drawing of the man indicated that he should. After following the tunnels, it led to what seemed like some underground catacombs. Just like the tunnels he had been, there were more murals unlike the last ones these seemed darker. The creatures did not look as peaceful the environment in these murals looked volatile at best.

Walter felt like he had been following the catacombs for hours before he saw a mural up ahead that showed the same man ascending a great set of stairs. Walter hurried down to where this mural was, and he entered the next section.

Walter couldn’t believe the size of this shrine. It was massive. It was beyond words. All around Walter were these murals of this man as he was exiting the mirror and walking back down the stairs. This included one that was right behind Walter. All these murals seemed to depict that the man had made it through the mirror. Walter did not understand that, but he did not have time to understand that.

Walter was taking it all in. This massive shrine must have taken a long time to build. The murals all around him alone had to have taken hundreds of years to paint, no that wasn’t paint. Walter realized that the murals weren’t painted they were made of hundreds of thousands of different color stones. The thought that someone took the time to form these murals with the stones left Walter in awe.

“This is some shrine!” Tonya said.

“That’s putting it lightly,” Walter said.

Walter looked up and saw the same massive set of stairs leading up to something off in the distance. It was glint in the background, but Walter knew it was the mirror he was looking for.

Excited Walter started heading towards the mirror. Walter never felt so excited. This mirror was evidence that the Gayans existed, it was evidence that the legends and accounts of this mirror were in fact true. The fact that no one even knew that this mirror existed let a lone the planet meant that someone went into extreme measures to prevent people from replaceing it. Walter wondered why anyone would want to hide this mirror.

Walter headed up the stairs and soon he was at the top. He was staring at something he had difficulty understanding. The mirror…it wasn’t solid. Or at least it didn’t look solid. It looked like it was vibrating softly, and this vibration was making the glass of the mirror ripple and look like it was made of water.

Walter slowly walked towards the mirror looking at it confused.

“This is no ordinary mirror,” Walter said looking at the mirror

It was being suspended, but by what? Walter had no clue, he didn’t see anything holding it up, and yet there it was it was suspended at least 5 or 6 inches above the ground beneath it. The mirror also looked like it rippled more as he headed closer. Walter remembered the account of the mirror did speak that this mirror was a portal of sort he thought it was a metaphor for something else.

Walter watched the rippling in the mirror continue as he drew closer. Curious to see if the mirror was solid under the ripples he reached out and touched the mirror. The second that he touched it there was a sudden WHITE FLASH!