The Treasure Hunter and The Mirror
Chapter 6

The snake-man had hit Willow with the blunt end of the weapon he had. It seemed that he must have realized she was better off alive to him. Willow felt her head throb from where the creature had hit her on the head. Willow felt herself get grabbed by the creature. Its massive mitts that it had over were her body and they felt cold as it grabbed her by the wrist and started dragging her.

Where was this creature taking her? Willow had no idea. But the creature was dragging her with such ease she felt only one of its fingers clamped on to her wrist, it felt cold. This was quite something because the desert around her felt warm as if it had not cooled down yet from the hot day. Yet this thing felt cold. Maybe there was something in his suit making it cold. That was certainly a possibility.

The creature dragged her down the dunes and off in some direction. Willow was drifting between unconsciousness and could not figure out where it was leading her. Willow was certain that that force that the creature had hit her with had given her a concussion, she felt extremely dizzy and everything around her seemed to be moving. Her noise also had blood streaming down it. She tasted the blood in her mouth as she swallowed hard.

The creature continued to drag her. How far was it dragging her? Willow had no way of telling. However, soon Willow saw a wall full of murals enclose around her. It was dragging her back to the temple. This could work for her favor if she could get loose from the creature then she could probably transport herself back to her original dimension.

The idea seemed plausible in her mind as she thought about it, but she hardly was able to think about since her head was pounding. She was wondering if the thing had fractured her skull. The idea scared Willow she did not want to end up dying as Willow before she got a chance to transport herself back to her original dimension.

Willow felt herself get dragged through the tunnels and the catacombs and at the base of the great stair well that lead to the mirror the creature stopped dragging her. The creature put down the weapon it had and turned back to Willow.

“My purpose is to cleanse this universe,” the creature said. It seemed like the translator finally was able to fully understand the language and able to translate it.

Willow however did not like the sounds of ‘cleansing the universe.’

“The legends of my people spoke of this mirror,” the creature said as it pointed at it off in the distance high above on the plateau beyond the stairs. “For countless eons my race believed it was nothing but myths even though evidence showed that the great race the Trimurti searched high and low to expand their master’s will to other dimensions.”

The Trimurti? Willow vaguely remembered mention about this race. They were these radical cultists they were followers of a Deva named Lord Shiva who was an apparent god of destruction. Willow remembered that the Trimurti were responsible for a lot of catastrophes across the cosmos over the past billions of years, but no one had seen them in a while.

If this snake-man knew about the Trimurti, then he must have known as much as Willow did. That made this man extremely dangerous, he could simply just touch the mirror and he would transport himself to another dimension, perhaps Willow’s original dimension and wreak havoc upon the unsuspecting cosmos.

There was one thing that was not sitting well with Willow right now. The way that this man was speaking he sounded like a radical Trimurti. The Trimurti were thought to be a long dead cult, they were stopped from wreaking havoc across the cosmos quite a long time ago. The last known member of the Trimurti was the man known only in legends. This man had gone through the cosmos destroying stars, planets and entire solar systems under the guise of being someone else.

“For years I searched for this mirror, it took me a while to get to this place from where I am from. I found it and took me nearly 30 years,” Willow felt a chill go up her spine when this man said this. “When I get here, you come shooting of it like a bat out of hell. So, tell me female how were you able to activate the mirror.”

Willow didn’t know what to say. If she knew that then she probably would not have done what she did in order to activate it. Even if she did know there was no way she was going to tell this creature. Willow suddenly remembered that the mirror was hidden because of fear that it may be used for evil means. This creature clearly did not have the best intentions with the mirror. Especially if he somehow was connected to the Trimurti, he obviously knew about them.

Willow remembered that there was some mention in old Biogluff logs she saw stating that they thought they saw a symbol on some debris discovered after the destruction of the mollusk-like race called the Inklors. The debris seemed to have been the remnants of a ship that was not created by the Inklors, the metals found in the debris were not natively found in any known territory of the Inklors. The symbol found upon investigation was tied to the Trimurti. This was the only mention of it since they were going off memory and did not actually take the debris with them to investigate it further.

This idea made Willow look at the suit of the Snake-man. She had seen the sketch of the symbol that they had thought they saw. To the Biogluff it was such an obvious symbol of the Trimurti that they documented it heavily. When Willow saw a small banner on the upper right arm of the creature’s suit she froze. There was no doubt about it this was exactly what she remembered seeing. This creature, it was somehow tied to the Trimurti.

Then it suddenly dawned on Willow. She was not in her dimension. Just because the Trimurti were long thought to have been disassembled and no longer a threat that did not mean that this was the same in other dimensions. It could be that in this dimension the Trimurti are still alive and well and still causing chaos to this universe. Worse yet, Willow realized that the Trimurti must have caused so much destruction in this universe that they now decided to go to another one and ruin that. Willow couldn’t have that.

“I’ll need to get closer to it,” Willow said after the long pause.

Willow decided that she needed to trick the creature in order to allow her to get closer to the mirror. She had to get out of this dimension, the problem was if the way she was transferred to this dimension was due to touching it then there was nothing to stop the creature from fallowing her once she touched it.

Willow, however, was counting on something. If she touched it, and everything happens exactly as how it happened before then that meant that white flash would happen again, and not only that, but she will be thrown some distance when she gets back to her original body. Then that meant that the creature would also be thrown some distance. That would at least give her some time to reorient herself back as Walter and figure out what to do.

“I need to get closer to it,” Willow said.

“Do not take me for a fool,” the creature said. “You are planning something female, I can sense it.”

“Look, it’s not like I was trying to jump dimensions. There was something I touched on the mirror I can’t remember exactly what, but if I am back up there, I can look at the mirror and will be able to properly tell you.” Willow said.

“Very well have your way female, however if you try something, I will not hesitate to destroy you.” The creature said.

“Noted,” Willow said.

Willow nervously started heading up the stairs. She was not sure what was going to happen if she touched the mirror and it didn’t just teleport her back. She was not sure if this was going to even work out, if she got there and nothing happened then she was probably dead for sure. This snake-man was being very lenient probably because he had been trying to replace this mirror for quite a while.

Willow was starting to second guess herself as she drew closer. She didn’t even remember if she had just simply touched the mirror of, she touched one of the things on the frame of the mirror first and then go into the mirror. She just remembered the shrine where it was and the fact that the mirror was floating.

The creature lead Willow up the stairs and once on top Willow looked around just to make sure if anything changed, she would at least be able to tell. Willow looked at the murals and noticed that they were different. Where in her dimension a man with platinum eyes and a platinum beard was drawn entering and exiting the mirror, here it was a woman.

She was quite the beautiful woman. She had olive skin, very curly black hair. She was wearing this elegant red dress with a red tiara. Willow did not remember seeing this woman before. She began to think if there was a woman in her dimension. No there wasn’t, she would have remembered a woman drawn as beautifully as the one in the mural.

“Hurry up female!” the creature ordered.

“Hold on, I’m just looking around to see if anything makes me remember what it was that I touched.” Willow said. The creature gave an impatient snort and nothing more. It seemed like it was at the end of humoring Willow and probably would kill her any moment.

Willow suddenly noticed something that hadn’t changed. There was a mural of a monkey-man. He was drawn off in the distance behind the mirror. Willow remembered seeing this monkey-man when she was in the temple back home. It was the same monkey-man.

There was a swirl on his sash, the very same swirl that was shown in the mirror. She remembered seeing this swirl before and was in fact what had caused her to use it. Willow looked at the snake-man and reached out and touched the mirror.