The Treasure Hunter and The Mirror
Chapter 7

The white flash had hit like a ton of bricks. Just like the last time. Also, just like the last time, there was darkness, and this darkness was all around. Thoughts again began to circle around.

“Ouch that was harder than I remembered it being,” they said.

“At least the snake-man would have been sent flying too,” others said.

“Did I make it back?” yet others said.

Walter stirred and just like before he began coughing out sand. He coughed it out of his lungs violently. It took Walter a while to realize….

“I’m back!” Walter said he said out loud and coughed violently.

Once he had caught his breath he started looking around. Where was the snake-man? Walter looked high and low and he did not see him. It also didn’t look like he had been sent flying out of the temple like he had before. He seemed like he had been thrown down the flight of stairs that lead up to the mirror and then down the catacombs somewhere.

Walter looked around, he didn’t see any one else there.

“Where’s Tonya?” Walter said as he got back up to his feet.

Walter was on edge, he had to make sure that he not only found Tonya but that the snake-man had not followed him. It could be that the mirror could only transfer the person who touched it. That only meant that the snake-man could have been right behind him. However, as Walter looked up at the Mirror from the stairs, he didn’t see anyone come out, or shoot out of it.

“Tonya!” Walter said.

He gingerly walked around. Unlike when he woke up as Willow, he felt extremely beat up. It must have been because that last time he had been thrown out of the temple and he landed on sand the sand must have absorbed the impact and prevented Willow from getting injured. Walter looked back up at the mirror, he wondered if the snake-man had not followed him if Willow would be alright.

He was beginning to think that the mirror might have switched him and Willow who was like him in that dimension. This meant that Willow must have been in the temple too also looking for the mirror. This meant that Willow existed in that dimension, otherwise it could not have switched him and Willow, or so Walter thought.

Walter suddenly realized something. What he was wearing….it was different! It had taken Walter this long to realize he was wearing something different. Walter had been using his standard issue space suit, here he was wearing black armor. He wasn’t back in his original dimension yet. As such he turned around from the catacombs he was in and wanted to start heading back up the stairs.

“COME ON!” Walter said as he felt too bruised and battered to run suddenly something grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up. Walter was terrified he felt himself get pulled up by this mass of a man!

“You think you were so smart, didn’t you?” the man said.

Walter was terrified, he was convinced it was the Snake-man, but here the snake-man was not a snake-man. He was this mass of a man easily at least 8 feet or maybe even 9 feet tall. He had dark red hair, and even redder eyes. He was wearing a breath mask that was making his voice echo. The mass of the man reminded Walter of the old legends of Ogres.

The breathe-mask was breathing deeply in and out, it was solid black with red flames drawn on it. The man wore what looked like militia armor. Thick body armor covering his top torso, it also had flames drawn all over it. He wore black combat pants also with flames and he had these huge combat boots.

“Quite futile to hide in such a place Walter.” The man said.

Wait it called me Walter? Walter thought as he struggled to get out of the death grip of this man. Walter bashed at the hands of the man. The man’s hands were as big as Walter’s head. If this man wanted to, it could simply crush his head in with such ease.

“I see you were trying to escape, weren’t you?” the man said. “You wanted out of this dimension? Well…there’s no escaping me Walter. I would have pursued you.”

“Just like everything else Walter I would have destroyed you in the palm in my hands.” The man said. Somehow Walter pulled out a knife out of his boots (that apparently this Walter also kept in his boot) and stabbed the man’s hand. The creature let go of Walter.

Walter didn’t even have time to breath. He needed to jump into the mirror. Walter started running as much as he could muster. His body still battered and bruised from the fall down the stairs, and now he had to worry about this…. this Red Ogre.

“You cannot escape me that easily Walter!” the creature called out.

Walter hobbled down through the catacombs he had to get to the mirror. He had to get to it before this creature caught him. But Walter was worried about not doing it properly and maybe that was what caused him to not go back to his dimension. That was certainly within the realm of possibilities.

“Get back here!” the creature suddenly came crashing through a wall next to Walter. Walter had somehow managed to dive forward narrowly missing getting smashed to bits by this mass of a man. Walter didn’t even know what the hell kind of man this thing was supposed to be. The best thing that he could compare it to be an Ogre. But this man was not big and green, he looked like a quite normal being, well as normal as a man can be for a brute that was easily 9 feet tall.

Walter made it to the bottom of the stairs and he looked around. Did anything change? Walter looked and looked and looked. The man he remembered seeing the drawing of earlier was back, however Walter remembered in his universe that the man’s skin was a sort of greyish-blue here it was a shade of what seemed like bronze.

So, he had appeared in a different universe. But how could he go back? Walter looked around trying to replace the monkey-man he was the key to this somehow. Walter found the mural this time off to the side of the Mirror as Walter reached the mirror he looked over at the monkey-man.

“It is no use Walter you cannot escape from me,” the man yelled out somewhere in the distance. Walter looked over trying to see if it had made it through the catacombs leading into these stairs yet, he had not.

Walter looked back at the mural of the monkey man. There was something about this monkey-man. It had not changed here either. Walter was sure of it. It still had the same fur, it still wore the same great golden cape, it still had the great golden mace with the jewels all around it. It still had the same sash with the same strange swirl on it.

Was there anything else he was overlooking? Were there more jewels in the mace? Walter couldn’t remember that, he didn’t even remember seeing jewels before, wait was that the difference? Walter shook his head vigorously, he knew that the key was this mural. Somehow this mural that never changed was key to getting back to his original body.

Walter looked back at the entrance the man still was not through them. This relieved Walter. Walter studied the mural carefully. Were the eyes different? No, Walter was sure it always had those light blue eyes. Was the way that the cape flowed behind him different? No, Walter was positive that the cape always flowed to the left. There had to be some sort of clue.

Then Walter noticed something. There was a number drawn on the mace. Walter looked at it curiously, he wasn’t paying this much attention to the mural when that snake-man was right next to him, and now with that Red Ogre after him, he had to act quickly. Walter was not sure what the number meant.

It had the number 1874 on it. Walter had no clue what that meant. Was that a clue of some sort? If it was a clue, then Walter was not sure what that could be. Walter started to use his deductive reasoning. What could that have meant? Could it mean the amount of times one needed to go into the mirror in order to go back to the original world?

That was plausible however unlikely, and Walter had to pay attention to this number the next time he jumps through if it decreases by one then that meant that this was indeed what this number signified. Walter started to think of other possible things. Maybe the first mural, the eighth mural, the seventh mural and the fourth mural gave him clues?

Walter quickly looked around. He made a natural assumption that the first mural was the mural of the man as he headed out of the mirror. Walter looked up at the mural and tried to see if there were any clues on it. He didn’t see any, besides the man being green in this mural and grey-blue in the original man he had seen, there was no real differences. There wasn’t anything that the man had that showed any more numbers or indicating anything substantial.

Walter looked over at the eighth mural, the seventh one and the fourth one in that order. Again, there was nothing. Walter then headed back to the mural of the monkey-man. What the hell did that 1874 mean? Was its code for something? What happened if he replaced that with letters AHGD? It didn’t make sense no matter how he tried re-arranging the letters.

Unless that was some code for something else? Maybe clues in the mural? Walter was sure he was up to something. A could be armor, was anything in his armor that he was wearing? Walter looked carefully at the armor the monkey-man was wearing he saw that there was more of those swirls all over it like his sash.

H could be head, anything on his head? He just had that weird hat with the little frill thing on the side…which also had swirls on it. G could have been Gada that was another word for Mace in some races, Walter looked at the mace and saw more swirls. D could have been maybe down? Walter looked at below where the mural of the monkey-man was hanging he saw a giant swirl drawn on the wall.

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Walter said looking at the swirl.

Walter jumped in place when he heard something come crashing into the room. Walter turned his attention away from the swirl and saw that the creature had bashed into the room. Walter had little time to figure this puzzle, he looked at the swirl, what was it? What could be the thing about this swirl?

Walter panicked he heard the man coming up the stairs. Not enough time to figure it out. He needed to go so Walter did.