Treasure Room

The team came out of the House of Priests and saw the lush green grass surrounding it. They gazed at the mighty river in the distance that could be heard from there. And the dense forest on the other side of it which looked like an impenetrable wall. The mountains surrounding it made it seem as if this was a bowl of heaven on earth. The scenery from here was simply breathtaking.

"It's a great view." Visha said as she looked at the peaceful scenery the river and forest created. The disciple of the priesthood followed her gaze and a chill ran down his spine. Their guest was talking about that cursed place that no one dared to loiter around. A lot of people had never returned after crossing the priesthood grounds. The other side of the river was a horror for the disciples and priests. Even the First Priests were afraid of it!

"That's the Dark Forest. It's a forbidden area." he said and quietly resumed with his task as a guide. Forbidden area! The group looked at each others stunned expressions and hurried to catch up with him. Shaurya was a man of few words who just kept to his own work and nothing other than that. So he took the initiative to ask the question they all had in their minds.

"Why is it forbidden?"

The disciple hesitated a moment before replying nonchalantly, "I don't know."

Shaurya pursed his lips and decided to let it go. The boy was obviously lying but there was no need to interfere into anything until absolutely necessary. Those were the orders of their Miss and he would obey. So everyone followed him silently after suppressing their queries deep in their hearts. They went down the stairs that seemed to be never ending. Light down there was scarce and only a few torches lit the way.

"We shouldn't have agreed to bring her along. This girl is just trouble. What if that priest says something to Miss? What will we do then?" Trisha complained.

"Let's get the work done first, we can worry about that later." Shaurya sighed. After what happened in the House of Priests, he couldn't stand up for Visha anymore. She had really proven herself to be rather impulsive in front of everyone. He couldn't refute back even if he wanted to. The silent older man fell back so he could walk beside Visha.

"You did good there. You couldn't have let that priest belittle us and then take that tone with us too." he said.

Visha nodded silently as Dhira's warning played in her mind over and over again like a broken record. 'Behave'. She had said that to Visha twice before leaving. Did she really do something wrong by defending her teammate? Would Dhira be mad at her? Or worse, would she be disappointed in her? After walking for a while, they reached the Treasure Room. The disciple opened the door to a huge spacious room. It was much larger than the House of Priests itself, and full of gold items! There were gold scattered on the floor with heaps of them as high as ten feet! Everyone's eyes widened in surprise. Though they were already aware that the gold had never left the priesthood, they still couldn't help staring at it. The golden statue and chairs seemed so trivial in front of all this. Visha was the last to enter and was just as stunned as the others to see the number of shining objects in the room. Just a few torches were enough to light this room due to the reflections of the gold. They couldn't help but gulp down their urge to touch it all to confirm its existence. It felt too much like a dream! Shaurya looked back to see Trisha and Ashwin drooling behind him. Then he looked at Visha and the man walking beside her who looked to be stunned but not drooling. He heaved a sigh of relief and felt better to see there were still two people who wouldn't embarrass him. After walking for five minutes they reached the other end of the Treasure room. There was a large hole in the wall with charred ends and rubble on the inner side of it. They all walked closer and were left speechless. The wall was atleast 3 feet thick! It must have been a blast of very high magnitude to blow up that wall. Everyone went into the Inner Chamber to find some clues. But the entire chamber was empty with engraved walls. There were multiple engravings depicting the temple's deity. In the middle was a stone table that came upto their waists covered in a thick layer of dust. There was a small square gap with no dust that indicated that something must have been kept on the table. Visha was behind everyone so she was the last to enter, but she slipped at the entrance and the silent man caught her. Her scream made everyone turn back to see her being helped up.