Hundred Chambers of Deception

"Who're you? Or maybe I should ask what are you?" Visha said icily. Her voice was laced with poison and this seemed to have impressed the mysterious beauty.

"That is of no significance. What matters is that I'm stuck here just like you and I want out just like you. So maybe we could work together."

"That depends on if you'd be helpful enough."

The woman laughed at Visha again after hearing her reply. There was something about her laugh that made Visha want to give in. But she was firm on not falling for it.

"Is the fact, that two are better than one, not enough?" she asked.

"If you are stuck here too, than you are no better."

Visha's words drained the playfulness from her face. She seemed offended as she glared at Visha with great hostility.

"Then what do you want, little girl?"

"You seem to know more than me. Maybe you could share. The better I understand the situation, the more I will be of help."

The woman grit her teeth and the reluctance was clearly visible on her face. But since there was no other option, she gave up.

"It's black magic. Someone has closed this place off from the outside world entirely. And not just this place but all the forest has been divided into small traps just like this one. That means no one is going anywhere!"

***

Danish and Laksh had been walking for three days, while eating whatever they could find and somehow surviving. In the forest, all the trees looked the same, all the sceneries looked the same. If it wasn't for the frozen Spirit Gajakesari that they somehow reached over and over again, they wouldn't have noticed that they were trapped. Ever since they slept the night they saw the Takshak Nag, the next morning they ended up in front of the frozen beast. No matter which way they went they'd somehow end up at the same place again and again. Laksh didn't want to give up and continued to head out again but Danish stopped him. It was a futile effort to just keep walking.

"There's no point in walking when we end up nowhere. We've tried all different directions." Danish said.

"But we can't just sit and do nothing. It was you guys who told us that the First Priests and High Priest plan to give up their lives. You know what'll happen if we don't make it in time." the thought of loosing the elder priests had rattled Laksh to the core. There was no priesthood without them and that meant everyone will have to go their own way. All the children were extremely close to their masters, and grandmasters. For outsiders they were just priests, but to them they were more of a family than their own blood relatives. And many among them were orphans too who had nowhere to go, like the little Dhruv. He was found by their master when he was just two years old. Ever since then, they have watched the little one grow and the thought of parting made Laksh's heart bleed. The little guy was too naive to even know the meaning of the word orphan, to him his elder brothers and his Master were the family he had always known. He couldn't bear to imagine Dhruv's face when he is seperated from them. He wouldn't be able to take it and ball his eyes out crying. Everyone in their group had treated him like a little brother and took care of him, gave into his every whim just to see the cheeky smile on his adorable little face. They won't be able to watch his face covered in snot and tears as he wailed. Laksh held his chest to simmer down the immense pain the thought had brought.

"We must find a way. You're a witch, you must know something." he pleaded. Danish was very well aware of the urgency of the situation they were in. He pondered for a while before speaking.

"I think it's the Hundred Chambers of Deception!"

"The what?"

"It's a trapping magic. It divides an area into small sections and turns them into dimensions. We are not in the Spirit Forest anymore, this little section of it is an entirely different dimension of its own."

"Why would someone do that?"

"It's a trap people lay in self defense. Something to trap their enemies and themselves away from the real world. This way no one can go anywhere, not even the conjurer himself. I don't understand the why, in fact I don't even understand the how? It requires great power to conjure this spell in a small area, and this one probably covers the whole forest. Since he doesn't know our exact locations, he has to enclose the entire forest. Just how does someone pull off something of this magnitude?" he started wondering. Afterall, the power needed to lay this trap was no small amount. Even if the elders of the entire coven came together they'd have a difficult time making it happen. How can one black magic practitioner pull something like this off? Did he somehow figure out a way to harness the power of the stone?