Chapter 2.10: The Enochian Tower

“It isn’t justice if you kill us because I don’t want to do your dirty work. It isn’t righteous if to murder someone without truly knowing if he is guilty. Someone is innocent until proven otherwise. I will not stand for this. You ask me to be just, to be vigorous and honorable, but the task you give me is all but right. If you wish to punish me for being the man you ask me to be, the man I want to be, so be it. I will face your punishment with sword and dagger and I will prove that your ways are selfish.”
His words alert the others. They have their weapons ready and walk to the orating fighter.
“So give it your best shot. I will have no innocent blood on my hands today and you will not change this.”
The room goes pitch black.
“You are indeed worthy”, the voice says. The sound of the small boy has returned, no longer filled with rage. “I would be happy to hand myself over to you, knowing I can trust your judgement and morals. You can pick me up now.”
The half-elf lifts his hand off the gem and he stares down at it. “So, this was all a test? You put lives on the line to see if I am good enough for you?”
They all wait in silence. “No lives were to be taken, I wouldn’t have let you. It was a test, yes, but without any lethal consequences. Just bring me back to the mirror, please, to my crystalline brothers and sisters. The separation hurts.”
“I don’t like this game you play”, the half-elf whispers sharply. Without continuing this discussion Oslando takes the gemstone, light as a feather, and puts it in his bag. “Let’s go back. There is nothing for us here anymore.”
“Three more to go”, Bruq says, staring at the texts written near the copper coloured hangers. “Which one do we take?” He eats another berry as he waits for a response. He doesn’t have to wait very long, not even a second.
“Treasure! Treasure! Treasure!” And before they know it, Lyssa pulls her accordion out of her bag and starts singing with an up tempo beat.

“Ooooooo, I live for me treasure, I live for me gold,
I live for me silver and the diamonds to hold.
The things I could buy and the things I could do.
Yes, all of my very wildest of dreams would come true.
Fuck the prettiest of people and swim in the reddest of wine!
All those things I would do, if all that gold would be mine.
O, how I live for me treasure and gold!”

They all stand there, flabbergasted by the fact she just randomly starting singing about something that popped up in her mind, and can’t help themselves but feel a little inspired by her enthusiasm.
“You made your point clear.” Oslando laughs and he makes a gesture to the hook with “Way of Treasure” written above it.
“We have to do them all”, Bruq adds, “so, I see no point in saving this one for last. Maybe a little treasure would lift up our spirits, because all these strange tests aren’t doing it for me. Maybe we find something useful for when we are attacked again. You know, just a little bonus for the efforts we are going through for Hadriel.”
The name visibly distastes the dark scaled cleric as a red light flashes fast through his sceptre’s sapphire.
“Thanks, guys”, she says loudly with a wide smile, reaching from one ear to the other. “Can anyone assist me? I want to look for…”
“Yes, for treasure, we got that part”. Bruq winks at her.

They hang the mirror on the next hook. The sound of scratching metal initiates the glass to lose its solid state. A gate appears once again and it leads to a hall, stretching out before them. It would go on endlessly if the infinite floor of cobblestone wasn’t cut off by a great wooden door.
“I’ll bet you the treasure is behind that door! Let’s go, let’s go!” She starts walking ahead of them.
“It’s about the gem, not the treasure”, Oslando reminds her as he picks up the pace as well.
With a few big steps Dargothoth catches up with her. “Greed is a sin”, he smiles, speaking with the voice of his alter ego, Alexander, “but it’s one of the nicer sins. I’ll be happy to join you in your treasure hunt. Everything we see is ours for the taking. I think the humans have a saying for this: better to ask for forgiveness later than for permission.”
The siren looks at him, seeing a sparkle of pleasure in his eyes, blue as a frozen corpse mid-winter. “Neither you nor I are human, so what does that mean?”
His smile widens further, making his snake-like tongue visible behind the rows of sharp, white teeth. “Well, in that case, we need neither permission or forgiveness!”

They all stop at the door, made of sturdy and brown mahogany, and read a sentence scraped into the surface. 

“Take heed, followers of greed. Take all and it will be your downfall. Take one and I shall take none.” Mero reads the text aloud, putting emphasis on the poetic placement of words.
Lyssa looks displeased. “Is this door telling me that I can’t take any treasure from a portal that is called the Way of Treasure? Well, over my cold, dead, sexy body.” 

A cheeky smile adorns her face as she kicks open the door.