Chapter 3
The Temple
Drake leads the five schools along the beach and into the forest. The forest is dents and seems to go on and on. As they walk though the forest Mildred gets the feeling they are being watch. She looks around but see nothing but trees and plants. Mildred's feeling would tarn out to be right as they were indeed been watch. After five hours of walking they come to the other side of the forest where a long path leads up to what looks like a large temple.
Drake takes the five gropes up the path till they reach the top. A large ten-foot wall surrounds the temple with barbed wire on top. Behind the wall are fore tall towers with guards direst in black costumes standing at the top. As she looks at the temple Mildred wonders why it is so heavily guarded. The path leads up to a big archway with two large black gates in it. Drake nodes to a man standing on top of the archway and the black gates swings open. Drake walks on into a large open area with the temple in front followed by the five gropes. Ten men like the ones on the towers stand in front of the temple. A women then comes out of the temple and Drake bows his head. Mildred looks at the women as thou she seen her before but couldn't remember when are where
"The challengers mistress" says Drake
"Thank you Drake you may go" says the woman
Drake gets up tarns around and walks out of the gate and back done the path
"Good after girls welcome to my temple. The lenders of etch school would you go with the five men over there please" says the woman
Miss Cackle and the other for leaders walk over to the five men in the corner and are lead though a small black gate on the other of the clearing
"Hey where are they taking them?" says a girl from Redwitch academy
"Do not worry yourself they will be well taken care of. Now one at a time etch grope will go with three of my men and they will taken to the rooms they will be staying in. I will see you all at dinner in the grate chamber at seven" says the women
So one by one the five gropes are lead inside the temple by three men. The girls from Cackles are taken last. They are lead into the temple though and door and down a long corridor. The corridor has a red carpet on the floor and doors on ether side. At the end of the corridor the girls are split it to two gropes and given a room. Mildred, Maud Jadu, Ruby and Griselda are given one room and Ethel, Sybil, Drusilla, Enid and Fennella the other.
Mildred's grope enter their room that has five beds in it. The girls find that each of them had been assigned a bed. On each bed they find that they had been left a number of costumes, a makeup box and three pars of shoes
"Hay what's all this for" says Mildred
"To put on silly," says Jadu
"Yes and they even got my size right" says Maud looking at a nice black top on her bed
"And my favorite lip gloss" says Ruby
"Hay look there a note on the back of the door," says Griselda
Mildred who is closet to the door walks over and takes it off
"What dose it say Mildred?" says Maud
"It says,
Welcome Mildred, Maud Jadu, Ruby and Griselda as you may have seen there are some things left on you beds. These are for you to ware. Dinner will be a seven and it will be expected that you all ware something smart and plenty of makeup. Once at dinner you will be told what will happen tomorrow"
Mildred puts the letter down and sits on her bed
"What's the matter?" says Maud
"It says we have to wear makeup," says Mildred
"Why don't you like wearing makeup?" says Jadu
"Its not that I don't know how to put it on" says Mildred
"Oh don't worry Mildred I'll help you with that I'm an ace at putting makeup on" says Griselda
"We better start getting ruddy its six now," says Jadu
After getting reedy the girls leave their room
"My god don't you lot look nice" says Griselda
"Yes same to you" says Fennella
"And I hate to say this but Mildred looks nice in that dress and Makeup" says Ethel
"Thank you Ethel it's nice of you to say something nice for a change. But I do wish they hadn't give us high heel shoes," says Mildred
"Don't worry Sybil and Drusilla are having trouble walking as well," says Ethel
"Yeh your get used to them after you ware them a few times" says Enid
"Don't worry Mildred me and Maud will keep you up right" says Jadu
The girls the walk down the corridor following the directions that were up on the wall to the grate hall. The great hall is large with thirty tables in it. On each table are ten places set for dinner. The girls sit at a table with the rest of the Cackles girls. In front of them is a large chicken with potatoes and veg. The girls are glad to eat some nice food for once and tuck in like they hadn't eaten in years.
"Oh this food is grate," says Ruby
"Yes better then what we get at cackles," says Enid
"Talking of Cackles wonder what happened to Miss Cackle. We haven seen her since this morning" says Mildred
"Yes maybe we will see he later" says Drusilla
Just then two large doors open at the end of the room open and the women that had greeted them at the gate walks out
"Good evening girls my name is Katrina and I am the lord of this temple. I welcome you all and hope that you like my hospitality as for the next mouth you will be hare. Now tomorrow the tournament will begin and the journey to become champion will start. The tournament will begin with the five gropes, which you are in at this time. A chosen witch form each group will then compete in a task chosen by me"
"The winner of etch task will receive three small black caldrons the second place witch will receive two and the third place witch will receive one. If you are forth or fifth you with get nothing. These caldrons will become important later as the more you have the better chance you will have in the final week. However there will be many chances to get caldrons, as there are some tasks where you can will more the three at a time"
"Now at the end of etch day the caldrons that you have collected will be banked and are safe. However the team with the least caldrons at the end of each day will either have to forfeit all the caldrons they have won in that day or will have to pick one member of there grope to be eliminated from the tournament. At the end of the week the team with the least banked caldrons will be eliminated from the tournament. Oh and do look out for the silver and golden caldrons the silver is worth five black and the gold ten black you will find them one of the task and there is one of etch to be fond on each day"
"There will be six tasks on each day so there will plenty of chances to get lots of caldrons. Throughout the tournament you will face many different tasks. Some will be magical. Some will be physical and some will be mental. Witch etch task will be you will not know till you find out. Some of the tasks will even involve all two or three of the skills I have said. Not all the task will easy some will be hard. In fact as the tournament progress the tasks will get harder. The tasks will also carry some risks as any one of you can be eliminated from the tournament within some of the tasks, but I explain that when you get to each task. Now I hope you all sleep well tonight and I will see you in the morning at breakfast where I will tell you who will compete in the first task"
The women then tarns around and walks back though the two black doors as the doors shut behind her. The girls all sit there as they wonder what could be in store for them all.