The Pearl Fox

Guardian

There were groves of blue and pink wisteria trees in clearings of the Vralli jungle forest. Here, tarsier monkeys played among the wisterias until they grew distressed by a chill in the air and a presence that moved. Several shadowy figures with glowing red eyes stared upwards at the tarsiers, and two unfortunate monkeys became stone statues, clinging still to the trees. The rest of the tarsiers shrieked in panic. The group of the red eyed shadows laughed in amusement. A white marmoset was picked up by the tail and whacked with a stag by one of the shadow people. Other monkeys flung stones at the amused shadow creatures, but this only amused them more. A shadow female swallowed a rat down her throat whole, and two small shadow youngsters frightened frogs in the undergrowth near a bubbling stream.

Two shadow girls emerged into the beams of moonlight, and they grinned with wide mouths and razor sharp teeth. They had had eyes like fire crystals, and locks of brown ringlets with streaks of green. Both shadow girls wore black shimmering clothes. Here they turned a snake into stone, and then tried beating a fruit bat with sticks until it flew away. A red chimpanzee was dragged by one of them and it shrieked as the shadow girls bit into it. The trees erupted in a wild noise of frightened animals and birds. The forest had never made such sounds of the animals reacting in terror as that night.

The thick acoustic sound insulated walls of Temple Jasmine filtered out noise. Only one heard it all: Jade of Applerock. The tapping and banging in the jungle forest lasted several weeks, to be replaced by the cries of anguish and pain from the animals. She went outside, and ran into the forest. No one from the order had been aware Jade had gone out for a while but when she returned, she was changed. The priestesses felt the alteration and some were scared of her.

"Did you go hunting?" some asked her.

Jade's pale green eyes were like iced apples, cold and hard. Some of the priestesses couldn't look at her. She shook her head and denied that she went hunting. The women were eager to know what else she was doing in the forest but Jade wasn't that forthcoming. They felt a nervousness about her when she'd returned to the temple.

She didn't know how to explain this to them. When she ran into the forest, she found several dead monkeys and other animals that appeared as though they were torn to pieces. It made her sad to see such a sight. When she'd gone further into the forest, the animal cries stopped. Only a few insects remained to make their noise but even that wasn't much. Jade noticed a purtrid smell of sulphur, that left trails all around the dead animals and up into the trees. She followed one of the sulphur smells that led her two miles further into the jungle, where she passed more dead animals including many animal statues. The stone creatures were new and had a curious scent, almost like blood.

Patterns of the sulphuric smells whirled around trees, going up and down tree trunks, over roots and boulders, inside falled hollow logs, in bushes, over puddles of rain, and lingered around dead animals and statue animals. The culprit or culprits frightening the animals must've stank of sulphur. She selected another singular trail of sulphur and followed it. She came to a straight line of sulphur where all of the other trails converged from all directions. Whatever it was, there must've been many responsible for the sulphuric smells that directly originated from this straight road of sulphur scent. The grass beneath was flat and muddied footprints. She closely examined the footprints and found them humanlike, either barefooted or in shoes with soles. Jade felt intensely angry towards the people who came here slaughteing the wildlife that she ran along this singular trail to find them all. She didn't care that there was no full moons tonight, so she wouldn't be her wolf side. Jade had run another two miles, then the trail of sulphur stopped at a weird construction. An object that wasn't there several weeks back.

It was seven feet high and two feet wide, made of white stone bricks, in the shape of an arched doorway. The sulphur trail stopped inside the arch but never materialised on the other side of the stone arch. Then she noticed, just above the stone arch, was a small puff of white cloud. Nothing happened to her when she walked through the arch. But that mysterious stone arch caused the sulphur smelling people to appear and then vanish inside. It was a type of portal to another realm. She picked up the scent of oily grubby hands on the stone arch, as it was they, whoever they were, that built it. The stone arch was new. She realised that tapping and banging must've been this getting made. To her shock, she looked around and caught the sight of a second stone arch further fifty feet away, between the trees. After having a look at the next stone arch, and finding more sulphur trails coming from another direction and going into it, but not through it, she noticed a dark energy full of anger. This second stone arch had a bopping grey cloud high above it.