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"Viper!" Shifu gasped as he recognized his two students. "Mantis! Don't ever sneak up on us like that again!"
"Sorry, Master." Viper bowed her head slightly. "When we returned from the army camp, Di Tan told us that you and the emperor had discovered a secret passage and had gone inside to investigate."
"And we came down to see if you needed any help." Mantis added.
"Where is Tujiu?" Shifu asked.
"He's waiting for you in the throne room."
"Thank you for your concern, but we've just finished our little exploration." Xian said. "We've found nothing threatening and we were just about to leave when you two showed up."
"Did you find anything interesting?" Mantis asked. "Aside from the mother-load of gold we're standing in the middle of right now?"
"We've discovered this door." Shifu gestured to the open door behind them. "It opened by itself just now, and I don't think going inside is a good idea."
"Are you sure?" Viper asked. "We find something that links this fortress to whatever's killing the soldiers, just like Su suggested."
"What do you mean it opened by itself?" Mantis tilted his head.
"Viper has a point." Xian said. "If there were something in there that would attack us, it would have done it by now. Unless of course it's some kind of booby trap."
"Hey, look at the floor." Viper gestured to the dusty floor with her tail. "The trails of footprints goes through that door."
"Wait a sec, aren't those Po and Crane's footprints?" Mantis asked.
"What?!" Shifu looked sharply down at the stone floor that stretched through the open door and disappeared into the darkness. In the torchlight, several sets of footprints were discernible, two of which definitely belonged to his students.
"What were Po and Crane doing here?" Viper wondered.
"I think the question is 'why were they here?'" Xian said, his eyes narrowed in confusion and suspicion. "I think it's safe to say that the murders are not the only strange things that are happening on this mountain."
"All the more reason to investigate what's through that door." Viper said. "Emperor Xian, Master Shifu, it's your call."
There was a heavy pause.
"I guess it would be foolish to leave the next room without checking it first." Shifu sighed. "I will go first. Mantis, Viper, if something happens, protecting the emperor is the top priority."
"Excuse me, but I can look after myself." Xian said indignantly.
You haven't changed a bit, Shifu thought with a rueful smirk as he cautiously approached the open door.
"Emperor, may I take your torch for a moment?"
Xian nodded and handed Shifu the torch. Shifu took a deep breath and stepped into the next room.
Several soldiers rushed over as Crane gently laid the injured Master Eagle Jr. down on the cold ground of the fortress courtyard.
"Master Crane!" A large boar exclaimed as he recognized the famed master. "What happened?"
"I'll explain later, where's the medic?"
"I'll get him!" A mountain cat ran off, sword rattling slightly in its sheath.
A small crowd began to gather around the two avians. Crane heard frightened whispering begin to grow, filling the cold snow filled air.
Nothing leapt out of the darkness to attack them.
No booby trap sprung out of nowhere to chop their heads off.
After five minutes of cautious exploration, the new room was deemed safe and the foursome relaxed somewhat. Mantis even cracked a joke that the emperor thought highly amusing.
Once they realized that the room was safe, they became more thorough and observant in their exploring. The room was a perfect square shape, the ceiling held up by four thick circular pillars made of the same stone as the rest of the mysterious secret area of the fortress. In the very center of the room was a rectangular stone object, quickly discovered to be a sarcophagus. Images of dragons and a strange bird which they guessed was a fenghuang were engraved in the sides. The lid of the sarcophagus soon turned out to be impossible to move, and the circular indentation on the smooth flat surface indicated that a key of some sort was required.
The walls appeared to be plain and bare at first glance, but as Shifu came closer with the torch he realized that there were images and writing carved into the stone. He tried to decipher it, but the torch was beginning to go out. The orange light was fading by the minute.
"Do you all have a good sense of direction?" Shifu asked. "We might need it soon."
"I have pretty good lay of the rooms." Mantis said. He had also noticed the fading torch.
"Shifu, bring that torch closer to the wall." Xian said. Shifu did as he was told. "Look, I think this wall is some kind of mural. In the center is this strange object. It looks like it's glowing. And all around it, there's these gorillas kneeling before it, like they're worshipping the object." Xian suddenly frowned. "At least, I think they're gorillas…"
"Darnit, we can't see properly in this light." Shifu cursed. "Never mind. Once we've confirmed that this area is completely safe, we can get some more torches down here so we can look at this properly."
"Good idea." Xian said. "Speaking of light, I don't think that torch is going to last much longer."
"You're right." The flames on the torch's head were shrinking, and the darkness was closing in. "I think it's time to leave."
At that moment the flames flickered then went out completely.
"Damn!"
Darkness consumed everything. No-one could see their various limbs in front of their faces.
"Stay where you are!" Shifu's voice echoed. "Is everyone in a group?"
"I think so."
'Yeah."
"More or less."
"Alright…" Shifu tossed aside the useless torch and thrust his staff forward into the darkness. "Alright, I'm holding out my staff. While staying where you are, I want you to reach out, find and grab the staff."
In a few seconds, he felt a pair of paws, a tail and an insects forelegs grip the staff.
"Very good. Now let's calmly head in the direction of the doors…"
He suddenly heard the scraping of stoning somewhere to his right.
"What was that?" He heard Xian speak in alarm by his side.
"That door didn't just shut itself, did it?" Viper asked worriedly.
"It can't be, the door's in the opposite direction." Shifu said.
"Hey, there's light over there!" Mantis yelled.
Indeed, an orange glow appeared some distance away. When Xian saw the light, he said;
"Hey, I think that's a set of stairs over there. Leading upwards…"
"It looks like a second passage has opened up." Viper said. "Strange… something must have set it off, but we didn't touch anything."
"Anything except the sarcophagus." Mantis said. "But I don't see how touching that could have activated anything. We couldn't budge that lid an inch."
"Shifu, what do you think?" Xian asked. "Should we check it out?"
"Might as well." Shifu muttered. "Let's go. And do not let go of the staff until we reach the light."
Tujiu's talons clicked on the stone floor of the exquisite throne room as he paced back and forth in frustration. Nearby, Colonel Sao stood waiting patiently for the grandmaster's arrival.
"Where is that miniature old fool?" Tujiu growled as he continued to pace. "First he sends two of his students down to summon me back to the fortress, then he has the nerve to not show up? And why did that stupid cook refuse to tell us where he has gone?"
"With all due respect sir, I don't think insulting the emperor's closest friends is a good idea." Sao spoke. "If he or one of the masters had heard you say that… well you're in deep enough trouble already."
For a moment Sao thought that he had perhaps gone too far, but Tujiu merely sighed and stopped pacing.
"You are right. I have to keep a cool head. For god's sake, where is that red panda?"
"Probably have a last minute discussion with the emperor." Sao replied calmly. His superior had been extremely agitated lately. "The cook did mention that he and Master Shifu were busy at the moment."
Tujiu's eyes narrowed with worry.
"Sir…" Sao hesitated. "Do you think we should possibly… tell them the truth?"
Tujiu looked up sharply.
"That is out of the question!" He snarled.
"I mean the truth of what we're really dealing with!" Sao amended quickly. "By now, I think they will have figured out that we are not actually dealing with bandits here. It won't look good for us if we are discovered to have been lying all along."
Tujiu's livid expression relaxed slightly. He turned his gaze to the floor in thought, clearly considering Sao's suggestion.
He looked back up at Sao, about to reply, when they heard the sound of scraping rock.
"What the hell was that?" Sao quickly got into a stance, his paw reaching for his sword.
The sound was coming from the throne. To their astonishment, they saw that the back of the throne was moving.
"What in god's name…" Tujiu stared as a dark hole opened up where the back of the throne had been seconds before, and from it emerged Master Shifu, Viper, Mantis and Emperor Xian.
"Woah…" Mantis stared at his new surroundings as Tujiu and Sao looked on in amazement. "Looks like we found a shortcut." He spotted the two shocked military men. "Oh, how are you doing?"
"Where the hell did you all come from?" Tujiu demanded, partly furious with himself that he had not been aware of this other passage.
He recoiled slightly when he saw Shifu's accusing expression. Xian looked equally angry.
"General Tujiu, why didn't you tell us about the tomb?" The emperor asked sinisterly.
Oh hell.
"General, you have some explaining to do!" Shifu growled. He was about to say more, when the throne room door opened and a lone soldier rushed into the room.
"What's the matter now?" Tujiu whirled around in exasperation.
"Sir, it's about the travelling party that left this morning!" The soldier panted. "They were ambushed at the tunnel entrance!"
"What did you say?" Shifu said sharply, his anger switching to panic in a heartbeat.
"One of the masters was badly injured." The soldier went on.
Not Tigress, please…
"He's currently being treated for a broken wing and several cracked ribs…"
"Oh my god, CRANE!"
The soldier was knocked off his feet as Viper frantically slithered from the room.
As Eagle Jr. was being treated in one of the spare rooms in the fortress, Crane got the shock of his life when he turned around and saw a green tree viper flying at him.
"Crane!" Viper cried, and Crane choked as she wrapped her entire body around and nearly hugged him to death.
"V-Viper! I can't breathe!"
"Sorry!" Viper quickly released him. "Oh god, you're not too badly hurt are you? When I heard what had happened, I was so worried… you nearly scared me to death, you stupid bird!"
Crane blushed as the snake struggled to calm herself.
"Er, I'm glad you were worried about me, but I'm fine." He replied. "Eagle Jr.'s the one who's injured."
"Oh." Viper's eyes widened in surprise and embarrassment. "Oh, um, I… how is he?"
"His wing's not as badly broken as we'd thought, and a couple of ribs are cracked." The medic emerged at that very moment, saving Crane from having to answer. "Other than that he's okay. Kung fu warriors are very fast healers, so he should fully recover in about a month or so."
"Thank goodness." Viper sighed in relief before turning back to Crane. "Crane, what on earth happened up there?"
"It was waiting for us."
"What?"
"That thing. It knew we would come to investigate the landslide. It was a gosh darn ambush."
"An ambush?!"
"Yeah. Luckily Eagle Jr. managed to wound it pretty badly and force it to retreat, otherwise we all probably would have been screwed."
"Crane!" Shifu, Mantis and Emperor Xian suddenly burst into the hallway. "What happened? Where are the others?!"
"Er-I-"
"Where are they?!"
"I… uh…"
"WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER?!"
"She's fine!" Eagle Jr. hollered suddenly. Everyone turned to face the avian as he staggered from the room, his injured wing strapped to his side. "She's with the Dragon Warrior and Monkey! They're on their way, they had to walk back."
Shifu stared at him. None of them had seen him look so panicked before.
"Master Shifu, I understand that you're worried, but the medic gave me some sleeping draught and I still can't sleep. Keep it down will you? Besides, shouting like that isn't good for morale."
Shifu seethed, but seemed to understand Eagle Jr.'s point and kept quiet.
"Eagle Jr., are you sure the others are okay?" Xian asked.
"Yes. They should be back in a couple of…"
"Master Shifu?"
Shifu jumped a little when he heard Su speak right next to him.
"Su, what happened to your knee?" Viper gasped when she saw the child's bandaged leg.
"I fell over." Su replied. "Master Shifu, what's going on? Why are you shouting?"
"It's nothing." Shifu replied quickly. "I'm sorry, did I disturb you?"
"Sorta. And Master Shifu, please don't fib. I can tell when you are. What happened?"
Shifu sighed. He had forgotten that Su knew how to detect a liar.
"Crane and the others ran into some trouble outside the fortress. A few injuries were involved."
"Oh no!" Su gasped. "What attacked them?"
"We're not really sure what it was." Crane was the one who answered. "But whatever it was, it wasn't a bandit."
"Oh come on!" Tujiu scoffed as he and Sao entered the hallway at that very moment. "What else could it be? Besides, are most of the bandits you face on a daily basis great hulking beasts?"
"Shut up, Tujiu!" Xian snapped. "Crane, can you tell us exactly what happened?"
Crane shook off some of the melted snow on his feathers.
"We reached the landslide, and while we were examining the damage, this huge… freaky monster burst out of a snowdrift and attacked us. It almost killed Po, but we were able to fight it off, and Eagle Jr. managed to wound its neck, but not fatally. It managed to injure him, though, as you can see. It must have realized that its wound was serious, because after nearly killing Eagle Jr. it just ran off."
"Huh, probably a smart move on its part, since it was Eagle Jr. that injured it." Xian said. "You're all probably lucky to be alive. And if it's wounded, I doubt it will give Tigress and the others any trouble on their way back." Xian directed his last sentence at Shifu, who did not relax. "In any case, I think it's clear that leaving the fortress is no longer safe. Master Shifu, I would advise that you don't send your students out again until we find out what we're up against."
"I'll also send out an order to confine the imperial army to the army camp." Tujiu said. "It's imperative that we prevent any more deaths." Finally, he displayed some common sense. "After that, I'll- what are you staring at, kid?"
He glared down at Su, who seemed deep in thought as she gazed up at him.
"It's funny." Su said. "Why did you call it a 'great hulking beast'?"
"Because that was how Crane described it, obviously!" Tujiu snorted. "Honestly, Shifu, why is this child even here?"
"Hey, you watch your mouth when you are talking about Su!" Viper hissed.
"Huh." Su tilted her head. "But he didn't describe it. At least not before you spoke. You must be really good at figuring things out! You knew what it looked like, even though you never saw it before!"