"Yes, your son and his friends have gone too far this time; This is how it must be, sir."

"I don't give twenty shits about that," he responded, slamming his fist onto the wall next to him. "Release those kids, and mine, more importantly, or else!"

"Or else what, mister Lann?" Luster's voice became very stern, commanding and threatening. "I hope you do know that you are talking to royalty, sir, and I also hope that you know I cannot simply release them just because you want me to."

Lann didn't respond; he knew how well Luster was able to handle verbal scuffles. It would only get worse for him as long as he kept trying to argue back. "That's better, you see," said Luster. "As I said before, I can't let them out, or those two, at least."

"What do you mean, "those two"?" asked Lann, giving a small glance towards a random lion walking past him. Sir Luster kicked a small pebble near his foot, and started on. "Well, if you didn't already know, one of them actually escaped that chase a week or two ago."

"One of them escaped…" Lann thought to himself, looking up at the tall, stone ceiling above him. They were in another special part of the old lion temple, the inside forum hall. This was a place where representatives from multiple tribes could come and express their ideas openly, occasionally adding knowledge about their tribes to the collection of large books and scrolls in the private library. Tribal government meetings were also held here in this forum, where elders, high ranking soldiers, and royalty would discuss ideas, talk about battle plans and strategies, or simply create and enforce new rules.

"So one of them escaped?"

"Yes, mister."

"And the name is?"

"Lerod, their leader."

Lann was very sure he'd heard of that name before. Luster waved towards a passing tribal elder, who was carrying five large scrolls of information regarding the newly rising bear tribe. "It's been two weeks since this Lerod kid escaped, right?" asked Lann, stroking the spine of a large, blue book on the wooden shelf behind him.

"That's right; his name is Lerod."

"He went out all alone like that?"

"Yes, unfortunately for us and him."

Luster sighed. "I myself hope that Lerod was able to find a way to survive out there by himself," he said. "And with the temperatures starting to drop the way they are around this time of the year …"

"The temperatures and what, now?" questioned Lann, taking notice of Luster's pause.

"If Lerod hasn't frozen to death, or been killed, I meant…"

"Go on…"

"Well, you have heard of the outlander incident of six hundred, right?"

Lann's eyes widened. "Yes, everyone should already know about that occurrence. The fact that it was so tragic …" Luster took in a deep breath, and continued. "That incident involved two lions, seven ravens, three crocodiles and nine wolves out on a foolish, dangerous expedition into the outlands." His voice was getting darker and more menacing. "They had made it about one kilometer and a half out there by the third day, which was a massive accomplishment mostly on their part, but on that same afternoon, five wolves and two ravens suddenly went missing. The remaining explorers went out on a search and rescue mission to try and find them, too, and after about three hours of relentless, exhausting searching, they were able to find them."

Lann took a seat on the wall to his right, and slouched down, appearing a small bit tired. "Go on."

"They didn't find survivors, though, but they did find mangled, bloody corpses and nearly unrecognizable masses of charred flesh and bone," Luster continued, also taking a seat across from Lann. "The survivors were so terrified, they tried to retreat back into the known lands as fast as possible, but there were … strange things expecting them. We don't know who or what was waiting for them further back, but it wasn't pretty at all; all of the remaining few were horribly, brutally killed by that thing. When their bodies were found, they were so terribly destroyed and damaged that the rhinos who found them couldn't even tell which species they were."

Slowly sitting back up in his chair, Lann seemed both shocked and surprised. "I never knew that much detail about the story like that; it's really starting to scare me a lot more now!"

"Yes, it's a disturbing but true tale." replied Luster. "Now, if you'd let me go on…"

"Oh, sure!"

"The rhinos who stumbled upon their remains were baffled. The skeletons were in unrecognizable condition, to say the least. And it frightened the rhinos so much, they gave this strange environment a name, the Outlands. The rhinos made it back and told everyone they saw about it, but no one believed them. Two months after that, the two rhinos were never seen again; no one knows what happened to them, and that's another very scary part."