Viper was irritated. Irritated by approximately everything that happened on this place since they made their way over the bridge.

First the pillar at the desert was fishy on itself. It's appearance must have meant someone or rather some people carried it out of the cave and on the sand right on top of it. Though the pillar was roughly 1 metre high, she did not know how deep it was trough the sand Who did this and why?

The first suggestion would be the wolf who calls himself a guard of this place but he wouldn't be able to move it, unless he took days to do it, which was unlikely though.

But then there was a wolf at this place. She wondered why he was here at all or how he got here if he did not use a snake to get in but this is impossible since this professor investigated this place even before the Chi was found. Something was not right and she had to figure out what it was.

But out of that she was fascinated from this place. A place her father told her stories about. A story that was told over generations. Though she refused to come here, now she was actually there made her wanting to explore it. A magic place that lives in its own tiny world, covered by the desert, not found by the public yet. Her father would most likely pull her away and tell her to not go into this place but luckily he wasn't here nor would he come any time soon. He was happy in Wang Fu with his family.

So she wasn't even mad that Shiren simply took the charge and let everyone in during the conversation.

He was very determined with things he wanted to do and did not hesitate on doing what he needs to do and she yet wasn't sure if she liked it or should have been afraid of.

The guard stepped aside and let them in. Viper firstly wanted to go but there were still many questions she wanted to ask this guard.

She waited to pass the gate until the majority of people were already trough it and just she and Crane were still here.

"Viper, you don't want to go in?" he asked her.

She briefly looked at him and answered: "One second."

She turned to the guard and started asking: "Say, mister wolf, you said you are guarding this place? May you tell me why you're doing it and how you in got here?"

Crane made a step back and watched the conversation go while the wolf turned to them and looked down to Viper. His cold expression did not change a bit when he looked at her.

Either he forgot how to be gentle or there was something he did not say yet.

"You are Master Viper if recall correctly."

"Great that you know who I am."

"Why I am guarding this place, you ask? Because it's mine to guard. When I looked for a place, the destiny brought me here. When I entered, the door was open. When I looked back it was closed. It when it wants me to be here I shall be honoured to follow it's call."

Viper wasn't sure what to do with this answer. She could have asked him how the weather was and she would have been as smart as after this answer.

"Do you have a name?"

"I do not wish to talk about my past. When I got here, I let my old me behind, hoping to never have to see it ever again."

"One last question though: Did you put the pillar on the top of the cave?"

"I can't remember a pillar on top of any cave. Trough the sand storm it was hard to see at all."

"Hm… Well, anyhow, thank you, good sir. Keep up the good work."

She said politely, nodded slightly and then went trough the gate herself. Crane came right behind her, not saying a thing.

When they entered this place, the first thing Viper saw looked like a garden.

A wild garden nobody took care of for a long time.

Trees blew on the sideways, bushes grew around the ground and tendrils made their way across the walls and started hugging every pillar in this place, no matter if they were still intact or not.

But there were still places to go to for them. The walls weren't all decorated with plants yet. But they would start claiming there sooner or later if nobody would hold them back any time soon.

The ruins looked extremely peacefully though, now she saw the big tower at very close range and it was the most biggest fortress she ever saw in her life. She wasn't even able to see the top any more.

A way trough the fauna leaded into the inside. Indeed the way looked more used, probably from the guardian who likely actively goes trough this place every day.

The entry way huge though. Two elephants could have gone trough this on top of each other without a problem and could have hold hands with two other elephant next to them while doing so.

The inside behind this entrance was pretty dark and cold. Only the sunlight from the outside lightened this place trough the huge gate and some single rays of sunlight made it in here trough cracks or even wholes in the wall or of the roof.

It was a cold and wet place, and definitely destroyed. There was barely a place without any cracks, holes or moss.

Most of the damage was most likely trough the course of time and the expanding of the plants around here.

Because even if they didn't spread as much on the inside as on the outside some of the tendrils still made it into this place and started to overtake this hall.

The entire place looked strange. It was not real the chines stile Viper was familiar with and used to. The architecture was new for her. But still something in here looked familiar, though she wasn't able to remember why even as she tried.

Most likely she has seen a picture of some of this architecture stile once on a picture at home or something. But she could had been wrong since one of her sisters used to make abstract pictures from time to time.

Viper saw a huge hall with a wall on the left that looked like having some paintings on it but everything was just barely visible.

The end split into three corridors. One central one where stairs leaded upwards to somewhere she saw light coming from, and two that turned to sideways.

However though, the righten side took more of her interest.

She found the first structures which looked like some kind of houses. She identified them as such at least.

They mostly looked like normal tiny houses but with the difference that there were five of them put on top of each other and filled the entire huge hall on the right side. Each house could consist on one or two rooms approximately, judged by their size. Of course, considered they would have normal sized rooms, like the size of the bed rooms back on the palace. But she doubted that the rooms were that big anyhow when she looked at what she interpreted as doors.

She just suggested them as such because they looked very weird.

In fact they seemed more to be windows than anything else. Windows in variant sizes; So some bigger and some smaller ones. The only reason she saw them as doors instead of windows was the fact they were the only way to the inside and she saw no real reason to make a window towards a big hallway.

They were extremely small and seemed to be just wholes in the walls.

Though the most interesting thing was, that there were no stairs at all to reach the upper houses. Only flat paths or even just diagonal pillars and tiny bridges between the houses made the only path for no flyers to the upper levels of the houses. The architecture looked very much like branches in the trees, with enough fantasy.

They were no problem for the more tiny persons but bigger ones like tigers or wolfs would had some trouble to climb up in these if they weren't the best acrobatics around.

Crane looked at a very healthy looking house on the third level. Since skipping on climbing branches was one of the most easiest things to do for him to do he had no trouble at all reaching this location. "Look at these caves. They are so tiny!" he said loudly and then turned at Viper: "Hey, Viper! Can you, like, fit in there?"

Viper climbed up to him. She always was a very good climber. Not as fast as Monkey but still barely to never falling while doing so. She wasn't climbing often but when she did tit was very enjoyable for her.

When she reached Crane she looked at the cave entrance and investigated, what looked like made for her. The cave was big enough for her belly, the biggest part of her body, to fit trough it without a problem but it was too big for a larger creature to fit in. Maybe Mantis could fit into this as well. "What is that question? Of course I can," she answered and slithered right into it. But it was a problem to see anything since there was no source of light so she had to get away from the entrance, the only source of light before she was able to have a proper look into this..

But she already felt all the dust around this area. Nothing felt cleaned in the slightest. Luckily the ground felt like stone. She would have been hesitant when it was about to be wood. Which would be ancient wood in that case.

When she looked trough this place she saw an ancient carpet, a very old desk and maybe something like a picture hanging on the wall.. But she wasn't sure since the picture had no actual picture any more within it.

"So, Viper? What do you see?" Crane asked from the outside and blocked the incoming light with his head. "Looks like a house so far. Some kind of living room maybe. I'll quickly check out the other room. Oh, and please get away from the entry. I can barely see when your head is blocking the light."

Crane instantly took away his head and said: "Oh, right. Sorry. Here you go."

"Thank you," Viper answered and checked out a hole in the wall that leaded into a second room but she was barely able to see what it really was. The light of the outside did just barely reach this place. She touched around a bit with her tale and found something very very dry. Maybe hay or something. On a corner of the room there was a bottle with water. It was cold and she did not try to drink it. "Water? After such amount of time?" she asked herself. Then she nearly crushed against some more wood. It approximately felt like a chest. There was something to open so maybe it was just a cupboard for someone who lived here. But she could not say for sure. From all she saw from here she came on the idea this was being a bedroom. A more rather strange one but what in this place wasn't strange at this point? The house wasn't very suitable but back in the past someone could have actually have lived here in this tiny house.

Maybe this was a house of a dragon? A real living dragon? A tiny one could have fit into this place. Maybe this was the place where their younglings lived.

Having it right next to the entry of the place was questionable but considering they were able to fly, maybe this wasn't their official entry.

But who built this bridge then?

There were so many questions and Viper wouldn't say anything until she was sure.

When she came out of the house again she saw Crane inspecting something in his claw he most likely found somewhere.

When she came closer she saw it looked like a noodle. Made out of rags. "Look at what I've found in one of the cracked houses," he explained and showed it to Viper. She wasn't sure at the start but it seemed like someone made eyes on this noodle. Maybe a broken dragon?

"Looks like a snake, doesn't it?" he asked and now he mentioned it, Viper had to agree. There were no missing legs or wings that fell apart at some point because there was no broken piece on it.

"A little cuddly toy maybe?" Viper wondered.

"They had families here," Crane said: "Well, obviously."

"Not a bad suggestion," Viper complimented, still looking at the cuddling toy.

She wondered who it might have belonged to and why this person left it behind. Toys like this were, according to her memory, always something special. Po was the best example with his puppets.

But now she thought abut it now she made a reference to Po. Didn't he also find an old cuddling toy of his once?

Then she looked around this place again. She did not like where her conclusion was leading to.

"We should move on. Maybe we will find something interesting around here," she decided and made her way down the branches again.

She took a few more looks into the houses again to maybe find some variances. But they pretty much looked all the same, especially when she was never really able to have a proper look at them because of the darkness in each of them. The lantern of the professor wasn't tiny enough to fit into this place sadly and maybe there were better clues at the upper levels of this place. This was just the first one out of countless ones. At some point she came back to the ground where she found Tigress along with Yong and the professor looking at something at a healthy wall.

"Hey Viper, look at this!" Tigress said and waved her to her when she came close.

Viper got next to them and looked at some more peaceful art.

She saw two dragons at the sides that looked pretty much like those from the gate she opened. But this time they were not spitting any fire. Instead of threatening, they looked like they were protecting something from both sides and watching over what was in the middle. It was this place. But in a lot of a better shape. Little lines were randomly placed in the air. Viper figured out this were dragons when she looked closer.

"I really wonder but I most likely do not wish to know what happened here. When Dragons and Sakes both lived here in harmony… something huge had to manage to destroy this city," Tigress said.

"Quite indeed," the professor said: "My notes consist on some language, picture analysis, culture and other language understandings but none of my notes say anything about it's fall. I really wish to know what happened. For the records. Maybe they made mistakes we are supposed to learn from."

"Or they never wished anyone to find what destroyed them and made it a secret?" Yong wondered.

"I doubt that, fox. The guard would have warned us. Maybe he was also the one moving the pillar in the desert."

"I truly doubt that. I would say he found this place because of it. As well as you did."

"Then someone else might have been here… and wants the world to know about this place. For what reason ever. We might find that out."

"Hey, professor. Good call bringing us here. I first had my doubts but I must say I'm quite impressed now," Tigress said.

"Your mistrust was rightfully on place and I'm glad we are on the same side now. We can't risk any mistrusts on this place."

"What about Shiren then? He apparently doesn't trust anyone," Viper wanted to know. She nearly added: except you but decided to let it be for now.

"He is fine," the professor answered confidentially.

Tigress turned to him and wondered: "Why are you so sure about that? Do you know where we found him and how we found him there? In that combat he refused any guidance or support. Nothing we did made him comfortable in any way. But you seem to make him do whatever you want."

He looked at her without changing his facial expression though: "I wouldn't put it as whatever I want. I would say he is more willing to listen to me." He turned back to the wall and started saying: "When I met him the first time, I found him in the worst condition you could imagine. I took him out of it and hat a little conversation after that. And that was pretty much it. I trust him good enough to stay in line while we are here."

Speaking about him made her concerning. Last time she saw him was when she came down from the branches of the houses when he visited the way forward. She hoped Manits was with him since she didn't see him either. But he could also just be in one of the houses or in some corner she wasn't able to see right now.

By just checking every corridor roughly she managed to find them both luckily on the left sided hallway. It was still very big so two adult dragons could fit next to each other comfortably. This way gave access to other places, ways and rooms to explore, some where some light came from but for now she focussed on what they both were doing.

Mantis was watching Shiren watching at a wall. There was nothing really special on it. It was a wall like every other in this place: Made out of bricks.

"Hey, you two," she asked Mantis: "What are you doing? Found something interesting?"

Mantis turned to her and answered: "Oh, hey, Viper. No, I do not think so. Maybe our friend here once he decides to speak with me again. He is hyper focussed, I think."

Viper looked at Shiren and then followed his view. "Let me check it," she said and tried to find whatever intrigued him so much. It was seemingly just a wall. She tried to get eye contact with him but he didn't react. That wasn't normal.

It was like he was in thoughts or maybe in trance. Did this place have an influence on him in some way?

"But don't grow into a silence starrier too, okay?" Mantis said nervously.

Viper saw his nervousness and gently smiled down to him. "I'll be fine, Manits. When I'll find something, I'll let you know as soon as possible." She nodded and turned back to the wall. It felt cold, a bit cracked but not special in any case.

Maybe it had something to do with Chi or any other magic riddle she wasn't aware of yet? Shiren did not look like he was up to make jokes like this.

She was sure he wasn't able to use his Chi though. Or was she? Was this how a message of the universe looked like while receiving it? She was able to believe that.

"Can't find something," she decided. "Let's wait for the others and after that we'll leave him here, I guess. I mean, we're alone here, so I do not think anything is going to happen to him here."