The hot, fetid air of the Kishahn Jungle was known to be one of the deadliest aspects of it. The clinging brush, the vines that drank blood, the pygmies that would carve out your eyes and eat them, sending blinded explorers out into the jungles to fall prey to the foul and most bizarre creatures that lay within.
Amidst the chaotic order of nature's furious hold on this place there lay the ruined and broken remains of human's arrogance. Pyramids, overgrown with vines and overrun by ravenous beasts, held ancient golden treasures unseen by human eyes for hundreds of years. None returned from this jungle alive, save those striken by madness, blindness or disease.
None but one.
Scry Crickey marched through the wet underbrush, pulling away low hanging branches and thick vines, cutting at nothing. He was wise enough to know that to cut at the trees in this place would been seen by Mother Nature as a direct attack.
And Mother Nature would defend itself in kind.
Scry had been in this jungle for two days now, his backpack full of rolled-up scrolls, hastily drawn maps scrawled upon them. Nobody came to this jungle. It was considered too dangerous. Yet Scry was willing to endure the hellish conditions for his goal of opening this cursed place to the eyes of curiosity and adventure.
He grasped at a thick vine, hanging in a low arch over a circle of sand. His sweaty palm held fast to the plant, and he dangled over the ground, gritting his teeth as he pulled himself higher, kicking forward to launch himself across the sandy pit.
He landed uneven, the back of his foot arching back and resting on the innocuous sand. The still circle burst into activity, the sand sucking down like a hungry mouth, gurgling with the cries of the ravenous earth.
Scry pulled himself forward, grunting in exertion as he pulled away from the gasping pit of sand and pressed on, wiping the slick sweat from his brow. He kept his eyes constantly alert, every footfall, while quick, well-thought out, avoiding any loose twigs or suspicious patches of mud. Every aspect of this jungle was a deadly weapon, grown by the vindictive gods to keep those who refused the yoke of their rule out of their holy lands.
Indeed, the Kishahn jungle was well-known as a sacred place. The locals nearby would yearly offer sacrifices to its borders, hoping to one day be let back in to its unyielding folds. Scry had yearned to enter this place for years, and had only recently convinced the local government to grant him a chance to enter.
His goal?
Mapping, mostly. He stuck to the fringes, not daring to enter the first Wall yet. The jungle was almost perfecty circular, divided into several sections, only viewable by overhead observors and old texts.
The outer fringe was exactly ten miles, from the edge to the furthest of its depths. After ten miles you came upon the first of two Walls. The first Wall wasn't really a wall as much as noticeably thicker cluster of trees, much older then the thriving and dying fringe plants. The leaves were of a yellow green color, and ancient statues towered over the trees here, depicting collossal beasts that protected this holy place. Unlike the chaotic fringe, the first Wall was well-organized by whatever powers that be.
The creatures that lived there defy description, known only by brief silhouettes and elaborate descriptions in old legends. Monsters consisting not of flesh, but of feeling, plants that grew mouths, empty, formless creatures that posessed the body's of their victims and forced them to eat their kin. Monstrous lizards whose mouths could swallow entire regiments of soldiers, great furred beasts that could charge with the force of a tempest, shattering stone as if it were wood, a thousand nightmares lay within the Wall, each one dwarfing the other.
Yet they were nothing compared to the Second Wall. Only one writing remains that describes the Second Wall, and even it is vague. The Second Wall is a natural growth of ivy and flowers, twisted and curled around a great disc, deep within the First Wall. It formed a natural Wall, a mile high and a mile thick, and the only method of entry was a Door, a twisting, ever-changing opening that granted entrance into the dark tunnels that shifted and shook within the Wall.
So described in the writings, it was soon deemed that any entry to the Second Wall would be impossible. The creatures therin were said to posess no shape, conforming and shifting with the halls they lived in, and if they didn't kill you, likely you would be crushed by the sudden changes in the vines. If, by some miracle, you managed to crawl through the unfeeling and illogical halls of the Second Wall, you would enter the Heart of Kishahn.
The Heart was truly unknown. Even those who fly overhead have seen nothing but shadows and mist. A sole report said that in the midst of the fog was a great pyramid, stretching high over the trees, but that too was not the center of the jungle. The center, so said the same report, was unviewable, but the fog parted in just a way that in the briefest of instants they saw the jungle stare back at them.
Nobody knows what the viewer meant by this: he was driven completely insane by what he saw.
Well, Scry Crikey wouldn't let something small like impassable walls and the depths of madness stop him. He was a man! Real men don't get bothered by the details.
SNAP!
Oh hell...
The twig, snapping under his foot, brought the usual noises of the jungle to a halt, leaving Scry with an impenetrable silence to keep him company. He reached over to his pack, grasping the long, double-barreled rifle that was slung there, and brought it to aim in front of him.
He was not alone. It was a stand off. Who would break the silence first?
Ca-click.
He pulled back the hammer and spun on his heel, pulling the trigger in the same fluid motion. A burst of fire and smoke erupted, striking his attacker full in the head. The beast, a monstrous cat, fell back, striking the ground hard. As Scry recocked his gun, a second one rushed from behind.
Without a sound, Scry dropped flat to the ground, the huge cat flying overhead and landing deftly on its feet. Its feet promptly disappeared in a cloud of blood, dust and broken bones as Scry fired, his shot a lucky one, taking out two of its four feet. It howled and fell to its side as its partner climbed to its feet.
Scry didn't bother recocking. He'd need the other five shots in the rifle for later, and he didn't need to waste time. He dropped the gun to the ground casually, grinning at the huge cat. It met his grin, its monstrous saber-tooth fangs protruding from its lower lip like horns.
"Come on naow, lil' kitty. Take a bite 'o me arm!"
Scry thrust his arm forward. His "other" arm. The monster, too stupid or too enraged to notice, leapt forward, opening its dripping maw wide and biting down hard. In that instant, it learned a valuable lesson.
Biting stone things hurts.
Especially magical stone arms.
The tiger's teeth cracked, and it howled in pain, releasing its grip on the arm in panic. It was its final mistake. Scry thrust his fist forward, the stone hand punching through the monsters face, snapping its fangs off and crushing its skull in one motion. It fell to the ground with a dull thud, leaving its crippled partner struggling to attack Scry.
Scry Crikey seized his victim's broken fang and thrust it down like a knife, pushing the tip through its great yellow eye and ripping through its flesh and into its brain. It died quickly, but its body didn't stop twitching for hours to come.
Scry hefted his rifle over his shoulder, looking at the two monsters with a wry eye, and spat. He stepped over the twenty foot body of the first tiger, muttering to himself as he went on.
"Bugger all. Bloody cats and their bloody teeth. Wha's the world comin' too naow?"
He shook his head and moved forward. It had been long enough in this horrid place for awhile yet. He needed to report what he'd found to the proper authorities. He pulled out a great knife, its blade two feet long and curved, and carved his initials into a great tree, a mark of defiance to the great forces of nature that held sway here.
Scry Crikey had been here. He had seen. And he had conquered.
And he would return.
* * *
His maps were extensive. Posted proudly in the closest town to Kishahn, they've been copied numerous times, and detailed thanks to Scry's immense memory and other means. Scry's now forming an expedition into the forest, awaiting those brave enough to be the first to enter the untamable land.
And claim their right to defy nature as they saw fit.
Who shall join him?
