"Your face, though!" Peyote wheezed. "You looked like you'd seen a walking tree." He looked up in thought, tapping a claw against his snout. "Actually, they do exist I guess."
"Stop." Barchan grumbled, shaking his head like he was trying clear the image of the spider from his memory. "That thing scared a scale off me."
Peyote's eyes lit up. "Did it really?" He craned his neck, trying to get a look at Barchan's hide.
"No, I was joking," Barchan huffed, turning away from him. "You are crazy tonight."
Peyote shook his head with a smug grin. "Nope."
"Alright," Vireo said, nudging Peyote with a wing. "Lets go."
With group agreement they continued their new path to the left. For a long while, the only sounds were their own quiet footsteps and the constant, mumble of the jungle. They didn't really see any cool things, most of the animals were hiding. They walked and came upon a small break in the canopy, a clearing where the huge trees thinned just enough for them to see the sky. The moon was high and bright, and the stars were scattered across the blackness. They continued walking, but still remarked at the sight.
"Hey, look," Caliche said, tilting her head back. "You can see The Great Scorpion from here."
They all looked up. The familiar constellation was clear, its tail curling just above the treetops.
"And there's The Dune Serpent," Peyote added, pointing with a claw. "See? Right by the King Dragon."
As his friends named the familiar star patterns, Vireo kept walking with his gaze still fixed on the night sky. It really was pretty. He was so focused on trying to spot The Sundial constellation that helped dragons with navigation, the canopy began to thicken again as they left the more open area, that he didn't watch where he was going. His front talon slammed into something incredibly hard with a loud thwack.
"Dang!" he yelped, stumbling forward and hopping on three legs to two legs, then back. A stinging pain shot up from his toes. He shook his talon furiously, trying to ease the pain.
Barchan, who had been looking down, stopped immediately. "Whoa, hold on. The ground's different here." He crouched low,. He scraped at the moss and dark soil with his claws. "What did you hit?"
Vireo hobbled back over as Peyote and Caliche gathered around. Beneath the layer on the forest floor was not dirt or some root, but smooth, cut stone. They looked further out, and it seemed half dug in the ground, at a slight angle. Working together, they quickly cleared the part covered by dirt. It was a large, perfectly square slab of grey stone, with sides about half as long as Vireo's body. It was dug deep into the earth it seemed, with only the top few inches exposed. What immediately caught their attention was its surface. It was covered in strange, angular symbols carved in lines, a type of writing none of them had ever seen before. It wasn't the script of modern draconic. In the top middle over the text, there was some kind of painted purple circle.
"What the hell?" Vireo breathed.
They all stared at it in silence. This was no natural rock formation. Someone had made this.
"What is this?" Peyote whispered, tracing one of the strange symbols with the tip of a claw..
Before anyone could answer, Caliche, who had been scanning the area around them, spoke up. "Hey..." she said. "There's another one." She pointed a very short distance away. This one seemed even more dug out.
They rushed over. There, half hidden by a fern, was a second stone square, almost identical to the first. It was the same size, made of the same stone, and covered in the same unreadable writing. But this one had a different mark. In the exact area as the first stone, there was a seemingly painted symbol that resembled an hourglass. And this time, it was green instead of purple.
"Why does it look like paint?" Barchan asked.
"No clue," Caliche said with a furrowed brow. She dipped her head down closer to the object and tapped it with a claw. "It's just so unbelievably weird."
Vireo made a quiet gasp. "Wait!" He leaned in closer. "Do you think this has something to do with the island being off limits?"
"No idea," Barchan replied.
"It might be some old ruin from a past kingdom," Caliche observed, turning head back towards the group.
"Maybe," Vireo agreed, still looking at the stone. He pointed at the direction they came. "That other one had a symbol that looked almost like it was painted on, and same for this one. It was probably vandalized or something."
Peyote took a few steps back towards the thicker vegetation. "Yeah, they seem to not care very much about these stones if they just put random paint symbols on it." He gestured with his wing. "Let's just move on, it's cool but we haven't seen any Cloth Monkeys or all the other types. We need to find them or my heart will stop."
"Shutup," Barchan replied. "I'm sure your heart will be fine." He looked back at the stone. "But its just weird because they are in the same place. Usually the walls you see vandalized by paint back in Chert are all over the place."
"Or," Peyote countered. "They were feeling a little more artistic that day."
Barchan rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever."
Caliche, who had been studying the green hourglass symbol, straightened up. "Well," she said, looking back at the path. "As cool as these are, we don't have all night. It's been almost an hour already. We should probably start thinking about heading back soon." She gave a flick of her tail.
"Yeah, I guess," Vireo said.
Without another word, Barchan began walking forward and away from the stones. The others shortly followed.
The sounds of nocturnal animal calls seemed to grow louder and closer. They could hear the chirps, clicks, and rustles of many creatures all around them, near, yet every time they turned their heads, they saw nothing but leaves and shadows under the moonlight.
"It's crazy how evasive everything is here," Barchan observed after another fifteen minutes of fruitless searching, his voice low. "If you hear something this close, you see it usually. Here, everything just vanishes when you get near. Forests are weird. I thought mirages were only for the desert."
"It's the tree cover," Vireo said, scanning the dense canopy above. "They have a million places to hide. We're probably being watched by a dozen different things right now and we don't even know it."
"I bet they're planning something nefarious," Peyote added.
"Yeah sure," Caliche jokingly teased. "That's funny, but maybe we should just head back now?" The initial thrill of exploration was becoming replaced by a sense of being intruders.
"No way!" Peyote protested immediately. "We can't leave yet! We came all this way. We have to stay a little longer. We haven't even seen what we came for."
A reluctant consensus passed through the group. He was right. It would be a shame to fly all this way just to be spooked by a few strange rocks and some shy animals. They pressed on, their steps softer now, more cautious.
Eventually, a new sound reached their ear plates. It was a gentle trickle of water. They pushed through one final wall of some large, waxy leaves and the forest opened up into a small clearing. In the center was a pool of water, reflecting the moonlight, fed by a small spring that bubbled up from between some mossy rocks. And there, at the edge of the water, was a small, pale figure, hunched over and drinking.
It was a Cloth Monkey.
Peyote let out a tiny, choked gasp and was about to shout something before he clamped his own jaw shut. But the damage was done. The loud shuffle of their arrival combined with the aborted sound made the creature freeze. It lifted its head, its flat, pale face turning in their direction. Its dark eyes, wide and searching, scanned the darkness where they stood frozen behind the lesser concealing leaves. For a heart-stopping moment, they thought they'd been spotted. Then, Vireo remembered what they'd learned in their studies. Cloth Monkeys, unlike dragons, had poor night vision. To the creature, they were likely just another dark, unidentifiable shape in the jungle. After a tense few seconds, it seemed to decide there was no threat and lowered its head to resume drinking.
Relief washed over them. Caliche turned her head slowly. "What do we do?" she mouthed silently.
"Catch it, obviously!" Peyote whispered back, his voice shaking excitement.
"Absolutely not," Barchan hissed immediately. "Are you crazy? We're not supposed to be here, let alone mess with a rare species like a Cloth Monkey."
"I don't really care," Vireo added, his gaze fixed on the small creature. "As long as we don't hurt it."
"It's fine," Caliche decided, giving Peyote a look of warning. "Just don't do anything stupid." The unanimous vote, three to one, was decided.
Peyote's face lit up. "I'll do it, then," he volunteered instantly.
Barchan just made a tsk sound in response.
Peyote began to lower himself into a hunting crouch, his whole body tense with anticipation. His tail began to wag slightly back and forth in excitement, the tip swishing through the leaves and making a soft rustling sound. He froze, quickly stilling the appendage as the Cloth Monkey's head snapped up again. It stared into the darkness for another long moment before cautiously returning its gaze to the water.