The trek paled in comparison to the destination. If Kat had been excited before, she was practically humming now. Her fancy new clothes were a bit worse for wear, and her shoes were nothing to be spoken of, but she had trailed the mountainside quite some distance all the same. It was an interesting feeling, to be so alone and free. Even if waking up in a new world was neat, she had felt so confined in the cave. Obstacle after obstacle had popped up to limit her, whether it was the crocodile man or the dragons or even just those big cats. She had finally escaped all of that. Learned from each roadblock. She wasn't hugging the walls, now. An inquisitive mind and some trial and error was all it took to start progressing.

She had the vague idea of tracking from Bear Grylls and other contrivances. She had never been a fan, though it would have been to her benefit to actually watch more, in retrospect. The only hint it gave her was that she should watch for prints- which wasn't hard, the cats were probably over a hundred pounds, and it showed. The interesting thing was that it didn't disturb the plants in the slightest. In fact, the foliage where she found those large pawmarks seemed to be more pristine than the rest.

The animals avoided the big cats. It was common sense; the only natural predator of the cats would be the massive Dragons, most likely. A unique situation where there were two types of animals at the apex since one was more of a force of nature than a real part of the chain. So, she figured, where better to trek than where no other animal dare tread? She started taking note, paying attention to everything. It was a feeling she hadn't felt before, like her eyes had suddenly opened. Scratch marks on the trees from where one cat climbed last, or maybe it was just a scratching post. Bushes untouched by herbivores of any kind. Dung trails and those ever-present paws. She was built for this; it was made for her.

She made much better time after she started traveling proactively. She wasn't cowering away from the beasts, but more like a predator on the hunt. That thought excited her. It was like she really was back in the Neolithic Age, stalking a Sabretooth Tiger. Kat knew she was being a bit overzealous, though, and it almost bit her in the ass. In the most literal sense possible. She spotted the signs of the big cat she was tracking taking a stop and eating, hidden carcasses and only strange bugs to eat them, a clawed-up tree with a massive low-hanging branch, and the marks from it hopping down. It looked to be walking away, and then turning, and she figured it was to head towards the nearest Dragon track. It took her a moment to realize that it was headed towards the nearer mountain, not the rest of the valley.

It was making a loop.

Cats had good senses of smell, and it must have smelled her. She ran for the valley, away from where the prowling cat must have been, and sure enough, her mark bolted after her. The roles were reversed. The run was exhilarating, better than any footrace with a person had ever been. They dodged around trees, over Dragon track after Dragon track, past bemused and confused herbivores and predators alike, up trees, and around brambles. It was tiring, terrifying, and oh so fun. The beast kept pace with her the whole way, probably expecting her to tire and slow down, not overexerting its body. Silly thing, humans are persistence hunters at heart. Just as suddenly as it had come, it was gone.

Kat had a feeling that it had little to do with her, though. She had run up on something else entirely. It was the destination of her journey, one she didn't even know she was looking for. Even if the run was exhilarating, this was pure bliss.

It was a temple unlike any she had ever seen, a massive complex of columns and arches seated on a foundation that she could only describe as 'pure gold'. It shined in the light, almost blinding. Even from a distance, she could tell that it was suited for hundreds of people to gather. She had gone from Catarzan, Jungle-Woman, to Catarina Jones, temple raider. Mass-murder of the only humans she knew of aside, this had to be the best day of her life. It was an actual ancient temple! In the middle of a jungle! And no curators or busybodies to tell her what not to touch!

Still, Kat was wary. The catbeast had left for a reason. Was it booby-trapped, or guarded by real live ancient people? Was there a huge monster caged inside? She wouldn't know until it was probably too late to tell. This was the first sign of indigenous life, though, and it needed to be explored. That was the sane and reasonable excuse for her absolute obsession with the adventure she'd undertake. It wouldn't be a good idea to tell whoever or whatever she found that she was hoping for spike-traps and big monsters, after all. The plants thinned out as she approached the glittering dais.

It felt darker than the jungle had been even though Kat knew such a thing was impossible. The atmosphere and special effects department was busy, she mused. It was more impressive with every step, and although it couldn't compare to the modern era's great works, it was mindboggling to think that someone had made it in the middle of a jungle like this. The golden surface of the sides was thankfully capped with less radiant marble, and she quickly found stairs to climb and enter the main platform.

It had innumerable monoliths spiraling out from the apparent center of it, obsidian contrasts to the pearly white of the floor below. It was a checkerboard of walls through which she couldn't quite see what was hiding inside. As she walked through them, flowing between the cracks and openings, waves of nausea wove their way through her body, weakening her. She nearly fainted from exertion, and she had only walked a quarter of the way to the center at best. It felt the same way to walk back to where she had come from, and that told her it was no accident. The structure was doing this to her, somehow. That was scary. Was this the trap? Some strange optical illusion with this much potency? It only made her dizzy when she followed the monoliths in their spiral, so instead of passing through them, she followed the trail back out. To her surprise, it didn't even seem to take longer than going through the cracks. How odd. Exactly what you would expect from a mystical ancient temple! Huzzah!

She had to take a break to get her brain sorted and probably do her business in the safe, animal-free zone about the temple and maybe try to catch some food to eat. Kat hoped it would rain soon, since she didn't have the cave's streams anymore. It wouldn't be heroic to soil the temple, and it would be just as bad to die of dehydration trying to navigate it. To her surprise, the food part was easy. After tracking the big cat for so long, she didn't seem to have much trouble getting used to trailing the rabbit-like creatures. The animals clearly hadn't adapted to active hunting, probably due to the strange focus on the Dragon tracks. She caught one quickly, but killing it and eating it raw was a struggle- so much so that she didn't do it. She went off to figure out how to start a fire, first, and that took ages. To her chagrin, rain-clouds had finally appeared overhead. Not unexpected for a luscious rainforest like this, but still a pain when you had just figured out what sticks were the most flammable or dry and what rocks could make sparks. She had to hustle to find one of the little herbivores again, and she only got it half cooked and stripped by the time it started raining.

It was chewy, uncomfortable in her stomach, and generally unpleasant. Not Kat's finest meal, although it was the first she had prepared entirely on her own. She thought about home. Were they worried? Had they been taken, too, or was everything still fine? When would she see her mom again? The rain evidently brought in the somber thoughts, but her body was wasting away. She couldn't sit and mope. That was for teens, and she was no teen- she was an adventurer! A real adventurer in the middle of a real rainforest!

Something that had bothered her all along was the stunning lack of rivers. That was completely unlike the Earth, and she hadn't been sure why. When she saw the impossibly fast moving water in the Dragon tracks and the army of animals peaceably assembled to drink, it made more sense. The rain collected in these infinite flumes crisscrossing the jungle and presumably gave the Dragons a drink, too, wherever they hid in wait. It was like a river-sized water fountain for the giant reptiles, and all of the other animals were just mooching. Naturally, some of the predators took advantage of the situation. In particular, she saw one little beast darting in and out of the water. It kept snagging at the thirst land-dwellers as it flowed past, eventually catching one of the same creatures like she ate with its razor-sharp teeth. The poor thing thrashed and thrashed, but the river took them away too fast for her to see what happened.

This had been going on for a very, very long time. She couldn't hope for another chance. She'd have to get in there with the little terror-beasts, the cats, the agitated herbivores, and stick her face in. How exciting was that? Definitely more interesting than faucets and bottles. Like bobbing for apples, except the apples are face-eating turtles. She hurried along, hoping to catch a space before more of the cats showed up, especially the one she had already pissed off. It was so cool to see them all close up, drinking together in relative peace. The rain left as fast as it came, and just as she finally felt whole and hydrated again, the Dragon track started to bottom out. All bets were off at that point, and she scattered with the rest of the 'prey'. Granted, she had probably earned her place with the catbeasts, but she doubted they would take her.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The temple was even more exciting on a full stomach. She could go in for two whole days and not even leave and still be good for more. She broke through the first gap, staggering a bit, and then followed the spiral inwards. In just a short time, she found her way to the center. It wasn't quite what she expected. Rather than a massive underground hidey-hole for treasure, it was more of a declined platform with strange squiggles all around it. It was like an altar, with the squiggles spiraling towards the lowest point in the middle of the depression. A little pedestal- treasure? - was just sitting in the middle, with a decidedly modern symbol atop it. It was a line and a mostly complete circle, with the line positioned atop the open circle but not penetrating it. She decided not to think too much about that symbolism and instead hopped down to get a closer look. The line was on a sliding plate, meant to be pulled down into the circle, completing the symbol. No matter how hard she yanked at it or pushed it or tapped it, the thing just wouldn't move. Kat had never been good at puzzles, and for such a grand altar to have a little thing like this in the center was a huge bummer. The monoliths were so exciting, too, what with their strange effects on the brain. Come to think of it, a certain archaeologist always did have to figure out some obtuse puzzle to get to the cool stuff.

She tinkered with it, and tweaked it, and nothing. A complete bust. At least it would be somewhere safe to eat or hide, she thought. As she turned around and hopped back to the main platform, the symbols on the floor began to glow. Kat nearly shouted from surprise, or joy, and she just caught a glimpse of the plate sliding itself into place. The symbol was complete. The pedestal slammed down into the ground, and the whole assembly started to spin. She hopped down, rolling about on the little bowl as it spun. It was like a rollercoaster, almost. She didn't know how she set it off, or what it was doing, but this was at least a little bit neat. Just a bit.

The glowing intensified, and suddenly, it fizzled. The spinning halted so fast that Kat hit her head on one of the circular walls around the altar. Thankfully, it wasn't too serious, but she kind of regretted just hopping down on a moving platform. She scrambled up, balancing precariously on the platform. It's much harder to stand on a declined surface when you're dizzy, after all. The squiggles changed color. It was unlike anything she had ever seen, or at least not without complex electronics to back it up. They just turned a deep blue, gently glowing. The platform didn't start spinning.

The squiggles did, though. They practically floated across the marble. It took her a moment to realize that they had aligned into letters, then words, and then a spiraled sentence, like that on a coin.

"Anyone can fight a minotaur- only a human is stupid enough to try to win."

Whatever that meant. It didn't seem too relevant to her, but the sudden talk of Minotaurs put her on guard. She backed further away from the dais, hunkering down in case something tried to leap at her.

It started with the floor. It was disgusting apparition of flesh, muscle, forming the feet and eventually toes. It had some strange form of gray hide around the legs, contrasting the human-like feet. Her mother had described the Adamastor once, an old tale of the New World by a poet long gone, but could this creature fit the bill? It was certainly pale and definitely appearing from the air. The materialization kept going, though, from legs to thighs and to boyparts she didn't think to describe in detail. It was still covered in that terrible hide, and an intense measure of blood, to the degree that she had never seen before. It had a club for one fist and bloody claws for the other, and its back was poked through with a litany of knives and swords. It was certainly a monster, she thought. But as the materialization continued, reaching the head, she figured out what it was- and who.

This was no monster, at least not likely. She recognized this one. It was a boy, one of the people from the cave, and evidently still alive. He was covered in blood, cloaked in a shoddily wrapped, sticky hide, and terribly worse for ware, but he was human. Probably. He looked as shocked to see her as she was to see him, but before she could speak up, she realized that the blue squiggles were still moving. She had missed a message or two in the distraction, and now they said something else entirely.

"You are most likely alone. They only take us one or two at a time. It's risky, after all."

These ancient guys sure were longwinded, but they were quite wrong. It hadn't been one or two, but thirty, and risky for whom? They had all died. Maybe he meant that only one or two would be left. She snapped her attention back to the boy, who was actually still dripping blood. It was fresh. Yuck. He opened his mouth to speak, and she stopped shrinking back so much, tuning in.

"General are dead, triumph, with nothing is impossible to him who try," he said, grinning, "I you are alright, yes? Visions without hallucination are just…" The boy trailed off, evidently trying to make sense of what he just said. He beamed for a moment, probably catching his own train of thought long before Kat even had a chance to guess at what he meant. She gawked, returning to her wary jungle-woman posture. He was off his rocker! And not in the fun, go-have-adventures way! So she waited and watched to see what he would do.

He tipped over. That wasn't quite what she had expected. She ran to the boy, and then she checked him over in entirely relevant and non-perverted ways. Stripping him was definitely part of the job. The swords and knives weren't poked in his back, but rather in the hide, and he was using it like a big sheath. She could only wonder, then, what gave him all those bruises. He was bleeding to death, but it was all internal, not external. She struggled to remember what they said in basic first aid, and came up short. Internal bleeding was quite unlike anything she knew how to deal with.

It made a lot more sense when she saw his swelling, terribly broken, entirely untreated hand. She had mistaken the wrappings for a club, and it was still so bloated. She ran off, barely remembering to follow the spiral, and got what she could from the environment. Tying the wounded part of the arm off was the first step, she figured, but it wasn't a professional job. At least it would keep him 'OK' for awhile. She couldn't think of what to do for his bruised-up chest, either, but that was secondary to the mangled hand.

She couldn't feed him, and it didn't look like it would rain anytime soon. The only other surviving human was bleeding out of the floor and loopy and she couldn't do anything to fix it.

In her panic, she had forgotten the scribbles. She stood, taking them all in. It didn't make too much sense, though, and she wished it would tell her what was going on.

"Allegiance. That's how we compete, aside from our rugged good looks. We're social animals."

How strange. Working in groups was good, but why would it matter now? A boy was dying, damnit. Kat stomped a bit in frustration, but the words were resolute.

"Everything here has a way to win, and that's ours. Be territorial. Trust yourself."

It was moving faster now, no longer sarcastic and serious, almost excited.

"This is the legacy of mankind. Faith in yourself,"

The glowing intensified, and the blue was positively radiant.

"We are unbeatable as long as we know what is ours and who is relying on us."

Now the text was whirling, a furious cyan she could hardly read.

"That's what we are. That's why we are. It's why they're afraid of us."

It fizzled again, but even as it started to fade, the whole point of the message started to dawn on her.

"Even if it's just you, stake your claim on this stupid planet. It's your only chance."

Kat had never been so certain of herself. She hadn't been a real adventurer, or a tracker, or so daring as to even think about racing with catbeasts. This place was a strange mash of creatures, it had crocodile men and crazy teens and she was taking it all in stride. Who was the? This wasn't the little girl she had been back home, the contrarian 'adventurer'. She had really done some crazy shit and just taken it in stride. Kat wasn't being Kat, and that kid apparently fought a Minotaur, that twig of a boy. Sure, he was beaten to hell, but was that really something they could do?

This place had done something to them, flipped a switch. When she 'relied' on herself, when she had 'claimed' the Jungle, she had come out unscathed. It was too close for comfort, sure, but that was her, the Adventurer extraordinaire. Of all of the crazy things the boy said before the passed out, 'General' was the strangest, but it suddenly made sense. He was the General, right? That was just who he was. Who he could be, if he was given the chance.

Who needed formal education, anyway? Kat was an adventurer, and adventurers never left a companion behind. She shot to the woods, doing what felt right to her, what had to be right, absolute confidence in her abilities. She dodged and ducked through each little crevice to get the plants she'd need. This one she had seen an injured catbeast eat to stem the bleeding, this one was safe and it was popular with the herbivores, this one was left untouched except by the animals that were thirsty. Things she saw and knew but didn't even know she had forgotten; it was a total recall. The moment her mind drifted, it started to fade, so she didn't let it drift. Kat wasn't going to let that boy slip away so easily.

What was the point of an adventure if you had it alone?