The buildings didn’t seem to be in any better shape than the grounds. As Yuelan and the others approached the buildings they could see the chipped paint on the red and gold pillars. The wooden pillars were worn in places and shingles had come off the roofs. Yuelan felt a little sad for the abandoned shrine. The overall design was very similar to the shrines from her world, but this one had been left untended for so long it looked like it could start to fall apart.

“Are the floors going to be able to support our weight?” Yuelan asked as they opened the door to the main building and she looked into the hall. She didn’t want to accidentally fall through the floor and get hurt. The state of the floor made her nervous. There were places that already had holes where the wood had rotted.

“It’ll be fine,” Long He assured her. “Byakko and I can adjust our weights and yours as well. We can keep you from falling through if there’s a problem.”

Yuelan nodded and cautiously stepped into the temple’s main hall. When she reached the middle of the hall she stopped and looked around. Worn and rotting paintings and banners hung from the weather-beaten walls. A statue of a proud tiger with a paw placed over a luminescent pearl stood on a raised section of floor. The statue seemed to be the only thing in the temple that wasn’t damaged at all.

When Yuelan started to move again, she headed for the statue. Her hands gently ran across its surface until finally resting on the glowing pearl. Her hand pushed on it and the groaning of rusted gears sounded as the statue began to move, revealing a ladder descending into the dark underneath the temple.

“It seems your father was right,” Long He commented to the white tiger.

“Shouldn’t you have known where it was?” Byakko asked, raising an eyebrow. “You were contracted to the last priestess as well, after all.”

“But the shrines were not my responsibility and were built by the four divine beasts under the instruction of the azure dragon,” Long He replied. “I was responsible for the shrine underneath the library.” The dragon shrugged and headed for the ladder that Yuelan had already started climbing down. “The shrines were all built at the same time and it isn’t possible to actually be in more than one place at a time. I can send apparitions of myself, but it isn’t easy and I was busy.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Fair enough.” Byakko followed the other two down the ladder, but paused when he saw Camphor about to come down as well. “You stay up here. Only the priestess and her contracted beasts are allowed in the secret room.”

Camphor frowned. “I need to stay with Miss,” she argued.

“Mistress will be perfectly safe with Long He and I there to protect her. Your presence will only hinder what needs to be done.”

“Stay above, Camphor,” Yuelan called from the bottom of the ladder. “Someone needs to be up there in case someone comes looking for us.”

With Yuelan speaking up, Camphor no longer argued. She didn’t look happy, but she knew better than to argue with her employer and remained silent.

Yuelan turned her attention to the underground area. The walls were made of stone and there were four glowing pearls on each wall placed above four identical doors. Without any hesitation, Yuelan walked toward the western door and opened it. She walked down a hallway and through a couple more doors before stepping into a room with a bumpy, forest green, uncut crystal the size of her head placed on a pedestal in the center of the room. A purple, silk cushion sat in front of the pedestal. “This is the secret room?” she asked quietly for confirmation.

“It looks like my father described, so it should be,” Byakko answered, shrugging.

Yuelan looked around for some hint of what she was supposed to do only to find nothing in the room but the cushion, pedestal, and crystal. “No instructions…”

“Face the crystal and meditate.” A woman’s gentle voice came from one side of the room. Yuelan looked over and frowned, then realized that one of the stones in the wall had started to glow and was actually a crystal. “Let what needs to be done come naturally as you focus your thoughts and powers on the crystal.” The voice fell silent.

“What was that?” Yuelan asked.

“The voice of the last priestess,” Long He answered. “Crystals last longer than paper, so it isn’t surprising that she chose to record the instructions that way.”

Yuelan nodded and positioned herself on the purple cushion. She took a deep breath and let it out, then concentrated her gaze on the crystal and started trying to meditate like Long He had shown her before. Byakko and Long He shifted into the smaller versions of their natural forms and settled themselves beside and around her. The white tiger put his head in Yuelan’s lap and the dragon curled around them both as the two beasts lent her their power.

It took half an hour for Yuelan to settle into her meditation and when she succeeded the air around her and her companions started to glow and the crystal produced light as well. The light pulsed slowly and as it pulsed it spread in a dome from the secret room out and up, covering the shrine and continuing onward.