The air was very cold in that dark stairway. Reegan and Candillice both grabbed candles that were lit on the walls close to the entrance. Servants had placed the candles there but nobody other than the Prophetigress was ever allowed to walk all the way up to the Temple. However on this special occasion the guests were permitted through invitation by the Great Spirit.

"Is that a draft or is some body singing?" Reegan asked as he heard a low humming sound.

"It is the song of our Great Spirit!" Candillice replied.

Sam could not take his eyes off of the darkness above the stairs because it terrified him.

Candillice could see that Sam appeared to be very frightened. She knew that he was probably also still shaken up from meeting her mother. She had many questions to ask Sam but did not want to overwhelm him at this time. The others seemed to be acting cautious as well, except for Reegan who had already run more than half way up the stairs. He was excited by the sight of the murals painted on the wall.

"Wow! hey Candillice what are these?" Reegan shouted.

"I don't really know. . . I only first saw them not that long ago. They must be very old murals painted by my Ancestors," she replied.

"Whoa look at this guy here!" Reegan shouted again and pointed to a painting of a large Tigris man. He looked very powerful and majestic with rays shining off of him as he was striking a pose to convey his power.

"Toido start rolling man! We gotta get this all on camera it looks important!" Reegan yelled.

"Look at how the beams of light are painted hitting each of the different types of people, we have Felines here but other races too! I don't know what they are? But look it appears they are all walking up these steps towards something. . ." Reegan exclaimed, he made sure that every mural and statue in that stairway was documented before the camera.

"Mr Reegan sir do you believe this to be connected with the story you disclosed to us at the camp site?" Rufus asked.

"I can't be certain about that yet!" Reegan said.

"I've made mistakes jumping to conclusions in the past and it cost me big time! But I can tell you from what these murals are depicting it sure looks like something of great significance is at the top of these stairs!" Reegan explained and ran up ahead further.

"It's True! You can speak with the Great Spirit of this World up at the top!" Candillice shouted and ran ahead to join Reegan.

Reegan's excitement did not quell Sam's fear as he was hoping perhaps nothing was up there and that everyone was just being superstitious. He began to imagine a Malevolent deity that would cast fire and smite him like the Queen had threatened was a possibility. Sam was really not looking forward to reaching the top of the stairs.

Sam was left behind as everyone followed Candillice up the stairs. Even June ran past Sam as she complained. "I hope it's warm up there!" Sam still climbed the stairs slowly when he looked up to see that Rufus and Candillice were holding the door open for him. Sam was afraid, he did not want to be alone but he knew that he could not turn back.

Sam was hesitant to step through the doors and instead pretended as though he were admiring the murals. This was when he spotted something that Reegan had missed, covered in vines that were spreading from the room above. An image of two young girls holding hands.

"Samuel we require your aid with the audio will you join us already?" Rufus shouted.

When Sam walked into the room it clearly looked like a temple that had been there a long time. The room was circular with vines and moss on the walls as well as the ceiling. It reminded Sam of the room where he ran into the giant butterfly monster Papilliowalayo. Although Sam could not see any signs of a powerful deity or any sign of danger he remained anxious.

Reegan was very excited. He ran around the room to check out various artifacts and wall murals, he poked his head out the windows to see what the view was like looking out from the temple that was at the top of the highest tower of the Castle.

"Are you here Tiya?" Candillice asked. She had just realized that she did not hear the song of the Temple.

Sam watched Candillice as she stood before a small moss covered statue in the centre of the room and began speaking to it.

"Is something sposed to happen?" June asked.

"We have to be patient Tiya should come soon," Candillice replied.

June began to cough and was not feeling well so she walked back towards the wall by the door and sat down. She was still very cold, she hid her head between her knees and crossed her arms so nobody would see that she too was just as frightened as Sam or more.

Toido was busy filming Reegan who gave a very clever sounding narrative to his audience about the similarities of this temple and what he had uncovered underneath the Earth as well as submerged in the oceans in some of his recent finds. It was all interrupted however when an alert sound came from a speaker in Toido's head, some interesting scan data had just appeared in Toido's mechanical brain. Toido prepared a printout of the data and Reegan quickly jumped to look it over.

"Whoa guys I think Toido just detected an extremely rare mineral!" Reegan screamed.

"A rare mineral?" Rufus asked.

"Yeah it's a type of Quartz!" Reegan replied.

"Quartz is actually a prevalent mineral on Earth. . . I do not believe it could be classified as rare?" Rufus said. Toido walked towards the little statue that was covered in green moss and as he placed his hands in front of the statue he turned to Candillice with a look of surprise.

"Wait! You're not going to break open the statue are you?" Candillice asked.

"He can see through it I don't think he's gonna break it," Sam explained.

Toido focused as he waved his hands over the statue, a holographic image appeared above that showed a scan of what was inside. There was a gemstone the size of a fist inside the head of the statue.

"What do we have here Toido?" Reegan asked.

"A Quartanitz!" Reegan said excitedly as he watched the scan of the statue.

"Could I inquire as to why this particular variety of Quartz would be classified as rare uh Mr Reegan Sir?" Rufus asked.

"Sure! It's not native to this Universe for starters!" Reegan explained to Rufus whose eyes widened as he took in the information.

"Aye It is a rare mineral indeed, Quartanitz Quartz Icaly named by a great explorer who discovered tiny particles of it ages ago!" Reegan said after handing the camera to Rufus.

"But this thing is huge and check out the high positive energy readings coming off it!" Reegan exclaimed.

Sam felt like he was finally calming down. He hoped that perhaps this Great Spirit would not show up and maybe there was a logical explanation for it after all. And perhaps all the Great Spirit could be was some light show from the energy of the Quartanitz gemstone within the statue. As they waited he began to fiddle with the pendant around his neck.

"Sam? Why do you have that?" Candillice asked.

"My Uncle gave me it, he said it would help us stop someone who is very bad but it didn't and now. . . It won't come off," Sam said as he attempted to remove it which only made it too heavy to lift.

"I suppose all it brings is misery for everyone," Candillice said, she started to ask Sam more questions, she had so many. But Something was happening. Sam could not hear what she was saying. Another voice began to drown out the voice of Candillice.

"Gleeya?. . . . Gleeya! Is that you?"

"Who's Gleeya?" Sam asked Candillice but he still could not hear her words.

Sam was confused and he tried to speak with Candillice but he could not hear words coming from his mouth either. His hands began to tremble and he became frightened once more.

It was the pendant shaking in his hands as the room began to spin around him. But Sam thought maybe he was just dizzy from the climb or was coming down with something.

The others seemed occupied as they had just witnessed the positive energy reading spike from high to something extraordinary.

The spinning stopped. Sam sat down thinking he was going to be sick but he did not feel dizzy any longer. He noticed that the ground where he placed his hands felt like mud and grass. He felt that something was missing and looked around his neck to find that the pendant necklace was gone. Sam looked around him. The pendant was not on the ground or anywhere close by but what he did see before him were two statues, one that looked the same as the statue in the temple and another slightly taller standing next to it.

The statues began to shake rapidly, their were at first tiny cracks in the stone with light shining through. But once all of the stone was cracked and shaken off there were two young girls before Sam. They noticed each other and were very happy. They laughed and hugged as though they were very surprised to see each other.

They gave the appearance of being in their late teens or early twenties to Sam but he really could not be sure as they did not quite appear to be Human but more like something that closely resembled one.

He noticed these girls had colourful hair the youngest had blue and the oldest green. They possessed glowing skin that was the result of some type of bio luminescence that emitted rays from their skin and hair.

The two young woman were so happy to see each other that they had not noticed Sam. They walked away together towards a small canoe that was waiting at the shore. Sam at this point was able to see that he was standing under a very large tree on a small island in the centre of a small lake.

It felt very calm and peaceful, it reminded him of his pond that he was taking care of back home. The two young girls boarded the canoe and circled around the island while conversing. Although Sam could not hear their words he did hear someone crying from the far shore, it was June. She was sitting next to a tree and hugging her knees as her face was filled tears.

It appeared to be she believed that she was alone in this strange place. Sam thought that if the girls would not notice him surely they might miss June but to his surprise they stopped their boat and disembarked to speak with her. It looked to Sam that they were inviting June on to the canoe with them. June wiped away her tears as they helped her on to the canoe.

As the three circled the island June was beginning to look more like her usual self, the two young women whispered things in her ears and she laughed. Sam believed that June looked happier than he had seen her in a long time. June was speaking back to the girls but then pointed at something beyond a farther shore. Sam looked where she was pointing to see it was Rufus who had a long stick he was using to try and help Reegan and Toido out of some thick mud that they were stuck in.

The canoe reached the shore and the tallest of the girls, the one with the blue hair waved both her hands and in an instant the mud dried. Reegan and Toido were free and the dry mud fell off of them. The tall girl invited the three of them onto the canoe to sit next to June. Toido seemed fascinated with how the canoe was propelled without any oars or motor, he inspected it and tried to scan it thoroughly before he finally sat down for a ride.

Sam watched as they circled the island many times and he began to feel left out. He walked as close to the edge of the water as possible, he waved his arms jumping up and down to get their attention. This was when he noticed his reflection.

His reflection was not clear it was blurry and at first he thought this was due to the ripples in the water but even when it stayed still for a moment it was blurred. However this was not the oddest thing about the reflection in the water, there was an abundance of the colour orange.

"This is odd!" Sam said to himself. He looked at his hands and was astonished, they were covered in orange fur. He looked at his tail and it was covered in orange fur with black stripes it looked amazing he thought. He felt his face and it felt furry which prompted him to remove his toque and feel his ears, he could not see them in the reflection but he could tell they felt furry and not deformed. He realized that some type of magic was at work that must have changed his physical appearance.