Once the engraved doors were opened, at approximately twenty-five minutes before midnight, all chatter among the acolytes immediately ceased as the elders proceeded to quickly usher them into a pitch-black space, with a roughly hewn stone-tiled floor.
While everyone was filing inside, some elders started to feel along the stone walls in the dark, lit only by their radiantly glowing fists and the main group's torches. Until they each came across one of three unique engravings, set apart on the two opposing adjacent walls and the one farthest from where the group had entered.
These engravings came lit; gradually bathing the room in a dim, fluorescent glow when exposed to chi fired from the elders' hands, bearing designs that Akira recognized from the door engravings:
A bear. A chicken. A rabbit. The only one missing, being the fox.
