The heavy doors opened with a loud creeeeeeak that pierced the quiet air, startling a murder of crows up into the air. They flapped their wings and cawed their discontent at being disturbed.
A wide, stone-paved courtyard came into view. The crest of Xuanyan Sect, consisting of a circle around rising flames, decorated the ground at the center of the courtyard. Past the courtyard and directly facing the front gates was another set of stone steps that led up to a large building, two stories tall and having a series of stacked triangular roofs whose tips curved upward. Most of the building's walls were burnt black now and the rest were sooty, making it hard to tell what the walls' original color was. A section of the roof had fallen in, leaving a jagged hole on the right.
