Return to Al'anka temple

Aviá journey back to the ancient temple of Al'anka hidden deep in the Kal'ang jungle. This is her first time returning here in two years and she searches for clues about the downfall of the old gods...

 

She breathes heavily as she cuts through the dense and seemingly endless undergrowth of the jungle.  Beads of amber sweat roll from her forehead, she makes a half-hearted effort to wipe it away as she continues her march though the massive jungle forest they call Kal'ang.  The sounds of the forest are tranquil and misleading and they hide the truth of real danger that might be lurking beyond the next Barossa tree or Drenal vine.  The sweet sounds of the Macak's songs fill the thick air under the canopy beautifully harmonized by the sounds of the unseen primates that conversed the comings and goings below them.  As she takes a long flowing swipe with her blade through some brambles the primates burst into a frenzy of panic and fears as the deafening bawl of a panthera silences the whole of the jungle.  She spins around set in a defensive stance trying to distinguish from where the roar came from but in such an environment the main senses heighten but cloud the sense of direction.  The chaos in the treetops above warn her that the danger is very close and that she could just as well be the meal of the day as any other creature here.  She moves slower now and taking care to remain as stealthed as humanly possible she creeps through the remaining jungle knowing that she must be nearing her destination.  As she remembered it was an eight day trek north by northwest of the river village Kujan but she could not remember any of the tell tale markers that Gatlan had so earnestly pointed out on their visit two year earlier.  

How she wished she could remember the things she once had, about so many of the things he had taught her about and this loss of memory saddened her as she fought back the tears.

 

Author's Note

This is a rough draft so feel free to help me edit and better my story. Please note that I am doing full chapters but I will more often than not be posting parts of each chapter so be sure to check back to see the continuation of the chapter.

Reviews

[Nicholas Burns]

This is a good start, though it needs more... length... It is a little short to be considered a true chapter, though if you add more information i am sure it could possibly be a very good story. Hope to see more of this soon, when I will have more of an opinion.

[Bryan Webb]

The piece is a good start to your chapter(curious to read the rest of it) but there were a few things I had some (not bad)issues with.
First is your main characters name. This whole paragraph tells me your character is a woman but nothing about what her name could be. (If you haven't chosen a name, it's understandable. I find names hard.)
Secondly is the part when she hears the panther. "...as the deafening bawl of a panthera silences the whole of the jungle [...] The chaos in the treetops above warn her that the danger is very close..." What I'm weary about is that one second the forest is hushed following the panther's roar but just two sentences later the primates in the three tops are still making a ruckus. Did they start back up making all that noise? Did they ever stop? Did your main character just tune them out when she heard the panther. I would suggest making that clearer.
Lastly, I know your jungle is fictitious and I'd like a little more depth to it. Is it raining, humid, sun blazing and peaking every once and a while through the thick canopy above her? It's the little tings that help.
All and all this is a great start to your first chapter and I'm like to read more as you post it. I hope this helps you as you progress with your work.

[Lentron]

Well, I'm really enjoying the start of this. There's a lot of fantasy involved and I'm in the dark with all these news things I've never heard before, but it's almost a little overwhelming. The animals were easy enough to discern, but there were several people/places mentioned that definitely need following up on in this chapter or the next.

I don't know if you're still working on this, but I think this is a great prologue, and shows a lot of promise. If I had to critique, length is definitely an issue, but that's it.