Fey guided the group to a swampy area, just like she promised before, but the main attraction turned out to be something different. The area was unusually warm, especially the ground below them, and the full fox theorized some sort of thermal activity beneath. Because of that, Anna was concerned that it might be an undiscovered volcanic area, which could endanger the nearby capital. The wolves reassured her that it would be unlikely as there were no other signs of it. However, Sophia still turned it into an adventure and created a tunnel leading underground with her magic to explore what really was going on in the area below.

“This sure is something!” Ari curiously looked around at the greyish-brown and perfectly round walls of the tunnel that led them deeper and deeper underground while their surroundings were dimly lit by light-based magic.

“I love it!” Steph sounded even more excited over it. The overly present dog side of the girl was having a grand time. “I wanna continue digging the tunnel!”

“Sure thing~.” Sophia just smiled at her and the overly active and wagging tail attached to her sister.

“By the way,” Fey joined the conversation. “Am I allowed to crash this party, or shall we continue this journey in blissful ignorance? If you want to ensure there's no volcanic activity and the like.”

“I know that we’d need to dig multiple kilometers deep to have a chance to find magma. We’d also run into some slight issues long before that. There might be some hints like fissures, tunnels, or steam, or I don't know what?” It’s not like the blonde was running on a plan right now, after all. “I want to find out the reason for the temperature, too. There also might be some other fun stuff! Like that lake that got mentioned before.”

“Alright, fair enough.” She hadn’t expected such a reasonable reply.

"Speaking of the lake!" Anna raised her voice while she was swirling around Maya. "What did you mean earlier by saying there’s an underground lake beneath the capital?! More importantly, you mentioned a dungeon, too! A DUNGEON!”

“I’d like to redirect you to Fen for that.” The cat-girl simply gestured at the wolf. “He’s the one who built that dungeon under the capital, after all. For the record, I was rather upset when I found out because he promised me not to do that.”

“H-Hey!” Fen growled at her. “Was that really necessary? Also, Aura helped me a lot!”

“Was that really necessary?” The female wolf rolled her eyes in response.

“You made a dungeon?!” The tall tiger zoomed in on him. “That’s so cool!” Her eyes started sparkling.

“Right!” The male wolf relaxed again. “I forgot that the princess is fun!” He had expected a scolding.

“I mean, the royal side in me is concerned over how that sounds, BUT!” She made a slight pause. “I’m too curious to care about that at the moment!”

“Do you remember how I mentioned that one of my portals leads to a dungeon?” Sophia was the one who answered her. "We never got to explore it with you all as planned because of the winterly hibernation, but that dungeon is under the capital. Actually, the start of it is behind a secret door in the basement of our mansion! The wolves started building it the day we moved in there~.”

“Seriously?!”

“Yes.” Fen nodded. “It’s also not a regular dungeon. There are no monsters or dangerous animals and the like. Even though it’s quite far underground, we didn’t want to take any risks in that regard for something being under the capital.”

“Thank you very much!” Ari was the most relieved about that.

“It’s more like a massively giant maze.” The wolf continued. “There are some traps, though, so it’s not fully without danger.”

“Sounds great!" Anna liked it a lot.

“The general design is a lot like this tunnel, though.” Aura gestured around them. “Just a lot of soil, so if you want to see it, it might be an activity for a slow day and not when we’re traveling.”

“Okay!”

----------------

Once the topic of the capital dungeon was taken care of, the group continued their underground travels, now with Steph in the lead. The dog-girl really wanted to dig some holes, after all.

“Oh?” After around an hour of digging, Steph seemed to have noticed something. “Is it just me, or is it getting wetter around here?” She pointed at the walls of the newly created tunnel bit and how it had water literally running down on it. "I mean, it was always a little moist, groundwater and stuff, but that’s a little excessive, isn’t it?”

“Maybe we’re getting closer to that rumored lake?” Chloe, who was right next to her, got closer to one of the walls, touched it, and took a guess. “Whoa, it’s like a waterfall!”

“Or our overexcited dog dug right under a part of the lake, and the tunnels are going to collapse any minute now from the water pressure."

“Don’t be so negative!” The pink fox didn’t like her mother’s guess of the situation.

“It is a lot of water, though.” Aura could see why the full made that comment.

“A lot of water.” Fen also agreed with her and gestured towards the end of the downward-sloping tunnel they were in. A lot of water had collected there, and a part of the tunnel had already flooded a few minutes after Steph had created it.

“Ah.” Chloe noticed that Fey might’ve had a point.

“Isn’t that kinda bad?!” Ari didn’t like this turn of events.

“No.” Fey shook her head. “It’s very bad.”

“Eh?!” The jaguar got even louder.

“We’d probably get crushed to death by the water mass if the tunnel caves in.”

“Why are you so calm, then?!” Ari was properly panicking by now.

“Because there’s a pretty easy solution for this.” Saying so, Fey turned around and walked up the sloped tunnel. “There was always a little water, but these masses only started showing up after we reached this depth. If we stay above it, we should be safe.”

“That’s true!” Noticing the easy solution, the jaguar immediately grabbed Anna’s hand and dragged her up the tunnel to where the fox was. The others also quickly did the same.

“Alrighty!” Once everyone was on higher ground, Steph clapped her hands. “As it seems like I was about to end us all, does anyone else take the lead now?”

“Absolutely!” Fen jumped at the chance. He wasn’t concerned by the possible almost near-death experience and just wanted to continue digging. A canine is a canine, after all, be it a dog or a wolf. While technically part of the same family, the fox side of the group didn’t seem as enthusiastic about it, though.

“By the way,” While the male wolf was getting ready to lead the group, Fey got a little closer to Mira next to her. “You know exactly what's happening around us, don’t you?”

“Sure~.” The overseer smiled at her. “I’m not telling, though. It would ruin the fun.”

“I figured as much.” She just rolled her eyes in return.

----------------

Fen led the group for another hour and created a whole network of tunnels to find something interesting and/or get some energy out of his system. Then, after a little while longer, his newest digging activity finally uncovered something of interest.

“There we go!” He sounded quite happy with himself after his last use of magic dug right into a massive cave. It was hard to see what was going in there because it was only dimly lit from the light magic inside the tunnel, but it seemed to be above the size of the forest above ground where they found the swampy area.

“Good job!” Sophia gave the wolf a small pat while she walked beside him to get a better look at the cave. “Let’s see,” Saying so, the blonde used her own magic to lighten up the whole cave. “I guess that’s the place we were looking for, huh?” Now that there was more light, the sheer scale of the cave was much clearer. It was almost perfectly circular, with a diameter of about two kilometers. Fen had dug through the cave walls at an elevated place, so the group had a perfect view of the lake that covered the entire floor beneath.

“Woah, it’s actually steaming!” Steph also got closer and made an interesting discovery when she looked at the water. “Not much, so it doesn’t seem to be too hot, but it’s definitely a little steamy! It’s rather warm around here, too!”

“Seriously?!” Anna also joined them to see it. “Woah! Wait, isn’t that a bad sign?!" She then stared at Fen with a complicated expression.

“I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “It seems a little warm, but nowhere close to the sources of geysers, for example. In an actual active volcanic area, the water reservoir would be boiling, and we’d be cooked alive by the rising steam alone.”

“T-That’s good…?” She wasn’t sure how to feel about his explanation.

“If I were to take a guess,” Aura continued. “I’d say that this lake is really deep and touches deeper rock layers, which is hot enough to heat it. However, it is not touching magma or something else that is active. Otherwise, as Fen said, we would've turned into steamed buns already."

“Maya, I want steamed buns for dinner!” Sophia liked the sound of that.

“Me, too!” Steph felt the same.

“I don’t like how you came to this based on the current conversation, but…” The cat-girl scratched her cheek. “I do like the idea, though.”

Afterward, once the dinner plans were finalized, the group decided to get closer to the water by digging down through the cave walls to get a better look at it and maybe notice a thing or two more.

 

 

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