As they descended through the tunnels, it became apparent that they had forgotten one small factor in their design. The lower rooms were rather warm to begin with, but with twenty more witches working in them all day, it was sweltering even with the single fan drawing frigid outside air in from the surface.
Wolfe wasn’t sure how the other residents of the Wastes dealt with it, but he suspected that they had just gotten used to it.
“Good, you’re back. We need to talk about expanding our space. Last night wasn’t bad, but with everyone active, it gets very warm in here.” Priya greeted them.
“Yeah, I noticed. Use wind magic for a few minutes to bring the temperature back down, and we can make a plan. We might as well make it comfortable in here, and spells this deep underground shouldn’t alert anyone up above as long as they’re low-powered things like a breeze from the vent tunnels.” Wolfe suggested.
In seconds, a cool breeze of just below freezing air was circulating through the room, slowly bringing it back to a more comfortable temperature, and Priya got right to work, laying out a map of where she thought the additional rooms should go.
If they could keep using limited magic for comfort, it made things a lot easier, and nobody wanted to be too spread out so that they weren’t isolated in the event of a sneak attack. That meant only a few additional sleeping rooms and one large common area needed to be created.
Since the witches had all recovered a good portion of their aura while they meditated for the day, plans were put in place to make this space not just an emergency shelter but also livable for the long term.
This was the second time that they had tried to make themselves a home near or in the Wastes, but Wolfe had high hopes for this attempt since it was much better planned than the camp along the main attack lines of the monster tide.
“Do we know if there are inhabitants in that mountain? It’s four kilometres from the entrance to the Den, but if we expand in that direction, we can carve out a portion of the interior without getting too deep and overheating.
I have no idea what is below us since that is a fold-type mountain range and should have been formed by continental plates colliding, not by a volcano. But it is seriously hot down below.
Normally I would expect a twenty or thirty degree increase per kilometre in depth inside a mine. We are at one hundred metres, and it is nearly forty degrees in here already, while the surface is frozen.” One of the witches explained.
“Oh, I think I have the answer to that. It’s nothing to do with volcanoes at all. When Magical Fire meets an anti-magic weapon made by humans, it will either be cancelled or create a vortex, sucking everything around it in. It gets hot enough to melt rock, so I suspect that the underground heat here is a lingering effect of the war.”
The witches considered how to deal with that bit of information for a while before Ella spoke. “So you’re saying that somewhere beneath us, there is likely an unholy combination of magic and technology, burning for centuries and cast during the final battles of the Great War?”
“Maybe not anymore. It’s been centuries and might just be lingering heat by now. But, since it’s buried and may still be burning, my limited knowledge of geology says that it is only natural that the ground is hot after all this time.
The long winters up above were probably intended as part of a spell to stop this whole area from remaining as a molten wasteland, but it got warped by all the residual magic in the area, and now the Wastes have a different climate than the rest of the continent.” Wolfe agreed.
“The entire species of Magi really were insane, weren’t they?” Someone asked.
“Or maybe they were just pissed off. The Frozen Wastes were the site of the final battle of the war, so these were the last of their species, even if some hybrids remained. They might have done it just to spite the world.” Priya sighed.
The witches reluctantly agreed with her assessment. If everyone they knew were dead, they probably wouldn’t hold back either. It was just that, unlike them, the Magi had the power to destroy the world, or at least a large portion of it.
“With that in mind, either moving to the mountain or making this area a very long entry tunnel is tempting. The description of the area I have didn’t mention any villages hidden in the mountain itself, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a hidden one or even a monster den in there somewhere.” Wolfe suggested.
“We don’t want to go too deep here either. Sealing the tunnels against groundwater isn’t permanent unless you use magic or keep repairing them. Any deeper, and we will likely end up with a steam bath.” A geology-adept Witch reminded them.
The problem was that it didn’t actually sound half bad to most of the others. Using magic to create and purify water to shower was one thing, but a nice hot spring would be incredible when coupled with air conditioning using surface air.
There were already a number of unused storage rooms that could be chosen as sleeping rooms, but they were along the tunnel that led between the upper rooms and main storage to the area they were in now.
So instead of using rooms in a high-traffic area, a new set of rooms would be created off the one that everyone was currently in, and a new common area would be added.
From experience, the witches were aware that the mundane army’s detection tools didn’t work at a hundred meters above ground, so they felt confident that they could remain undetected while they created a comfortable complex underground by using their witch magic to make soft moss carpeting and woven grass curtains to give some privacy while still letting air flow freely.
They spent most of the day quietly improving their living space until they had two new dorm rooms, plus a private room for Wolfe and his witches and a command room where they could leave their maps and other planning materials out without them being in the way.
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They had enough for the next few weeks at the very minimum, and if they approached, the curse would activate, and neither group would be able to speak to the other. It would just make the whole delivery more difficult, so they held in their curiosity for now and waited until their visitors were gone.