Beat was old and he was haggard. Really, had he been a part of a pack, he still could have had a few good years left in him. However, the black and white man had been alone for such a long time. The hardships of life had beaten him down until he was little more than skin, bones. Scars riddled his body from years of fending for himself. He was old, he was sad, and he had come back to his homeland to die.

Getting back to Boreas forced Beat to go through Auster. He barely looked up as he moved, but didn't have much choice when the world began to shift. One of the stone pillars stood directly in his path and he had to stop, looking up to try and see the top. This deposited him on his rear and he could feel the earth giving a little rumble beneath him as though preparing for something. There was no fear in him, only curiosity. What was coming?

"This has got to be a warning, no?" Bancha murmurs to himself as he stares up at the towering spires. "Possibly not a warning, but these weren't here before, were they?" His aqua eyes look to the sky, brow drawing downward in an uncomfortable way. He wasn't one that often scrunched or hemmed and hawed. This happening deserved it. The wolf could tell just by looking at it. Blood-red sky cascading over his surroundings, flooding the air with a stillness that is soon stirred by an eerily delicate wind. Howls that belong to no animal whistle around him, piercing his ears.

The sound forces him to look away from the rising monoliths. "Maybe I should look elsewhere," he doesn't really notice he's murmuring to himself which is new... Paws draw him away from the spires where suddenly the ground is soft and supple. Interesting. Scratching at the dirt, Bancha feels it give way just a bit more. Why did it feel so much different than the ground nearer the metal towers? Wouldn't it be the opposite?

Bancha's attention quickly looks up toward movement nearby. Another wolf, older, looking curiously at the monoliths. "Have you noticed the ground?" Bancha calls out tentatively, head canting for a moment before he goes back to scratch at the dirt where it feels... odd.

BANCHA

The screaming, wailing sound of the wind as it blew through the cuts in the spires was almost deafening at points. It seemed as though the deeper Beat walked into the strange city of towers, the louder the wailing became. It was terrifying in a sense, but what did he have to lose?

A voice calls out, questioning him and Beat looks to the the side, a small, earthen wolf coming into view. The black and white brute moves towards the youngster. Maybe they could figure this out together. "Now that you mention it, it does feel different. If these things pushed up from the ground, shouldn't the dirt closest to them be the softest?"

After scraping dirt away with his own paws, Beat's purple and teal eyes moved to glance at the boy. "My name is Beat," he said in old, scratchy tones. "The sound on the wind, it keeps getting louder. Have you noticed?"

Bancha's tail wags as the older wolf approaches. Even though the world around them was cloaked in some creepy shit, the young male wouldn't let it sour his mood. After all, other than the redness of the sky and the spires jutting from the ground, there really wasn't anything bad yet. Except the wailing which indeed was getting louder and louder as the wind picked up.

"I'm not sure why it's not like that," Bancha muses as he digs a little bit more hoping to find something beneath the top layer of churned soil. "I'm Bancha!" He responded, his tail wagging again as he stopped his digging to look at Beat with a friendly smile that quickly dissipates with another howl of the wind. "I have noticed. Not a big fan of the noise," his nose wrinkles, floppy ears folding backward as he looks up to the spire. "Think it's those holes?"

BANCHA

The boy gave his name as Bancha and the old man smiled. He wondered what his own boy was doing. Was he even still alive? Time had done a number on him and he'd lost track of everything. Maybe that's why whatever this was... it wasn't so scary to the old man. Beat stuck close to the boy as they moved through the towers of stone. It was nice to have a friend and he also felt the need to look out for the flop-eared lad. Bancha asked if the sound came from the holes and Beat looked up, squinting to see. "I reckon so," he replied. "I wish it didn't sound so much like screaming," he admitted. "Beat"

It was most likely the collie dog in him that made him so social. Being alone never suited him well so he took to Beat like dirt took to water. Wandering through the spires was haunting enough, but having someone with him was almost comforting. At least if something bad were to happen, he would have someone to experience it with him. Not that he wanted something bad to happen to old man... No, he didn't want to cry today.

"It does sound like screaming," Bancha commented, his ears still folded backward to help muffle the wailing noise. When the wind picked up some more, the wailing appeared to get louder as well. Surely it had to be come from the holes in the spires, but why? Why were these things here and where had they come from? "You think there's a reason?" He asks, teal gaze hovering on Beat for a moment.

BANCHA

The old man dug beside one of the spires. How far down did they go? As he did so, Bancha questioned him. "Mmm... I think there's a reason for everything. We just need to discover that reason. " Everything had an answer and this mystery was no different. As Beat dug, he continued to glance at the strange faces etched into the tower. They were foreign and odd, yet there was a familiarity there. It was as though he could feel their sorrow. He was full of sorrow as well. Having dug down quite a ways, Beat looked up to Bancha. "These things just go down forever. " There didn't seem to be an end to them. "Beat"

Bancha hesitates as he watches Beat dig around the spire closest to them. After a few minutes, it does appear that there is no end to the spire. As if it just continues to go down, down, down until they would exhaust themselves. Glancing around the field they stand in, he does notice that there are many of the spires, not just this one.

"What if we need to dig in a different place? Not next to these things," he motions to the spire with his nose, brow creasing as he looks way. Moving slowly, Bancha feels the dirt beneath his paws. Surprisingly, the ground is harder, more compact closer the spire. The farther he walks, more in between the protrusions, the softer it feels. Almost bouncy as he tests his weight on a particularly spongy area. "I'll try here," Bancha calls over his shoulder to Beat as he begins to dig with his paws and scoop up the soft, pliable dirt.

BANCHA

Bancha offered to dig elsewhere and Beat nodded, poking his head up out of the hole for a moment to watch and see where the boys ended up. Just in case something happened, he wanted to know exactly where Bancha was. After a bit more digging, it didn't seem as though anything would change, so Beat leaped up out of the hole, his old bones rattling as he did so. Moving over towards Bancha, he gave a few experimental bounces on his paws. "The ground does seem very different here, doesn't it? I wonder if that means it's hollow down below or something." "Beat"