A call from one of Imogen's family members had his best friend running south for Auster. While he wanted to follow to ensure she stayed safe, he couldn't pull away from the feeling that this place begged to be explored. Jiro wasn't even interested in exploring most of the time. Unsure if it was the blood-red sun that hung low in the sky or the whistling whine in the air, Jiro continued to roam through the eerie land.

He noticed that the closer he got to the spires, the firmer the ground felt beneath his large paws. How could that be? His brow furrows as he glances from the spires to the space between them. Moving cautiously, he lowers his nose to a softer area where the dirt was easier to be moved around with his dull claws.

Lumi had been in the North, exploring the endless edges of ice and frost. She decided she needed a little respite, and made her way south to the western areas of the new land. A darkness fell upon the land and hung perpetually in silence. She had laid low. The tremors began, shaking violently, and leading to a brilliant crimson moon. A morning of a thousand spider lilies danced before her, and though the actual flower was not present, the blood-dampened sky cast the world in such an illusion.

As she wandered, a howling called out. A predator, she thought initially, but it was the wind. Large spires rose up from the ground, seeming to hum their howling tune. Was this a way the wolves were able to relay messages over long distances? Lumi couldn't help but wonder.

She was not alone. A horned wolf shuffled at the dirt. Lumi watched for just a beat before letting out a small huff and approaching, ready to bold if needed, "Excuse me, are you controlling the howling rocks?"

His ears began to ache from the dissonant whining that seeped from the upper parts of the kneeling spires. Trying to ignore that as best as he could, Jiro continued to gently dig and turn over the softer dirt, keeping his nose closer to the ground. It helped until someone huffed, catching Jiro's attention, forcing his head to rise and tilt lightly in question. Before him, a deer that seemingly emanated a soft glow asked if he was the one controlling the noise. Jiro's brows rose before he let out a gentle, relaxed laugh.

"If I could, I would tell it to stop," he speaks with accented tones that are just as relaxed and laid back as his laughter was. "Not sure anyone knows how its happening or how these got here," Jiro motions with his nose to the spires that surround them. "I was trying to see if there was anything lower down." The boy shrugs before turning back to the spot where he had been digging. "Since we can already see the tops of the towers, the next place is down, right?" Jiro questions, feeling unsure about his decision, but what left was there to do?

The wolf let out a gentle laugh and all of Luminosa relaxed. He didn't seem surprised a doe was talking to him, but he also had horns, so perhaps she wasn't such an oddity to him after all. She returns the laugh at his comment about telling them to stop. "I thought perhaps you were looking to communicate with all the other wolves in the lands with these."

He said he wasn't sure how they worked and he was digging towards the bottoms. Lumi nodded, that made sense to her. "Maybe its and underground castle and these are the tips of its spires, letting out a distress call?" she mused, moving to help the man. "I'm not too great at digging, but I can crush some rocks pretty well or loosen up packed soil..."

Her words have him thinking. The wailing was odd, but so was the red sky, the dark night, and the tremors. The spires themselves were peculiar too. Could it be possible that the spires were communicating? Maybe not to wolves, but something else? Jiro cants his head, turning his silver gaze up to the holes that spread through the spires. "You could be onto something," Jiro says thoughtfully, a sigh exhaling through his nostrils as he turns to look back at her.

"What or who would they be sending a distress call to?" He questions the doe as he begins to dig a little bit from around the spire. "If there's truly a castle beneath the ground, it would take you and I a very long time to dig it all up," his tone is still thoughtful, maybe a tad incredulous. Surely he couldn't think himself capable of digging up a whole castle. And how did no one know about an entire castle being beneath the ground this whole time? When the castle in Auster was so... very much above ground.

"Do you think it possible that there's an entrance somewhere else?" Jiro asks, stopping his digging, stepping back and looking around at the other spires.

Luminosa had observed the same oddities, but being in a new land, everything was new, and she had no real basis of knowledge. The tremors, the long nights... Maybe the sky was a little weird because the sky was usually the same just about everywhere. ?The howling of the spires had to be... something maybe... Especially if this wolf seemed concerned too.

He asked about what the noise could be signaling to, and Lumi thought for a while, "Allies and friends? If it is a castle, maybe someone is stuck inside." A brief panic took the deer thinking of those trapped inside, slowly sinking into the sand, being blocked, suffocating... Jiro took the same understanding that it would take forever to dig up. Then he asked if it was possible that there was another entrance. Lumi cantered over to a nearby spire, "I suppose so, but then why would they be calling out?"

Lumi gave the spire an experimental kick... nope, still solid. "Maybe we need to ask others to help?"