Elemental Cats

Toz had stored up on supplies, so the only problem with waiting around within the fog was the boredom. And the only pastime he and the cats had was watching the beasts drag more and more dirt and rocks over to the mountains of the same stuff.

But that quickly got boring, and the excavation showed no signs of digging up anything related to ruins or artifacts anytime soon. However, the piles of dirt that had been dug up continued increasing both in size and number. Toz almost worried that they would reach the underside of the plane if they continued straight down.

Although if there was a ruin down there, it would be a relic from several ancient ages ago. If even one thing within was left intact, it would be worth a fortune incomparable to anything Toz had seen before. It might even be enough to buy an entire plane, depending on the item.

Well, nothing except dirt was being dug up, so Toz had started doubting whether or not there really was a ruin or if it was the random guesswork of someone with too much time and money on their hands.

Eventually, the boredom got too much, and in order to not reveal their presence by opening the barrier, they took inspiration from where they were headed and dug a tunnel through the ground.

During their free time the last few days, they inspected and tried to find any other countermeasures and defenses against invaders. But aside from the fog barrier, they hadn't discovered anything else. Maybe the one in charge wasn't that worried about people leaving the fog or wasn't as wasteful with their money as Toz and the cats had thought.

But since they hadn't discovered anything, Toz and the cats began to carefully dig and open up a tunnel through the soft and wet soil and enter the excavation site without going through the barrier. Though if they didn't want a stream of fog to reveal their entrance, they would have to block the tunnel entrance before creating the exit, leaving Toz in complete darkness, only surrounded by wet soil.

The cats were smart enough to come up with the reasoning that the tunnel would need to be bigger and it would take more time if they were to follow Toz through the tunnel. When instead, they could merely jump into the familiar space and let Toz do the tunnel crawling.

Even if they had scouted the location of where they would dig the tunnel, Toz made sure to pierce through the ground as gently as possible in case there were any beasts or overseers around. But even after opening a hole large enough for his head to stick out, he didn't see anyone around.

Possibly thanks to the reliance on the fog, there weren't any guards stationed nor anyone who cared about obvious weak points in the excavation site's surveillance.

Although they hadn't any trouble seeing the excavation site through the minuscule tears they had opened in the barrier, being within the barrier gave Toz a whole new perspective.

They had tried using the tears to determine the time of the day, but no matter when they looked, it would always be bright as day within the entire barrier. It wasn't until Toz was on the other side of the barrier he could see it emit a light bright enough to light up the entire dig site. And that the barrier covered the site like a dome, preventing any sunlight from entering.

Toz also got a greater view of the area within the dome and how large it was. Through the tears, their vision had quickly been blocked by large mounds of dirt, but now that Toz could see the entire dome, he could see that it spanned a larger area than they had first assumed. It wasn't as large as Dormant Thunder, but it was larger than Tiny Rumblings. And the entire area was covered by large mounds of dirt, rocks, and roots.

After making sure he wouldn't be discovered and gotten rid of, he let the cats know they had arrived. When they were all gathered, they started investigating the excavation site. Now that they could see all the dirt that had been dug up from seemingly a single hole, it was obvious something suspicious was going on. Though that had been clear even from the beginning, what with the barrier of fog and all.

The large hills of dirt provided ample cover and shadow for the group as they sneaked around, avoiding enslaved beasts as they approached the location of the actual digging.

The density of the beasts increased as they got closer to the center of the spherical barrier, but they still managed to avoid being detected even when they were forced to hide close enough to a beast for them to reach out a hand or paw and touch it.

A few close shaves later and the group arrived at the center of the barrier. The first thing they saw was the large abyss opening like a pair of jaws in the ground. One side of the gaping hole was slanting, creating a shallow ramp providing easy travel for the enslaved beasts as they pulled cart after cart of dirt and stone.

On the other side of the hole, on top of what could be considered the roof of the tunnel, was a large white marble, slightly larger than the head of a human. The marble rested on a pedestal and as Toz looked closer he could see the white mass swirling inside it, looking almost like fog trapped in a glass ball. The glass ball looked like the reason for the strange fog gathered outside the barrier, even from just a glance at the swirling mass within.

Toz and the cats continued watching the ramp leading into the depths of the ground and the white marble for a while, but they found no signs of anyone who was in charge. The only sentient beings they saw were the enslaved beasts moving robotically.