Ari and Fen were having a lovely time building the wolf’s relaxing deciduous forest together and spent a long time just chatting about various things, including his heroic deeds for the kingdom, which turned out to be all just lucky coincidences and him being bored.
“We’re almost there!” While those two were having probably one of the most relaxing days in a while, this wasn’t the case for Sophia and the others. “The summit is within reach!”
“Finally!” Anna and Maya sounded rather tired.
“Let’s go!” Steph and Chloe were still highly motivated, though.
“Just in time for my snowstorm from earlier to calm down, too.” Aura looked behind her and down the mountain where she had caused the avalanche when she tried to get rid of the fog with wind magic.
“Aren’t you glad that worked out?” Maya smiled at her.
“Very!” The wolf nodded. “Let’s see if we can spot anything interesting from the top!”
“Yay!”
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15 minutes later, after they finished the final bit of the ascend, the group finally reached the summit of the first mountain they climbed in the range.
"WOW!" Finally getting a good view of the entire area from above, Sophia's eyes turned wide.
“This is amazing!” Anna had the same reaction.
“This was totally worth the odyssey!” Maya, too, was overwhelmed by the sight.
“I was not expecting that!” So was Chloe.
“This is something else entirely!” Steph also couldn’t believe it.
“…” Aura stared at them for a while before eventually focusing on the sight, as well. “What’s up with the sarcasm?” It was a nice view, but it was ultimately just more mountains, snow, and bits of forests they could see in the far distance. There was nothing exceptionally interesting as far as the eye could reach.
“Because it’s so anticlimactic!” The blonde pointed into the distance. “Yes, it’s very pretty! In fact, this view would make for an amazing painting! It’s one of the most beautiful normal sights I’ve seen in my life, but… I was hoping for something like a grand reveal inside the mountain range! Like the remains of a ruined civilization!”
“Or of a thriving civilization that’s still alive!” Steph changed the details of her story a little.
“That would’ve been even better!” She agreed with her little sister.
“How high did you think the chance for that to happen was if you’re that disappointed over it?”
“With this group and taking into account just how many ridiculous things we came across already, pretty high, I’d say.” The cat-girl rolled her eyes.
“Hmm,” Aura stopped to think about it for a moment. “I guess you have a point there. Well, an alive civilization was out of the question from the get-go because I had picked up no signs of life with my magic, but some ruins indeed would've been nice. Maybe the abandoned colony from the being that made the tunnel through the mountain.” She was quickly sold on the idea.
“To be fair, ignore that I also complained, but I think it might be too early to judge.” Chloe pointed at another mountain a good bit away in front of them. “That bad boy is a few hundred meters higher than the one we’re on. Judging by the distance from looking down, it probably is a good bit over 3000 meters tall. It’s much wider, too. Even so, I think I might even see some mountain peaks behind it, too. We're still on the outskirts of the range, and there's no way of telling what lies behind it.”
“That’s a good point.” Sophia nodded. “We really just started exploring the area, huh?” She paused for a moment. “That means even more snow, huh?”
“NOOO!” Anna and Maya were not happy to hear that.
“More exploring!” Steph was, though.
“I think I’ll join Ari from now on!”
“Me, too!” The princess and the cat-girl decided to run away.
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“Very enticing.” The blonde liked the idea.
“Too bad you have to come with us, though~.” The dog smiled at her sister. “We need your portals to return, after all. Without them, us traveling alone wouldn’t really help anyone.”
“Well, I could just give you a portal-enchanted item.” Sophia smiled back at her with equal amounts of sass in her expression. “The ones that open when pouring magic into it.”
“That’s true.” She had forgotten about that. “Wait, so you’re all going to ditch us, after all?”
“Mhm, wait a moment! I just got an idea!”
“Uh-oh.” Maya had a bad feeling after hearing this from her girlfriend.
“No, I think you’ll like this!” Sophia then pulled out a fist-sized stone out of her storage. “This is one of my, uhh… Portable Portal stones! One of my PPs.”
“No.” Everyone collectively decided that that would not be the abbreviation for them.
“I love you all~.” Sophia was very pleased about the reaction she got from them. “Anyway, who wants to take a shortcut?” She lightly threw up the stone above her hand a few times while asking.
“You aren’t going to do what I think you’re doing, right?” Chloe had a feeling she knew her plan already.
“Exactly that~.” Smiling at her, Sophia then got in a pose loosely resembling that of a baseball pitcher. Then, she used all her might to throw the stone in the direction of the other mountain. It also looked like she used air magic at the same time because the rock looked like it turned supersonic, accompanied by a slight bang, while a gust of wind parted the clouds above them.
“That mountain is like ten kilometers away, you know?” Steph tried to follow the rock flying through the air with her eyes, but it was too small for it. “Magic is great and all, and that throw was super impressive, but isn’t that a bit far?”
“Don’t doubt the amazingness of magic!” Sophia did not appreciate that. “I could reach the capital from here if there are no obstacles between me and it!”
“And if you’d know in which direction the capital is.” Maya just had to.
“Minor details!” She didn’t appreciate that, either. “Anyway, let’s give this a try!” Immediately after, she opened a bigger portal for them to go through. “Alright, Steph, you go first!”
“Why me?!” The dog-girl had no intention of following suit.
“Because you insulted my beloved magic!”
“I did never! I just was a little dubious of it being able to do the job.”
“That’s even worse!” As usual, the blonde was impossible to please. “Also, you’re fire-proof! There’s a high chance you’re falling-down-a-cliff-at-the-side-of-a-mountain-proof, too.”
“Those are two very different skills to have!” Steph raised her voice.
“Are those skills in the first place?” Anna was unsure if that was the right description here.
“Absolutely!” The dog-girl smiled at her before facing her sister. “That’s not a lot of confidence after your previous levels of sass.”
“Urgh.” She wasn’t a fan of the sudden reversal. “What about you, Chloe?”
“I’m snow-proof, but that’s about it!” She immediately got loud.
“Well, the portal leads to the summit of a snowy mountain, so…”
“BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CLIFF YOU JUST MENTIONED?!” She wasn’t going to bite.
“I’m just not sure if I 100% exactly hit it…”
“You’re not going to make Chloe go through it!” Steph got very protective very quick. “I’ll throw you through it before that!”
“You’re all such babies.” While saying so, Aura simply jumped into the portal and disappeared through it.
"We definitely know who's got the pants on in this group."
“Yes.” Everyone agreed with Steph.
“Everything’s clear!” Half a minute later, the wolf stuck out her head through the portal and gestured to the girls to follow after her.
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“I hate you!” On the other side, the cats got incredibly angry at Aura.
“I love you!” Steph and Chloe had much warmer feelings for her, though.
“Ehehe~.” The wolf liked their reactions. While Sophia’s portal had indeed reached the top of the other mountain, the summit was covered in roughly three meters of snow. Because of that, the moment they exited the portal, they fell into the snow and sunk down deep into it. “It was safe, but I maybe forgot to mention a detail or two~.”
“Grr!” The cats just growled at her.
“You’re the best.” The snow-loving two only fell more for her.
“Alright, I warned you! Time to change the climate of the whole region!” Sophia was quite upset about the situation.
“Not so fast.” Aura stopped her. “You warned Steph, not me. Also, I didn’t push you into the snow. You fell into it after I omitted some details. The snow’s staying.”
“GRR!” The blonde only growled louder.
“Seriously, I love you!” Steph managed to like her even more.
“Yeah, you’re the best!” Chloe had the same opinion.
“…” Sophia looked around for a few moments, but all she could see was snow. After falling into it, the group ended up forming a hole with snow all around them except a small opening above them where a bit of light shone through. “There are few things and places I hated more than the current situation!”
“We’ve been here for our entire life, but we agree!” Anna and Ari hated it just as much.
“Easily top ten for me!” Steph disagreed.
“It’s nice~.” As Chloe had already seen many things in this world, her reply was a little more neutral.
“Is it just me, or was traveling a lot less exhausting when it was just us and Fen?” Sounding tired, the blonde glanced at her cat.
“Very.” She nodded. “Though, admittedly, it was a lot less exciting, too.” While Maya obviously wasn’t a fan of the current situation, she could admit that it had gotten much more entertaining with the current group.
“Fair.” Sophia had to agree. “Alright, fine, I won’t change the climate of the entire mountain range for the time being. The snow on the summit here has to go, though! To see something and get out of here!” Not giving them a chance to complain, she immediately used her magic to warm up the entire area to quickly melt the snow in a 20-meter radius around them.
“So warm! Disgusting!” Steph and Chloe weren’t a fan.
Afterward, once they were freed and able to leave the snow hole, the group finally was able to get a good look at their surroundings and what else would possibly revealed from on top of the second, much higher mountain they were on.