After some more traveling, the group arrived at some sort of cave with a large opening that led down to a fairly straight tunnel. As the carriage continued further ahead, Jack noticed that the tunnel was a bit too uniform to be naturally made. In addition, there were thick wooden support beams along the tunnel's walls that were spaced evenly apart, making it seem as though they were entering a very large mineshaft.

"What are we going? I thought you're taking me to a city," Jack inquired.

"We are," Dingo replied. "We're heading to Grumgrod right now, mate. That's the city where our base is located." Dingo could sense Jack's confusion and further elaborated. "Ahh, you've probably never been to Dorencor before so you wouldn't know, but dwarves love building their cities underground. It's kind of their knack. In fact, more than half of Dorecnor's major cities are built underground and Grumgrod is perhaps one of its best. A true marvel in dwarven architecture, I tell you. It may not be as fancy as Ingenwell but it has a charm of its own. You'll see in just a moment."

Soon, the carriage arrived at the end of the tunnel, leading to a wide-open cavern area. In front of them, there was a door of gargantuan size made entirely out of stone. Jack figured that the door was probably about 20 meters in height, which was impressive enough by itself. Aside from its sheer size, it was also decorated with artistic stone carvings depicting various imagery, most of which were of groups of dwarves doing various things such as blacksmithing, warfighting, and heavy drinking. To call this a stone door was simply too plain of a description; it was more like a stone mural.

Adjacent to the stone door on each of its sides was a pair of watchtowers that were seemingly carved out from the same stone as the cave walls themselves. From the looks of its design, the watchtowers were made with the same intricate craftsmanship as the door, though parts of it were cracked and eroded, making it look a bit run-down. In fact, the entire setup gave off a vibe of long-lost glory, of things that used to be magnificent but were now in a pathetic state of disrepair.

Once the carriage had stopped in front of the stone door, two guards---one from each of the watchtower---came down to approach Jack and the others. Even at a distance, Jack could easily distinguish these two guards as dwarves as he noticed their iconic short stocky build and thick luscious beards, characteristics that are indicative of their race.

Of the two dwarves, one was ginger-haired with a cherubic face and a jolly expression while the other was brown-haired with a weathered face and a tired grumpy expression. Both wore the typical chainmail armor and wielded the typical poleaxes that medieval guards would normally carry, though their gear were nowhere near as clean and pristine as those from the guards at Ingenwell. Jack and the others got off the carriage in order to meet the pair of dwarven guards face to face.

"Well, well, if it isn't the 'Howling Wind' himself," the brown-haired dwarf said in a sort of sarcastic and demeaning way as he eyed Dingo. "And his usual gang of lackeys, the shroomman sword-wielder and the raven pluma."

"Greetings to you, too, oh short one," said Musashi with a calm and polite bow.

"I'm actually a crow," said Raven irritatingly, though it's rather difficult to read her emotions due to her bird-like face.

"Whatever," the dwarf waved away dismissively. "Not out causing trouble, I hope."

"C'mon, Colvig. You know me. I'm just a good ol' furro, minding my own business," Dingo said with a pleasant smile, attempting to counter the dwarf's grouchiness with his own charm. "I wouldn't cause trouble of any sort, unless it's the kind directed towards the elves. Usually, though, it's trouble that finds me and not the other way around."

"Come now, Colvig. You know Dingo and the others aren't that sort of folk," the ginger-haired dwarf told the brown-haired dwarf with a jovial smile. "They are good people, them Crimson Flame types. Like you and I. They have always done right by us."

"Glad you see things my way, Pinto," Dingo said to the ginger-haired dwarf.

"I see you've got yourself a new fellow," Pinto said, rubbing his ginger beard as he observed Jack with curious eyes.

"You know it," Dingo then turned to Jack. "Jack, these two are Pinto and Colvig. Pinto and Colvig, this is Jack, our newest recruit, plucked straight from Ingenwell. In fact, we just rescued him right out of an Elrinthian jail cell."

Colvig scoffed, eyeing Jack in an almost belittling way. "Oh great. Another human to join your ranks. If you're gonna recruit anyone, at least do it with someone with more backbone. Them humans are all good-for-nothings and would abandon you at a drop of a hat."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Jack retorted with mild agitation as he took a confronting step towards Colvig.

"Easy there, mate," Dingo muttered to Jack, placing a hand on his chest to stop him from moving further. "Like I said before, dwarves around here aren't so keen on having humans around. Duel of the Two Kings and all that, remember?" Dingo then turned to Colvig with a polite smile. "I can assure you Jack here has more backbone than most humans you've encountered, Colvig. He'll be a great addition to our team."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. I'll open the gate for you," Colvig said, not quite convinced of Dingo's reassurance, before walking back up to the watchtower to activate the mechanism that opens the stone door.

Fortunately enough, Pinto seemed to have caught on Jack's discomfort towards Colvig's words and approached him with a more friendly attitude.

"Oh, don't mind Colvig. He's pretty much like that all the time. Always in a foul mood. That's just how he is," Pinto said to Jack before turning to Dingo. "Anyway, I was wondering if the Great Ol' Howling Wind might have a souvenir for me?"

"Indeed, I have," Dingo said.

The white dog mage reached for the trunk of the carriage and pulled out a small paper-wrapped package, which he then handed to Pinto. The ginger-haired dwarf ripped open the package, revealing it to be a fancy bottle of wine. Once he saw the bottle, he cooed cheerily as he affectionately brushed his thick short fingers over the label as though it was an expensive piece of artwork.

"Ooh, I love it!" Pinto remarked with bright gleaming eyes. "Gotta be honest with you, I have no love for the elves, but even I cannot deny they make some pretty good wine. Especially those made in Valinquen. They say all the best elven artisan products are made there. This is a vintage bottle as well! I can't wait to try a sip of this! How much do I owe you?"

"Not a single copper, mate. I stole that bottle for you. Lifted it right under the wine-shop owner's nose. It was rather easy, actually. You'd think that elf would have invested in better locks with all the money he's made selling wine."

"Thank you so much, Dingo! I owe you big time!"

"Don't mention it. Honestly, with the prices they are charging, they should be the ones labeled as criminals. You practically couldn't buy anything at that shop without a good bit of divinium coin in your pocket."

Colvig looked down from the top of the watchtower and let out a grunt of disapproval. "Pinto, how many times have I told you to stop drinking that crap! Honestly, your taste in alcohol is a disgrace to all dwarvenkind. Besides, everyone knows that dwarven ale is much better than that overpriced bottle of elven hogwash."

"Leave me be, Colvig!" Pinto rebutted, shouting loud enough so that his words could be heard from a distance. "Elven wine has a unique quality to it that dwarven ale could not possibly compare."

"Listen to yourself! You sound more and more like an elvish snob!"

"And you have terrible taste! You could have drank sewage water and still think it tastes better than any elven wine!"

"You are both wrong," Musashi suddenly interjected. "When it comes to alcohol, nothing beats the quality of mycoflor's mushroom sake."

Both Colvig and Pinto brushed their beards as if they are in deep thought.

"Well, you're not wrong," Colvig admitted. "Shroomman sake is certainly the best. But dwarven ale is definitely the second best!"

"No, elven wine is second best!" Pinto argued.

Dingo blew out a breath of mild frustration. "Oi, mates, can we just get into the city already? If we have to sit here and listen to two dwarves and a mycoflor argue about alcohol preferences, we're gonna be here all day."

Colvig grunted. "Fine! Hey, Pinto. Remember to check them."

Pinto whined. "Do I have to? We've already had a long conversation with them. I'm pretty sure they're not demons."

"it's procedure!"

"Fine!"

With that, Pinto moved towards Dingo and the others and held up what appeared to be a teal-colored coin with a hole punched into its center and was tied to a thin loop of string. A divinium coin, as Jack had realized. Dingo and the others took turns grabbing the coin with their bare hands before releasing it in front of Pinto's eyes as if letting him know they could safely touch the metal.

Seeing that, Jack realized this must have been their own unique way of detecting demons---specifically, shape-shifting demons called changelings. No demon could bear the touch of divinium and so this was simply another way of detecting them. In Ingenwell, it was a cross-shaped plague. In Grumgrod, it was a coin attached to a string.

It boggled his mind to consider the amount of paranoia the demons must have caused to make demon-checking a regular routine when entering any city. Even so, Jack couldn't help but be fascinated by the differing methods people use to check for demons. Compared to Ingenwell, Grumgrod's method of demon-checking seemed almost too...primitive, for the lack of a better term.

"So this is how you guys check for demons, huh?" Jack said, grabbing onto the coin and making sure his bare skin made contact with the divinium before letting go. "Back in Ingenwell, they have a large plaque on the wall that people had to touch in order to enter the city."

"Oh yeah, we don't have anything like that," Pinto said. "People here would straight up steal it, even if it's nailed to the wall. Can't have any divinium lying around unguarded in these parts. This method is much safer."

After the check, Pinto gave the thumbs up, giving Colvig the go-ahead to activate the mechanism that opens the door. Because of the sheer size and weight of the stone door, even the act of it opening felt like an event. The trembling it made as it opened made Jack felt small, almost like a mouse. However, once the door was opened, Jack was greeted with an even more incredible sight.

Inside this very cave was a massive city connected by a vast network of tunnels, pillars, and archways. There were stone-carved buildings as far as the eye can see, its structure built in such a way that it naturally blended in with the cavern walls instead of standing out from it, giving it both a firm but pleasing aesthetic that Jack hadn't seen anywhere else. Crowds of people filled every nook and cranny of the streets below, bustling with activity of every kind. This was a city built entirely underground and yet it felt almost as lively as Ingenwell, if not more so.

"Woah," Jack uttered, his breath taken away by the outstanding view. He never knew cities that were built underground could be this huge and yet this vast underground city right in front of him had proved him otherwise.

"Like I said, one of the marvels of dwarven architecture," Dingo said. "Though you should have seen it in its glory days, back before the last Divinium War. Come, this way."

Jack followed Dingo and the others as they traverse the rocky tunnels and underpasses that made up the infrastructure of this uniquely built city. Not only was it large, it was also surprisingly complex, to the point where he would definitely get lost if not for Dingo's guidance.

Everywhere he went, he saw stone buildings that seemed to meld with the earthy walls and ground as though the buildings were part of the caves and not a separate entity. Additionally, judging by the fine details of its design, most of these buildings seemed to possess the quality of expert craftsmanship while at the same time showing signs of cracking and erosion due to years of lacking maintenance.

While most of the buildings were built with a fairly similar design, there were a handful of them here and there that broke the trend, usually in the form of wooden shacks and such. Interestingly enough, planted alongside the buildings and attached to the rocky walls were several gigantic mushrooms---some of which were the size of trees---to act as replacement for foliage that one would typically see in an above-ground city.

As Jack continued on his trek through the busy streets, he took notice on the people of the city. Given that this was a dwarven city, it's unsurprising that the majority of the the pedestrians he encountered were dwarves. What was interesting, however, was that the second majority seemed to be the same race of mushroom-like humanoids that Musashi belonged to. Though they appeared to be mushroom people, they don't look exactly like Musashi per se; more so that they are humanoids that simply took the form of various mushroom species and thus look radically different from one another in terms of size, shape and color. Aside from that, there were a fairly substantial portion of humans and even a rare percentage of elves, which was quite an astonishing sight given the bad blood between dwarves and elves.

Due to being underground, there was no presence of natural sunlight so most of the illumination around here was provided by one of the two sources. On one hand, there were the conventional lanterns, torches, and braziers that dotted the crowded streets. On the other hand, there were exotic-looking bioluminescent mushrooms attached to the more tightly spaced alleyways and corners, glowing with varying shades of bluish green. The mixture of the two different hues of lighting really added to the whole scenic atmosphere of the place.

After walking up a long stone staircase, after which Jack was nearly out of breath, they have finally arrived at their destination.

"Here it is," Dingo said. "Here lies the base of operations of the Crimson Flame...the Fire Temple."