A world of fire and shadow, the Earthen Furnace almost had Wolf mourning the bioluminescent mushrooms and cold, damp chambers of the Overgrown Caverns. Almost. He still couldn't quite get the sound of buzzing out of his ears after the misadventure with the cave flies.

Emberclaw scuttled between him and Phoebe happily, clearly content in their natural environment, while Wolf's breaths came in shallow bursts, the Furnace's heat pressing down on his lungs like a weight. Each intake of air burned through his lungs.

Phoebe seemed far more at ease though, as she wandered on ahead, charting a course that meandered from the beaten path.

That was when Wolf heard it, a muffled clanging, faint but unmistakable. It grew louder and louder with each step they took, beating rhythmically through the Furnace's heart.

"Do you hear that?" Wolf called over the dull roar of lava and the ever louder thump of a hammer on metal.

"Sounds like a forge," she called without turning back, pressing further towards the sound.

Wolf had heard forges before, back when he was just a scrappy foal hanging around the local smithy, too poor to waste money on even a wood toy sword, but hoping they'd let him try out the real ones. He'd been too small to use them then, but hoped that someday soon he'd make enough coin to afford one now.