The girls explored the lake area of the oasis city and liked it a whole lot. There, one thing led to another, causing Sophia and Ari to feel the need to create a romantic holiday retreat together for some reason or another. Naturally, Anna and Maya decided to do the same because, of course they would.

  “Ohh!” The girls arrived at the tavern of the oasis city, and Sophia liked what she was seeing. It was a two-story building made of mostly sandstone with wooden inserts and a bar on the ground floor. It had a rather open design with a big arched entrance at the front to let fresh air in and the heat out. The high ceiling helped with getting the temperature tolerable, as well. Using magic to cool the temperature wasn’t really a thing outside the group, after all.

  Colorful carpets were placed all over the ground because people were sitting directly on the floor with a couple of cushions around low tables. It was already late afternoon when the girls arrived at the tavern, and the place had already turned quite lively. Many patrons were enjoying their stay. Just like everywhere else, the guests were mostly of feline and horned origin. Except for a certain duo of wolves. Fen and Aura were sitting in a corner in the tavern together with the older gazelle man the group met when first arriving in the city.

  “Someone is having a great time, huh?” Maya noticed all the empty glasses in front of the male wolf and had to smile. “He sure loves his alcohol.”

  “Looks great!” Sophia saw the cut-open coconut with a straw sticking out sitting on the table in front of Aura and clapped her hands. “Let’s join them!” Looking forward to having a sweet and delicious cocktail on her own, she energetically walked over to their wolves while the others followed after her.

  “Well, would you look who it is!” Arriving there, Aura addressed them first. “Done with exploring already?”

  “For today, at least.” The blonde gave her a thumbs up. “For now, I’d love one of these!” She then pointed at the coconut in front of her.”

  "A good choice.” The female wolf nodded. “It’s sweet and delicious!”

  “Exactly what I wanted to hear! I take three!” Afterward, she sat down on a cushion right next to Aura.

  “I’ll start with one first.” As Maya knew the meaning of restraint, she sounded a lot more reasonable as she also sat down. “Then again, alcohol works on me, so I have to deal with that.”

  “Me, too.” Ari and Anna had the same reaction. “Just one for now, please.”

  “Did you come across anything interesting while exploring?” Auro got curious about their trip.

  “Maya made friends with the sand cat folk," Sophia answered her.

  “They’re great!” The cat-girl energetically continued. “I really need to ask my parents whether or not some distant relatives of hours were sand cats, too! I relate with them way too much, after all!”

  “Someone likes the desert, huh?” Aura let out a small chuckle.

  “Very much!” She just nodded.

  “We also took a look at the lake.” The blonde continued. “The water and the beach were amazing! I’m really curious about how deep the lake really is!”

  “That’s a good question.” The horned man from before looked at her. “My name’s Doma, by the way. I don’t think we got to that part earlier when we met.”

  “I’m Sophia!” She smiled at him. “Those three are Maya, Anna, and Ari.” The blonde went ahead to introduce them to him, as well. “Why is it a good question, though?” Sophia then focused on Doma again.

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  "Because we haven't found an answer to that question, either.” He shrugged. “We tried to measure it a couple of years ago, but that didn’t work out.”

  “How so?” The blonde tilted her head before taking a sip from the coconut drink a server had just given her. “Delicious! So smooth and tasty!”

  “We organized a massively long string, attached a big rock to it, and took a boat to the middle of the lake. From there, we tried to let it sink to the bottom and measure the distance left, but we ran out of string before reaching the end.”

  “Wouldn’t the solution be a longer rope, then?”

  “It’s not that easy to find one that’s even longer than 500 meters.”

  “Ah.” Sophia noticed the issue. “Well, how about tying two together, then?”

  “It’s not like it’s a commodity item, you know?” He stared at her. “We only bought it by chance when we made our journey to the trade hub because the people who commissioned it never came to collect it. Having another one made will take a long while, as well as costing us a good amount of gold. We were curious, but not to that amount. It’s not like we’d gain anything from knowing how deep the lake is, do we?”

  “I guess that’s fair enough.” The blonde couldn’t blame him for that. “I still love crazy nature like that, though! A super-deep lake is intriguing! I’d still love to find out how deep it really is!”

  “Well, unless you somehow have a couple hundred meters of rope on you, this might be easier said than done.” Doma didn’t think it would be possible.

  “Actually~.” Her expression turned cheeky.

  “Of course she has that in her storage…" Maya had a feeling of what he was trying to imply, and she just let out a sigh before taking another sip from her own coconut drink.

  “Yeah.” Ari had the exact same reaction.

  “Wait, I have an even better idea!” Sophia then clapped her hands. “I could just use magic to measure the distance!”

  “I’m not an expert on the matter, but I don’t think that’s how magic works.” The horned man looked confused. “I can create water with magic, which is a literal blessing in a desert, and others can use other elements, but something like that doesn't sound like anything I know."

  “Ahh, how nostalgic~.” Hearing that, the short tiger started smiling. “It sure has been a while since I last heard that complaint.” Although, as she didn’t feel like explaining the whole topic at the moment, she skipped right to the point for the time being. “There’s more to magic than just elements. The wolves and us girls here are powerful enough to use uncategorized magic. I’m a little talented with it, too, so I have a trick or two up my sleeve.”

  “Ha.” Doma was at a loss for words.

  “Understandable reaction.” Ari couldn’t blame him and just nodded a few times for taking another sip of her drink. “This is so good!” Her eyes started sparkling.

  “I know, right?!” The blonde felt the same. Words aside, neither of them were concerned about the horned man’s broken common sense, though.

  “Today’s youth is crazy.” It was all he could say. “I won’t say no to having the depth measured, but really, how does that work?”

  “It’s actually one of my easier tricks.” Sophia nodded. “Simply put, I can put a bit of my magic into objects like stones, for example. Once I did that, I can perfectly tell where it is and thus how far it is away from me.”

  “That is quite handy.” Doma seemed impressed.

  “She can be pretty useful.” Maya had to agree.

  "So, I guess we'll have a nice boat ride to the middle of the lake tomorrow~." Sophia gave a thumbs up. “That’s doubly nice because I wanted to see how the clear water looks from above, too.”

  “It’s quite eerie.” He scratched his cheek. “It just goes down and down before it slowly turns dark once the sunlight can’t reach further down anymore. I didn’t enjoy being there. I always had the feeling that something would jump at me at any moment. The beach is a much nicer place.”

  “Ohh!” Both tigers liked the sound of his description.

  “Was the something bit really necessary?” Ari wasn’t as much of a fan.

  “I’m NOT going on that boat!” Maya really didn’t like it.

  “I love my scaredy cat~.” Sophia’s expression turned smug.

  “S-Shut up!” She raised her voice. “It’s perfectly normal to dislike spooky stuff!”

  “It sure is~.” Everyone looked at her with warm eyes.

  “Grr!” Maya hated that even more.

  “Feel free to come with us~.” The blonde’s voice became even more teasing.

  "I look forward to the next spider-infested cave we come across." The cat-girl had enough.

  “A-Ah.” Sophia turned pale.

  “Those two really are made for each other.” Aura let out a small chuckle while watching their exchange.

  “For the better and worse!” The duo in question perfectly synchronized.

  Once everyone got a good laugh at that, and them, the group continued to enjoy the tavern, or to be more precise, the drinks the tavern served. While doing so, Sophia also finally found out how the horned beastfolk usually slept. As it turned out, the people with pointy horns really put something soft, like cork, on them when sharing the bed with someone. Asking a bighorn sheep at the table next to them, she also learned that it’s really just a matter of getting used to sleeping in one position only. It’s not like they had a choice, after all.