Chapter 36 Exploring the Underground Hideout.

High in the massive dome shaped rooms walls, there were hundreds of pipes that were spewing out water into the clear pool that surrounded the sword Altar. The pipes were so high that there was no way for Lili or even Accalia to get back to the pipe from which they had come from.

There seemed to be only one way that could be used to get out of this place. There in front of the sword altar and opposite of the statue was a massive hallway. The size of it was enough to fit two big tanks side by side there.

Looking at it Lili noticed that the same clear water of the round pool followed along the hallways sides. But where did it lead to, Lili wondered as she looked into the dark distance.

While looking at the darkness Lili stood still and realised just how silent this whole place was. The entire place stood in complete silence. The only thing that could be heard was the sounds of the pipes spewing out their water and quiet calm breaths of her and her mother.

To add to this there was also the fact that their vision was limited. The light stones could only shine their lights a few tens of meters or so. The silence along with the darkness of this place made Lilis mind wonder around, creating scary thoughts in her head. She couldn't help but imagine if there might have been monsters just waiting for them in the darkness up ahead. Even now they might have been watching them form a far. The thought of it sent chills of fear down Lilis spine. Oh how she would have so wished to still have her service pistol with her right now.

Sadly right now all she could do was rely on Accalia and her werewolf powers, other than that she was pretty much defenceless.

But seeing no other way out of this place, Lili and Accalia looked at each other and took a hold of each others hands and then started walking hand in hand into the dark hallway.

Along the way they had not yet found any scary monsters or any life for that matter and so they had then decided to stop and rest. Sitting there for a while they decided to test out the water going along the sides of the hallway and to their amazement they found it to be perfectly clean. But not only was it clean, but it was quite cool as well which helped them clench their thirst for a while.

For some time they kept on walking until they finally came to a dead end. Or that's what Lili had thought at first.

There in front of them seemed to be what looked like large rusty steel doors. The doors were hard to see in the dark as the doors were partially covered by stones that were growing on its surface.

After realising this they had tried to push the doors, kick the doors and even pray in front of the doors, but no Matter how hard they tried the doors just wouldn't open. Left with no other choice, Lili was forced to use her head to think of a solution to this problem.

While lost in thought she had started to look around a bit and then Lili noticed that next to the doors there was what looked like a large control panel. It was absolutely huge, clearly meant for a giant as it had large buttons and even a large screen, but sadly it didn't work.

Lili was no electrician, but she figured that the thing was probably not working because there was no electricity here. But then again, why would there be electricity in the underground sewers to begin with? All this just seemed so strange and confusing to her.

Lili might not have been a smart person by any means, but even she couldn't help but realise the obvious. This most definitely didn't look or feel like your typical medieval sewer system. But then again she had never even seen a modern sewer system so who was she to say anything for sure. Honestly Lili didn't know what to think anymore, she just wanted to not die here.

So with the doors not working, Lili then decided to use her modern day knowledge of basic building safety standards. She remembered that there always had to be at least one manually openable exit somewhere. An exit that even a child should be able to find and open to get out of danger. Surely this place had such things. She figured that there was no way that this place would trap people here and just let them die. That just seemed wrong.

With this in mind she and Accalia started to feel around the walls for something that felt like another door.

And to her and Accalias great relief there truly was such a door here. On both sides of the large metal door there seemed to be two other doors that were covered in small stones and rust. Honestly Lili couldn't understand it at all, how could there seemingly be stones growing on metal surfaces, just how old would a place need to be for that to happen anyways?

Lili tried to pull and push at the doors, but they just wouldn't budge. It seemed that the small stones were keeping the doors shut and would need to be cleared out first. Sadly Lili held no tools to start breaking rocks, but luckily her mother had a solution for this.

Accalia transformed into her naked werewolf form and then surprisingly easily started to break the small rocks off of the doors. With her fists she smashed and with her claws she scratched and after a while they were able to open both the doors. Although Accalias nails did need a bit of healing after that.

After that Accalia transformed back into her human form as apparently she felt more comfortable in it. Then they started looking into both the doors. Behind both doors there was What seemed like metal stairs going round and round for who knows how long.

With no way to see where the stairs ended, Lili just decided to start heading up the right side stairs, after all right was usually right. With this in mind they started to make their way upwards.

They only managed to make one round around the stairs to what seemed like the first floor when they then noticed a human sized metal door on the right of them.

Looking at the stairs going upwards Lili figured that there were probably doors like this on every level just like in a normal buildings stairwell. With this in mind they decided to check out what was behind the door. Unlike the other doors this door actually opened quite easily.

Behind it they then found an extremely dark and long corridor. In the corridor they could see a lot of small metal doors like the one they had just opened. There seemed to be tens or even hundreds of rooms here it seemed, but it was hard to tell in the darkness. Honestly the place seemed quite scary to Lili, it looked like one of those scenes from a horror movie. There were even metal ventilation valves in the sealing, a perfect place for a monster from a horror movie to be spying on them and then jump down to attack them.

Lili honestly felt a bit hesitant to enter, but with her mother right behind her and her being a freaking werewolf Lili managed to push herself forward.

Curiously they then proceeded to open one of these doors and there they discovered a small room.

The room resembled one of those cheap rooms that you could get on a cruise ship. There were two bunk beds with only the metal frames left to be seen on each side of the small room, then there was also a thin metal door that seemed to lead to a smaller room and behind it was what looked like a bathroom.

In the bathroom Lili finally, for the first time in this life got to see a real toilet. Although it was not as exciting of a discovery as she would have liked it to be. The thing was all rusted up and just made of metal, but at least she had gotten to see a toilet. There was a rusty shower head, but the thing seemed like it was going to turn to dust from the slightest of touch.

But most interesting of all was that in the bathroom, right above it's metal sink was a mirror. Sure it was extremely degraded and it wasn't reflecting anything, but it at least was a mirror, that she was sure of. Maybe with a little bit of polishing she might actually make it shine again.

While looking at all of this, Lili then heard her mother say.

"What sort of a place is this? Is it a dungeon of some kind?"

Lili wanted to refute her mothers words, surely this place was not a dungeon. It definitely didn't have the metal bars that a dungeon would have. If anything then Lili would say that it was some kind of an underground temple, but honestly she had no idea.

Shrugging her shoulders Lili then just said.

"Honestly I have no idea what this place is, but it clearly has not been used for a long time. So I say this place is whatever we want it to be. After all we found it and so isn't it just fair that we keep it."

Accalia seemed unsure of this as she said.

"Ummmm, I don't know. Don't you think it's a bit risky to stay here? After all this is right under Camelot. What if the guards find us here?"

Lili just smiled as she looked at her naked mother and then said.

"No, they are not going to find us. Not as long as we just keep this place a secret from all outsiders, this will be our secret hideout. Just think about it mother. With all this space and these rooms, we can surely hide all the girls here. Plus the water is clean and drinkable. Now we just need to find a way out of here and start furnishing this place and gathering a stockpile of food. Just think about all the great things that we could possibly do with this place."

Accalia still didn't seem convinced, but she didn't reject her idea either, so that was what they were going to do. Ever since Lili showed Accalia her healing powers it seemed like Accalias trust and respect had grown immensely towards her. To Lili it seemed kind of funny that a grown woman was following the lead of a small girl, but she for sure wasn't complaining.

After that they didn't dare to go further into the dark hallway and instead returned back to the stairs. There they then noticed that there was another door right opposite of the other one.

As they opened up the door they found there to be a similar looking corridor which they decided to avoid. Instead they started heading upwards.

For the next three floors they kept on finding the same things. Just more and more scary looking dark corridors. Only once they got to the 5th level did things then finally change.

As Accalia in her werewolf form forced the door open they were met with the sight of a bunch of old metal chairs and tables piled up against the door. Curious of this Lili then got closer to have a look. From behind the tables and chairs she saw what seemed like a giant cafeteria in the dark distance.

The sight of it was quite shocking to Lili. She couldn't help but think, what the hell was a massive cafeteria doing underground? Unlike the corridors before, this place was really wide, which made it look even scarier. There were at least no flickering lights, but there still was the eerie silence.

Nonetheless they bravely climbed over the tables and chairs and took a look inside the big cafeteria. On their right Lili could see what looked like the entrance to the other stairway and all over the floor she could see hundreds of food trays and all sorts of cutlery laying around.

The whole place just looked like a mess. Although the sight of the cutlery excited her a little. Sure all of it was rusty and extremely old, but maybe she might be able to make some money with them. After all they were pretty much antiques and they could also be sold as scrap metal or something like that. I mean, who knows if maybe someone would be interested in a hundred year old rusted spoon.

Feeling excited at the thought of this Lili then pushed further into the big cafeteria in search of the kitchen.

Accalia on the other hand was being extremely quiet as she cautiously kept on looking at her surroundings as she followed Lili.

As they got closer to the middle of the large cafeteria Lili was able to see what looked like the kitchen there. The kitchen was in a square shape with lots of broken glass all over the long counter that went almost fully around the kitchen.

Walking around the outside of the kitchen Lili noticed that there had ones seemed to have been glass separating the kitchen from the rest of the cafeteria, but now all the glass was broken. The counters and the floor were full of small pieces of glass which Lili and Accalia had to be very careful not to step on any of it. Even the door leading into the kitchen was nowhere to be seen. It looked like time had just evaporated the door out of existence as only little piles of dust remained there.

Walking past the door, Lilis feet kicked up the dust as she entered the kitchen. Immediately she noticed that the kitchen was pretty much empty, almost nothing was left there anymore. It looked like someone had been in a rush as the whole place seemed like it had been turned upside down and looted.

All that was left there were just some extremely old spoons, forks and butter knives. There also seemed to be something that looked like stoves and a few pans and other things, but none of it seemed to still be in a usable condition.

Going down on her knees Lili, like a small child then started to try out the old cutlery on the floor. She started banging the spoons, knives and forks against the floor to try and see how durable the things still were. That's when Lili heard Accalia say.

"What you doing there Lili?"

Looking to her mother Lili smiled and said.

"Umm, well I wanna see just how strong these things are. Maybe we could still use them or maybe just sell them. What do you think mother?"

Patting Lili on the head Accalia then said.

"Hmm, that's a great idea Lili. It's good of you to think of so many things ahead of time, but shouldn't we try and find our way out of here first. Mommy doesn't want to stay stuck here in this place for too long. I don't like how dark this place is, plus the silence is quite off-puting. Besides we can always come back later at anytime we wish and collect all of these things if you'd like?"

Hearing her words Lili couldn't help but start pouting a little. Sure, mother was of course right. They shouldn't waste too much time here , after all who knows how big this place exactly was.

With no pockets on herself or any place to store anything, Lili would need to carry everything by hand or place them in between her breasts or something. But this was completely unacceptable for her, after all rusty things didn't feel nice against the skin. Plus her skin was delicate and precious to her.

So with this in mind she was sadly forced to leave everything behind here. It seemed that her thoughts of becoming a scrap dealer wouldn't be made into reality just yet.

Not knowing how big this place exactly was, Lili and Accalia decided to head back to the stairs. Accalia wanted to head upwards as that was most likely where the exit to this place was, but thanks to Lilis insistence they instead decided to have a quick peek at what was behind the other door in the stairwell of the fifth floor.

Then as Accalia started forcing open the door they were immediately met with a faint light that was coming from the other side of the door. And then their noses were assaulted by a refreshing smell of an old forest.

The smell of it baffled Lili greatly. How could such a thing be possible here in the underground? Slowly as the door opened up some more, Lili started to smell the scent of old trees, wet soil and grass.

Once more Lili was completely baffled by this, until she finally noticed what it was. The room before them was absolutely humongous, unlike anything she had seen thus far. In the far distance she could see a single faint light in the high sealing. It seemed to be partially covered by moss, but still it was faintly shining its dim light down upon a single massive tree.

The tree was extremely thick and tall. Lili couldn't help but guess that the tree was probably bigger than a 20-story apartment building.

Its branches were also extremely big and up high on the trees body. They were in fact so big that they took up most of the light in the room for themselves.

This in effect had left the other parts of the humongous room deprived of its light. Which in turn had left most of the room just full of wet black soil.

Only small patches of grass or moss could still be seen growing around the room. In a few parts of the room she could even see what looked like small streams going around the place with even a small lake to be seen in the far distance.

If Lili had to guess them this was probably some kind of an underground greenhouse or something like that. She couldn't help but imagine what this place might have looked like at one point in time.

In her mind she could see it so clearly. Hundreds of different plant species growing here in their own sections, with only small pathways and streams separating them from one another.

There would have probably been hundreds of gardeners here taking care of all the plants. In such a controlled environment the work would have probably been extremely nice and the harvest plentiful, plus it would have been probably quite tasty as well.

Truly this place was like a dream come true for Lili. In her past she had always been interested in gardening and growing things. She had even done some gardening in her past life and this life as well, so the sight of this place made her almost immediately squeal in excitement.

With such a massive greenhouse she could probably feed a small city of people and grow whatever plants she wanted to grow. The gardening possibilities here seemed endless and she wouldn't even need to worry about taxes or anything, since this was her and her mother's little secret place.