Chapter 314 Holy City Thraben
There is no doubt that for a world like Innistrad that is full of gothic horror style, the best place to get information is undoubtedly the tavern.
So after entering the town, Zuo Si took Nisha straight to the only building that was still brightly lit.
As soon as I arrived at the door, I could hear all kinds of complaints, curses and rude laughter coming from inside.
As a young elf, Nissa was obviously quite uncomfortable with this atmosphere, and the pungent smell of alcohol, tobacco and sweat made her frown even before she entered. .
Zuo Si undoubtedly noticed this and immediately said: "If you don't want to go in, just wait for me at the door. Don't worry, generally speaking, there won't be any important information in remote towns like this. I'll give it in about ten minutes at most." You should be able to come out."
"Okay, I'll wait for you outside. The bad smell here makes me want to vomit."
Nisha pinched her nose and hid. In the dark corner next to it.
After all, she has lived in the wilderness and forest since she was a child, breathing Zendikar's air full of natural energy and high oxygen content. Innistrad's environment rich in black negative energy has made her He felt very uncomfortable, not to mention a smoky place like a tavern.
After Zuo Si blessed himself with an air filtering spell, he opened the door and walked in.
As expected, this is a small tavern that specifically serves local residents. There are only six or seven tables and a long bar, and there are about a dozen people drinking and chatting.
Two-thirds of them are men and one-third are women.
A man who looked about thirty years old and had a full beard was standing at the bar, refilling drinks for the customers who came over with empty glasses from time to time.
Of course, the ones added are basically the cheapest and cheapest rye beer.
After all, in Innistrad, a world where the nights are always longer than the days and full of twisted mana, the growth rate of crops is actually slower than those in normal worlds, and the yield is relatively low, so Although the level of agricultural technology gives people a feeling of the seventeenth or even eighteenth century on Earth, people's lives are generally not wealthy.
Most of the reasons why they like to drink one or two drinks at night are so that they can sleep well and avoid some terrible nightmares.
After all, under the multiple threats of vampires, werewolves and the undead, the people here live in a state of extreme mental stress every day. For them, alcoholic beverages are not only a hobby, but also a necessity of life. .
But when Zuo Si walked in, everyone in the tavern stopped talking and stared at this young man who looked very strange.
You must know that in this small town with a small flow of people, outsiders are very conspicuous.
Except for businessmen, Skitarii (holy warriors who believe in the Church of Archangel Avacyn and protect humans from monster threats), vampires and werewolf hunters, almost no one will risk their lives and leave safety. Big city, wandering in the wilderness full of monsters.
"Welcome to Sweetwater Town, what would you like to drink?"
The boss standing at the bar was the first to break the silence and asked a fairly friendly question.
"Give everyone a glass of the best wine here, my treat."
Zuo Si casually placed a gold bar on the table and directly used the big coin throwing skill.
In an instant!
The guests, who were a little wary and hostile to him one second, let out deafening cheers the next second.
"Hahahaha! To the generous stranger!"
"I wish you good health! Never meet those damn werewolves!"
"Bogos, Quickly take out the barrel of black plum wine that you have collected. I have long wanted to taste what five silver coins a glass of fine wine tastes like.”
“That’s right! It’s so bitter that I can’t taste anything when I eat it.”
Looking at this group of people making noises, the tavern owner known as Boges couldn't help but smile and shook his head. He picked up the gold bar and bit it in his mouth to confirm that it was not a fake made with gold powder coated with heavy metals such as lead. After picking up the gold bar, he immediately turned around and took out an oak barrel half a man's height from the wine cellar.
Then with everyone's expectations, he used an ax to make a hole in the top of the barrel, scooped out the dark purple liquid inside with a large wooden spoon, and gave Zuo Si a cup first, and then One after another, pour two or three spoonfuls to the regular customers who are eager to try.
Soon, the whole pub became quiet, and everyone was using an extremely pious attitude to taste this expensive alcoholic beverage that they might not be able to afford in their lifetime.
About half a minute or so, when one-third of the wine in the glass was down, they returned to the lively chatting atmosphere before.
Of course, what is inevitable is the praise for the taste and taste of this blackberry wine, as well as speculation about Zuo Si’s identity.
A drunken man sat down next to the latter, grinned with big yellow teeth and asked: "Brother, I think you are a vampire and a werewolf hunter, right?" "
"Oh? How do you know?" Zuo Si asked calmly.
"Do you still need to ask? Look at the weapons you carry and your lavish hospitality style. Apart from hunters who can earn huge rewards, there can be no one else." Zui. Han proudly stated his conclusion.
Zuo Si lowered his head and took a look at his outfit and the weapons fixed on his belt. It really gave people the illusion that he looked like a vampire and a werewolf hunter in this world. He simply nodded and admitted: "Okay. , I am indeed a hunter who makes a living by accepting commissions to hunt vampires and werewolves. Are there any commissions in this regard in your town or other surrounding villages?"
The drunk man burped and touched the thick spots on his chest. Mao smiled bitterly and shook his head: "No. The werewolf activities here have been so frequent recently that most towns and villages can't spend much money to hire outstanding hunters. And it seems that the Skitarii also have Something went wrong. It is said that their prayers could not be answered by Archangel Avacyn, which caused the frequency of proactive attacks to clean up monsters to slow down."
"Yes! The world has really become more and more difficult recently." Boss Bogos couldn't help but sigh.
The Skitarii’s prayers were not answered by Archangel Avacyn?
With this piece of information, Zuo Si immediately realized the timeline Innistrad was currently on.
Right now, the archangel Avacyn should be sealed into the hell cellar together with the demon Thornze.
In addition to the two of them, the Lithomancer Nahiri was also sealed in it by Sorin Markov a long time ago.
If there is no external intervention, it should be another planeswalker who is proficient in necromancy magic, Liliana Weiss, who took the initiative to destroy the hell cellar in order to kill the demon Thornze who had signed a contract with her and regain the right to own the soul, and finally destroyed the hell cellar. The three were released together, and in a nearly crushing manner, they killed the demon lord Thornzee who had been making trouble in Innistrad for thousands of years.
Thinking of this, Zuo Si quickly locked the location of the prison cellar, which is the largest church in the holy city of Serban, and asked directly: "No major changes happened in the holy city of Serban, right?"
"How could there be any major changes in the holy city of Serban. It is the headquarters of the Skitarii, with countless elite knights and monks who can use holy power. If the city of Serban is as sensitive to the growing dark power as we are here, If there is nothing we can do, then humanity will really perish.”
The drunkard is obviously full of confidence in Serban City.
After all, for hundreds of years since the creation of Archangel Avacyn, Thraben City has always played the role of a protective umbrella for human civilization.
No matter what methods the leaders of the vampire families and werewolf tribes used, they were never able to get any benefits from the Skitarii led by them. Therefore, in the eyes of most ordinary people in Innistrad, Thraben City is no longer as simple as a large city, but closer to a place of hope and faith.
As long as the city of Thraben remains standing, it proves that humans can still survive and thrive in this crisis-ridden world.
"Yes, that's really reassuring."
When he said these words, a trace of imperceptible pity flashed in Zuo Si's eyes.
Because as far as he knew, the holy city of Thraban would be captured at least twice in the near future.
One of them was about two siblings, Kisha and Kirav, who were born into a noble family in Serban City, but fell in love with necromancy.
These two insane lunatics actually tried to take advantage of the weakness of Serban City to seize the huge tombs there, transform all the corpses into undead creatures, or dismantle and reorganize them into corpse-embedded creature.
The second time was because Emrakul, the eldest of the three Eldrazi Titans, was summoned to this world. As a result, the entire Innistrad environment was distorted by the energy of the dark void, and the difficulty of survival directly changed from The evil escalates to the point of seeking survival from death.
In short, after getting the information he wanted, Zuo Si chatted with these drunkards for a while and then stood up and left.
Of course, that glass of so-called expensive black plum wine was never touched.
After he left, the drunk man who had seized the vantage point immediately grabbed the wine glass in his hand and began to squint his eyes to enjoy what was probably the best wine he had ever drunk in his life.
Seeing Zuo Si walking out of the tavern, Nessa, who was hiding in the dark, immediately stepped forward and asked: "How is it, have you found out any useful information?"
"Yes. , our next stop is the holy city of Serban. If nothing else happens, Sorin Markov should show up there."
After that, Zuo Si directly summoned two griffins that are good at long-distance flying. .
Through the conversation just now, he already roughly knew the location of Serban City, so he just had to fly along the road to the west, and he would reach his destination in a short time.
Because compared to Zendikar and Faerûn, the area of Innistrad's space-time is relatively smaller, and the scope of human activities threatened by a large number of external factors is not large, basically surrounding the holy city of Thraben. within the radiation range.
If you go any further, you will lose the protection of the Skitarii and eventually be swallowed by the twisted dark power.
Soon, Zuo Si and Nisha rode into the sky on griffins and left this town full of depression and tension.
When they left the scope of human activities and entered the wilderness, swamps and forests, they saw a large number of rotting corpses wandering aimlessly, as well as ghosts, banshees, and ghosts that exuded maliciousness. A giant monster twisted and strengthened by dark power.
Especially some small plantations standing in the edge areas often build masonry walls up to ten meters high, and there are always groups of werewolves wandering around the walls.
Once some unlucky person fails to stand firm and falls from a high place to the bottom, the werewolves will swarm up and tear them into pieces, and then devour them alive.
The extremely cruel and bloody scene made Nissa unable to help showing an expression of intolerance several times.
In contrast, Zuo Si acted much calmer and had no intention of interfering at all.
Because he knows that all of this is the impact of Innistrad's unique environment and black negative energy, which originates from the most fundamental power.
Unless you have the powerful ability to reshape the entire world, no matter what you do, it will be in vain.
Even ancient planeswalkers like Sorin Markov could only create the archangel Avacyn to barely maintain the fragile ecosystem.
Fortunately, this miserable situation began to improve as we got closer to the holy city of Thraban.
There were even soldiers patrolling on horses and holding swords around some towns.
Whenever they find undead creatures and werewolves approaching villages or towns, they will immediately summon their companions to strangle them.
Under this strict defense, many towns seemed to have prosperous trade, instead of looking deserted like the previous town.
When they saw the majestic city walls of the holy city of Serban appearing on the horizon, the two quickly lowered their height to the ground, and their mounts were changed from griffins to ordinary horses.
After all, flying creatures are very rare in Innistrad, and Zuo Si didn't want to attract the attention of the guards and skitarii.
Furthermore, the guard inspections in Serban City are also extremely strict, and some kind of magic will even be used to confirm whether the person entering the city is an evil creature such as a vampire or a werewolf.
But this is not a big problem for Zuo Si and Nisha.
After paying the city entry tax, the two walked through the heavily guarded city gate and entered the bustling streets of the city.
Unlike the residents of other towns, who are mostly nervous and wary of strangers, the residents of Serban City seem to be very friendly and enthusiastic, and have no worries about safety.
Because in the hundreds of years since the emergence of Archangel Avacyn, this place has almost never received any threat from evil forces, and even none of the corpses buried in the surrounding cemeteries can crawl come out.
The long-term peace and security have even made many people forget that they are living in the crisis-ridden Innistrad, and enjoy all this with peace of mind, not caring whether other compatriots outside the Holy City are in good health. In dire straits.
"How do you feel about this city?" Zuo Si asked the elf planeswalker beside him with a smile.
Nissa shrugged her shoulders and replied: "Positive, optimistic, uplifting, and overall I feel pretty good. You know, there are very few large gathering places in Zendikar, so I am still very curious about places like the city. . ”
“In that case, just take a stroll here and experience the different customs. Here is a bag of coins that allows you to purchase various goods and services. "Zuo Si directly handed over a bag full of gold coins.
These coins were exchanged for gold bars and gold nuggets that he just passed through a gold shop. For most ordinary people, they are already a huge sum of money.
Staring at the money bag in front of her, Nisha was stunned for a moment, and then asked in an uncertain tone: "Is it really okay for me to wander aimlessly like this?"
"It doesn't matter. When we arrive at Serban City, we have achieved half of the purpose of our trip. The rest is to wait patiently." Zuo Si responded with a smile.
Looking at the heavy gold coins and the numerous shops on the street and the various goods sold in the market, Nisha, who had almost no experience living in a big city, soon couldn't resist the temptation, took the purse and started to buy like crazy what she was interested in. Everything.
After Zuo Si watched the elf planeswalker get into the first shop, he changed direction and went straight to the largest church in Serban City.
(End of this chapter)