Chapter 327 Shadow Valley
The sea roared, and the ghost city Sultansa stood upright among the waves and foam of the Shadow Sea.
Directly below them, waves shattered against the walls of the High King's palace.
The Tower of Karthus, piled high with obsidian, stands high, dark and lifeless.
"The Golden Age of Netheril." High King Telamante followed Breenas' gaze and said, "Every ten years, the great arcane masters of the Supreme Council of Mages will Wear traditional attire, come to the tower of Karthus, and enter a well-prepared room to discuss issues. ”
"This is a dangerous tradition and meaningless." Brenas retracted his gaze from the dark tower, looked at his father, and made a comment.
He seemed to have walked out of the void. His personal mark - a majestic lion with bat wings depicted in black outline on a blood-red background, was conspicuously worn on his chest.
"Indeed. Although this tradition has a long history and is entirely based on practical considerations, as you said, there is no problem in discussing it." The High King stood with his hands folded, staring at the rough waves. Sea of Shadows.
“Every member of the Supreme Council of Mages knows that a gathering composed of great arcanists is very dangerous. When the two parties communicate, they often speak uncontrollably because of a dispute over an issue. In a certain communication , Larok's ball lightning exploded Ovo's cloak and hat, and Ovo's death ball corroded Larok's coat and cane, so Karthus used powerful magical aura to strengthen the walls of the tower and restore it. It took him five years to set up the anti-magic barrier. From that day on, all spells will be disabled in the Tower of Karthus, and the dialogue will be more peaceful."
"I understand, you. He floated the floating city on the surface of the Shadow Sea and brought me to the Tower of Karsus. Obviously, he wanted me to witness something, right?" Brenas looked at Mingming Mingming thoughtfully. The shadow sea is darker, but white foam appears when the waves hit the floating city.
In the past, this place was called the 'Thirsty Sandbank'. As its name suggests, this place was originally a basin extending several kilometers in all directions. It was also a saline-alkali zone that even the Bedai barbarians despised.
But with their return, powerful magic was released here, creating a clear and cold lake stretching for thousands of square kilometers on the most barren land in Toril's history.
The dark clouds and mist that linger all year round are suspended in the sky above the Sea of Shadows, blocking the evaporation of the scorching heat from the sky and the death absorption of the ancient monster buried deep in the ground - the Phayling Demon Sunflower.
"But obviously, this tower you named 'Tower of Karsus' is just a fake building." Brenas expressed his guess and asked: "Or should I say , is it really an important building? "
"According to our agreement, if the mage lord of Mokou Town can really prevent the tragedy of Guangze, I will tell you everything." The king did not turn around, his deep gaze seemed to have penetrated the deepest part of the Shadow Sea. His soft words could not hear the slightest emotion, "The real Tower of Karsus is now a ruin. As for whether it is important? Maybe. .”
"Maybe?" Brenas was confused.
“When Karsus was casting the twelve-ring spell, he made a prophecy in his tower and hid the results of the prophecy in the form of magic paintings in the tower.”
"You found the ruins of this tower?" Brenas asked, "And by chance, this ruins happens to contain magic paintings, is that right?"
"You are right, I The ruins of the tower were discovered in the Sea of Shadows, but they were sealed. After all, everyone wants to predict the future, and everyone wants to be a strong man like Karsus. They even claim that there are twelve-ring spells hidden inside. Secret."
The High King waved his hand, the dragon-winged cloak draped over his shoulders rustled in the sea breeze, and the blood-winged lion on the emblem seemed to be galloping in the darkness, "Let's go, Brenas, secret. The mission of existence is not to long for one day to meet the person who wants to uncover it. ”
As the High King waved his hand, Brenas noticed that the terraces under his feet disappeared in an instant. They stood on the edge of the cliff, with an abyss below them, among the foaming waves, and the rocks intertwined like teeth.
His father led him along a narrow black stone path that was like a tight rope connecting the ledges of the Tower of Karthus and the columns supporting the terraces.
Brenas almost lost his balance. If he was not a legendary professional but an ordinary person, he would even fall directly into the abyss.
"Be prepared."
The little prince's sudden body shake could not escape the eyes of the High King. They were on a narrow bridge, being blown by the wind, and the waves were roaring. The abyss is calling Breenas.
There was a sudden spin.
Brenas felt as if he had really fallen into an abyss. When he opened his eyes, the roaring waves disappeared, and he found himself in a closed room without windows.
The ceiling of the room is conical, with a magic stone emitting milky white light embedded at the apex. In the dim light, Brenas can faintly see the four walls and walls engraved with arcane runes. Hard floors.
Other than that, there is nothing inside.
"What is the specific name of this place? I haven't studied it clearly yet." The High King's voice echoed in his ears, so soft that if he was distracted even a little bit, he couldn't hear clearly, so he had to improve himself. Focus and listen carefully, "Close your eyes and feel it quietly. Remember, everyone can only see the prophecy once, and the prophecies they see are all different... unique."
So Brenas closed his eyes.
Gradually, changes appeared in the dark world, as if something jumped into his mind, and the image unfolded directly in his consciousness.
He knew that this was by no means his imagination, but some unimaginable scenes constructed in his mind by some powerful prophecy ability.
When the twisted and intertwined arcane rune lines subsided, a giant painting slowly unfolded in this dark and empty world.
This is the power of prophecy left by the great arcanists of Netheril.
It's a very strange feeling to feel something in your mind. Brenas suppressed the shock in his heart and stayed calm. He knew that once he opened his eyes, all the scenes would disappear instantly. He could only use his own consciousness to feel this. All the details of the painting.
When he focused his attention on the scroll, he actually had the illusion that his own soul was being sucked into it.
He seemed to have entered the picture, but also seemed to be an outsider.
In the scroll, he saw a throne made of bones and steel, with long blood-red windows behind it and an obsidian statue of a dragon flying into the air. It looked like it was from a temple. part.
However, when he fully devoted his consciousness to it, the temple disappeared, and what appeared before his eyes turned into a desolate world, with an oppressive blood-red sun that made the entire The world is bathed in scorching heat and blinding sunlight.
What's even more incredible is that he saw groups of meteorites appearing in the blood-red sky. The largest meteorite was like a teardrop. It seemed to have been stationary in the sky for countless centuries, and then suddenly split into five pieces. Each piece drew a trail of flames across the sky.
These large stray meteorites broke into thousands of smaller fragments, raining down spectacular fire on this desolate world.
Suddenly, the screen shook violently. Brenas felt his feet trembling and almost fell to the ground.
He subconsciously wanted to open his eyes, but held back at the last moment. He saw two chaotic meteorites colliding together suddenly, trailing a long trail, and fell down. The moment it fell, a terrifying chaotic storm set off in the desolate world...
Brenas took a breath and struggled to break free from the screen. The moment the chaotic storm covered his sight, he felt It felt like I was about to suffocate.
Unfortunately, he did not see any useful information in it. He could only remember all the pictures he saw deeply in his mind for future reference or research and verification.
He took a short rest, closed his eyes again, and tried to check the new prophecy.
However, as his father said, a person can only see it once. There is nothing in his sight... just like the world outside the scroll, dark and dead.
After walking out of the secret room, Brenas followed his father and walked towards the Supreme Palace.
The High King said nothing, asked no questions, or inquired about the prophecy. There was no joy or anger on his face.
They sat opposite each other on a Netherese chess table. In the warm and calm afternoon, the air was filled with the fragrance of flowers and plants. Everything seemed quiet and peaceful, except for bees and large beetles buzzing by from time to time.
After a long silence, the High King finally spoke, but his eyes did not focus on Brenas, but drifted into the distance.
"Do you remember the story I told you?" He said slowly.
“Impressed,” Brenas replied.
After he received the news about Brian's successful destruction of Guangze's dark ritual, he got his wish and learned many secrets from his father that he had been unable to dig out from the ruins.
When he asked about the root cause of Netheril's demise, his father did not answer directly, but told him a simple story.
When a young man carrying water by the river was about to go home, he happened to meet a familiar friend, so the two sat on a mound and chatted.
At the same time, there was a black army under the boy's feet that was transporting food to the base camp, and his feet happened to interrupt their transportation route.
The leader of the ants was so angry that he called on all the ants to fight back. They organized an elite expeditionary force and crawled up the boy's shoes. Since the boy was squatting, the ants climbed onto his calf and hit him hard. took a bite.
The young man felt something was wrong, looked down, raised his legs and stamped hard, knocking all the ants off his legs, and then continued to focus on the topic just now.
Due to the young man's stamping, many ants on the ground were trampled to death. The leader of the ants was unwilling to give up. They organized an expeditionary force and charged him repeatedly. The young man also felt that something was wrong, so he stood up and used his feet to kill all the ants. I stepped on all the ants I could see, and then continued chatting with my friends. The leader of the ants finally held an oath meeting and called on all the imperial soldiers to deal with the invaders. Since the boy had caused them to lose a large number of members and cut off the empire's transportation lines, the leader of the ants decided to send a large number of dead soldiers to use pliers on his mouth. Calf, perform a massive attack, preferably destroying his calf.
At this moment, the boy finished chatting with his friend. He said goodbye to his friend with a smile, then looked down at the ant army that was charging towards him, and he picked up the bucket. , poured water all over the ant's position, and the entire ground was swept by the flood in an instant. The mighty ant army was destroyed, and countless outstanding imperial soldiers were swept away by the huge waves. The flood even rushed into the imperial capital, causing damage there. Massive death.
In the end, this war cost the Ant Empire countless soldiers casualties and the complete destruction of transportation and supply lines, in exchange for a bucket of water for the boy and a bite on his calf.
The Ant Emperor finally announced that this was a great victory. Countless outstanding imperial soldiers sacrificed their lives in exchange for the compromise of the powerful invaders, and the evil invaders finally retreated.
This battle was recorded in the history books of ant civilization, and the ants who participated in the war and survived by chance were sung as a heroic epic.
And that afternoon, the boy’s friend told him that his father had earned enough gold coins from an adventure to study spells at the Magic Academy. The boy’s father was a farmer and spent all the year You can't save much wealth, let alone have the opportunity to learn magic.
He is worried about his future. The war in the ant world did not attract his attention. He does not know the cause, development and process of this war. He only knows that he is annoyed by the sight of the nest of ants. , so he poured it over with a basin of water.
From this story, he came to the conclusion that mortals are as vulnerable as ants in front of the gods, but they don't know it.
But today is different from the past. The current rules of the world have already undergone tremendous changes under the impact of the catastrophe of the saints in the turbulent years and the catastrophe of the arcane magic in the last century. The rules began to change subtly.
He believes that if this balance is broken, earth-shaking changes may really occur.
"Since you understand everything, go ahead and lay out your own chessboard." The High King's deep eyes seemed empty, but to Brenas, they were piercing.
His father said to him, "But don't count me in, because I am as insignificant as dust to your chess game, and this is not my chess game either, you say I have to make a choice ? I said you are wrong, I will not choose, I will only react to what happens, and I will adapt to others' choices. This is what I have always done."
"You. "He's a fatalist," Breners said.
He never expected that his father would stand on his side or join his game. All he needed was for him to give himself freedom.
He was grateful to Brian for his efforts, which allowed him to win the bet with his father, which meant that he was not far away from being free.
“Fatalist?” The High King repeated in a slightly self-deprecating tone, his voice soft and calm, “You are right. Even though this is another word I shouldn’t know, I still repeat it. Again: This is not my chess game."
"Really?" Brenas gradually became bolder. He leaned forward and pointed at the rearranged chess pieces on the table, trying his best to expose them. The smile that I consider my most confident.
“In this chess game, father, on this chessboard, there is a dark horse, and his thread of fate is connecting with the fate of the Eno Oak Desert. For us, this can It can be a good thing or a bad thing. You know who I'm talking about, right? I believe you will never be interested in him, right? But you have to know that for us, we want to complete ourselves. In addition to the lost lady, a new method appeared in the dream.”
The High King narrowed his eyes with interest.
"The new method is also the one I think is the most suitable. This is my choice, father." Brenas stood up, arranged his cloak and the final scroll behind his back, "I hope you are looking up at the sky, You can think about this problem carefully while admiring the stars."
After saying this, he turned around and left without looking back.
Right now, he only has one goal, which is to go to Shadow Valley.
…………
The floating city of Sacross.
The dark sky casts a thick shadow, covering the floating city standing on the wilderness. The trees beside the road blur into black shadows, swaying wantonly in the night wind, making bursts of rustling sounds, as if there is something scary. The thing is slowly approaching.
Inside a ghost tower surrounded by black mist.
The dark room exuded a strange smell, and the air was filled with a suffocating depression.
The ghost prince Agrila stood in front of the window, staring in the direction of Guangze. After a long time, he sighed, turned around, and sat back in his chair.
Guangze's dark ritual failed.
The whole incident was completely beyond his expectation. He thought that at the moment when the magic network was torn apart, any spell caster on the continent or the priests of the gods would instinctively believe that the source of the problem was in the Valley of Shadows. .
After all, the twisted tower there hides the space node leading to the realm of the magic network.
This is indeed the case. Both the Arcane Brotherhood and the red-robed wizards have sent spies to Shadow Valley to find out.
The mages of Waterdeep City stepped into the sunken space where Tifantun was swallowed by death without hesitation to investigate the root cause of the problem.
However, there are always people who do things beyond expectations.
Agrela still can't figure out how the mage lord of Mokou Town knew the secrets hidden in Guangze.
It only took him less than half a day to eradicate the secret stronghold of the Lost Lady Church hidden in Huailun City, with the clear goal of taking away the fragments of the Shadow Stone stored in the temple.
This artifact fragment is the key prop for the Shadow Demonic Network to replace the Demonic Network in the Kingdom of Cormyr, and the efficiency of this mage lord makes him almost think that his inner self is hidden among the core personnel of the church. ghost.
Originally, he thought that the removal of the temple's stronghold might be just a coincidence, but the other party's next move shocked him so much that his heart almost jumped out of his empty chest.
Not only did he find the Dusk Gate to the Shadow Plane in Guangze, he even killed the black dragon Despier who presided over the ceremony in the heavily guarded Dark Canyon.
Agrela is still confused as to how the other party did it and by what means he killed the ancient black dragon.
Although he couldn't figure out how the mage lord named Brian did it, he could at least keep his head clear and deeply understand that in order to repair the scars of the magic network, the other party continued to Definitely heading down to Shadow Valley.
Wanting to be here, Agrila couldn't help but sneer at the corner of her mouth.
He immediately took out a parchment scroll and began to write:
To the deepest dark priest, Lord Elsweir:
I hope this letter reaches you successfully and that we have made an offering to what the Lost Lady has asked us to do.
The Lord of Shadows has recognized what a great generosity you have shown in sending the Chronicles of Darkness to us.
You know, few copies of this book survive.
But I still think it would be better if you told us in advance that some chapters in the book are missing.
Well, as you point out, there's a lot worth looking into in the gibberish written by the mad mage Olgathra.
What's more, the things hinted in "Chronicles of Darkness" drove the dark prophet to write the book "A Thousand Petals in a Night".
We all know that "A Thousand Petals in a Night" is the key to the success of the great ceremony, and it has been confirmed in the capital of Sambia and the city of Tifanton in Cormyr.
But it wasn’t until this moment that I realized that there is another way to replace the magic network.
Praise to the Lost Lady, your keen discovery, Yrigal of the Zhentarim, who accidentally obtained the true function of the ring, is also worthy of praise.
As you said, Irigal's poor wisdom prevented him from understanding what he had and what it represented.
However, we know that the value of this ring is not enough for us to risk breaking our alliance with the Dark Intelligence Network, at least for the time being.
After all, ‘Black Veil’ Illyriel has her own way to enter the ‘Echo’ of the Tower of Windsong and explore the secrets of the Komlaner family.
However, you can rest assured that the mission of Myth Drannor has been fully entrusted to 'Black Veil' Illyriel, and what we need to do now is to prevent the mysterious lady's voters and reinforcements from destroying Our efforts in the Valley of Shadows.
For the great plan of the Lost Lady, in addition to Lamorak, I will lead the remaining three princes of Sacros City to the Valley of Shadows to help your plan go smoothly.
Please protect your secret
Agrila
…………
(End of this chapter)