From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Summary of news in Chapter 536
"So—you believe the contents of this book are true, Will?"

Ivy, who had returned to the vampire lord's palace from the High Hall, was holding a thick, hardcover book. Judging from its wear and tear, it was very old.

"An ancient bronze dragon living beneath Baldur's Gate?" Ivy asked, her expression enigmatic. "Don't you think there are too many things hidden beneath Baldur's Gate?"

The hardcover book in Ivy's hand was titled "The Legend of Ansu," which described an obscure allegorical story.

Its origins can be traced back to the founders of the port city of Baldur's Gate, known as the pirate adventurers of Baldur's Gate.

He is said to be not only a privateer captain who pursues wealth, but also a free adventurer with a bronze dragon companion.

And Bodean's dragon friend was named Anzu.

The book says that the ancient bronze dragon Anzu is Baldur's most loyal companion. He not only controls enormous wealth, but also silently guards the city's underground, forever beating as the heart of Baldur's Gate.

When Baldur's Gate faces dangers far beyond what mortals can handle (the book's original words are: a new signal from fate), a great hero will pass the test of the Heart of Baldur (that is, the dragon Anzu), thereby awakening Anzu to save Baldur's Gate.

"Baal's murder tribunal, the vampire lord's derivative prison and Black Mass venue, all sorts of criminal groups, the dragon companions of the city's founder, and even Gotash stuffed the Supreme God's true form, the Mind Flayer's main brain, underground." Ivy closed the "Legend of Anzu" in her hand and handed it back to Will Ravengard, the only son of the High Duke sitting opposite her.

"The underworld of Baldur's Gate might... be a bit crowded. But maybe it's real? An ancient bronze dragon? Baldur's loyal companion? The Heart of Baldur?" Will gestured with his hands, slightly excited. "Dilard... Duke Portel must have had a reason for entrusting it to me, although he..."

After the Grand Duke's coronation ceremony, Dillard Porter's words to Will still seemed to echo in his ears: "I'm truly sorry, Will... I'm just an old man who's failed at managing his physique... I'm not a warrior, not a marshal, like your father... I can't breathe fire or lightning, I can't even sing a song in tune... But I do have a remarkably keen eye. Something's wrong with your father, Will. Lord Gotash... Envir Gotash may have somehow disturbed his mind... Listen to me, Will. He practically controls all the forces of Baldur's Gate." Not to mention the steel guardians patrolling the streets. Even your father failed, so I certainly can't. But… maybe you'll be the hero of Baldur's Gate. Take this; your father always talked about it in the Council of Four, but none of us really wanted to believe it. After all, who wants to believe this city is built on a dragon's lair? But times are tough now, and perhaps Baldur's Gate really needs a hero from a storybook to save us… but until then, we all have to play our part. Whether it's me or you. You're a Ravengard, Will. Maybe you're the one Baldur's Gate needs…”

“Baldur’s Gate needs me, the people here need me…” Even after working under the devil for many years, young Will still believed in the fairy tale of heroes saving the world. “Perhaps we really can find the dragon Anzu—think of Ivy, an ancient bronze dragon!”

“You’re not fighting alone, Will,” Ivy gently corrected. “Floric, the Flame Fist soldiers under your father’s command, the Harpists led by Jahira, and us, your comrades who have fought alongside you all this way.”

“Yes…that’s right!” Will took a deep breath to calm himself down. “Then will you support me, Ivy? To dig into Anzu’s story, find the Baldur’s Heart, and have him help save Baldur’s Gate!”

"Although we obtained the 'Legend of Anzu' from you, the clues about the dragon Anzu are still too few. Without any annotations or corroborating evidence, relying solely on legends is extremely difficult. If the dragon companions of Baldur's doesn't exist, we'll have wasted a great deal of time." Maintaining team morale is a very troublesome but also highly rewarding task. With a goal to fight for, righteous allies can unleash unimaginable initiative. Ivy believes in the motivation of those who yearn for the good and noble. "Gothash and the Mind Flayer's mastermind won't wait. Our primary objective is to ensure the Supreme God's conspiracy doesn't continue. To achieve this, we need to obtain the Netherstone from Gothash and ensure the Iron Guardians lose their ability to threaten other innocent citizens. There are too many targets in this city that need our protection..."

Ivy paused her statement at the right moment and slowly shook her head.

Will sighed in disappointment, but quickly rubbed his cheeks to rouse himself: "You're right, we never have much time. But seeing my father manipulated by Gotash like a puppet, it's hard for me to stay calm... The dragon Anzu is like a drowning man grabbing at a straw... I..."

Will rose from the soft stool and said finally, "When Asdalon comes back, I'll talk to him about going to the Steel Guardian Foundry... that's the most important thing, isn't it?"

Ivy shook her head again: "Actually, what I mean is, I can't give you much help or support. Those who follow our Flame Fist soldiers, or Jahira's harpists, or our comrades, if any of them are willing to help you. But you can only take a small squad at most, and you need to ensure secrecy and regular reporting. Also, be prepared that Gotash knows everything about this operation. Duke Dillard has a flexible moral compass and is very good at hedging his bets; he's not as trustworthy as he appears, just like a typical politician."

Will was stunned; he hadn't expected things to take such a dramatic turn.

Despair that follows hope is most likely to break a person. Similarly, hope that follows despair is most inspiring.

Using this kind of rhetoric to boost team cohesion was a small experiment for Ivy. Having witnessed countless similar scenarios, Ivy knew very well that even if he explicitly rejected Will, and even if Will himself agreed with Ivy's reasoning, it would be impossible to completely stop him.

Will might secretly investigate, only to fall into an enemy ambush in some dark corner, ultimately becoming a thorn in the team's side.

Ivy never forgot the devilish Grand Duke who coveted the Ravengard name.

Even when he learned that Will intended to search for the dragon Anzu, he began to suspect that a demon was interfering.

As for the possibility that the ancient bronze dragons truly existed, Ivy did not overlook it either, after all, Baldur's Gate and even the entire continent of Forgotten Realms are part of the D&D universe.

In Dungeons & Dragons, Ivy has seen quite a few dragons, but apart from the red dragon beneath Githyanki Centurion Voss, he hasn't encountered any other types. Even if an ancient bronze dragon truly exists beneath Baldur's Gate, it wouldn't be a particularly shocking fact.

However, Ivy believes that even if the dragon Anzu truly exists, its state is likely far from simply slumbering. Perhaps it was sealed within Baldur's Gate by Baldur's Anzu. After all, all legends contain an element of fiction. Even Jahira, the great hero of Baldur's Gate and the High Harpist, herself said that in the bards' tales, she was either sleeping with them or becoming their follower. Therefore, it's not particularly difficult to understand why the dragon Anzu could transform from an enemy of Baldur's Anzu to an ally.

"Thank you..." Will said somewhat absentmindedly, then came to his senses, "What about the Steel Guardian Foundry?"

“I’m glad you still remember this mission.” Ivy smiled slightly. “Don’t worry, I’ll leave it to our druids. Those miniature wilderness forms are perfect for this kind of mission. After all, we’re not here to destroy it yet, but to gather enough intelligence to figure out how the Iron Guardians work.” “I won’t let you down!” What else could Will say besides that?

After Will left Ivy's study, another noisy group returned. It was the team Ivy had sent to deal with the blushing mermaid and the witch Ethel, along with the high-ranking harpist Jahira and the stone lord Minsk who returned with them.

“You all seem to be unharmed, which is good.” Ivy ignored the seafood smell with a hint of cinnamon on Karak and the beer smell on Leezer. “So, I’ll make a bold assumption: you successfully raided the Hag’s lair?”

"Hiccup—" Karak let out a hiccup that smelled a bit like sulfur. "Not only that! We also rescued little Wanna completely! I still can't believe it, Gale actually summoned a giant dragon with magic! And burned that wretched old hag to ashes in one gulp!"

"Another dragon?" Ivy nodded knowingly. "If I'm not mistaken, it's an eighth-ring illusion magic dragon, right?"

The underground space where the witch was hiding was clearly unsuitable for a real dragon to operate, so illusion magic without a physical form was more appropriate. And, coincidentally, Gale was skilled in this.

The Phantom Dragon can use shadows to create a giant illusion of a dragon, which can not only make enemies panic as if they were seeing a real dragon, but also make the dragon breathe different types of dragon breath according to the classification of colored dragons and metal dragons.

However, because it is an illusion, this spell will only deal half the damage to enemies who can see that the dragon is an illusion.

“I knew it wouldn’t stump you,” Gale replied with a hint of smugness.

“That’s an extremely difficult spell; even I don’t have much experience with it,” Ivy continued, following Gale’s lead, while giving him a meaningful look.

“Alright, alright.” Gale sat down. “I’ll make a copy of the spell’s model and hand gestures for you, but only when I have some free time. Until then, you have to take a look at this.”

Gale pulled a bundle of crumpled manuscripts from his mage robes; the edges of the yellowed parchment were still covered with colorful fungal spores.

“This is…” Ivy spread the manuscripts out on the desk one by one and began to examine them intently. Although the Scholar’s ​​Touch also worked on unbound manuscripts, it could only read one page at a time, making it much less efficient than Ivy reading through them one by one.

“There’s more than one hag hiding in Baldur’s Gate; they’ve likely formed a hag society and are researching something extremely blasphemous,” Gale explained in a low voice. “That hag society, which calls itself the ‘Sisterhood of the All-Seeing Pearl,’ is researching—”

“Gods,” Ivy interjected, “or rather, the source of the gods’ power.”

“That’s right.” Gale pointed to a parchment on Ivy’s table and said, “The witch Ethel experimented on the Kotau merfolk in the Underdark and successfully twisted a Red Hat into the god of that Kotau merfolk tribe, and indeed showed an inexplicable power. Whatever it was, it could never have belonged to the Red Hat herself.”

“And these hags who gather at Baldur’s Gate are trying to extend the same method to other types of murlocs…” Ivy frowned as she spoke. “Is that possible? Although they are all half-human, half-fish creatures, different types of murlocs should have different origins, right? Can it really work?”

“I don’t know,” Gale shrugged. “But the hags don’t seem to be giving up. Besides the saka merfolk around Baldur’s Gate, they also mentioned humans and other intelligent races. They’re taking advantage of the chaos to kidnap more people from Baldur’s Gate for experiments. We should rescue those innocent people and end the hags’ evil plot!”

“These days, it seems like everyone wants to try and scam a god…” Ivy gathered the parchment manuscript that Gail had taken out back into a pile. “Do you have any other clues? Any clues about the possible locations of this witch gathering?”

“No…” Gale scratched his head. “I searched almost Ethel’s entire basement, but I didn’t find anything about other witches, except for the initials on the letters. I suspect there’s a Night Witch in the witch gathering, the kind who can make witch-specific resurrection items.”

“These witches may not even know each other’s location. Only resurrection after death can bring them together again,” Gale analyzed. “In addition, there are the Shahua fishmen. Since they are using fishmen to conduct those blasphemous experiments, we might be able to find them through the Shahua fishmen as well.”

“Shahua fishmen. Jahira, I remember your target today is the Water Queen's Palace?” Ivy nodded. As a port city adjacent to the Sword Sea, many merchant ships departing from Baldur's Gate are destroyed by Shahua fishmen every year. Many sailors believe that these deep-sea monsters are accomplices of the shrewish Queen Ambori, and only by offering sacrifices to the Water Queen's Palace can they escape the fate of being buried at sea.

"What did the Wave Priest of Ambori say?"

“It’s a report from Nine Fingers and the Guild,” Jahira explained. “A priest from Ambori was attacked by a giant machine while swimming in the Grey Harbor.”

“You know who we all saw at Baldur’s Gate, Salofor. You may also know that a hundred years ago, Salofor’s ruling center—the Iron Throne—was just beneath the surface of the Grey Harbor.”

“I originally just wanted to confirm that it wasn’t Baal causing trouble for us again, but now it seems that the steel behemoth lurking beneath the water is more like something from Gotash, not to mention that it’s not far from the Iron Guardian’s foundry.”

"As for the Shahua fishmen... I haven't heard the priests in the Water Queen's palace mention that term."

(End of this chapter)