From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 547 Undercurrent
Two days had passed since Rugen used the torch provided by the Mummy Lord Carion to resolve the paranormal events at Lady Ganas's house and helped the Mummy Lord find the undead guardian hidden in the abandoned seaside house, and cut open the funerary urn containing its heart from its chest.

During this time, the painter, who married into the family of a noble widow who became his patron, resolved his tragic love affair with his childhood sweetheart and promised to repay the Lord of Morningstar City with a large sum of gold and his own artwork.

Carion, having packed up all his belongings and taken along the other two funerary urns hidden in the underground tomb, also arrived at Qazador's palace under the cover of night to report to his new employer.

While having the daughter of Serenne and the mummy lord under the same roof might seem like overly respectful of their wishes, the current environment within Baldur's Gate is unfavorable, and even with many complaints, they should still try to be more tolerant of each other.

Fortunately, Qazador's palace was constructed in a highly three-dimensional manner, with various towers and a massive underground structure. This kept the physical distance between the mummy lord and the daughter of Selenne relatively large, greatly reducing the possibility of a face-to-face conflict.

"Still no progress?" Ivy looked at the brown-haired half-elf beauty in front of her. The Eternal Body Ritual had not only restored Jahira's youthful vitality, but had even dyed her half-white granny-gray braids back to brown.

Jahira's return to youth inspired a large number of her harpists, and even the Flame Fist soldiers and Duke High's advisors stationed in the manor couldn't help but take notice.

Judging by her appearance alone, Jahira certainly lived up to her reputation as a bard.

But Ivy was a pragmatist who always cared more about his companions' abilities than their looks. He valued Jashira because of her superb tracking skills, decisive judgment, and over a hundred years of experience as a high-ranking harpist.

However, investigating cases is never a simple matter, let alone when Ivy asked Jashira to investigate a group of witches who had been entrenched in Baldur's Gate for a long time and had already formed a covenant.

“We’ve practically traversed the entire coastline of Baldur’s Gate, but we haven’t found a trace of those hags. If I hadn’t witnessed their victims firsthand in the city, I probably would have ignored them as before.” Jahira tapped her fingers on the rim of her wooden flask. Natural forces caused the wooden planks, long since devoid of sprouting ability, to burst forth with new branches, blossoming and bearing fruit within seconds, adorning the High Harpist’s cocktail with a plump cherry.

Ivy believed that ideals alone were not enough to keep his men fighting strong, so through the guild’s connections, he filled the palace, which he had magically expanded with many additional rooms, with a group of service staff, including a chef in charge of the canteen and a bartender in charge of mixing drinks.

As for the bards who liven up the atmosphere?
Nine out of ten harpists are bards, and even Jasira can whistle and sing a few nursery rhymes.

Ivy's food reform was a great success. Everyone was willing to go to the cafeteria for a drink or listen to a group of talented harpists chatting after finishing their work.

Adventurers would also relax with a special drink after returning to their base, and Jahira, who always mingled among the common people, was no exception.

"Didn't the land beneath your feet speak to you?" Ivy glanced at the cherry that Jasira was dipping back and forth in her glass and asked. "I thought you'd know more about the earth after that ceremony."

Jahira sighed, chewing the cherry soaked in the cocktail in her mouth, then spitting the tiny pit into a potted plant in the corner of the study, watching it take root and sprout: "Only by connecting with Baldur's Gate can you understand just how much chaos has occurred on this land. It was already exhausted, and after entrusting me with the power of the spirit of nature, it almost immediately fell into a slumber. The spells of the other druids have all been affected to some extent, and even Halsin complained to me about it."

"So, you're now the spokesperson for the land of Baldur's Gate?" Ivy wasn't surprised by Jahira's answer. The newly appointed land goddess hadn't quite figured out what she was capable of. "As long as you fully realize your potential, this land will surely tell you everything it knows."

“Yes, yes,” Jasila downed the wine in her wooden glass in one gulp, “but it’s too early to discuss my potential blossoming, and we just don’t have much time—”

"so……"

“I still trust my experience as a harpist more.” Jahira pulled a shimmering scale from her pocket and placed it on the table. “I suspect the wave priests of the Water Queen’s palace. Although they entrusted us with finding the murderer of their member, they were far too eager… Sending us underwater support, having ship owners in Grey Harbor take us out to sea, and even sending a different wave priest to team up with us every time we searched along the coastline. This doesn’t seem like help; it’s more like—”

“Surveillance?” Ivy tapped her fingers on the desk. “How sure are you? They have a deity behind them, and she’s known as the Bitch Goddess. As a druid, you certainly know better than I what kind of scum the raging gods who represent the elemental forces of nature are.”

The so-called raging gods are an alliance of deities representing the destructive forces of nature. Their core divine functions are to create disasters and spread fear. They are not, in a strict sense, personified symbols of "rage," but rather a collection of gods symbolizing the violent aspect of nature.

Therefore, among the nature-loving druids, the raging gods are also objects of worship. Although the societies that worship them are usually not well-known, as single deities, their presence can still be found in druidic spells.

“I thought Lord Doom was a brave man who was never afraid to confront the true god,” Jahira teased. “It’s all based on my own intuition, and I’m not very sure. But relying on the power of the earth, I know that there is a large space beneath the reef where the Water Queen’s palace is located.”

“Then let’s do it.” Ivy got up from his desk and went to another copying table where he copied magic scrolls. The magic of the Mummy Lord and the Archmage of Waterdeep City had limitations, and sometimes Ivy had to personally do some low-level mage’s money-making work. “Besides the magic potions and scrolls I have here, you can also go to Gale and the new sorcerer Carion and ask them for magical help.”

Ivy pulled a scroll from a stack of already copied magic scrolls and handed it to Jasira: "This is the ninth-circle spell, 'Interdimensional Gate,' which has already been located on me. If you, as the commander of the operation, determine that you need my help, activate it during the battle. I will arrive in time to assist you."

"That's right!" Jasira took the scroll and tucked it into the leather scroll holder at her waist. "I'd be quite willing to cooperate with mages, at least when supplies are plentiful, I can use the spells I can't cast as fireworks. Anything else?"

Ivy tossed out another dozen potions, along with some other alchemical artifacts: "Underwater breathing potion, and a death-prevention amulet. Our manpower is extremely valuable; try to bring them all back."

"Mission accomplished, Lord Doom." Jahira scooped the various supplies on the table into his pre-prepared satchel and left with a cheerful smile.

There was no mission briefing, nor any personnel assignment. This was partly because Ivy believed Jahira could handle things on her own, and partly because they knew almost nothing about the Water Queen's Palace and the void beneath it—who, aside from lawless adventurers, would think of trespassing into the temple of a true god and stealing treasure from their offering chests?
"I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"

The person most likely to have stolen the offerings from the temple has returned.

Beside the red-haired beauty, Xie Nian, stood her and Ying Xin's mutual white-haired best friend, the vampire clone Asdell. Ever since learning of Xie Nian's new relationship with Ai Wei, this vampire clone would always give Ai Wei a playful look whenever they met, invariably ending up looking at her lower back.

Even though his attempts to embarrass Ivy with his gaze always failed, Asdallen continued to do so with unwavering enthusiasm.

Perhaps it's because it was never Ivy herself who stopped him, but rather evil thoughts or shadow hearts.

As a seasoned womanizer, Asdalon, whose hunting range ranks second among adventurers (first being Halsin), is proficient in all sorts of ways to escalate romantic relationships.

This was the first time Ivy had ever heard of the "finding a common enemy for the alliance" approach being applied to romantic relationships.

"Don't look at Ivy like that!" Before Ivy could answer the question wickedly posed, the redhead stood between Asdalon and Ivy's lower waists.

"Tsk tsk tsk..." The vampire clone shook its head and took a step back. "I knew your desire to share wasn't as strong as Shadowheart's."

Before the evil thought could use the dagger of the Slaughter Clan member Olin to make a few holes in him, Asdallen raised his voice and said to Ivy, "The good news is—"

“We know what Gortash is up to in the Iron Guardian foundry!” The evil thought turned and lunged at Ivy, intruding into a distance only intimate relationships could maintain, looking at Ivy with ruby-like eyes. “His Bane Order controls a huge number of Gunder followers there, responsible for assembling the Iron Guardians! The way they get those Iron Guardians moving is absolutely terrifying!”

“They would first behead a zombie and remove its brain. Because it’s an undead creature, the zombie’s body would still retain the ability to move. Then Bane’s followers would have mind flayers parasitize the zombie’s brain and connect the headless zombie to the Iron Guardian. Through the relationship between the zombie’s head and torso, they would allow the Supreme God to control the Iron Guardian!” The evil thought finished in one breath, expecting Ivy’s praise like a little girl.

“Ah…that’s why I could sense necromancy on the Iron Guardians.” Ivy reached out and flicked Xie Nian’s nose, then used magic to summon a chair for her to sit down, and conjured a tea table with snacks and tea set on it. “The zombies’ brains and bodies still have some kind of psionic connection, but they need a central organization to coordinate the Iron Guardians’ actions…How much information do you know about this central organization?”

Evil Thoughts paused for a moment, not expecting Ivy to ask such a technical question. He quickly pulled out a notebook from his pocket, flipped through a few pages, cleared his throat, and read aloud: "Ahem... The brains of zombies tamed by Mind Flayer tadpoles are put into brain tanks... and all the brain tanks are placed in a control center, coordinated by nerves... uh, capacitors... it's a neurocapacitor coordinator!"

He wiped the fine beads of sweat from his forehead, tried to straighten his tongue, and pronounced the tongue-twisting word completely.

"Judging from my experience these past two days, your tongue is quite flexible, isn't it? How come you're having trouble with such a small word?" Ivy teased.

The evil thought rested its hand on its chin, and licked its glistening lips with its pink tongue: "Do you need me to prove just how flexible this tongue is?"

"Hehehe!" Asdell, who had neither been given a seat nor hot tea and snacks, interrupted the pink atmosphere in front of him. "There's bad news! If you don't want to tell me, I will!"

Evil Thought rolled his eyes at him: "The bad news is, although those Gonde followers weren't implanted with mind-stealing tadpoles by Gotash, they've all been controlled by explosive collars, and their families are also under Gotash's centralized control. If we want these Gonde followers' help, besides removing the explosive collars around their necks, we also need to find the place where Gotash secretly holds prisoners!"

An explosive collar?

This word reminded Ivy of a series of thrillers she had seen on Earth, all of which revolved around themes of human control and forced amusement. But Ivy had never seen anything like Gotash, who controlled a group of people with explosive collars and treated them like cattle.

This is the dregs of medieval feudal society, which doesn't even alienate people into cogs like capitalism does. The threat of death is necessary to make people obey.

“Both pieces of information are very useful, thank you for your hard work.” Ivy then conjured up a chair and refreshments for Asdallen. “The prisoners secretly held by Gotash. This reminds me of Will’s Duke father. If Gotash thinks the prison’s security measures are foolproof, he might put them all together.”

"Combined with what the Water Queen's Palace High Priest of Waves said about the underwater steel behemoth, it is almost certain that the place where Gotash is holding hostages is deep in the Grey Harbor."

Ivy tapped the table. Although Gotash's plan was clear, it was hard to say whether he had any other trump cards up his sleeve.

Ivy needs a foolproof plan to deal with Gotash, a plan that won't cause any bigger consequences even if the opponent turns against him.

Fortunately, Ivy is always good at making plans, and he already has a rough outline.

(End of this chapter)