Equipment Printing School Mage
Page 168
That place is naturally the direction of Trail Town.
Emiya summoned the Phantom Pony again, and they quickly left the vast riverside forest behind. Once Fenwei was sure the forest was completely out of sight, her former superior demeanor vanished silently. She covered her mouth and burst out laughing, "—Pfft! Mr. Emiya, I never thought our reunion would be so wonderful."
Emiya breathed a sigh of relief and replied, "I'm going to ask for your help again."
"If you don't use the word 'beg,' that would be the greatest help to me." Fenwei paused and asked seriously, "So, everyone, let's get serious. 'The burrowing worm swarm is the work of the devil.' Was that a rhetoric that threw Old Woods into disarray, or was it the truth?"
On this occasion, Emiya replied very seriously, "It's a reasonable guess with good reasoning. One of the purposes of this trip is to confirm the reason why the devil transformed the burrowing worms. I heard there are traces of burrowing worms here as well? Now we have a wonderful discovery - the devils of Eltoril are extremely secretive in their activities. So, is it completely the opposite outside of Eltoril?"
Eltoril is suspected to be Zariel's territory. In theory, her influence should extend throughout Elturgard. However, her political enemies may try to hinder her from outside Eltoril.
"I want to verify this hypothesis in Trier Town." Emiya thought for a moment and asked tentatively, "...Woods's instructions...can you tell me? If this is a secret among the druids."
"Tsk." Fenwei laughed so hard that his body shook. "The good news is, there's actually nothing he can't tell you. Of course he doesn't want you to know, but unfortunately he doesn't want me to know either, so he was unusually cryptic. He told me the location of the burrowing worm nest near Trail Town, but hoped we could get there and back quickly. That's it."
The bad news is that Fenwei doesn't know much either.
And the fact that Woods dared to tell the location of the digging worm so directly means that he might not be so worried about the secret being leaked?
--wrong!
Emiya was stunned for a moment, then suddenly raised her head. "Does the druid have such a deep understanding of the terrain near the territory? Trail Town is still dozens of kilometers away from the riverside forest. How can Woods even know the exact location of the burrowing beetle nest?"
**********************
Instead, the facts are the facts.
Although Emilia didn't know how the druid found the way, nor did she know how Fenwe managed to find the digger's nest on the ground in the vast wilderness with the guidance of Woods' few words.
But in short, in Emilia's opinion, she just looked around a few times and successfully found their destination surrounded by fields and forests.
To their surprise, though, they were apparently not alone.
Another group of visitors got there first.
However, they did not find the location of the hive as easily as Fenwei, but used a large-scale search method.
"......?" Emilia bent down and picked up the loose soil on the ground.
The soil here is quite soft, as if it has been turned over, but it is not like normal turning over of the soil, which would bring the moisture-containing part underneath to the surface.
It's hard to describe.
If I had to say it, it's like a human jumping into a swimming pool, causing the water to splash to the side, tremble a bit, and then return to its original shape.
A similar phenomenon occurred on the soil here.
"...Earth element." Emiya came to the conclusion.
At the same time, the footprints were chaotic and deep, and a team of a certain size and powerful spellcasters came here.
"Uh."
Emiya thought for a moment, sighed, and used a short message to send a message to her instructor, who was far away... but perhaps just a few hundred meters away: [Teacher, are you still in the lich's tomb?]
Metatron replied, his voice slightly dejected: "Yes. But we have decided to leave. The Keeper of Balance has received a communication, and he is leaving for Verdusk. The lich's phylactery does not appear to be here."
While Emiya and his disciple were communicating, Yin showed a comfortable expression and muttered to himself, "...There's a magic network node here."
Forty Dead Souls (Part 2)
"…Magic Web Anchor Point?"
Emiya was stunned for a moment and looked around.
His sensitivity to magic and the magic network was probably not even one percent of Yin's. Without the detection magic activated, he could hardly see anything. Only when he came into direct contact with the magic network nodes could he barely get a glimpse of the magic network's veins.
"That's right." Yin pointed underground, "It's in this direction, about ten meters deep, a few hundred meters away."
Lulu was floating in mid-air at the moment and asked doubtfully, "Magic Net Anchor Point? Can something like this be seen?"
Yin tilted his head. "You ask me? I can only say that I can see it. Why? I don't know either."
Instead, Sig lay on the ground, patted the ground lightly, and nodded: "The direction Miss Yin pointed is hollow. There may be a complex of buildings underneath."
Emiya nodded. "It seems we will soon know what the diggers are doing here."
Emiya touched the ground lightly and used her magical skills.
Large clumps of earth were tossed aside by the magic of nature, quickly forming one or two mounds beside Emiya. When the mounds were about to be taller than Emiya himself, he soon spotted the first brick hidden in the earth.
"...The efficiency of digging the tunnel is really high." Sig couldn't help but whistle.
"I'm not robbing graves..." Emiya sighed.
Sig shrugged. "So that's trespassing? That depends on whether the lich is considered a living being and protected by Eltoril's laws."
"I'm afraid that won't be enjoyable." Emilia sighed.
The Tyr Church was the most effective legal worker on this continent. While the devil manipulated contracts, preferring to play with words and use force to coerce others, the Tyr Church was seriously researching how to make legal clauses completely flawless.
They do not believe that the law is inherently fair, noble and inviolable, so their laws simply make room for groups that are notorious on the mainland - of course, not protected positions.
Creatures like liches and vampires, which must rely on the souls and blood of the living to survive, are naturally frequent visitors on the blacklist. No matter where the Church of Tyr is, it is impossible for it to protect the rights and interests of such undead creatures.
Finally, Emilia lifted the ceiling of the tomb and used mud to build a staircase for them.
The two girls, Yin and Xige, who usually stayed behind Emiya, became excited at this situation. They rushed down with joy - it was obvious that the lich's tomb was a very attractive place for both of them.
Yin's goal was quite clear. As soon as she entered the underground tomb, she rushed straight towards the so-called node of the magic network. The others could only follow her.
However, along the way, Emiya subconsciously observed the condition of the tomb, but was shocked by how well maintained it was.
Tomb, lair… these words are naturally somewhat derogatory. In reality, liches are almost always transformed from powerful wizards. However, once transformed into liches, they are universally hated, and their mortal emotions are gradually eroded by negative energy. Therefore, liches rarely continue to live in humanoid society, but mostly live in isolation, only visiting nearby settlements when they need to devour souls each month.
In fact, this is the residence of the lich, and it can even be said to be an underground palace.
Although it cannot be called magnificent, with the roads not paved with gold and the doors not inlaid with gems, the reliefs and reading notes found everywhere prove that the owner of this place is definitely very attentive to it.
However, the reliefs all describe the same content:
The palace in the sky lost power and fell to the ground. The survivors emerged from the ruins, repaired the collapsed palace, and transformed into liches to survive the long period of time. The owner of the palace, as one of the survivors, was given a mission by the leader to oversee the leaping silver flame.
"The Lich actually has a king. This makes me feel a little chilling."
Liches are world-class wizards. Even Imoen, a powerful son of Bhaal, might not easily defeat a lich in a one-on-one situation.
At this stage, it would be impossible for an ordinary king to make the lich submit to him. It would be common sense for the lich to run rampant in the country.
How powerful must a person be to make a lich, or even a large number of liches, bow down to him?
The city in the sky falls to the earth, a phenomenon that almost always points to the same earth-shattering event in Faerun's history.
Karthus' folly.
The masters of the floating city seemed to be top-tier mages known as Archmages. One such mage, a gifted yet arrogant one, was named Karsus. It was said that by the time he was Emya's age, around 21, he was already a ninth-level mage.
Such a genius finally decided to obtain the power of God, and he aimed at the power of the goddess of magic from the beginning.
Unfortunately, while he was indeed far more gifted than the average person, he was also not smart enough to fully realize his own power. Ultimately, the First Goddess of Magic did not stop him from casting the spell, allowing it to unfold. However, Karthus was completely unable to control his own spell. This unprecedentedly powerful spell nearly detonated the Weave, and Karthus died instantly.
The result is well known to everyone - the chaos of the magic network caused the floating cities in the sky to stop working. Countless cities in the sky lost their power and crashed straight into the earth. The once high and mighty archmages fell into the dust -
The first goddess of magic died, and her power fell into the body of the second goddess of magic, Mystra. The new second goddess of magic stabilized the magic network in time and saved the world from destruction.
Judging from the relief, the lich here seems to be one of the arcanists who survived Karsus's folly, or their descendants or students.
Emiya sighed.
Eltoril kicked in the door of such a lich, hoping it wouldn't cause any chain reaction.
But Yin seemed to not care about the stories on these reliefs at all, and was just running forward on his own?
Emilia could only follow him up, shouting, "Aren't you interested in the stories on the reliefs?"
Yin slowed down his pace and asked, "What's the story?"
Emiya recounted the story on the relief, and Yin shook his head decisively: "I've never heard of a big city falling to the ground."
Emiya could only sigh.
Discussing memories with Yin was a very painful and torturous thing.
Her memory was extremely fragmented and completely irregular. Sometimes she remembered knowledge, sometimes she only remembered what she had seen.
What's worse is that when she said she didn't remember, Emiya couldn't confirm whether she really didn't experience it or had forgotten it.
Emiya is willing to help her recover, but so far, the only method that seems to be effective is to let her touch the magic network anchor point.
But she herself seemed to have no strong desire to fully recover, but was very interested in witnessing the magic of the new era.
What a weird person! Probably no matter who sees her pretty appearance, they would never think that she has this kind of personality.
When she was in her prime, she might have acted in the same style as she does now.
Her destination seemed to be the center of the underground palace. They followed Yin through corridors, and as they went deeper, the signs of battle damage became more and more obvious.
And finally, they followed Silver to their destination.
——That is also the center of all struggles.
A closed door.
At this time, Yin did not enter regardless of the consequences, but suddenly stopped and curled his lips.
"...?" Lulu followed behind Yin and blinked in confusion, "Why did you stop suddenly?"
Sig hesitated, pricked up his ears, and took a deep breath: "...There are more than a dozen breathing sounds inside. But they are trying their best to control the intensity of their breathing...
"I guess if we break in, there might be more than a dozen attacks launched simultaneously... and then we'll be turned into a sieve in an instant."
Emiya hesitated for a moment, then shouted across the wall, "Excuse me, are you the Keeper of the Balance, Bolias, and the Hell Knight? We are supporters from Berdusk. My name is Emiya, and I'm here with my teammates, Yin, Xige, and Lulu, and Lord Fenwe, the Archdruid of the Sharptooth Forest."
No sound came from the house. But after a while, a short message from Metatron, Emilia's teacher, echoed in his mind: "You are near the town of Trill, and are you now outside the magic network anchor point of the Lich's Underground Palace?"
Yes. The voice you heard was indeed mine.
Then, after a slight sound of wind, the silent room finally became a little lively.
Accompanied by the sound of armor clashing and heavy footsteps, the door was pushed open, revealing the figure of a sturdy warrior.
He was fully armed, and his full-body plate armor was a little dusty due to lack of maintenance in the past few days, but its defensive power was still intact.
Not only was his limbs impermeable, even his helmet was practically impermeable. He had a half-sword hanging from his waist, and in his left hand he held a shield—one engraved with Tyr's scales emblem.
"Good day, kid." His voice was a little old, sounding at least sixty years old. "We've been guarding this underground palace for several days, but we haven't seen any results. Finally, you recklessly triggered the alarm - to be honest, I was even a little excited at the time."
"Of course, it seems like it was all for nothing... But being able to completely let go of this knot in my heart is only a good thing."
Triggered the alarm?!
Emiya couldn't help but look at Yin in astonishment.
She replied nonchalantly, "I saw the alarm, but it was either set off by the lich, who's not here right now, or by someone from the Church of Tyr here. Aren't they friendly forces? That's why I didn't hide."
Hey!
Emiya couldn't help but cover her face, took a deep breath, and stretched out her hand to the warrior: "Excuse me, who are you?"
"Polyas, Holy Judge of Tyr and Keeper of the Balance of the Church of Elturgad Tyr." The warrior waved his hand. "You really picked a good time—you can have a free meal."
Cengfan?
Bolias the Keeper of the Balance shrugged and opened the door.
——For a moment, Emilia thought she was back at the ceremony at Baldur's Gate.
The rich aroma of food almost couldn't wait to rush out of the door and into Emilia's mouth and nose.
Spiced roast meats, steaming soups and stews, dairy products and fine wines—
A large round table was set up in the room where the anchor was located, laden with delicious food and wine. However, a lot of the tableware had been knocked over. Apparently, the arrival of Emiya and her group had interrupted the feast, sending everyone inside into a state of combat.
——There were obvious traces of food at the corners of their mouths. It was obvious that they had rushed into the battle and had not had time to tidy up their appearance.
Fenwe merely sniffed, his eyes flickering. "...Sir Bolias, Berdusk is fretting over the burrowing worms! And the Asur Paladin thinks you're feasting here just to get results?"
"...Ahem." Bolias's expression was hidden behind his helmet. "We do this for a reason."
"Using the Heroes' Feast to strengthen vitality?" Yin was the first to react, a look of shock on his face. "Why, the lich still prefers to cast the Death Order first?"
"Rather, this method is indeed quite effective." At this moment, Aimia's teacher, Metatron, stepped out from behind the gleaming group of iron-clad flesh. "From what we can see now, this is just one of the lich group's strongholds. His phylactery isn't even here... If he finds there's no chance of victory and there's no time to escape, using the Law of Death to directly cause death is indeed a reasonable option."
Bolias said sullenly, "Besides, the number of resurrections within the church is indeed limited. This trick can't be said to be ineffective."
At this point, the Keeper of the Tyr Church gave an awkward laugh. "That being said, while these Heroes' Banquets are my personal initiative, I'd better not tell the Hell Knights of Berdusk. If this gets out, I won't face retaliation, but I'll definitely be teased for a few months."
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