Arcane Journey

Chapter 177 Bullingdon Stone City

Brian left the dark tunnel behind, and stepped into a completely different world with Helliste.

This is not a cave of sinful drow, nor a cruel and desolate stone ground, but an underground space with warm colors and a warm atmosphere.

In the process of walking, the subterranean gnomes at work raised their heads and glanced suspiciously at them from time to time. When they saw the leading guard, they immediately relaxed and returned to their busy work.

These sub-dwarves were as tall as Brian's thighs, with bald heads without hair, and strange skins that were similar to rocks in texture and heat release.

Subdwarf gnomes, or snebli, live in small groups scattered in the Underdark. Unlike their duergar and drow neighbors, subdwarf gnomes are as good as their surface kin.

It's just that their sense of humor and enthusiasm will still be suppressed by the oppressive environment of the underground world.

Because of this, the deep dwarves have a gloomy and serious character, and they are very cautious when trading with foreigners.

They always assume that all alien races will bring harm to them-this is a lesson they have learned from their own history.

In caves and tunnels where sound is easy to transmit, they will speak softly, and their eyes are always alert for signs of danger.

Despite their serious appearance, the Sneblineri are still dwarves, as benevolent and optimistic as their surface cousins.

It's just that they express their kindness more in front of their peers or people they trust.

Although Sniebli divides labor according to gender, he still pursues equality between men and women.

Its ancient custom holds that kings and queens have the same responsibilities.

Male snebli are hunters, explorers, manual laborers, and warriors, while females serve as administrators, adjudicators, politicians, and caretakers.

Deep gnomes sometimes forget that other races are not as gendered as their own, that men can do fine work, and women can fight.

When Bryan and Herrist arrived in Blingdenstone, they learned from the gnomes that after the catastrophic destruction of the drow of Menzoberranzan, it had become a land inhabited only by monsters and other evil creatures. Dangerous ruins.

Only the subterranean gnomes believe that there is still hope for recovery and reconstruction here.

So far, the subterranean gnomes in Blingdenstone are very different from before.

Because they are no longer simply hard workers and experienced miners, they call themselves: settlers, pioneers, and - survivors.

"Welcome to Blingden Stone, Ms. Moon Mutter, Mr. Bryan, please wait a moment, I will report to our leader. The stone is on the top, and the leader of the digger will be very happy to see you coming." happy."

The guard who accompanied them in, stretched his frown and said respectfully to the two of them.

"No need." Brian stopped the guard who tried to report, and said to him, "We can go in by ourselves."

After speaking, he led Helisite through the gate and came to the digging hall.

This is the home of the deep gnome leader, and also serves as the 'chamber' of the temporary government of Blingdenstone.

There were two dozen sneblis in this bright cavern.

Some people walked past neatly with messenger bags in their hands, while others crowded around several stone tables piled with maps and documents, engaging in serious discussions one after another.

At the back of the room is a podium carved out of cave rocks, on which two stone tables are placed opposite each other.

Two deep dwarves, a man and a woman, were sitting behind the table, discussing something with the advisors beside them.

After Brian and Herrist came in, their attention instantly shifted to the two of them.

"It's Ms. Moon Whisperer, the leader of Silvermoon City. By the way, I didn't expect you to come so fast." Sitting behind the table, a male subterranean dwarf dressed in a tight black leather jacket and a felt hat sat brightly. There was a touch of surprise in his eyes, showing his white teeth, and he welcomed.

The one after another serious discussions in the room also stopped suddenly, and they either looked at the beautiful Lord of Silvermoon City with curiosity or surprise.

Then, he immediately trotted down from the podium with a female dwarf with a delicate face, went up to greet him, walked up to Brian, and said gratefully:

"If my guess is correct, this gentleman is the mage lord from Mokou Town. Thank you for your help, respected Mr. Brian."

After finishing speaking, the dwarf leader and the female dwarf beside him bowed deeply to Brian at the same time.

Brian nodded slightly, and calmly accepted the salute of the two.

He still knew a little about the dwarf couple.

According to the tradition of the deep dwarves, Blingdenstone must be ruled by a king and a queen, but the Snebli who have lived in Silvermoon City for nearly a century as refugees have not had an official monarch for a long time.

Duobao and Sunny, the digging couple, are not only councilors of the Silver Federation, but also very talented miners, and now they have grown into excellent community leaders.

It's a pity that, out of personal interests, most of the members of the Silver Federation are unwilling to help the subterranean gnomes rebuild Blingdenstone City, let alone allow these skilled craftsmen to return to the ground.

After all, the Underdark region is a symbol of evil in the inherent impression of most people. Obviously, people on the surface do not want to interfere with the affairs of the underground world.

They believed that even if the city of Blingdenstone was rebuilt, it would still be unable to securely defend against the underground overlord drow elves. This underground city of kindness would be like a bottomless pit, and the Silver Federation would continue to invest in its defense.

In desperation, the couple could only spend several years on their own, planning to go to Blingdenstone.

They hired adventurers to do early scouting, and kept an eye on the local situation. At the same time, they also organized and gathered fellow tribesmen from the dwarf fortresses and surface cities that had accepted them.

After ten years of careful and firm planning, the Diggers finally organized a group force of about 500 to take back Blingdenstone.

Even though they were not crowned, all those who followed them recognized them as the de facto leaders of the settlers.

The work supervised by the leader of Duobao includes rebuilding production, opening up mines, and setting up patrols to explore the ruins of cities that have not yet lived in Snebli.

He was also responsible for rebuilding and commanding the operation of the fortifications of the new settlement.

Like most other Sniebli, Duobao is serious and tough when dealing with outsiders, but he is also a considerate and gentle husband, and a thoughtful leader, and his wife is also focused on rebuilding and revitalizing Bu In the vision of Lingdengshi City.

Quartermaster Sunny does all the calculations and measurements to ensure her husband's work is better supported and developed.

She oversees trade activities and caravans with Mithril Hall, Gauntgrim, and Mantor Dris.

As she manages and helps maintain the magical infrastructure of Blingdenstone, she is very familiar with the security situation in various parts of the settlement.

As quartermaster, she also arranges housing for the increasing numbers of Snebli who return to Blingdenstone.

Faced with Duobao's enthusiasm for Brian, the others all showed puzzled eyes, wondering why their leader respected him so much. Only a few dwarves seemed to see through Brian's identity, Nod thoughtfully.

"I know that most people don't know this mage lord from Mokou Town."

The dwarf leader turned around and said to everyone, "Now I would like to solemnly introduce you. Mr. Brian is the mage lord who commanded the army of the Kingdom of Cormyr to defeat the City of Shadows a week ago. This generous lord is even more willing to help We rebuild our homes."

Everyone was shocked when they heard the words, and the eyes of this group of subterranean dwarves known for their gloomy and serious personalities when they looked at Brian gradually became more colorful.

"Okay, now is not the time for small talk."

At the invitation of the diggers, Brian came to the podium with Helliste. He stretched out his hand to suppress the chaotic voice, and said to everyone:

"I already know everything about the situation in Blingdenstone City, so in order to help you clean up the invaders, I will tell you about my plan, and I hope you can cooperate with my actions."

"Mr. Brian has any questions and instructions, you can just say it." The dwarf leader Duobao quickly answered, patted his little chest and said: "We will definitely cooperate with your actions with all our strength."

Helisite stood beside him quietly, never saying a word from the beginning to the end.

But her cool and elegant demeanor, her natural aura of psionic energy, and her identity as the lord of Silvermoon City created an inexplicable sense of oppression invisibly, making it impossible for people to ignore her existence, and even dare not talk to her. Look at each other.

Bryan nodded slightly, walked to a map hanging on the wall behind the podium, and said to the dwarves, "As we all know, there are four groups that face the greatest threats to your city, and they are: ghosts in the ruins of the settlement, Mad elements, wandering skaven and pudding kings spreading corruption."

Seeing everyone nodding, he turned around and looked at the map while recalling the detailed information about Blingdenstone City.

Though unproven, the ghostly remnants of the deep gnomes slaughtered when the drow invaded Blingdenstone a century ago did exist.

In the process of rebuilding Blingdenstone, Lord Dobbo wisely excluded the haunted burrows from his plan of recovery.

It's just that the increasing number of new Snebli immigrants and their housing needs has gradually made living space a problem that must be faced.

Most importantly, there are more ghosts in the settlement ruins than anyone expected, and they are all different.

Some are harmless, repeating the events of their life where they were killed, while others are fully conscious—and often hostile and dangerous.

The so-called insane element is actually a transparent cloud of 'Oremok's Scourge' floating around, the magical dust that appeared in Blingdenstone more than a century ago.

It is said that it has intelligence itself, and any elemental creatures that come into contact with this cloud will be controlled by it.

The origin of the cloud is still a mystery, but legend has it that it is related to the evil prince Oremoc of the Elemental Plane of Earth.

An earth elemental prophet named Nehedra, who serves the Scourge of Oremoc, and leads some elemental creatures enslaved by the evil cloud, always threatens the gnome settlers of Blingdenstone.

Meanwhile, after the fall of Blingdenstone, a group of ratmen took the opportunity to make their home in the ruins of the city.

The few gnomes who remained in the city tried to drive out the group of ratmen after the drow army abandoned the city, but most of the gnomes were infected with the curse of lycanthropy instead.

In the development of nearly a hundred years, these subterranean dwarves, relying on the strong reproductive ability and adaptability of the rat people, occupied most of the ruins in the name of the Golden Beard Tribe, and used this as their territory to fight with the new settlers in the city. foot battle.

The so-called Pudding King opened his royal court in the deepest part of Blingdenstone.

He was originally a participant in the Digger couple's earliest settlement plan, and later the other Sneblis avoided him because of his many disgusting habits, such as he was very focused on catching and learning ooze monsters, and he also had a penchant for stealing food Hide until they rot...then talk to them.

The excluded subterranean gnome finally left the brigade voluntarily.

After living with the ooze monsters in this area for several years, when the demon lords entered the Underdark under the influence of the radiation energy of the leylines, he followed the attracted ooze monsters, contacted Jubilex, the king of ooze monsters, and Immediately surrender to the faceless lord and promise eternal loyalty.

Since then, his former name and past have disappeared, leaving only the current Pudding King.

Jubilex gave King Pudding the ability to summon and control oozes, then sent him back to Blingdenstone, where he claimed it as the domain of the Lord of the Faceless.

The Pudding King slipped back to a closed area of ​​Blingdenstone to build a royal court, and summoned
Various types of mud monsters rendered the ruins of the city an uninhabitable and dangerous area to the outside world.

Pudding, utterly insane and channeling terrifying power, is seated on his throne, with his 'children' at his side, as he summons more loyal ones day by day.

Once ready, he will send this army to engulf everything in the Underdark.

The city of Blingdenstone, and its inhabitants, will also be transformed into a mass of slimy slime, in the image of its master, the Lord of the Faceless.

While Brian was looking at the map and analyzing the situation, his thoughts were running fast. After everyone waited patiently, he quickly thought of countermeasures against the four major forces.

"Ms. Lusa Luyan." Brian's eyes fell on a young female dwarf below, and he said to her, "You take the spellcasters from Stoneheart's Garden to this location in Blingdenstone City."

The gnome spellcasters trained in the druid's Emerald Court after fleeing the underground a hundred years ago, but eventually broke away from it to focus on the study of earth elemental magic.

Subsequently, they absorbed the surviving priest workers who once served the deep dwarf gods Segozhen Earthcaller (god of the deep and nature) and Calleduran Slipper (god of stone and miners) ).

The priests and mages of Stoneheart's Garden are mainly responsible for summoning earth elementals to guard Blingdenstone City.

They also sometimes use their magic to support other engineering operations, such as expanding burrows, sealing tunnels, or creating magical scrolls and guarding their surveying work.

If necessary, the spellcasters of Stoneheart's Garden can also carry out cross-plane diplomacy, and make a temporary agreement with the Thor stone monster and the Gray stone people, allowing them to support Blingdenstone City.

After speaking, he pointed to a large cave in the west of the map.

The young dwarf wizard, who looked as delicate as a porcelain doll, stared at Brian suspiciously with eyes shining like black jewels.

Obviously, she didn't know what the other party's purpose for arranging this task was.

"This cave is full of stalagmites and stalactites, but the most prominent building inside is the summoning circle in the center. This circle was used by your people hundreds of years ago to summon a man named Entermoc The Prince of Earth Element, although it is invalid now, the energy of the Earth Element that was generated when it was summoned at the beginning still fills the entire cave, which can greatly enhance all the elemental creatures of the same attribute that you summon."

"Stones are almost immune to the strong acid of the ooze monster." Bryan added at the end, "So, if you stone-hearted spellcasters can find this magic circle, let the earth elements be If we clear the way, our losses against the oozes will be reduced."

"So that's the case, I know." The young dwarf mage's delicate face showed a sudden look.

In fact, the legend about the existence of Entermok's grace has been circulating among the few members of Stoneheart's Garden, and she is one of them, but she is too focused on recovering and rebuilding Blingdenstone City, and instinctively takes this The legend ignores and ignores it.

After being reminded by the mage lord and pinpointed the location for her, she immediately understood that this legend was very likely to be true.

Thinking of this, she immediately felt that this was indeed a method worth trying.

"But." The dwarf mage seemed to think of something, hesitated for a moment, and said: "The Oremok disaster is still wandering in the city, if we rashly summon huge earth elemental creatures, we must face them and go crazy possible."

"You don't have to worry about that." Brian said indifferently, "I will completely wipe out the wandering Oremoc plague before you deal with the ooze monster."

"Thank you for the reminder, I know what to do." The young dwarf mage forcefully suppressed the other party's doubts about how he knew, smiled, bowed to him, and agreed to execute.

"Master Kazuk Pickaxe." Brian stopped wasting time, turned his gaze to a bald old dwarf, and said to him:
"As an excellent ore expert and alchemist, it shouldn't be a problem for the members of your miners' guild to concoct an oil that can deal with ooze monsters and protect weapons and armor from strong acid."

The basic economic security of deep gnomes comes from their very good ore and gem mining work.

The settlement itself is sufficiently self-sufficient, but still relies on the duergar from Mantor Dris for tools, weapons, and supplies.

Blingdenstone's economy relies on mining, so the Miners' Guild has a lot of power in the city.

The miners' guild headed by the Pickaxe family manages all the mines in Blingden Stone City, as well as mining and cutting gems.

In addition to being used for the fortification of the settlement, the magic oil they made will also be exported as a commodity.

What moved Brian the most was that it was Kazuk Pickaxe who researched the charged gem.

"Indeed." The old dwarf frowned and said truthfully:
"If there are enough materials, my apprentices can make enough oil for all fighters overnight, but the main ingredient of this potion is red-orange striped gray mushroom. This material is only produced in the fungal forest. It is said that the mushrooms in the fungal forest People are at risk of being corrupted, and no one is allowed to come near it."

"It doesn't matter, I happen to have more than a dozen red and orange striped gray mushrooms here." Bryan waved his hand, and more than a dozen brightly colored striped mushrooms appeared in front of the old dwarf, "These are right as my early warning to you Blingdenstone City." Be the first to invest."

The red-orange striped escargot is a foul-smelling bulbous mushroom with striking orange and red stripes all over its dark gray surface.

They can grow up to 2 feet in diameter and 2 feet in height, and are a rare fungus in the Underdark that only myconids know how to grow.

Red-orange striped shiitake mushrooms are useful in two different ways.

First, many creatures from the Lower Planes love the red-and-orange striped escargot and eat it with pleasure.

When the red and orange striped gray mushrooms are provided as bait, the failure rate of demons will increase by more than [-]% when they try to resist the summons or orders of mages or priests.

The second use is to counteract or counter strong acid spells.

In Brian's impression, a red-orange striped gray mushroom has enough oil for 21 to 30 ointments.

They are usually ground into a powder and sold in small airtight jars that contain enough powder for 5 uses (150 gp a jar).

A whole red-orange-striped shiitake mushroom can be bought for 5000 to 8000 gp.

Therefore, instead of paying the unreasonable price charged by merchants, many priests and mages will find red and orange striped gray mushrooms by themselves and try to cultivate them themselves.

This is only the price of red and orange striped gray mushrooms sold in the Underdark, and the price is doubled if sold on the surface.

So Brian waved his hand lightly, which directly shocked the knowledgeable subterranean dwarves.

What makes Kazuk Pickaxe, the master alchemist, even more unbelievable is how the other party expected that they would lack red and orange striped gray mushrooms.

Immediately, everyone came to their senses and understood that the mage lord who was trying to help them rebuild their homeland was well prepared.

"No problem, I only need one night to make oil for everyone." The calm old dwarf assured Brian with a slightly excited expression.

Brian nodded slightly, not feeling sorry for his investment in the dwarves.

After all, when he was preparing to help the subterranean gnomes rebuild their homes, he had already asked Heliste to help him tell them the conditions he proposed.

The fundamental reason why he helped the deep dwarves was that they nodded and agreed to a series of conditions he listed.

"The leader of the digger." Brian pointed to the location in the north of the map, "I think you should know that this location used to be a temple called 'Red Raw Jade', which served your god of the deep and nature Shagouzhen Earth caller."

"That's right." Duobao Juhoe nodded slightly.

"When the Lord Silvermoon and I arrived at Blingdenstone City, she sensed the ghost of a subterranean dwarf named Jiajie in the temple calling for help." Brian said to him using the lie he had woven in advance, "So, you Send your burrow keepers to take this temple."

"Why did you take down this temple?" Duobao asked subconsciously.

"I think you should all be aware that there are many ghosts in the city that were transformed into subterranean gnomes that were once killed by the drow. These ghosts that have fallen into madness have seriously hindered your progress in rebuilding." Brian continued:
"Jiajie's ghost was redeemed by Segozhen Earthcaller inadvertently. As long as you save it from the ghosts who are mad because of grief, it can pass through Segozhen Earthcaller's Power, calm down all the ghosts in the city, and let them rest in complete peace."

Jiajie is the priest of Shagozhen Earthcaller, and also the leader of the candidate priests. He died in the battle with the drow to protect the temple.

This is the relevant side plot revealed by Brian from the players who participated in the rebuilding of the temple.

As long as Jiajie is rescued, the ghosts of those clansmen who are the most troublesome and troublesome to the subterranean dwarves can be completely solved.

"Jiajie?" Duobao Juhoe was startled, as if thinking of something, he muttered to himself:
"It turned out to be him. Don't worry, Mr. Brian. I will save him at any cost and calm down the resentment of all the clansmen in the city."

Next, Brian continued to issue instructions to everyone, adding details and answering their questions.

Everyone also cooperated with each other to carry out his every order.

And Helisite stood silently beside him like a background board, watching him peacefully.

"Mr. Bryan, did you miss one?" Just as the meeting was about to end, Duobao Juhoe finally couldn't help raising the doubts he had suppressed for a long time, "You don't seem to have mentioned the ratmen of the Golden Beard Tribe. and arrive."

"Don't worry about the Ratmen of the Golden Beard Tribe for now."

Brian naturally understood what he meant. He glanced at the alchemist Kazuk Pickaxe and said to him, "If my memory is correct, there was a man named Copper Nugget more than a month ago. Goblins have come to your city."

"That's right." The old dwarf Kazuk sighed, with a flash of sadness in his expression, and said in a slightly old voice, "This Mr. Goblin took my child's remains from the gray dwarf's abstruse After being sent back from King Dous City, it disappeared."

"He didn't disappear."

Brian said to him, "Actually, I arranged for this Mr. Goblin to come here. He should live in the Golden Beard Tribe now. Therefore, in my plan, you should try not to have any contact with the Ratmen of the Golden Beard Tribe." any conflict, as they are also our potential allies against the oozes."

After finishing speaking, he ignored the group of subterranean gnomes and led Helisite out of the meeting room.

Because next he will go with Helliste to deal with the Oremoc Scourge in Blingdenstone and an evil Prince of Earth Elemental.

(End of this chapter)