Half Elf Ranger

Chapter 340 Covenant
In the northeast of the upper part of Pushang Town, there is a steep hill overlooking the entire town. On the flat area of ​​the hill is an ancient castle that has settled down through the vicissitudes of life.

Today, the rotting wood, broken stone pillars, and collapsed ruins in the castle have been cleaned up, replaced by a dark black wall built by duergars.

The surrounding of the city wall is full of white thorns, and the thorn flowers in the spring breeze sway gently in the bright sunshine, exuding a clear smile.

In the open field outside the city wall, a group of burly tauren are working hard to reclaim this long-forgotten wasteland with various agricultural tools, preparing to sow crops.

Although the tauren race was born from a demonic ritual in the mortal realm, they are barbaric conquerors and carnivorous hunters.

But there are still very few tauren who are eager to break the shackles of authority, liberate life and freedom, and let their bodies and minds embrace nature.

They refuse to dehumanize and return to their own wildness, they just want to clear their name of "barbarian descendants" and become an independent civilized race.

Therefore, after these tauren slaves who had been tortured in the Underdark regained their freedom and saw the land of sunshine they had never seen before, most of them were willing to sweat and sow their own hope.

As for those tauren whose human nature is still dominated by wildness, they have already thrown themselves into the arms of the king of horned demons with the help of their kindred.

In this simple castle, in an open place flooded by sunlight, a group of people gathered around a stone table, seeming to be talking about something.

But judging from the solemn expressions on everyone's faces, they seemed to be negotiating something very important.

Among the group of people, only two sat on the stone chairs beside the table facing each other, while the others stood beside them.

Thorn, who was sitting on the stone chair, was holding a simple quill in one hand and a sheepskin scroll filled with common Chinese characters in the other. As the quill in his hand kept spinning between his fingers, the contents on the scroll also Being quickly browsed by him.

Standing quietly beside him was the half-elf girl Lilia. Her light blue eyes were also focused on the sheepskin scroll in Thorn's hand, frowning and stretching.

Standing behind Thorne were the orc swordsman Kutaig holding a long sword, the tauren Alista holding a giant ax on his shoulders, and the mind flayer Vel'Koz with an octopus head.

Sitting opposite Thorne was Carlos in a plain robe. He leaned his whole body on the back of the chair, tapped his palm on the table lightly, with a vague smile on his face, and looked at him with ease. Looking at Thorn, who was on the opposite side with a focused expression.

Next to Carlos was Torvi, who was shrouded in smoke. Behind him were Cursed Swordsman Yas holding a rune sword, Albert the Storm Lord, and Chris the Trickster shrouded in a black robe.

In this slightly dignified atmosphere, a few unknown birds chirped on the walls and eaves, and faint insects chirping unwillingly from the depths of the wild grass.

"This place needs to be changed." After an unknown period of time, Thorne, who frowned slightly, looked at the contents of the sheepskin scroll and said to Carlos opposite:

"The forces in the upper city can provide support when you expand your territory, but this premise is not to harm other compatriots in the Emerald Field. I hope you can understand."

The growing influence of the lower city means that the wizard tower can get more resource support, which Thorne is naturally very happy to see.

But he didn't want this growth to be obtained by stepping on the corpses of other compatriots. This was his last point of bottom line.

After all, the world is so big, as long as one has enough strength, there are too many places for development and growth, so he dislikes those who stare at the territories of their compatriots and play infighting.

Just like the people in the lower city didn't think about how to expand outward, but kept their eyes on the upper city.

Of course, if someone really dared to take the initiative to infringe his interests, he would definitely fight back without hesitation.

His massacre of the group of bandits formed by players is the best proof.

"I was negligent, this is no problem." Carlos took the scroll handed over by Thorne, smiled slightly, and said indifferently.

He likes to cooperate with people who have a bottom line, at least this kind of people will not lose their humanity and reason for the sake of profit, so he deliberately wrote it like this to test Quen's reaction.

Although he and Thorne have known each other for a long time, they have a similar understanding of the ranger's character.

But today's significant alliance will determine how far the player group in Waterfall Town can go, and whether they can establish their own kingdom, so he has to be bold and cautious.

The reason why he is so willing to form an alliance with Thorn is that besides the potential of the wizard tower, he is also very optimistic about Thorn's future, so he is willing to invest all this investment in the other party.

For him, life is a gamble. In addition to having enough funds, the most important thing for this kind of gamble is to have a unique vision.

After Carlos finished changing the content, he handed it to Thorne and asked, "Is there anything else that needs to be changed?"

"No problem." Thorne looked up at Lilia beside him, and noticed that the half-elf girl nodded slightly to him, so he responded, picked up the quill and signed his name directly on the sheepskin scroll.

Today was the second day after he returned to Upper Falls from the Temple of Merikki, and the purpose of gathering people from the lower city and the upper city was to form an alliance.

People in the lower city lack high-end forces and strategic fortresses with strong deterrence such as the wizard tower, while Thorne lacks huge construction funds.

The purpose of their cooperation is nothing more than that the people in the lower city provide them with funds, and the obligation they need to fulfill is to help the lower city expand its territory and develop resources.

Thorn knew that he was not a qualified lord and leader, and he also didn't like to worry about things like this, because he was very clear about his strengths and weaknesses, and he didn't want to be affected by these things to improve his strength.

Therefore, he also understands the importance of finding a partner for the field that he is not good at, so under Malvisa's suggestion, he chooses to reach a condition that both parties can be satisfied with the people in the lower city.

"My goal is actually very simple. It is to protect our common home, Pushang Town. I hope we can cooperate happily in the future."

After the signing was completed, Thorne got up and stretched out his right hand to look at Carlos with an unprecedented solemn expression.

Guard Falls Town.

A few words seemed very simple to Thorne, but if he savored them carefully and recalled the past and the future, he would be able to understand how heavy these words really are.

Whether it was the Seeker, the Godslayer, and Sigil, or the god-making project and the goblin wizard Malvisa who knew many dark secrets, they all indirectly mentioned vague fragments of the future to him.

When Thorne knew these things, he probably understood how difficult and dangerous the road ahead would be.

After all, they are all visitors from another world under a group of conspiracy. To survive in this magical world, there must be powerful existences that will question their identities.

In fact, he still has another choice, which is to walk away and ignore it.

But he will definitely not do this, because there are people he is worth protecting and the promise he made.

Of course, there is another point, that is, he has regarded this place as his second home, and he doesn't want to lose this home.

Protecting one's own homeland is everyone's duty, nothing more.

"My goal is the same as yours, but a little bigger than yours." Carlos got up and held Thorne's right hand, and said with a smile: "It's a pleasant cooperation."

Looking at Thorne's determined face, Carlos sighed with emotion.

Who would have thought that Thorne, who was once dubbed the 'Faceless Ranger' by the people in the lower city, had changed so much in less than a year.

Not only did he help Fallshang Town resolve the crisis of hobgoblin assassins, he also became the guardian of Fallshang Town that people talked about in the tavern.

It also left an indelible fear in the land of the Silent Forest, so that whenever they heard the name of the Stalker of the Silent Way, they would subconsciously shrink their necks.

"Fortunately, we have been bound together because of our common interests." Carlos secretly rejoiced in his heart.

"Today is a day worth celebrating, so I invite everyone to go to the 'Sleeping Dragon' tavern to have a drink for a day." Seeing that the two sides reached a consensus, Torvi put away his pipe and said to everyone with a relaxed expression and a smile.

"Great!"

As soon as Torvi's words fell, the tauren Alistar's excited voice exploded first, directly startling a group of birds on the eaves flapping their wings and disappearing into the sky.

Such a loud voice caused everyone to stare strangely at the excited old cow. Feeling a little uncomfortable, Brother Squid subconsciously distanced himself from the tauren.

"Is there any problem?" Sensing the strange eyes of everyone, Alista stared at a pair of bull's eyes and asked in doubt.

There was no way, in order to set an example for his new tauren subordinates and make them endure the temptation of flesh and blood, he had not touched alcohol or meat for half a month, and had bread and fruit every day. He had had enough.

Since the other party issued an invitation, he naturally nodded and agreed unceremoniously.

Besides, Sleeping Dragon Tavern is the best tavern in Pushang Town, so the taste is naturally not picky.

"Then I wish you all a good time." Seeing the slightly embarrassed tauren, Thorn turned around and replied with a smile, and said to Torvi, "I have other things to do, so I won't go there."

After speaking, he led Lilia out.

"Go by yourself, you know that I never drink alcohol." After finishing speaking, the orc sword master Kutaig left with his sword in hand.

In Kurteg's eyes, nothing can shake his determination to practice swordsmanship. Ever since Thorne gave him a book of swordsmanship techniques obtained from the Underdark, he has been deeply attracted.

"Well... I still have to learn spells. Instructor Malvisa has arranged a lot of work for me, so I won't play with you." After the mind flayer Vel'Koz finished speaking, he left the tauren and left quickly.

Since he came to the surface and worshiped the goblin wizard as his teacher under Thorn's recommendation, he has been deeply in love with arcane knowledge.

Moreover, the sequelae of his brain smoking disappeared without a trace because of learning arcane arts.

But in the past few days, he found that he seemed to have acquired other hobbies, that is, as long as he didn't stay in the elemental pool of the high tower for a day, he would feel uncomfortable all over.

There is even an urge to taste the water of the elemental pool.

Vel'Koz, who realized this situation, felt that his life seemed to have started ups and downs again, so he couldn't be delayed by other things, he had to raise his wizard level as soon as possible, and suppress this temptation.

"Forget it, I'll go to farm." Seeing that his fellows had left, the tauren suddenly lost interest.

As the Tauren patriarch of the Broken Horn Clan, he has long-term considerations. He not only wants the Tauren race to become a civilized race, but also enables them to be self-sufficient. The premise of all this is to learn to open up wasteland and farm land.

But if you expect these silly tauren to farm the land, you might as well let them harm the crops.

This was really embarrassing for them, so in order to teach these simple-minded subordinates step by step, Alista planted five or six acres of land from reclamation to sowing seeds almost by himself, and only then taught them the simplest method of reclamation.

At the thought of farming, Alista couldn't help rubbing his old waist. He had been bending over to sow seeds and water for almost a whole day yesterday, so tired that he could hardly straighten his waist.

"Building the tauren civilization is a long way to go, and the pastors of the Mother Earth Church don't know when they will come." Alista sighed as he walked.

At this moment, he finally understood the true meaning of "only exhausted cattle, no plowed land".

Thorne led the half-elf girl Lilia on a quiet path in the upper city.

When the two reached a fork in the road, Thorne stopped suddenly, so that Lilia, who was following behind, directly bumped into him.

"Is there something on your mind?" Thorn asked with concern as he supported Lilia.

Although Lilia was not as melancholy as when he first returned to Fallstown, every time he saw her, he always felt that she was very preoccupied.

Thorn understood that the half-elf girl in front of him might never return to the way they were when they first met.

"It's okay." Lilia reached out and stroked the hair on her forehead, and smiled perfunctorily at Thorne.

Then she hesitated for a while, and finally summoned up the courage to ask: "Brother Thorne, will you guard our Fallstown forever?"

A few days ago in the temple of the Forest Goddess, she often saw that Archbishop Rausian always had deep worries in his eyes when he mentioned the Emerald Field, and even prayed to the Goddess all night.

Such a weird move made her smell an inexplicable crisis.

"Didn't you already see my determination in that contract?" Thorne was startled when he heard Lilia's strange question, and then said with a smile.

"Well, I see." Lilia nodded to Thorne and smiled.

All the contracts Thorne signed with the Lower City revolved around guarding Upper Falls Town, which she knew very well, but she didn't know why, she just wanted to hear Thorne admit it.

Seeing Lilia's sincere smile, Thorne was in a daze, as if he had returned to the time when he first came to Fallstown, and he sighed involuntarily.

"Archbishop Rausian asked me to tell you something. If you have time, you can go to the ruins of Three Wild Boars in the Northland Wilderness." At this moment, Lilia seemed to remember something, and said again.

"The ruins of Three Wild Boar Town?" Thorn whispered, and then replied: "I see, I will go there when everything is stable."

The town of Three Boars is the sleeping place of Gwai Lun, the god of tracking, the mortal ranger of the storm. As his believer, he is naturally very clear about this knowledge, but he doesn't quite understand the deep meaning of Archbishop Rausian asking him to go there .

"Then we'll separate here. You can go back and rest early." Thorn, who didn't quite understand, glanced at the bushes above his head, and said goodbye to Lilia.

After speaking, he disappeared into the depths of another road.

Lilia stared at Thorne's back in the direction of the tower until he disappeared from her sight, then she looked away.

"boom!"

Just as she was about to leave, a green fruit the size of a fist fell in front of her, and then Sigrit jumped down from the big tree.

Then the lively girl pulled the silent half-elf, talking and laughing at her, and disappeared down another road.

Thorne walked along a path shaded by weeds and gradually entered the depths of the woods.

He walked through the sleeping place of the half-elves in Waterfall Town, felt the vigilant eyes hidden in the dark, and walked all the way to a wide open space.

Immediately afterwards, the vague outline of the tower came into his eyes.

Just as he was about to move on, a familiar figure appeared from among the flowers and bushes.

Not far away, Anderina, who was wearing a red dress with a waist, walked up to him among the early green flowers and trees, and then wrapped his arm affectionately.

"Why did you appear here?" Thorn looked relieved, looking at Anderina and said unexpectedly.

"I guessed that you would come back this way, so I'll wait for you here." Andrina, who was sticking to Thorn's side, smiled slightly, and then asked, "How is everything going well?"

"It went very smoothly. I was a little surprised that it went so smoothly." Thorne met Anderina's bright eyes, and reached out to stroke her loose long hair.

…………

(End of this chapter)