The Swordsman of Faerûn

The result was indeed as William had expected. The snail shell airship was quickly dragged back by the Griffin Riders. Together with the airship, there were also a full warehouse of humanoid captives, and two Arrogant airship controllers, at least they used to be.

One of the two controllers of the airship is a humanoid lich covered in disgusting withered skin, and the other is an illithid with an octopus head. It is a very strange combination, but in Jiaoyan Hell this isn't too surprising, it's a weird world after all.

As soon as the humanoid lich was dragged out of the landing floating ship, it screamed angrily: "Stupid bugs! Do you know how much trouble you have caused?! This is Meriff who belongs to the city of Lonely Hope Your lord's assets, but you have brutally plundered it, are you ready to meet the wrath of Lord Merriff?"

William's gaze rested on the ugly and shriveled face of the irritable lich for a few seconds, and then he chopped off the octopus head of another silent illithid, and the purple sticky blood followed. It splattered everywhere.

Many people were taken aback by William's sudden killing of captives, but the appearance of several dwarf riders covering their heads and screaming immediately made some smart enough people realize that there must be a problem.

Dove asked curiously: "William, how do you know that octopus head controlled your men?"

William said: "I don't know. But I know that mind flayers are a scourge, and killing them when they see them is definitely an extremely correct choice."

As he spoke, he looked at the lich again, and asked, "I'm curious. Why do you, or your so-called Lord Merriff, dare to cooperate with the mind flayer? You must know that this kind of thing is a crime in any world." Taboo behavior."

Indeed, it is well known that the dark elves are a generally recognized fallen elves, and the reasons for their depravity recognized by the intelligent races of all planes are not their lifestyles or social customs, or that kind of cruel survival philosophy. They are crueler, meaner, and more evil races, but most of those evil races are not considered a kind of depravity.

The real reason why the dark elves are considered to be depraved is that this branch separated from the elf family sometimes dares to cooperate with the illithid family in a limited way.A dark elf tribe in the Underdark region of the main material plane even helped a group of illithids establish a city that belongs to the illithids——Eleentor (then the city was given to a certain Netheril lord. secretly raised).

The Lich was a bit at a loss for words, but it still bit the bullet and argued: "The illithids in Lonely Hope City are just a group of poor worms who have lost their breeding grounds (referring to the brain pools of illithids). The world is doing real harm."

William just sneered, silly thing, you guess I believe it or not.He shouted to the dwarf rider next to him: "Cut off the limbs and torso of this prisoner. This prisoner does not need these dangerous accessories to maintain life."

The flame gnomes are not good-tempered creatures, they are happy to do some cruel things, with William's order, they cheerfully cut off the lich's limbs and most of the torso, leaving only half of the spine The bone lich head, and this lich is still alive, but it no longer has the arrogance and arrogance just now.

Before the gate of flames was closed, a team of fire giants, salamanders, and fire dwarf cavalry, led by an experienced fire elves, came to Jiaoyan Hell. They came to their lord and listened their master's order.

After learning about the origin of the human gathering area in Jiaoyan Hell, William decided to build an outpost here.

As we all know, human beings are one of the most adaptable and widely distributed intelligent races in the entire multiverse.But this is not to say that there are many origins of human beings, but because the ancestors of human beings were once very broad.

Basically, in most habitable worlds, the population of humans always occupies a high advantage. These places were once the key colonization areas of early human ancestors, and the ancestors carried out deep transformation of the local natural environment , Laying a solid foundation for survival and reproduction for the reproduction and development of future generations.

But in some worlds where the environment is not so friendly, the human race belongs to a minority faction, and the status is relatively poor, such as the human gathering area in the crawling city.This is because the people here did not come to this world voluntarily, they are descendants of slaves who were plundered by various monsters in Jiaoyan Hell.

And these unfortunate people can struggle to survive so far, but they have to admire the tenacious vitality of the human race.If there is another humanoid race in the multiverse with such tenacious vitality, goblins may be selected.

The human gathering area has its own order and rules, and the sole purpose of all of this is to ensure that the majority of individuals in the gathering area can survive, or when a fatal crisis comes, a sufficient number of young people can save their lives .

For example, when a human kid accidentally provokes an irresistible disaster, he or she should stand up without hesitation and use the lives of himself and his family to quell the disaster, so as not to affect more innocent individuals.It's as if the little thief girl automatically jumped out and pleaded guilty when facing William and Dove.

Of course, this does not mean that other human beings are too cold-blooded and ruthless. This is the collective wisdom of the entire human race in the gathering area, and it took a long time for William to understand that the people here are secretly more united than any other human beings in any world. .

You ask what evidence proves this, it is very simple, there are many little carrot-headed cubs living with the little thief girl, these are basically other human cubs adopted by the little thief girl, and the real blood relationship with her The younger brother was sent to hide elsewhere in advance.

This is the usual practice of many humans who often go outside the gathering area to discuss life.When you get a big harvest outside, you must be mentally prepared for the karmic backlash brought about by this harvest.And what the little thief girl snatched from William met this standard. After returning, she directly sent her own brother away, and then waited for the possible backlash with the other cubs.

If the little thief was really killed by the owner who came to pursue her, perhaps including the cubs she adopted, but her younger brother would be well adopted by other humans.

Don't think this is unfair to other human cubs, this is the risk and responsibility these poor cubs have to bear in the process of being raised by the little thief girl, including the way the little thief girl came here before she became independent.

Although humans are in a relatively weak position in Creeping City, their intelligence work is still in place.If William and Dove did not find the human gathering area, but left the Creeping City or even the Burning Hell, then the little thief could take back her brother, and of course she would have to offer most of the harvest.

Although William didn't really pursue the little thief girl's theft, it wasn't until a long time later that this little girl with a strong sense of crisis found her brother after she was completely sure that William was not a dangerous person.

-------------Chapter Dividing Line---------------

William didn't have a deep understanding of the human groups in Creeping City. He just felt that this suffering group seemed to have a unique charm that attracted him, so he couldn't help but want to gather them up and protect them.

For a long time afterwards, William thought that this incident was caused by his excessive sympathy.It wasn't until a long time later that William (or the scholars under him) penetrated the mysteries of the swarm intelligence system and realized that this happened not because of someone's sympathy, but because of something deep in human genes. The sublimation of a collective consciousness.

Because of the extremely difficult environment, this group of humans in Creeping City burst out the most powerful potential of the entire human race-the spirit of unity and sacrifice.This allows this group of human beings to maintain the best side of the human race even though they are deep in the endless hell.

These people are united as one, impartial and selfless, everyone has given full play to their own subjective initiative, all for the survival and continuation of the entire population, this beautiful vision fills everyone's subconscious, and then gathers into an unstoppable force Power source.

This cluster source power will subtly lead this group to explode with astonishing potential—if their development is not interrupted by irresistible forces.

This potential is manifested in reality that this human population will inevitably produce a large number of talents like a blowout, heroes will be everywhere, and eventually an earth-shattering hero will be born to lead this population out of the predicament and usher in a new life.

Or this human population may be destroyed by some irresistible enemy in the process of revival and growth, but in a place like Jiaoyan Hell, which is not the home of human beings, this possibility is extremely likely.Under the crisis of this objective existence, the cluster source power will subconsciously call for those strong external (human) support, which is what we often call the savior theory.

Of course, the premise is that there are indeed individuals with the qualifications of the savior in the entire pan-human race, otherwise the subconscious call of the swarm intelligence to the savior is just a lament before destruction.

There is no doubt that William is a human being with the qualifications of a savior, and his shoulders are strong enough to carry this burden, so he is inevitably subconsciously influenced by the human clusters in Creeping City.

However, this kind of influence is not absolute, and everything depends on the mind and concept of the affected person.If William believes that this group is worth saving, and he is willing to make sacrifices for it, and proves that he has this ability, the two parties will naturally hit it off; Nothing binding except upon his conscience.

In fact, in the current Jiaoyan Hell, William is not the only one who has the potential to be called (the savior). The old mage he came to rescue also has a very hard shoulder and can also shoulder the responsibility of the savior.

Obviously, Elminster was not moved by the name of the savior. After all, in his long life of more than 1000 years, the old mage had already assumed similar responsibilities countless times.

It can be said that Elminster has been numb for a long time. He no longer has the heart to continue to bear this burden. As the saying goes, the world is sinking and all living beings are suffering. Elminster has limited self-awareness and cannot save everyone in the world who should be saved. This is one of the reasons why this old mage, known as the great sage, has lived in shadow valley all year round.

When William and his subordinates of the Flame Legion began to clean up the battlefield, people hiding in the surrounding houses like piles of rubble came out of their homes one after another.They came to William's side spontaneously, helped to cut up the tentacles and tentacles that fell on the ground, picked up the lost items, and then sent them to William by category.

These people are dressed in rags, their faces are disheveled, and they obviously live a very poor life. Even though there are piles of fresh meat (from the tentacles of the snail shell floating ship) and treasures and supplies everywhere, when they helped William pack up the spoils, they did not hide even Every penny, this alone made William feel inexplicably fond of them. These people are really good, and they are all the best sharpshooters.

The humans in Creeping City are basically young people and half-grown children (referring to the kind of teenagers who can already help with work, such as the little thief girl), they almost support the backbone of the entire human group, Then supplemented by a few elders to act as brains, of course the real majority are those cubs and children who have no ability to feed themselves.

As for the vast majority of serious adults, looking at the main targets in the cargo compartment of the snail shell airship, we can see that most of them have become the targets of being captured and plundered by foreigners.

In fact, the population rescued from the airship is not only humans, but also a series of races such as orcs, dwarves, half-blood elves, etc. Obviously, there are also gathering areas of these races in a nearby area.However, among these humanoid races that were not captured by monsters, most of them are young adults who have just grown up, or relatively thin adults, which is obviously different from the situation of humans.

William soon learned that the floating ship's real name was the conch ship, and it was originally a magical ship that belonged to the illithid family, but it was captured and transformed by the Lich from the fallen illithids. The disabled product is far less powerful and firepower than the original conch shell ship.

The liches of Lone Hope and the illithid hordes living here work hand in hand, and they cooperate with each other to grab poll taxes from the underprivileged races of Creeping City.

The so-called poll tax is to plunder and hunt a certain number of adults of the target race. The basis for judging this adult is not based on age, but the size of the head that the adult prey should have. In this regard, illithids are the most professional. And the error rate is surprisingly low.

Moreover, the spirit suckers even have a special tool-the skull ruler, which is used to measure whether the captured prey is qualified.

And these captured prey will be divided between the liches and the spirit suckers. The brains of the prey belong to the spirit suckers, and the remaining bodies will become the material for the liches to make undead.

In the face of the plunder of monsters, the older adults in the human race always stand up and sacrifice themselves, leaving a chance for their younger companions to survive. This tradition of radiating humanity originates from several This benevolent human world was broken and plundered by the army from Jiaoyan Hell. Many human slaves brought to Creeping City became the main population of the human gathering area for various reasons.

At the same time, in order to save her family who was robbed here, a kind-hearted strong man sneaked into the Creeping City after several twists and turns. Her rescue was unsuccessful, but she left the most precious inheritance of faith for the entire human race.

Of course, the human race, which has experienced countless times and hardships, still maintains a nearly selfless tradition, but this tradition has reached the verge of collapse.The reason is very simple. The adult backbone individuals are attrition a lot, and the young people are hard to support. Moreover, other races around them often take advantage of the fire, which makes it more difficult for the entire human gathering area to live.

So when William revealed that he wanted to take over this human race, people accepted his leadership almost without hesitation.

Seventeen humans, thirty half-breed elves, thirty dwarves, and thirty hobgoblins were rescued from the cell of the modified conch shell ship. Obviously, if William did not intervene, there would be at least thirteen more unfortunate ones. Humanity suffers.

After these captives were released, the hobgoblins peeped at the human gathering area maliciously, especially the trophies stacked next to William, which made them mad with envy.

The half-blood elves showed some hesitation, while the dwarves huddled together and watched with cold eyes, and some of them were full of greed and malicious eyes.

However, the figure of the fire giant made the dwarves a little panicked. As an enemy race carved in their blood, the relationship between dwarves and giants is not just as simple as enemies. Although dwarves hate giants extremely, the chances of them being enslaved by giants It is also far larger than other races.

The rescued humans stood together with more humans. They took up crude weapons and resolutely stood between William and the hobgoblin, which deeply moved William's heart once again.

Of course, William didn't need the protection of these poor but brave humans. He smiled at Dove, and then, holding a spring knife in his hand, he crashed into the group of hobgoblins like a raging buffalo. Several strong hobgoblins were knocked down. With broken tendons and bones, he flew out screaming.

Just as William set off a frenzy of flesh and blood among the hobgoblins, Dove also rushed up with a wave of [Azure Fury], and then those adult humans who were a little dazed, and then even those underage cubs rushed forward screaming. go up.

However, these "warriors" with high morale basically didn't catch any heads, including Dove who only picked up the heads of two fleeing hobgoblins.Because half of the hobgoblin was slaughtered by William in almost a few breaths, and then the rest fled directly, and were driven out of the human gathering area by a group of people like ducks.

The remaining half-breed elves and dwarves offered William their willingness to surrender and become slaves without hesitation. After all, in Jiaoyan Hell, life is more important than freedom.However, the [-] dwarves were handed over by William to the fire giants. Most giants are very professional in managing dwarves.

However, William, the half-breed elf, was handed over to Dove to manage. After all, Dove's Elvish language was even better than Common Tongue. This alone gave her a great advantage. Of course, Dove and the other silver-haired sisters and the elves The relationship is indeed unusual.

Tentacles (called snail feet) cut off from conch ships are good meat for the people of Creeping City, but the taste of this thing is really not very good.After they were roasted, the former leader and elder of the human gathering area in Creeping City, two ladies who should be regarded as young girls in Faerun dedicated the first bite of meat to William, which was the handover of power from the old leader to the new leader. Rituals are perhaps the simplest and gentlest way of handing over power among all intelligent groups.

William just took a bite of the snail meat, but it felt like he was biting an aging and decayed rubber tire. There is a lingering smell of carrion, which makes people want to vomit.

William swallowed a mouthful of meat with difficulty, and then gave the rest to the little thief who was kneeling beside her. The little girl didn't care about the bad taste of the food, and ate it hungrily.

Of course Little Thief has a name, and her name is Selena Steele.

Steele is the name of one of the two original chief elders. The duties of these chief elders are not only to control the ethnic group, but also to bear the responsibility of procreating offspring. Any female human being who has entered the childbearing age is eligible to become a new Elder (after she gave birth to a healthy child).

There is not no delicious food in the crawling city, such as a huge worm called a fire dragon. They are real indigenous monsters living in magma and rocks. It is said that the meat of this worm is even better than chicken meat They are fresh and tender, but they are very dangerous in themselves. Cuts are always traveling in groups in the magma, and it is very difficult to capture them successfully.

After everyone was full, William began to fully understand the detailed current situation of the area he took over, and the results he got were definitely not optimistic.

Humans have five gathering areas in Creeping City, and the conch ships of liches and illithids will come to plunder the population once a year. Each time there are [-] adults, the conch ships will take turns to search in the five gathering areas. If you catch enough, go away, if not enough, go to the next gathering area and continue to catch.

Humans are fine here. Every time the five gathering areas gather people together, they can barely support it. The gathering areas like elves, dwarves, hobgoblins, and orcs are not so united. I don’t know how many gathering areas are due to population raids. Excessive and ruined.

However, what Creeping City lacks most is foreign slaves and prisoners of war. Almost every day, thousands of prisoners of war of various races are brought to Creeping City from other worlds. Whenever a gathering area is destroyed, there will be new ones. Filled in by freed slaves.Then form a new aggregation area.

However, warlike races like hobgoblins and orcs will attack, kill and plunder other groups around them after the conch ship is "taxed". suffer from it.

After thinking about it for a while, William decided to gather all the humans in the five gathering areas and build a strong castle in this city as a shelter, while he needed to kill those who had malicious intentions towards humans. To warn the monkeys, to ensure that they will not attack the human race when William is away.

And the monkey chosen by William already has a target, such as Guwang City is a good target.I believe that throwing a few nuclear-level fireworks every day should make most of the idiots in this world a little smarter.

By the way, William has to talk to General Jiao Yan again, such as setting aside a concession area for him, and getting consular jurisdiction should not be too difficult.

-------------Chapter Dividing Line---------------

The pursuit of the great devil Negal and the rescue of Elminster cannot be completed in a short period of time, and William has a clear understanding of this.

Of course, it does not mean that the great devil is too powerful or that William is not strong enough, but that a third party secretly stepped in and deliberately hindered William's pursuit in a unique way. That would invite even more trouble.

After the two hunts failed, William's spiritual perception faintly told him that even if he continued to hunt ten or twenty times, the result would still be the same, and he must always be one step away from his goal.

Because someone is fiddle with the melody of fate.

The appearance of that woman—the macaque actually told William the answer. Either fall into the vortex of fate, or go to Kong Randa and accept the test of the seed of detachment, or break the shackles of fate and reveal the essence of his detachment .

William is a bit regretful now, regretting why he was so mean in the first place, and insisted on fooling Hui Er with those Buddha words that he didn't understand.After all, he himself knows himself best, and it is impossible for him to come up with some scriptures that transcend the sea of ​​suffering to send away those spirit macaques who are moved by the smell.

William could almost guess that Airi, the macaque stranded in Jiaoyan Hell, might be suspicious of him, so he could only do the opposite, and prepare to do some sensational things to divert their attention, such as saving a group of distressed people of humans.

Finding a living in Jiaoyan Hell is not an easy task, especially for the disadvantaged human beings, it is extremely difficult. It is definitely the beginning of the real hell.

The first problem people face in Creeping City is the acquisition of food, but it is basically difficult for all flesh and blood creatures to get rid of food intake.However, the harsh environment of the Scorching Hell almost leaves the world's most extensive food source - green plants - with little room for survival.

Under normal circumstances, there are three primary food sources for the creatures in the Scorching Hell.One is that there are some unique edible creatures living in the boundless magma sea, such as the fire dragon is one of the more precious ones; the second food source is the input from outside the world, the attack of Jiaoyan Hell on other planes, Not only plundering the other party's population and mineral resources, food is also an important part of it.

This third food source is quite special. It is said that in the core area of ​​Creeping City, there is a super-large organic substance synthesis factory, and thousands of tons of organic pus rich in nutrients are produced every moment. , and poured into the supply pipelines all over the creeping city.

And people only need to open a hole like a water well on the ground of Creeping City, and they can dig out barrels of organic matter like mining oil. These organic matter can be directly used as nutrient solution to drink (it is said that the taste is worse than eating shit. a thousand times worse), and can also be used to raise some of the clumsier domestic animals, such as ambulls.

Ambulls are the most common breed of livestock in the ancient insect empires (including some of the current Zerg planes). It is said that during the most prosperous period of the insect empire, ambulls even developed tens of thousands of branded species. However, there are two main types that are more common today.

One is the meat-type swollen ant cow. This kind of fat, white and fat guy is like an oversized silkworm baby. The meat is tender and juicy, rich in a lot of oil, energy and protein. The taste of green bean worms is similar (I don’t know how many friends have eaten green bean worms when they were young).

Another type is the honey aphid cow, which is a mutant ambull that can secrete a large amount of sugar.The urine of honey aphid cows contains about 15.00% to [-]% sugar, and this is not the most powerful, even crystallized particles of sugar can be found in the excretion of honey aphid cows.

Although the origin of these sugars is not so elegant, it is undeniable that the honey aphid cow is definitely one of the highest sugar-producing organisms in the entire biological world.

In a plane world with a harsh environment like Jiaoyan Hell, being able to own a honey aphid cow is definitely a top brand asset, even more awesome than running a money printing machine at home.

Of course, the honeydew cow is not a luxury that the humans in Creeping City can have. They can't even guarantee that there is one in every gathering area. Like an old hen that lays eggs, it is used to exchange material wealth, not food to satisfy appetite.

But when night fell, a group of combined marauders composed of hobgoblins and orcs rushed into the human gathering area howling.They had already looted the other two elves and dwarves gathering areas that had been visited by conch ships during the day, and they wanted to come here to make some money while humans were just "traumatized".

However, as soon as these idiots entered the gathering area, they saw something they never wanted to see-a fallen conch ship.Then they were surrounded by William and his soldiers who had already been in full battle. These robbers finally fell under the knife of William and others, and they also accepted the stolen goods that the robbers had just acquired, including two Precious swollen ant calf.

After cleaning up the robbers, William and Dove finally got a chance to rest completely. Elder Steele graciously gave up his warm crypt as a resting place for William and Dove.

However, when William was about to fall asleep, Dove touched him quietly. She actively grabbed William's body and whispered in his ear: "My William, as your partner, maybe I I can't help you much in battle, but I can soothe your soul. You have experienced too many killings and fierce fights during the day, and those cruel scenes will inevitably leave in your body an indelible anger and fear. Now , pour them all on me!"

William always has some incomprehension about the strange behaviors of many maverick female celebrities in Phelan. Of course, he can still understand the physiological needs of normal people.

And the matching of men and women in this kind of adventure process is quite common.

Although we always use romantic poems to praise the greatness and bravery of adventure heroes and the brilliance of adventure career in the description of all adventure stories, it is undeniable that the most important reason why female adventurers are more popular is not It is their outstanding fighting ability, but their natural ability to soothe the hearts of stronger male adventurers.

But the next day, William found that he was not as free and easy as Ms. Dove in certain things.William always has too much affection and sympathy for the ladies he has been in close contact with, while Dove is calm when facing last night's partner.

For William, Dove did not show any more intimacy than before, as if nothing had happened between them.

Ms. Dove's unique temperament made William feel a little sentimental.

On a new day, William arranged for manpower to start planning for the human gathering area. He sent people to the dwarf gathering area to recruit manpower. After all, most dwarves can be regarded as relatively good stonemasons, and their construction skills are not bad. Find them Coming to work as a castle construction worker can be regarded as giving full play to their talents.

There is also a group of people who are responsible for going to other human settlements, and they need to persuade those people to relocate and live here.

The relocation work involving the five human settlements is very troublesome and cumbersome. It is not something that can be done with just a few words and a decision. The issues involved cover almost all aspects.

The first to arrive were the leaders of all the human gathering areas. Among them were fertile people like Steele, a few powerful combat professionals, an outstanding assassin (professional level 14+), and three of them were still able to take The warriors who went out, and several rangers, troubadours and druids whose strength was greatly reduced due to the disconnection of the magic net.

Of course, there is also a group of new-generation young people like the little thief Selena Steele, who represent the future elite of the entire human group.If an enemy jumped out at this time and wiped out this group of people, then the entire human beings in Jiaoyan Hell would basically have their spines broken.

When these elites from the five gathering areas gathered here and witnessed the conch-hull ships docked on the ground, and the flame griffin knights flying and patrolling in the air nearby from time to time, a certain feeling suddenly appeared in their hearts. a tendency.

And the scene of a group of newly recruited dwarf artisans working in full swing makes these people a little bit separated. Without it, in Creeping City, these weak humanoid intelligent races can find a job without being caught. The job of eating (literally) is just too easy.

William was going to kill a monkey today, but before he set off, he went to meet another big man.

General Jiao Yan has been spying on William secretly. He is quite afraid of this extremely strong man who suddenly appeared. After all, he almost got his own account when he met him. Wandering around in the city's lair, don't you have to be on tenterhooks all day long.