The City of Marronligar

Explorers' voyages always have various purposes, and they are inseparable from the financial support behind them.

Unlike other countries, Marenliga is just a commercial city-state located in the southeast peninsula. It does not have vast land and rich resources. It is densely populated but the total amount is insufficient. The only thing it is proud of is its strong capital.Under the employment and investment of nobles and chambers of commerce, explorers representing the highest level of navigation at that time organized their own teams to open up a sea thoroughfare for Marenliga.

"Let money make money", this is the simplest idea of ​​most investors.However, there are also some explorers who attach great importance to the heart: rather than earning a lot of money, they are more eager to discover the secrets that humans have never set foot through the long voyage.

——Miscellaneous Notes of Silver Bay Tower: Explorers and Their Ships

On the hillside at the edge of the Logmar region, the No. [-] outpost built by Huta and his people is ushering in the beginning of the day.

Among the people Huta brought, Chloe was one of the first to wake up.The sky was still pale, but she had already stepped out of the tent, squatting by the stream and washing her face with cold running water.Seeing that she was a young girl, the first mate of the Beacon No. had always taken good care of this junior on the way, and spoke very politely, even with a kindness that didn't match her age.

"Is it too noisy outside the camp, or is it too cold in the tent, why do you wake up so early?" He was talking to Chloe while filling the iron pot in his hand with stream water.If Huta doesn't wake up again, I'll give him a chill.

Chloe shook her head, smiled and put the loose braids back on her head: "No, I just want to see what the morning is like here. I have been hearing about Logma from the elders in the manor , I didn’t expect that I was lucky enough to come here, and now it’s really amazing.”

The first officer immediately remembered Chloe's performance on the Beacon: It was the first time she was on a long-distance sailing ship, but she was extremely courageous. Regardless of whether the weather outside was calm or not, she would stay on the deck all day, even trying to steal the sailor's job. , climbed to the top of the mast to mend the sails.

The conditions on the boat are far from those on the shore. Fresh water and vegetables are rare items, and almost all of them are sea fish.Chloe not only didn't complain, but also learned the skills of sea fishing from the old sailor.

Seeing that Chloe was not too deeply affected by the "resonance" caused by Torresso's blood, the first officer was a little relieved, and simply put down the iron pot, and chatted with her a few more words: "Are there any in my crew?" Few of them are farmers and herdsmen. When they came to explore the road last time, when they passed through the river valley, they all sighed, saying that such a good land is a waste of no one to plow and graze, and they feel distressed when they see it."

"I think so too, but seven or eight hundred years ago, it might have been as prosperous here as Marenlica—although I haven't been to Marenlica yet. You see, I'm just a villager who likes to fight and kill It’s just a girl, but I still can’t compete with the patriarch, the judge, and everyone on the letter.”

The first mate also rarely laughed out loud: "It's lively there, but it's a place where people eat people, and there's nothing to be envious of. If you go to a few more countries on the sea with us, you will find that Maren Liga is also Like that."

"yes……"

Chloe lowered her head and thought for a while, and decided to ask her brother when she met her brother who was far away in Marunliga.She looked at the iron kettle beside the first mate, and thought of joking again: "You are really rude to Captain Huta."

In her impression, the first mate always treats the crew members under his command with clear rewards and punishments, and is quite gentle in private, but as long as he is facing Huta, even the honorifics are like a stick with a gun, and sometimes like a worried elder .

The first officer's response was straightforward and succinct: "He just doesn't clean up."

Since it is necessary to be responsible for the beacon, it is necessary to have a combination of toughness and softness, but the first officer's "beating" of the captain was a little tougher.

While the two were talking, Hagrid also came out of the tent.

"Your Honor." The first mate greeted Hagrid strangely, and Chloe also saluted him.

Hagrid nodded slightly, and whispered "Morning" as if he just remembered, as if it was a meeting.

Probably due to the influence of the status of "Inquisitor of Heresy", even those who don't like to see the cult will inevitably feel a little timid in their hearts. Hagrid's unsmiling, serious and gloomy personality intensifies the awe of outsiders.

Compared with her peers, Chloe is obviously the kind who is bold and quick-witted.Samuel was her uncle in terms of seniority, but his blood relationship had been separated by several layers, so it was hard to say how close he was.After Samuel took over as the patriarch, he has been in charge of the clan, while Sophia has controlled the money and property. The elders of the family inevitably have some criticisms against their siblings.

Even so, as a descendant and subordinate of the patriarch, she still felt the need to show concern.

So, Chloe stepped forward and called Hagrid humbly: "Your Honor, is Uncle okay?"

Hagrid was busy throwing the written on paper into the campfire.Hearing someone talking to himself, he turned around and looked down at the young Torreso whose name he didn't know his name. He hesitated for a moment before answering: "It's okay."

Chloe frowned quickly, doubting Hagrid's perfunctory answer, but it was inconvenient to speak directly.

——their green eyes are so annoying, as distracting as a snake's letter.

While complaining in his heart, Hagrid added a few words with a straight face: "He hasn't woken up yet. Don't rush to start yet. The teaching police are still resting at your No. [-] outpost, and it will take some time to rush over. And It's cold here, so it's better to leave in the afternoon."

The first mate picked up the iron pot and was about to wake up Huta and the other crew members who had slept enough: "If you need any emergency medicine, spare weapons, or if you are not used to riding a horse and want to change to a better one, , please tell me directly, so you don’t have to bother the captain. Anyway, he will throw those jobs to me in the end.”

"Thank you." Hagrid spared his words most of the time, but he would put more ink in some strange places. "Your horses are doing well."

Hearing Hagrid's strange compliment, the first mate was also a little surprised, and didn't know how to answer for a while: "Uh, it's probably because of the fertile grass and abundant water here."

Hagrid nodded, and was about to turn around and go back to the tent, but stopped halfway, and asked Chloe, "You seem...to have seen 'those things' too?"

Croy was stunned for a moment, and quickly realized that Hagrid was asking about "resonance": "Yes, but it should be lighter than uncle's reaction. His aptitude is stronger than most of the clansmen, so the Holy Spirit It's very sensitive."

Torreso's blood was originally a "talent", and now it has become a nightmare and a curse.

Hagrid chewed on Chloe's answer, and asked, "...What kind of feeling is that?"

"I don't quite know what my uncle saw... In my case, I suddenly feel that I am standing here, and what I see and hear are things from a long time ago, the people fleeing to the beach, and the people coming from the upper reaches of the river. The flood peaks and the boulders rolled down from the cliffs just passed through my body. But in a blink of an eye, those things disappeared again."

Hagrid was silent for a long time before he whispered, "That's it."

When the sun was hanging high above the No. [-] outpost, although the sun was abundant and the wind was a lot less, the quiet and lonely four fields seldom showed any vitality, but the Logmar area was still really cold.

There were not many people who set out from the camp. The teaching police brought by Hagrid and the mercenaries under Huta were only 30 to [-] people, but they were all reliable and good soldiers.

Horses were limited, except for Samuel, Hagrid, Huta, and Chloe, who were leading horses, most of them were still walking lightly, and their speed was not too fast.Fortunately, as long as you walk down the hillside where the camp is located, and then climb over two low-level ridges, you will arrive at the place where Huta stopped when he explored Logmar last time.

The golden and emerald "solidified ocean" - this is Huta's description of the interior plain of Logmar.Half a year later, it once again ushered in a group of strange explorers.

"Last time, we stopped here. The view on the mountain will be wider, but we don't need it." Huta reined in the horse at a distance from the grassland. "Since we're all here, I think we can only go forward?"

The overly vast tranquility is accompanied by an overwhelming sense of oppression, like a giant statue reaching up to the sky, silently torturing everyone who walks into the Logma area.

In fact, this "ocean" is not solidified.

Different from what Huta saw last time, at this moment, there is a wind blowing on the plain, and the weeds with a height of half a person are swaying layer by layer with the wind, like wheat waves on the fertile field.The problem lies in the dome of the sky that covers this grassland: the daytime aurora stretching from the distant mountains to the zenith is like a mural, which has not changed for half a day, and still maintains the appearance of centuries ago.

Looking at the world in front of you together, it really looks like a magic painting that has been cursed.Or is it that time in this land has indeed stopped, and everything stays at a certain moment after humans were driven out by the cataclysm.

Huta admitted that he had lingering fears - since they landed, they were clearly neither attacked by wild beasts nor threatened by sex, but they just felt a kind of fear for no reason, and the name of the fear was probably "instinct".

Hagrid seemed much "slower".He paid more attention to Samuel's reaction than to Huta's embellished description of how he felt.

Samuel rode a brown-haired and white-hoofed horse in front of Hagrid.He was wearing a prairie riding outfit commonly used for hunting, with a saber hanging around his waist and a light black cloak on the horse's back. His whole body was like a sharp sword that could be unsheathed at any time.

——The appearance of you running all the way to Logmar to investigate the catastrophe is really a bit like Torresso's ancestor Solti and the saint Roland in the painting.

Hagrid saw Samuel's figure in his eyes, but Huta's slightly presumptuous ridicule flashed in his mind.

Unlike the previous thoughts of "How can Samuel and his ilk be compared to Solti", now, Hagrid only feels that "I can't be as selfless as Saint Roland".

Naturally, there is no "road" in the narrow sense, or in other words, there are roads everywhere, it just depends on how people walk.Samuel and his party headed towards the hinterland of Logmar along the lowlands of the river. From a distance, the narrow river turned a corner at the foot of the mountain and disappeared in the wild grass.

The leading horse slowed down and waded through the heavy weeds with a solid and powerful chest. The water bottles and supply bags under the saddle jingled, like needles piercing the solid ice, bit by bit to open the frozen Hundreds of years.The horseshoe broke through the thin ice on the water surface, and stepped firmly on the unstained sand and gravel at the bottom of the water.

Compared with "river", it is indeed more appropriate to call this weak and unbroken current a "stream".

The teaching police basically didn't speak much, but the mercenaries who had some knowledge had already started talking in a low voice.One of them had a slightly louder voice, and even if he deliberately lowered his voice, the words he said were enough for the person riding in the front to hear: "Don't you think that this place is exactly the same as the scene in that painting?"

Neither Hagrid nor Samuel spoke.Huta scratched his head, feeling a little embarrassed by his subordinate's overly blunt speech.

They are indeed approaching the place where the holy vessel rests, this is already a tacit fact.

"Go ahead." Samuel gave the order briefly.

Hagrid gave him a deep look before patting up to follow.Samuel's physical condition seemed to be okay, he wasn't disturbed by the sacred artifact, and he didn't go ahead with the "kill whoever" thing.

Following the stream and turning through the low bushes on the edge of the plain, not long after, everyone found a spring at the foot of the mountain, in which there was still gurgling water from the ground, and the surrounding vegetation was also quite prosperous, and finally there was a bit of spring. look.People who have seen "Saint Rowland Picking Roses of Stone Heart" once again invariably think of this painting.

It seems that some legends are not just legends.

The spurs of Samuel's boots were stuck in, and he was about to steer the horse a few steps closer to the spring.But at this moment, the "resonance" from the sacred artifact of Logmar that was sensed from time to time made a comeback, hitting Samuel's consciousness like a heavy hammer.

— must get out of here!Otherwise, we will all have to be buried with that ominous thing!

It was an ancient language spoken by Rogmar's fugitives centuries ago.

If he hadn't grabbed the saddle and stabilized his body in time, Samuel would have almost fallen off the horse.

"Uncle!" "Samuel!"

Huta and Chloe subconsciously wanted to rush forward.I saw Samuel raised a hand (he tried to control the instinctive trembling of his body), signaling them not to be nervous.

Samuel pressed his temples, tried to calm his breathing, and responded calmly: "I'm fine."

He returned to the ground on his stirrups, walked straight to the spring that appeared in the religious painting, and stood by the water to look at it carefully.Hagrid dismounted too, and followed Samuel without a word.

"...Sure enough." Samuel pointed out to Hagrid what was in the spring. "Although there are no flowers now, it should be a bush of roses."

Hagrid nodded solemnly.

What grows naturally in the spring is probably the prototype of the legendary "stone heart rose".Witnessing this scene with their own eyes, it is hard for everyone not to be amazed.

The surface of the water scattered at the spring is only one foot square, and the water is also very shallow, and even the ripples on the surface do not disturb people's sight much.Samuel waded a step or two until he came to the thicket of thorny bushes.

He tentatively stretched out his hand, just as he was about to touch this rose that was made by God, but unexpectedly, as soon as his fingertips touched a section of emerald green branch, the whole rose quickly withered, yellowed and withered, and finally only gray and white remained. The shriveled skeleton collapsed into the spring water like sand when the wind blew, like the corpse of the lightless being exposed to the sun and turned into dust in an instant.

The spring is still bubbling with water, as if the rose had never grown in its heart.

The people who were still amazed just now fell silent, and they couldn't believe that they saw this scene with their own eyes.Samuel's face was pale, and the hand hanging in the air couldn't hold even a handful of ashes.

He didn't know whether this was an ominous omen, or Logmar's last words to future generations.

After a long silence, Huta shook his head and let out a helpless sigh: "There is nothing eternal in this world. Just like this stone heart rose, its appearance before withering may only be seen in paintings."

The author has something to say: Spikeroog-Marcin Przybylowicz

The archipelago bgm of The Witcher III is really nice, blowing it up every day

In fact, part of the settings of the Torresso family refer to the Cossacks (such as the abundant martial arts, fierce folk customs, and good at riding and chopping), and the weapons are also based on the Chasik saber. The source of all evil is the heart of the wizard Three Stones Gilder's big knife

The chief mate is set to be a irascible male mother, in the future, if you have inspiration, write a letter to mark the family history