The City of Marronligar

After the diocese shrunk to the Marenlica area, the order also moved many holy relics to the shrine in Marenlica, including the relics and manuscripts of Saint Roland.

The religious order has always been strictly disciplined and has a mystical conservative style. Naturally, I have never visited their shrines with my own eyes.However, long before the fall of Marunliga, the sect had already collapsed. Some of those relics were taken away by the last believers and scholars of Silver Bay Tower, and most of the rest were lost to the people.If there is no written record, it will probably be forgotten by the world soon.

Now that I am trapped in a corner of the Silver Bay Tower, I can only express this helpless sigh.

——Miscellaneous Notes of Silver Bay Tower: The Rise and Fall of the Order

Thousands of years ago, Roland and Solti picked budding roses by the water, and let this moment last forever in the painting.

Thousands of years later, Hagrid and Samuel witness the withering of the Stoneheart Rose.

Samuel stood silently in the water for a while before returning to the shore, and said in a deep voice, "There is nothing else here, let's go."

Huta carefully observed Samuel's expression, turned around again, and gestured to the first mate and the mercenaries with a cooperating wink, signaling that everyone should stop talking nonsense, and even if they wanted to express their feelings, they had to wait until they returned to the camp. Action in a muffled voice is the order of a "leader".

Just when Samuel was about to get on the horse, Hegra stopped him, pointed to his own horse, and said a short and straightforward sentence that made others stare: "Take the same horse as me."

Samuel blinked, thinking he had heard it wrong: "What?" He looked around and saw that everyone had expressions of disbelief. "It's not just the two of us here, or do you think you can humiliate me with riding skills? Don't underestimate Torreso's tradition of riding and hunting."

The serious expression on Hagrid's face was the same as before: "I'm afraid you will have another attack, and you will lose your grip and fall off the horse and die."

Samuel replied with a fake smile: "You can really talk."

He let go of Hagrid's hand, jumped on the horse's back lightly, swung the rein to turn the horse's head, and urged everyone to continue walking deeper into the plain.

Huta looked at the scene in front of him, beckoned the first mate to come over, and muttered in a low voice pointingly: "This man, you should be more polite, otherwise no matter how reasonable you are, the other party won't appreciate it."

The first mate gave Huta a blank look: "What are you implying?"

Huta's momentum immediately weakened by half a point, and he retracted his preface resentfully: "I didn't."

The plain is full of unseasonable green and yellow interlacing, not only the cold wind that has not faded from the end of winter, but also the vegetation and sparse birdsong in summer and autumn.The wanton growth of weeds did not reach the horse's hoof, making it impossible for people to see the situation on the ground at a glance.

The buildings of Rogmar's ancestors are only ruins, which have long been submerged in the grass.As they approached the ruins, the mercenaries and policemen who were advancing on foot used their weapons to clear the weeds, so they found more traces of people's activities here.Those were old skeletons, half submerged in the soil, and the fragmented bones looked like mottled gray-white stones at first glance.

Countless springs, summers, autumns and winters ago, weeds replaced crops and became the masters of this fertile land.They drilled out from under the frozen soil, passed through the weathered human bones, and placed their slender branches in the gaps in the ribs or in the empty eye sockets, as if using human flesh and blood as the pot and soil, nourishing these Logues Mar's "Watcher".

There is no need for previous explanations, and the explorers who stepped into this place can easily guess the origin of these corpses.When the catastrophe befell the Logmar area, the residents who failed to escape died here, and turned into the food of weeds together with the abandoned village.

Among the dilapidated walls and houses, they found more relatively complete human bones.The family collapsed under the wall, only the half-body skeleton outside the dry well, and the remains of the baby still sleeping peacefully in the cradle... The wooden beams, well ropes, and pieces of cloth and paper have long been decayed, together with the fallen bricks and stones. The only ones left are the "remnants" who settled in Logmar between the two cataclysms.

Hagrid and Samuel saw it all.

——However, we cannot stop there.

"This should be a town, or a large-scale manor." Samuel pushed aside the weeds in front of him, and looked at the gravel-paved road under his feet. "Maybe it's only one step away from developing into a city."

The land in the Logma region is fertile, with lush water and grass. Even though there are towering mountains on three sides and the land roads are blocked, as long as you make good use of the excellent location where the river and the sea are connected, it should be a place where people can live and work in peace.But the passage of time cannot be assumed, and the people who died here cannot be resurrected.

Hagrid stood in the ruins and looked into the distance, searching for traces of the ancient temple: "According to the description in the fragment of Roland's manuscript, the ancient temple should be nearby."

Huta reminded at the right time: "I noticed it when I came last time. There is a tiankeng a little far away from here, but it is not easy to see on the flat ground. The ancient temple you are looking for seems to be underground, right? Maybe it is on the ground. There are also signs."

Samuel made a decisive judgment: "Then go in the direction of the sinkhole. The catastrophe didn't destroy everything, just like the ruins of this settlement, we can always find traces left by our ancestors."

As expected, in a place where the weeds were relatively sparse, they found an old stone road with broken stone pillars lying on both sides of the road.Judging from the carvings on the stone pillars, they originally belonged to some kind of religious building.

Samuel took the lead, tied the horse nearby, and walked steadily to the end of the road just as he had followed the stream to find the spring.Hagrid, in armor, walked beside him, looking serious, no different from going to the altar during an order ceremony.

Huta couldn't help whispering to the first mate again: "Don't you think this road is a bit like—"

"You'd better not finish that sentence."

"—Tomb passage." Huta still uttered the last word.

Samuel naturally heard their conversation, but he didn't stop, but said without looking back: "Brother, no matter how soft your voice is, I can still hear you, don't underestimate our talent! .”

Chloe, who had been keeping quiet all this time, couldn't help lowering her head and laughing twice.

Huta apologized simply: "I'm sorry."

"But you are right. This is a tomb passage leading to the sacred tomb of the ancient temple. You don't mind if I say so, Judge Sauron?" Samuel stopped, looking down at the end of the road leading to Long stairs underground.

Hagrid habitually spared words like gold: "I have no objection."

The looming road among the wild grass, the collapsed stone pillars, and the long steps inlaid in the rift valley in front of you, the cracks in the earth extend all the way to the frozen tiankeng in the distance.

An erratic, ancient voice told Samuel that they were nearing the end.

The "resonance" happening at this moment further confirms this point.Almost immediately, Samuel and Chloe hear voices from the past.

——The door of the temple has been blocked by falling rocks!

——Then what should we do, the gravekeeper is still inside?

—It was too late to save him.If it is delayed any longer, the sea will be frozen, and no one will be able to escape by then!Quick, take these manuscripts, it's the only thing we can do.Maybe wait a few more years, decades, centuries, and someone will come back and fix this.

In the picture that briefly flashed in my mind, those blurred figures were riding horses from this road across the plain, across the valley, and headed straight to the west beach.

After recovering from the aftermath of the resonance, Samuel and Chloe looked at each other, and they already had a conclusion in their hearts.

Samuel's quiet gaze sank down the stone steps until the end of his vision was engulfed by the darkness between the cracks.

He said to Hagrid, "This is what we've been looking for, where everything begins and ends."

Hagrid shook his head and corrected Samuel: "Our expedition will not end until we actually see the Hallows."

Personally, Hagrid didn't want this to be the end of it all.Because until then, he had to make a break with Samuel.Looking back belatedly, he found that he hadn't had a good conversation with Samuel for a long time, and he was even too embarrassing to share half a sincere smile without thorns.

Hagrid felt untimely regret and chagrin at this.

Samuel had no way of knowing the complex psychological activities of the judge at this moment.

He said, "Hagrid, I want to ask you one thing."

Hagrid was startled: "If it's the nonsense you talked about last night, I refuse."

"No, I know the general idea very well." Samuel squeezed out a contrived smirk. "I want the large army to set up camp outside here. The policemen and mercenaries can follow us, but try to keep them as far away as possible. It is best that only the two of us approach the sacred artifact. Needless to say, you should understand the reason .”

Of course Hagrid understood.

The existing fragments of manuscripts are secretive about the catastrophe, and key parts have been lost. Therefore, later generations know little about the ancient temple and sacred artifacts.What's more, they are also worried that someone in the entourage will be negligent for a while, or have bad intentions against the holy artifact, which will cause chaos at a critical moment. It is better to leave only Patriarch Torreso and the Chief Inquisitor. After all, they are both capable and responsible .

Samuel briefly explained to Chloe: "You don't have to go down with me, stay up with them. This is the patriarch's order."

Chloe knew why Samuel made such an arrangement.As a member of the same clan, although her aptitude is inferior to that of the patriarch, with her senses superior to ordinary people, she can also detect the strangeness of the ancient temple in advance.

She was Samuel's insurance on the ground.

Samuel turned to Huta again: "If the situation changes, leave us alone, take Chloe and leave here directly."

Huta grinned: "Aren't you afraid that we will leave you behind later, get on the Valkyrie and run away? I have been greedy for that ship for a long time."

Samuel looked at Huta fixedly, as if he didn't hear the second half of his sentence: "I trust your judgment, old friend."

Huta lost his joking mood in an instant: "I see." He shook Samuel's hand vigorously. "Take care."

After arranging the important matters with the mentality of "accounting for future affairs", Samuel turned around and took the torch handed by Hagrid, and took the first step towards the narrow and long stairs leading to the ancient temple.

If the Logmar area is compared to an incorruptible corpse, then the rift that Samuel and others are walking through is a scar with deep bone visible.It's hard to imagine how people dug a huge temple underground thousands of years ago. They can only think that they used natural products to place the temple in the scar of the earth.

Compared with the ground, the Rift Valley is obviously much colder.The long stone steps extend all the way to the depths, and the further you walk in the direction of the tiankeng, the more you can feel the bone-chilling chill.

The ice-covered stone walls blocked the sunlight that flooded the Logmar Plain. Without torches to dispel the darkness, it would be difficult to move a single step.

The swaying flames were reflected on the ice edge, which looked like orange-red colored glass, but everyone had no time to appreciate these treacherous scenery.

After exploring along the silent and narrow tomb passage for a long time, Hagrid and Samuel finally saw a huge door.There is only a gap of less than half a foot between the heavy doors that are concealed, and the lower half of this gap has been blocked by several huge stones.

The huge old copper door has a quaint appearance, and the mottled reliefs have a rusty metallic color.Perhaps it was affected by the ice during the catastrophe, just like the stone wall under the rift, there is also a layer of ice on the metal, so cold that people dare not touch it.

Samuel looked up at the icicles hanging on the top of the door, and murmured, "How many feet underground is this place?"

Hagrid snorted, "Do you think I'll count on that?"

"Then don't forget it, let's talk about it after we do it."

Samuel looked at the group of policemen and mercenaries, and calmly gave an order: "Prepare to blow up the door."

He took out the bomb that Louis gave him, and decided to take a gamble: it was both Louis's handicraft and whether the rift valley could withstand the toss of the explosion.

"Is... is it really all right?" Some mercenaries inevitably had the idea of ​​retreating.

It was Hagrid who explained in a firm tone: "It's not that there have been no earthquakes here, but the temple and the rift have survived. So there is no problem."

Samuel heard voices from the past again as the falling rock blocking the gate was blown apart.But this time the voice was different, with echoes from the rock walls of the rift valley, so gentle and calm that it seemed to have nothing to do with the catastrophe that destroyed Logmar.

—Farewell, my comrade in arms, my...

Samuel shook his head, trying to understand the meaning behind this sentence.

Hagrid turned to him immediately and asked, "What?"

Samuel stared ahead, and answered the irrelevant question: "The door is open."

The impact of the explosion of the stones also made the gap between the giant gates a little wider, finally freeing up enough space for people to pass through.

"You stay outside the door, be sure to keep an eye on the surrounding situation."

After giving the teaching police and mercenaries the standby order, Hagrid was about to enter the ancient temple when he was stopped by Samuel: "Wait a minute."

Torreso's patriarch drew out his dagger, cut two strips of cloth from the cloak, and cut his arm without hesitation.He was well prepared: a strip of cloth to stain the blood, and another to bind it.

Lowering his head, Samuel tied the blood-soaked cloth strip outside Hagrid's arm armor with his own hands, and said half-jokingly and half-seriously, "Toreso's blood is very expensive."

Hagrid said nothing, and didn't know what to say.

Behind the door is still a long and narrow passage.Hagrid and Samuel walked for a long time, and their vision suddenly widened.The icy sunlight cast obliquely from the top of the head, and the beam of light seemed to be glowing with faint blue fireflies.The two immediately realized that they were standing under the tiankeng at the moment, in the heart of the ancient temple that had stopped beating.

Big, silent, and deeply aware of one's own smallness—they all thought of the Shrine of Maren Riga and the library of the Silver Bay Tower.But there are no screen-like bookshelves here, no solemn statues of gods.Except for the huge vague murals and the altar at the end of the temple, there are only dozens of neatly arranged coffins.

Huta's description hits the spot.The ancient temple is indeed a tomb, and there is a tomb keeper sleeping in each pair of dark coffins. Although their bodies have long since died, their remains remain in this temple, guarding this long silence .

Among these coffins, only two attracted the attention of Hagrid and Samuel.One pair is placed at the outermost position, with the coffin lid open, and there is nothing inside; the other pair is located in the center of many coffins, with a base that is a bit higher than the other coffins, and its shape is also more solemn. It was probably the first to be placed here of.

On the dark coffin lid lay a blooming rose.The blood-colored petals stretch naturally, shrouded in the cold light from the top of the tiankeng, never frozen by frost or snow, and never covered by dust. Centuries of time have left no trace on this rose—it looks like it has just been picked. down the same.

In the ancient temple, its existence is so abrupt, it is inexplicably heartbreaking.

"This is... the stone heart rose that Saint Roland broke off."

The flower in the painting, which is often regarded as a "religious metaphor", has existed for thousands of years. Who would have thought that it is sleeping here, accompanied by the tomb guards of the ancient temple.

Driven by some kind of power, Hagrid and Samuel reached out to the rose on the coffin at the same time.And at the moment they touched the rose, they saw another distant story that had been sealed for thousands of years.

The author has something to say: Their Return - Marvin Kopp