TALES OF A WITCHER - Season 9 Episode 15

In the next three days, the reports and messages about the exploration in the Great Snow Mountain had been sent back to Neverwinter one after another

. Roland had felt his heart skipping a beat the moment he had heard that Nightingale had exhausted her magic power and passed out during a fight. Fortunately, she had been alright when this news had arrived. In order to reassure His Majesty, she had also asked Maggie to let Roland know that she was alright.

The exploration results showed that inside the Great Snow Mountain there was indeed a city in ruins, which was left by the underground civilization. However, as compared to the maze inside the Impassable Mountain Range, this city was not that well preserved. Most caves in the newly discovered ruins had collapsed long before, and several intact compartments were just filled with spoiled food, bug eggs and corpses. Near the underground lake, a broken magic core was found by the Taquila witches. According to the scouting team’s reports, they found no documented records there, and the best part of their journey was the discovery of an original carrier and two devouring worms inside the mountain.

He was surprised by the results.

If this monster with many eyes was just a dumb beast who happened to settle down in the ruins, he would never find its destructive behaviors strange. However, it was obviously not just a stupid animal. He still remembered that something in this Great Snow Mountain had sent devouring worms to swallow Agatha’s laboratory and the Blackstone Pagoda in the Devil’s Town. These actions were clearly not just for food. In this exploration inside the mountain, the team had also spotted both human beings and demons trapped in the strange bug eggs. These facts made him believe that the unknown enemy must have been trying to collect information about the other two species it was going to fight against in the Battle of Divine Will.

When he received the first batch of “bug egg corpses”, he noticed that their decomposed skin was apparently not caused by corrosion but corpse wax formed by long-term storage. That meant these corpses had been kept in the egg for a very long time and were apparently not stored as food.

Only an intelligent individual would make other creatures into specimens. In that case, he really did not understand why the monster had destroyed this underground city.

He wondered whether it was because that the monster did not care about the things treasured by Taquila witches.

He scanned through Soraya’s pictures of the scenes inside the mountain and became lost in thought.

He found that the moment before the monster sank into the water, its remaining hundreds of eyes seemed to be filled with resentment. He did not know whether this was a false impression or not. He felt its eyes became different when it was severely wounded. In the beginning, those eyes appearing on the cave roof were simply gazing at the witches, but after they hurt it badly, its eyes showed an obvious emotional expression. When he put those two pictures together to compare, he felt as if the monsters in those two pictures were not the same one.

As for the underground lake in the bottom of the ruins, where the monster sank in, Sylvie confirmed that it was connected to a water vein leading to the Swirling Sea.

On his current technical level, he was not able to track the enemy once it entered the Swirling Sea, and let this monster successfully get away. What he could do next was to block the water vein by collapsing the dome of the ruins with powerful explosives. By doing so, he could ensure the safety of Neverwinter.

The exploration team had also sent him good news.

In Lightning’s reports, he read about some bugs. They looked the same as the “egg bugs”, but had once gushed out very sticky jelly to tightly trap Fran. The mucus they spat out was able to become a consolidated, sticky thing like spider silk in certain circumstances. These bugs were neither intelligent nor aggressive. According to Agatha’s studies, they were not from the Fertile Plains.

In other words, these bugs were probably brought here by the “monster”.

However, what intrigued Roland most was not the origin of these bugs but the fact that their mucus could solidify quickly. According to Lightning’s description, these bugs could be bred in captivity.

Therefore, in his reply, he asked Agatha to make a detailed report on the living and eating habits of these bugs and to investigate what kind of harm they might cause. He also required the team to collect the strange plants and fungi in the ruins. He was particularly interested in the fruits which gave out dim, cold light in the dark and the giant mushroom as big as an adult.

When he was about to review the wonderful pictures of the underground caves, someone knocked on his door.

Phyllis walked into his office.

She bowed and said, “Your Majesty, Lady Pasha would like to talk to you about the ruins.”

He immediately nodded to agree. He had sent all the exploration reports of these days to the Taquila survivors and he also really wanted to hear the ancient witches’ views of the monster.

“Good, let’s hold a video meeting.”

“Vi… what?” Phyllis was stunned and took a few seconds to realize what it was. “You mean a meeting through the phantom instrument?”

“Yes, in the usual place at the reception hall on the first floor.” He could not help but grin as he was so happy to finally find someone who could understand his “nonsense”.

“I got it.” She laughed and said, “I’m going to inform Pasha.”

…

When he walked to the reception hall, Faldi and all the other God’s Punishment Witches all rose and bowed to him with both hands on the chest as if they were saluting a higher ascendant. They looked solemn, and were completely different from the they looked in the Dream World.

Since he had taken them into his Dreamland, he was now venerated as someone similar to the Three Chiefs of the Union. He could tell from their etiquette and attitude toward him that now they did not consider him as a common man anymore, though they still used the phrase “common people” to describe his subjects.

Though they had agreed not to care too much about etiquette as he had required, they still saluted him more formally than his own guards. Seeing this, he had no choice but to let them do whatever they wanted.

Inside the hall, he saw Pasha through the light curtain waiting for him.

“First of all, I have to express my sincere gratitude to you.” She said while bending her main tentacle. “Your help is of great importance to Taquila in exploring the ruins and in restoring the God’s Punishment Witches’ lost feelings.”

“I’m helping myself by helping you since we’ll be fighting together in the upcoming Battle of Divine Will,” he replied with a smile. “Well, what’re you going to do with the newly discovered shells in the ruins?”

“There’re only two ways to deal with them… Moving them here or moving the soul instrument to where they’re located.” She paused to think for a minute and continued. “I prefer the second method.”

When the magic core was turned off, it would look like some dry skeleton. He could use a concrete boat to carry it, but he was afraid that he could not transport shells, even empty ones, in this way. The big blob and worms were too scary for the common people. He was clear that the universal education of Neverwinter had not yet prepared them to accept these dreadful shells that looked like monsters from hell.

Roland agreed with Pasha’s suggestion of the second method, though the transportation of the instruments still posed a problem.

“So have you picked out the witches who’re willing to accept the Soul Transfer?”

Half a month ago, Taquila survivors had been eager to search for ruins left by the underground civilization in the Great Snow Mountain, since they had earnestly hoped to find new shells in the ruins. Most of the God’s Punishment Witches at that time had longed to merge with them to regain their long-lost feelings, such as touch, taste and smell, even though they had known that by doing so, they would look like monsters and would never change back into human forms.

However, now the situation was different, as they had another choice.