Night was falling.

The stars shrouded the night sky of Cecil, the starlight and the artificial lights on the earth, and a thin halo of light spread from the sky over the city, giving the starlight a hazy and illusory texture, and Sir Gorosh looked up at the stars of this foreign land, and heard faint music coming from the bustling neighborhood in the distance.

The starry sky of Longlin Fort is brighter than here, but the nights are colder, and it is not as prosperous as here, but there is another solemnity.

Putting aside personal feelings, which side is better is really a difficult question to answer.

Azarena's voice came from the side, interrupting Sir Golosh's thoughts: "Sir, your daughter is gone, and if you want to blow the cold wind here for a few hours, then I won't be with you—the warm room and the nighttime drink are calling me." ”

Gorosh woke up from his thoughts, his eyes left the dark night sky, he glanced in the direction Maggie had left, and shook his head with a complicated smile: "Do you think that Maggie met me tonight, and it was arranged by Gawain Cecil?" ”

"As long as we stand here, then everything that happens around us can be seen as the result of Emperor Cecil's arrangement, and there is no point in dwelling on it," Azalena glanced at Golosh, "The key is whether you are willing to accept these 'arrangements' and whether these 'arrangements' will affect your judgment as an ambassador." ”

As she spoke, the Dragon Seal Witch paused, and then added, "As for my personal opinion, this is not a good thing. Gawain Cecil's actions so far have been measured, he has carefully taken care of the feelings of the Dragonborn, and he is also working hard to move the whole thing forward, you can see tonight's event as a 'arrangement', but you can also see this as a gesture of goodwill and sincerity. ”

Gorosh was silent in contemplation for a few seconds, and then spoke before Asarena could urge, "Lady Azarena, I'm afraid I'm going to trouble you again—please contact Dragon's Castle again." ”

Azarena sighed deliberately: "...... Alas, I knew it would be like this. ”

……

The night breeze blew into the study.

Gawain looked up from the pile of papers and saw Amber's figure rapidly emerging from the air.

"How's it going?" He asked casually.

"The father and daughter talked for a long time, and apart from a small accident at the beginning, the atmosphere seemed to be quite harmonious," Amber reported the results of her stalking, "but as you commanded, I didn't get too close, and I didn't eavesdrop on other people's private affairs—I don't know what they talked about." ”

"Well, it's mainly based on your strength, it's easy to kill people if you get close, once you are discovered," Gawain nodded, "It's okay, after all, our main purpose is just to let Maggie and Sir Gorosh meet, what results can be produced...... Just go with the flow, we don't expect that. ”

Amber did not refute Gawain's assessment that he was "easy to kill", but nodded in agreement, and then glanced curiously at the pile of documents in front of Gawain: "...... Anyway, there's so much more to deal with? ”

"Construction projects have been started all over the country, and there are new diplomatic, economic, military, and industrial plans, although each department has a special person in charge, but there are still a lot of things that need me to personally intervene," Gao Wen glanced at the mountain of documents in front of him, and smiled helplessly, "Actually, it's okay, there aren't many things that make people particularly headaches." ”

Amber scratched her hair and muttered, "My head is going to blow up every day just by processing the intelligence gathered by the Military Intelligence Agency......"

The movement of Gawain flipping through the documents in his hand suddenly stopped, and after a moment he smiled: "When the computing center is officially opened, the situation will be much better - a lot of work can be done by machines and networks, clerks and assistant administrative officers will have the energy to deal with more important things, and after the efficiency is improved, our work will ......"

"We're going to have more work, from reviewing 10 documents a day to reviewing 100 documents a day, and you'll be able to solve things every day that would have taken you days to solve, but you'll find that there's still no end in sight to the problems you're waiting to solve—" Amber's eyes rolled upwards, and she kept muttering in a tone that felt like life, "I've been following you for years, at least change your mind next time you fool me......"

Gawain was stunned for a moment and looked at the amber in front of him as if he had come to a great understanding, and suddenly felt that the progress of this half-elf beside him over the years was actually not inferior to that of others - this guy was getting harder and harder to deceive.

At this moment, a special aura suddenly disturbed Gawain's perception, and after a little recognition, he nodded to Amber across the table: "There is a guest coming." ”

Amber's first reaction was to take out the power stuffy stick she carried from behind her waist: "Okay, I'll ...... it"

"No, it's really a guest," Gawain realized the ambiguity of his words and quickly waved his hand, "Put that thing away—Megaul, you can show up." ”

As his words fell, an invisible wave of magic suddenly appeared out of thin air, and all the lights in the study seemed to be disturbed by the invisible force, becoming slightly dimmed, and the dark purple shadows and the undulating starlight in the shadows condensed in the center of the room—these starlight and shadows quickly converged into a fluctuating mass of starlight, and floated above the room like some kind of ghost.

Amber was startled by the sight, and before she could ask what it was, a low humming voice came from within the starlight aggregation: "Good night, Your Majesty, and this ...... Nervous Miss Half-Elf. With all due respect, miss, the weapon in your hand may not have worked on me, my head was lost many years ago. ”

Amber looked at the rising and shrinking starlight in a daze, although she was startled, she had already reacted after the other party spoke, and quickly matched the information in her mind, raising her eyebrows: "Megael III?" The Pope of the Eternal Sleeper? ”

"It's already in the past," Starlight Aggregate said blandly, "you can just call me Megael - now I'm just an ordinary citizen of Cecil, loyal to His Majesty Gawain Cecil. ”

Amber tugged at the corners of her mouth, muttering casually as she put away her power stick, "Well, after issuing certificates to a cloud of arcane light, an iron orb, and a tree, now we're going to give another ...... The glittering smoke made the ID card too. ”

She looked at Gawain, "Then I need to avoid it, don't I?" ”

"No, you can stay here," Gawain nodded at Amber, then looked at Megael III, "Her name is Amber, and she's my Minister of Intelligence." What do you want to say to me when you come here now? ”

"Minister of Intelligence...... I see," Megael let out a slight trill, and the amorphous starlight contracted slightly and lowered some altitude, stopping in front of Gawain as if it were face-to-face communication, "Your Majesty, you have received our transfer to Cecil as you promised, and have helped us solve the crisis of the upper narrator before, so according to the previous agreement, all the skills and secrets of the Eternal Sleeper will also belong to you."

"I'm here today to fulfill my promise.

"I have some secrets related to the royal family of Typhon, I wonder if you are interested?"

Gao Wen's eyes changed slightly, and then he said in a deep voice: "Which one?" ”

"It has something to do with the curse that the House of Augustus has been going on for two hundred years."

“…… I'm interested," Gawain said, glancing up and down at the starlight aggregate floating in mid-air, "Do I need a chair for you?" When you talk to me like this, I always feel like you're making the guest stand. ”

"No, I'm used to it," Megael III responded, "of course, if you feel unwell, you can also give me a chair that I can float over and pretend to sit on." ”

“…… Forget it," Gawain imagined the picture and shook his head, "You can start talking." ”

"First of all, from the time of Typhon's old imperial capital, Orlandel," said Megaor, "you should know that the headquarters of the Order of the Sleepers is deep underground in the ruins of Orlandel, and that the curse of Typhon's royal family only emerged after the collapse of Orlandel...... In fact, the Eternal Sleeper had been operating underground there long before the Great Collapse of Orlandal. ”

Part of what Megale said was the information that Gawain already had, and he had long had doubts about that area, and when he heard Megault's last words, he immediately frowned: "So the key to everything is Orlandel - what is there in that place?" ”

“…… A fragment of the God of Dreams, Your Majesty, beneath Orlandel. ”

Gawain's breathing stagnated for half a beat, but after this brief, slight reaction, his expression was much calmer than Megaor had imagined.

"You don't seem surprised?"

"Expected," Gawain shook his head, "the Eternal Sleeper is a dream priest who has fallen into darkness, and you have spent hundreds of years studying forbidden knowledge in the depths of Orlandal's underground, and in addition to being suitable for hiding, there must be something there that will appeal to you. Coupled with the fact that the curse of the House of Augustus is peculiar, it has distinctly dream-like and spiritual characteristics - I have long suspected that all this points to some god, and for me, there are only a few 'suspects'. ”

Referring to the gods as "suspects" is clearly a surplus for extraterritorial wanderers.

There was a hint of awe in Megaul's voice: "Everything is as you judged. ”

Gawain waved his hand and looked at Megael with a serious expression: "In other words, the so-called 'curse' of the Augustus family is essentially the divine pollution caused by the god of dreams - then what happened to the Great Collapse of Orlandel two hundred years ago?" And how did the pollution spread to the House of Augustus? You've had Orlandelle as a stronghold before that, and that's all ...... Is it your handiwork? ”

"Not really," Megale immediately denied, and then his tone was slightly sluggish, as if he was gathering his thoughts as he spoke, "where shall I begin to tell you...... In fact, it's all the result of coincidences and mistakes. The reason for the collapse of Orlandel was that the underground ruins were out of control, and the fragments of the dream god were suddenly activated, and this was more of an accident; On the other hand, you should know that the original Typhon royal family had 'predicted' the catastrophe before the Great Collapse occurred, and evacuated the entire city in advance, miraculously avoiding tens of thousands of casualties, and the reason why they were able to 'predict' the Great Collapse in advance was precisely because they were warned by the Eternal Sleeper......"

"Let's start with the beginning," Gawain tapped lightly on the table, "from the use of Orlandelle as a stronghold after the Dream Church fell into darkness, and from the establishment of the capital by the Typhonians in Orlandal. ”

"Yes," Megael responded, "First of all, the Eternal Sleeper's entrenchment under Orlandel and the establishment of the capital of the Typhonians in Orlandel took place at about the same time, but they are not related, just coincidental.

"In the early days of Typhon's founding, the Augustans chose Orlandel, which was relatively fertile and suitable for building a city, to establish their capital, and after they had just gained a foothold, the Dream Church barely recovered some of its vitality and arrived in Orlandel, where we lived in seclusion, hiding in the nearby mountains and among the chaotic villages and towns, and for a long time kept a low profile, living with the Orlandelle people at that time.

"After Orlandel became a nascent city, the Dream Church was restored even more, and we reorganized into the Order of the Sleepers in the alleys of Orlandal, and operated in the Hidden Church - survival and recuperation were still our top priorities, and in a very unexpected situation, in our search for a new hideout, we found a cave that led to the underground somewhere outside the city...... At first we thought it was a cave, but soon we discovered that it was actually leading to a ...... that was almost as large as Orlandel at the time Ancient ruins.

"It completely shook us at the time."

Gawain interrupted Megaor: "Did you find a facility left behind by the Gondor Empire?" You are also a Gondor man, and you should recognize the technology and architectural styles of the ancient empire. ”

Although he had entered the core of Dream City many times, he had never seen what the Eternal Sleeper's headquarters looked like in the real world, and from some of the memories of Daniel and the others, he could only see the state of the dungeon after seven hundred years of reconstruction, and he couldn't imagine what it looked like when it was first discovered by the Eternal Sleepers. At this moment, he only instinctively thought of the Gondor Empire's disobedient plans, and suspected that the Eternal Sleepers had found another "Fortress of Disobedience" for the gods' samples—just like the one in the Dark Mountains.

After all, the combination of ancient ruins + god samples has a really strong sense of déjà vu.

However, Megale replied in the negative: "I'm sure it's not—it's definitely not something the Gondor Empire built." First of all, it was a newly carved land outside the borders of the ancient empire, and secondly, and more importantly, it was a facility full of things we didn't recognize: it was built in a style that no one had ever seen before, some of the walls still had unrecognizable writing, and some of the enclosed rooms had some pieces of equipment and unheard of technology......"