The light outside the shop had become very dim, and the warm wind had slowed along with them, and the streets had become quiet and dark, and the taverns had become noisy and bright.

Passing by the tavern where there was a dance, the ship's doctor noticed that the young man in his group had slowed down slightly.

"Am I interfering too much?" said the elder with a smile, "perhaps you do need a cute little thing to keep you company for dancing or drinking, rather than spending time with an old fellow like me in the spice pile." ”

"I wasn't without gains. "I'm just a little ......."

"Curious," said the ship doctor, "you must have rarely come into contact with such women before." "A well-behaved child who was strictly disciplined by his parents and mentors, he said in his heart.

"I met a priest of Frow in Sharp Jaw Harbor. ”

The ship's doctor whistled, "Lucky - Flo's Celebration Day?"

"Yes. ”

"How's that?" said the ship doctor, winking playfully like a sixteen-year-old boy, "they like a beautiful young man like you the most." ”

"Then she must be an exception," said Cremar, "and she conspired with a half-ogre and a halfling, first medicated mead, then a stick and a dagger." ”

The ship's doctor looked at the sky in disbelief, "Did you do anything blasphemous?"

"Does it count as squashing Pastor Flo's nose?"

"After that or before that?"

After that. ”

"Then there's no reason for her to do that," the ship's doctor furrowed, "it's terrible, no one would guard against a priest of Flo - murder is against Flo's teachings without blasphemy and oracles, she is the god of love and **, not the god of theft." ”

"I'm not trying to defend her...... "but all she offered was a glass of mead." Or herself.

"Isn't this a preparation for the murder that follows?" retorted the ship's doctor, "and at the fort of Cape Blaze, both she and her accomplices will be put to death." ”

"She's Flo's priest. ”

She is a priest only if she obeys the doctrine, and a priest who cannot follow the teachings of the gods to whom she belongs is a vile hypocrite, and the temple will not interfere with the operation of secular laws. ”

"So how long does it take for such a priest to lose the divine magic bestowed by the gods?"

"Immediately," replied the ship's doctor quickly, "and he will immediately issue an oracle and be well versed in the temples." ”

"But she can still use magic," Cremar said, "and she's healed her nose." ”

The ship's doctor stopped abruptly, glaring at Cremar.

"Are you sure?"

"Unless she has a healing scroll hidden on her. Reverend Flo's robes were extremely close-fitting and lightweight, with only a thin leather cord, perhaps one she had hidden in a dark corner of the hallway, as Cremar recalled.

"Or she's a fake. The ship's doctor guessed, but he knew how weak the conclusion was, "When I was a child, they weren't like that. He walked forward again, shaking his head with worry as he went: "When I was a little little girl who could walk by my mother's skirt, she took me to Flo's temple, and all the way was full of women who sacrificed to Flo, young, old, rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, with garlands on their heads, ruddy faces, smiling, and holding the latest harvest of ears of wheat and fragrant pea blossoms in their hands......"

"Ears of wheat?"

"The offering of love is the sweet pea flower, and the offering of the wheat is to the fertility, but now the women who want to give birth go to the sacrifice of Gredi, and only the prostitutes and sluts pray to Flo - her priest used to pray for the abundance of people only on the day of the celebration of Flo, before the sacrifice and the ploughing of the land, and the selected unmarried men of the right age** to pray for the abundance of people, and each time only received a symbolic silver coin. But now, they are always trying to ask the men for expensive gifts, or to mingle with the younger and handsome of them, and whether he has a wife, or children, or what his fertility can be, is not at all within their consideration. Alas, they are already like prostitutes, and are still mingling with thieves, and I fear that in a few years the priest of Flo will be the target of expulsion from the Castle. ”

They were passing through a place that was almost as noisy as the tavern before, and the soul from another place wanted to know more, but before he could say his question, he was rudely interrupted by a body that had slammed out of the tavern door.

The ship's doctor stood to Kremar's left, and the raid came from the right, a bear-like stout and smelly male mercenary, with a small head hanging low in the middle of two mountain-like shoulders, and he ran out of the tavern, and when he saw two men standing in his path, he did not stop, but roared and continued to rush forward.

Turning to keep the skinny medic behind him, and turning the bag of honey to his left, he was ready to punch the reckless fellow so hard that he might be able to knock him straight back to the tavern - he had known the strength of the body for more than twenty days on board, not only the playful little killer whale, but also the sailors on the Sparrow had helped him a lot, though he was a little displeased with the fact that he had always made them bruised and swollen.

But at about the same time, a tall, thin girl burst out of the tavern, and she raised a well-wound crossbow and aimed it at the back of the man's heart. Cremar and she looked over the mercenary's shoulder, her eyes glittering with golden dots of light, with a ruthlessness and persistence that could not be misunderstood. Camemar changed his mind in an instant, grabbed the mercenary's coat, kicked him in the knee, and jerked him down, he heard the vibration of the crossstring and the high-pitched whistling that followed.

Two whistlings, then a collision.

The faint light from the whale's oil lamp didn't affect Cremar's eyesight, and unlike the mercenaries who could only stare at the crossbows and feathered arrows that had fallen on the chessboard stone path and try to deduce what had just happened, he had seen the whole process clearly—how the arrows had left the crossbow, and how they had been shot down by a slender feathered arrow that had come first—the feathered arrow, not for killing, but for saving, had come from the other end of the tavern, fifty feet away from Cremar, and in the midst of a dense crowd.

A tall ranger passed through them, carrying a longbow, his steps calm and light, his hood covering his hair and small half of his face.

The mercenary tried to get up from the ground and escape, but Cremar's feet stepped on his shoulders.

"Don't let him go," the girl commanded vulgarly and impudently, "he's a thief." ”

"I just took my fair share. The mercenary shouted, "And she wants to kill me!"

"That's not yours," the Ranger said to the mercenary, and then he looked at the girl, "It's not yours either." ”

The girl's expression became a little strange, frightened, or a little frightened, and when she tried to take a step back, the ranger turned the bowstring to herself: "You can't go yet." ”

"Things seem complicated?" said the ship doctor quietly.

"Call the police...... Guard," Cremar said rightfully, "There's a law at Cape Beach, isn't it?"

The girl, the mercenary, and the ship's doctor went blank for a moment, they didn't expect this—the ranger's exposed lips curled up quickly, "That's right, friend," he said, "let the guards come." ”

A young boy who was working in a tavern soon called the guards, and before that, the Ranger retrieved a cylinder from the mercenary, and when he poured out the contents of the cylinder to examine it, the ship's doctor grabbed Cremar's hand.

Chapter 14: The Devil's Finger (Part II)

"That's the devil's finger, well, that's what we humans call it, and the elves call it 'Poison Tip', and it's a fungus with a unique character. The ship's doctor said that they had returned to the egret's feet, and sat in the antechamber with a warm hearth beside them, and in front of them was grape juice mixed with mixed vegetables and milk wine mixed with water: "You can only see it in the swamp deep in the forest, and when it is not grown, it is white, and when it grows bright red, it is dried and ground into powder." Mages use it to summon demons, and mortals use them to kill people with a tiny tint, almost hidden between their fingernails, dissolved in water, and turned into smoke with similar effects. ”

"Expensive?"

"It's expensive," the ship doctor puffed out, "the mages weigh it in grams—and the elves hate the mushroom, which is almost exclusively found in their vestibules and backyards, perhaps because people almost call it elven fingers, and they have to destroy it when they see it, and of course, they don't want humans to collect it and sell it or use it." ”

Mage Alva's face was full of regret.

He and the Ranger stood face to face on either side of a small pool of fire elementals, confined by the mage to a mica stone bowl that could be held up with both hands, stuck in a black iron stand forged into vines and gnome arms, and near the bowl, the iron bracket turned dark red and emitted a surging heat.

"Can't you really leave me some?" he said, "just two grams, I just want to do some experiments." ”

"No, I can't. The Ranger replied gently and stubbornly, and the Mage pursed his lips sadly, but he cast a spell as the Ranger wished, and after the spell took effect, the Ranger threw the cylinder into the pool of fire elementals.

The smoke was dispelled as soon as it was generated, and the dried mushrooms let out a baby's cry in the pure fire element, "These weights can summon more than a dozen demons. For a moment, the mage said, the ranger thought he was going to reach in and salvage the remnants - thankfully not, he said sorry to his mage friend in his heart, few people knew that the elves hated the mushroom not just because of a name and the evil uses known to man.

They waited until the pool of fire elements had returned to its original form before leaving, and the mage cautiously sealed the room with magic.

"It's possible I didn't prepare this spell. Alva said he was still a little obsessed with mushrooms.

"I haven't been away from Fort Blass for long," said Ranger smugly, "at least not enough to tire you of your old friend. ”

Alva Mage is known to love shisha, but he's just as busy, so he always has a small spell to dispel the smell of smoke from his room and body in case of emergency.

"Do you have anything else to do next?"

"No," Ranger tilted his head slightly, "Need help?"

"Corbert wanted me to meet someone, a stranger who made him feel good," Alva's voice echoed through the empty hallway, and both the mage and the ranger were accustomed to walking lightly and silently, "and he wanted me to give some...... Instructions. ”

"What kind of people?"

"I don't know," said Alva, "but it seems to me that the man is either exceedingly good or exceedingly evil." ”

"By the way," he continued, "he wanted to go to the White Tower." ”

- White Tower?

- Yes, White Tower, we're going to get something there first, and then we're going north along the Starlight River to Grey Ridge.

――Is it the end?

-- A temporary end. The lich says we need a safe place to live.

- I thought you would be in a hurry to regain your strength.

- There is also a place to sharpen the blade, the former undead say that the Gray Ridge is the frontier and sentry of the Silver Crown Jungle - goblins, orcs, and humans, there is no shortage of battles and dangers, but not too often, just for us now.

- Will they allow? Suspicious of this otherworldly soul - in his world, eighty percent of the people in an interesting little interview said they couldn't recognize their neighbors and couldn't call their names, but that didn't hurt them much, but what about here? People must be suspicious and wary of an unfamiliar face, and travelers of unknown origin will be expelled even if they pass through a village or stop at the edge of a field for a moment, let alone settle and invade their lives.

- Yes, said the lich, simply and unquestionably.

The otherworldly spirit said nothing, and he could sense that the lich's mood was in a state of flux. The former undead seemed to be forced to face something he didn't want to face, and the most ironic thing was that it was none other than himself who was whipping him with an iron whip behind him.

The lich used magic tricks to conjure himself up a crude mirror, with a wooden handle, cracked mercury paint on the back, and a small piece missing. His pale face was reflected in the mirror. The face had rotted away seventy years earlier, but now it had returned, and the lich was not pleased with it—he had never liked his face, though it had given him shelter when he was weak and lowly.

His forehead was broad and high, with a hairline in the middle of his forehead slightly downward, forming a small point, his brow bones protruding, and his eyes sunken deeply, which looked particularly gloomy and elusive under the cover of long, sharp and thick eyebrows, and the bridge of his nose was narrow and high, and his lips were beautiful and suitable for kissing, and although they lacked blood, they were as they were when he was a human being.

His hair was so black that perhaps the uneducated, poor-spoken commoners would say, "Ah, what a beautiful hair it is, but if you put it together with other dark hairs, you will immediately notice the difference—it is so black and pure, and where there is no light, it is like a nightmare that can be touched, but with a little light you can see the metallic refraction of indigo and silver gray, which is often seen in the feathers of the lone crown eagle and the raven.

The Lich remembers his days in the Mentor's Tower and before, when he learned how to be quiet and restrained from the light of his emotions when he was an infant - a smile and frown at the wrong time can be mistaken for taunt or contempt, and you can be whipped (when you're lucky), or executed, or at worst sacrificed or experimented with—but sometimes a blank face can be a crime (when you're not lucky).

It is no more difficult to show some emotions at the right time than to learn to cast spells, the lich thought, he could do it two hundred years ago, and he can do it now, what he needs to adjust is his own thoughts, those evil thoughts, he has heard the name of the mage Alva, he is a powerful and jealous mage, he has traveled for twenty years, the people he has seen and the experience he has gained is as rich as his collection, and he has dealt with the lich (though not him) more than once, he suspects that Alva can sniff out the poison that lies deep in his soul with his knees alone, like the captain of the Sparrow。

But the former undead can control his thoughts, pretend his words, adjust his actions, he can't make himself kinder, but he can make himself less threatening, and he has a good model to copy, right next to him, within the same sea of knowledge.