An eerie and dark castle rises over the edge of a lake with a spire like a javelin in the style of an ancient magical empire.

Harold Hammer carried a bag of ore on his back and walked towards the castle's warehouse, his steps heavy and slow.

As a minor dwarf, he was not like the muscular elders who wielded a giant hammer like a toy, and such a bag of ore was indeed a little too heavy for him.

However, Harold has no complaints about the heavy physical labor, and at least he can survive, at least not to be food for vampire masters like the delicate dwarves that have been selected.

It was the castle of Vlad Cecil, the "Great Count of the Blood", who controlled hundreds of dwarven villages around him, selected "pure blood and flesh" from them for food, and drove the remaining slaves to labor in the mines and castles, mining and smelting for him the Nedam gold, which is characteristic of the Plateau of the Night, as well as the rare Caramo iron and Mithril.

From birth, the dwarves seem to have been predestined, either to become food or to die early after squeezing the strength of their bodies, and the scenery of their lives is only the part of their union for the sake of reproduction.

Although he never left the village where he was born and the castle of Count Vlad, Harold "heard" that whether it was the desolate south where he was now located, or the north where the horror reputation spread, the dwarves of other parts of the plateau lived in this way, and the pain and numbness continued.

Thinking of this, Harold raised his head and looked up at the darkness that would forever shroud the plateau, looking up at the bright constellations. Slightly dazed and sad in my heart:

"Could it be that my life is moving miserably along such a fixed track, without the slightest hope, and we dwarves will never be able to restore the glory of antiquity?"

Sharp pain came from Harold's face, and a blood-oozing whip mark suddenly appeared on the left side of his face and stretched across the dwarf's distinctive large nose to the right.

"Hurry up, what's the fuss!" came a vicious and fierce voice, and the shadow of the leather whip still echoed in front of him.

Yes, there are not only two fates for dwarves, but also for turning their backs on their ancestors. Pleasing vampires like a dog. Be their blood servants, and in turn watch over their own companions.

How could a vampire who pretends to be elegant and noble manage the dirty miners and coolies by himself, and naturally needs servants to do the tedious work, but every vampire will consume his own blood source when he first embraces him. If a weak vampire develops more descendants. It will decay in advance. Therefore, even high-level vampires are not willing to produce offspring at will.

Moreover, vampires think very highly of themselves, and regard most of other life's lives as dirty and lowly creatures, and do not value or like them very much. It is impossible to waste the Blood Source to convert them into Bloodborne, so the number of orthodox vampires has always remained small, and there are a large number of Blood Servants who have been sucked by their blood and have not died, and obey orders like puppets.

As a blood servant, his strength is almost a formal knight, but he will never improve, and his lifespan is only one-tenth of that of his master, and he will never be able to resist his master, or even the idea of resisting.

Harold glanced at the dwarf next to him with a leather whip and dressed in gorgeous clothes, and lowered his eyes to prevent the hatred and anger in his eyes from being detected by him: "Yes, Steward Wells." ”

This hateful traitor, who has reported and killed many of his kind, and who is only an overseer, likes to be called a butler, and when Galata, the real vampire butler, appears, he wants to kneel on the ground and kiss the tip of his shoe.

The red-haired dwarf Wells, because his master Vlad hated beards, shaved his proud beard clean, revealing his pitted face, and at this time he saw Harold's "handsome" brown beard, and couldn't help but get bored in his heart, and with a wave of his right hand, he gave him a whip again:

"What were you thinking? Dwarves don't need to think! Understand? I ask you do you understand? Dirty bastard dwarves!"

He seems to have forgotten that he is also a dwarf, and completely regards himself as a noble blood servant who is only slightly worse than the orthodox blood.

"Understood, Steward Wells. Harold's hands as he gripped the ore bag burst out.

"Get out of here!" Wells did not dare to delay the progress so as not to be scolded by Mr. Galata, the butler.

As soon as Harold took a few steps, Wells' fierce and vicious voice became unusually flattering: "Good afternoon, Lady Tess, Mr. Galata, please go this way, it is full of ore powder, it is very dirty, and the foul-smelling dwarves will run into you." ”

Even without looking back, Harold could imagine Wells' flattering appearance as he bent his head down, and the meticulous style of the tall vampire butler Galata, who was forever dressed in a black suit and always wore a neat bow tie.

And Lady Tess must still be that beautiful and bewitching, with long blond hair, a slender and well-proportioned figure, and green eyes like a lake, which have not changed since she was first embraced as a vampire by Count Vlad.

The thought of Lady Tess makes Harold feel unusually heartache and sorrow, she is the prettiest female dwarf in hundreds of nearby villages, the lover of her dreams, but unfortunately she is favored by Count Vlad and becomes his vampire bride.

The cool breeze on the plateau blew, Harold buried his head, carried the ore bag on his back and moved slowly, and a voice as crisp as a birdsong came from behind him: "Hurry up smelting ore, don't let them be lazy." ”

"Pay attention to the investigation, some of the dwarves who have stolen have formed a resistance army, and they cannot be allowed to destroy the mines. ”

............

It was not until the evening came, when the constellation had changed, that Harold had finished his heavy labor, had a chance to breathe, and then left the castle with his ration, two loaves of black bread, and returned to his home in a nearby village.

As he walked, Harold suddenly looked around vigilantly, and when he saw that there was no one nearby, his expression immediately became excited, and he turned into a remote road, carrying the darkness on his back and the starlight, and walked forward quickly.

After walking for about ten minutes, passing through a few sparse black "poplar" forests, Harold saw an ordinary boulder.

He looked around again. Then cautiously and tiptoeing to the back of the boulder and gently tapping the stone face.

"Steam supreme. Strange dwarven words came out of his mouth, like incantations without any mental support.

As soon as the voice disappeared, a crack suddenly cracked in the boulder, as if a door had opened, and a gray-faced dwarf stuck his head out and looked around, then waved his hand: "Come in, Harold." ”

Harold quickly slipped inside, watched as the dwarf closed the stone door and locked it, throwing a loaf of brown bread to him, "Uncle Warren." I went down first. ”

"Let's go. The Great Elder is waiting for you, my child. Warren caught the black bread and drank the water, and his teeth were very good. It was as if I had been hungry for a long time.

Harold understood that Uncle Warren, the dwarven rebels hiding underground, had been short of food for a long time. That's why it's like this. So she shook her head sadly and walked down the passage to the depths of the earth.

He drank the water he had brought with him and ate brown bread. On the one hand, I felt that the underground palace built by the ancestors was grand and magnificent, which made people deeply shocked:

"Why would such a great ancestor be defeated by a vampire?"

"Is it rejected by the gods?"

On both sides of the stone bricks, there are many murals carved, there are overwhelming airships, steam engine ships sailing on the ocean, there are terrifying cannons bombarding dragons, and steam trains running on the plains...... Although Harold had seen these murals many times, he couldn't help but be thrilled every time he saw them, so he loved to listen to the great elder Augustus tell about the events of the steam age, and think about the glorious civilization of his ancestors, as if he just thought that life was full of hope and inherited glory.

At the end of the passage, there is a large hall that seems to be used for sacrifice, and on either side is a row of small rooms, from which the roar of steam comes from the incessant sound, and a sturdy dwarf is driving a steam sledgehammer to forge weapons.

"Harold, are you here?" a dwarf with a long white beard bowed slightly to Harold, then followed his gaze and sighed softly: "It's a pity that our civilization has been lost, and we can't make complex steam engines, cannons, and rifles at all, so we can only make sharper swords and axes." But this can only deal with the blood servants, and there is no way to deal with the vampires, let alone the north where the horror vampires are. ”

His tone was vicissitudes and bleakness.

The "Great Elder...... "High Leaders" who were dressed simply, but whose status was faintly higher than that of other dwarves, spoke out to stop them, how could they create an atmosphere of despair within the rebels.

Grand Elder Augustus smiled calmly and calmly, "Mirna, Quakins...... We must make our people who follow us understand our situation, that this is a path without a glimmer of hope, whether to live numbly on our knees, or to defend the glory of our ancestors with blood and die like a true dwarf, we must make our own choice. ”

"Steam supremacy!" suddenly roared from the small houses on both sides, "they are all doomed to a painful death anyway!"

Sharing food, Augustus asked Harold about the castle's recent movements, and they chose Count Vlad's territory to hide because they heard that he had been traumatized by "magical magic" in a war in his early years, and had never fully recovered, and needed to sleep often to keep himself intact.

“...... Lady Tess is instructing the Blood Servants to look for you......" Harold looked at Augustus wistfully after informing him of the only information he knew, "Elder, can you tell me more about the ancient steam civilization?"

The beautiful female dwarf Mirna, who is still relatively young, is also full of anticipation, listening to the stories of the past told by the Great Elder is a rare "light" in the difficult life of the rebels.

“...... We dwarves once ruled over vast lands, and in the endless mouth of the ocean, on the banks of the Negnin River, in countless prosperous places, there are huge cities we have built...... The chimneys of steel stand like forests, belching black smoke that sometimes shades out the sun and darkens the day......"

“...... Between the cities, there are huge steam trains that run from here to the north in just a few hours...... Each dwarf has plenty of food and access to a variety of mechanical gadgets, such as a steam elevator that lifts a person to the roof of a building, or a steam boiler that always has hot water for you to bathe......"

“...... The great dwarven warriors carve out dangerous wilderness with high-pressure steam packets, mechanical arms, and steam rifles...... The steam-engine ship sailed on the ocean, and the huge cannon barrel made the enemy submit......"

Although they didn't know much about what day and sunlight were, it didn't stop Harold, Minna, and the other dwarves from listening to it with relish, it was the kingdom of heaven of their dreams.

Combined with the mural paintings, the city of steam machinery comes to their minds so vividly.

Harold clenched his fists and vowed to rebuild such a dwarven city one day.

When he told this, Augustus's expression was full of pride and yearning, and the folded petals on his face seemed to bloom.

"Alright, that's all for today, it's time to worship the god of steam, the great Lord of life and death. Augustus got up and walked to the center of the nave, where there was an altar with strange drawings.

"Great Elder, is it really useful?" asked the flax-haired maiden Mirna, puzzled.

Augustus glared at her, and said sternly: "When we excavated this ruin, didn't we find the ritual of our ancestors sacrificing to the gods? They are so powerful, so clever, how can they do useless things? I think our civilization must have been destroyed because we neglected the God of Steam and were abandoned by Him, so we need to be more pious in order to regain His favor." ”

"Yes, Grand Elder. "In this desperate situation, the slightest opportunity can make the dwarves light the torch of hope.

Therefore, all the dwarves, including Harold, gathered in front of the altar and followed the Great Elder with strange gestures and movements, and danced inexplicably.

"O great god of steam, your pious servant prays to you. (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you for pushing your friends to become the leader of the alliance in your life, and you rewarded it at the end of last month, thank you very much~