The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

It is easy to identify whether you have stepped on the ancient salt railway, because the Suyong stone used to build the ancient salt railway is not the stone produced by the Savile Kingdom, but the purple stone slag unique to the Maris Kingdom.

The ancient kingdom of Maris admired purple, and the palaces and houses liked to be built with purple materials, and they also admired purple gemstones, and a gemstone called purple gold stone was the most precious, and only a large piece of ordinary purple stone material could be produced. A purple gold stone the size of a book is produced, and its value far exceeds the value of ordinary stones. Generally speaking, as long as a purple gold stone is found, the entire quarry will not lose money.

Therefore, in many quarries occupied by nobles, the stones mined are not for building stones, but for purple gold stones.

In this way, the quarry will produce a large amount of waste rock, some of which can be used in other places after being polished, but most of the waste rock, only some fragments are left.

Therefore, the rulers of the Maris Kingdom at that time decided to use these shards of posture to build a purple stone road that runs through the whole country. The ancient castle is also an outpost of the Maris Kingdom, and the ancient salt railway was also built at that time, and the purple stone slag was naturally used.

Entering the range of Quinsis Snow Mountain, the surrounding plants quickly became dense, and the number of tall trees also increased a lot.

The trees here are mainly dry bark cypress, which is a special tree species in the Marris Kingdom. Now it appears here, and it should be transplanted by the people of the former Marris Kingdom.

This kind of dry bark cypress is a kind of fuel wood comparable to the charcoal tree. It has the advantages of long burning time and high temperature. The only disadvantage is that the growth cycle is too long, and a sapling needs at least three years. Time can be considered as a complete growth, and the dry cypress is also the most famous tall tree in the world of Velen, and its maximum can reach more than 200 meters.

However, the dry bark cypresses growing here are very, very strange. They don't grow taller like the dry bark trees in other places. Instead, when they grow to a certain height, they seem to be suppressed by some kind of force. The top begins to bend and grow, and eventually grows into a spiral shape, and the spiral tops of each tree will also nest and intertwine with each other due to the growth, and finally become the current top surface like a tabletop A flat, eerie forest of stumps below.

I don't know if it is due to the influence of the force that causes the growth of twig cypress to mutate. All in all, all the plants that grow in this forest are extremely weird. In addition, the sunlight cannot shine into it all year round, making the forest dark and gloomy. Even if the tribes in the nearby grasslands are in urgent need of firewood, they will never come to this forest to look for it.

But one thing is very strange, no matter how the trees in the forest grow, they will not destroy the ancient salt railway passing through the forest, as if there is an unknown mysterious power hidden on this road.

When the caravan passed through the forest, everyone fell silent. Whether it was the guards on the outside or other people in the caravan put their hands on their weapons, all the braziers on each cart were lit, and the carriage The surrounding areas of more than ten meters are all illuminated.

Some beasts that lived in the forest all year round couldn't adapt to the light, and quickly retreated into the darkness, only revealing a pair of fierce eyes reflecting the gloomy light, staring at the caravan on the move, looking for opportunities to strike.

At this time, the veterans in the caravan did not stay in the tent of the pack car. They all came out, walked back and forth from time to time, checked the situation, and loudly warned the novices in the team not to approach the forest.

In this tense atmosphere, the caravan passed through the forest without any risk and came to the other side, and the destination of this trip, the castle, was at the exit of the forest road.

This is not so much an ancient castle as it is a pass. The three-story castle built on the mountain blocked the entire ancient salt railway. If you want to reach the other side, you must first pass through the lowest castle and go around A narrow passage that is easy to defend and difficult to attack reaches the second floor, then crosses the artificial canal in the square on the second floor, passes through the artificial corridor under the third floor, and reaches the ancient salt railway on the opposite side.

This ancient castle can be said to hold the key points of the entire ancient salt railway. Anyone who tries to cross the Quinsis Snow Mountain must either take a steeper and more dangerous road, or must pass through this ancient castle.

However, such an ancient castle, which can be regarded as the key point of military economy, was abandoned thousands of years ago. Even the Savile tribe who occupied this ancient castle at that time were unwilling to stay in this ancient castle for a while.

The reason why the ancient castle was abandoned, and no one took over the ancient castle even for thousands of years, leading to the complete abandonment of this ancient salt railway, was mainly because of a tragedy that happened in the ancient castle that year.

Although the relationship between the Kingdom of Savile and the Kingdom of Maris was very bad back then, the relationship between the knight generals in charge of the ancient salt railway stationed in the castle, the low-level soldiers and the tribes on the grassland outside the castle was still very good. It can even be said that It could be said to be intimate, many people in the castle married women from the tribe, and even many knights stationed there married wives locally.

At that time, the grassland area was still large, while the Gus Desert was relatively smaller, and there was no difference between big and small Gus. Because of this, the tribes on the grasslands were also very powerful, far from what the tribes on the small grasslands can compare to today. In contrast, the leaders of the grassland tribes at that time had greater ambitions.

The leader of the prairie tribe at that time wanted to become the overlord of the western part of Savile, but it was not an easy task. Whether it was recruiting soldiers, or supplying the army, a lot of money was needed. Although the prairie tribe at that time relied on the ancient salt railway It has earned a lot of benefits, but it is still a drop in the bucket in the face of the consumption of war.

At that time, the leader of the grassland tribe focused on the ancient castle. He wanted to occupy the ancient castle and monopolize the interests of the entire ancient salt railway. With the interests of the ancient salt railway, he would no longer worry about money.

Therefore, when the leader of the prairie tribe was invited to visit the castle, he led the tribe to take down the garrison knights and soldiers who invited them to be guests.

It would be fine if it was just to take down the castle and drive away the knights and soldiers. At most, the leader of the grassland tribe would only bear the infamy of treachery and instigation of war, but then he did something that shocked everyone, that is Killed everyone in the castle.

You know, there are not only knights and soldiers in the castle, but also their families, many of whom are from various tribes in the grassland.

And more importantly, he was invited to the banquet guests at the time, but the guests attacked the host at the invited banquet and slaughtered the host's family. This kind of thing is absolutely taboo in the entire Savile.

It's just that there is no need for the people of the Savile tribe to blame them. After killing everyone in the castle, these people immediately relaxed and started eating and drinking. At that time, those people were either drunk or didn’t know how to use the fire prevention measures in the castle, which made the fire irresistible, and eventually covered the entire castle, and most of the people were burned to death. In the castle, only a few people who were assigned to guard escaped.

Afterwards, this burnt castle became the most terrifying place in this area. Anyone who enters this castle, whether it is a person from the Kingdom of Maris or the Kingdom of Savile, will do nothing as long as they spend the night in the castle. The same dream, in which they all returned to the night when the castle was destroyed, and were killed in the dream, then they would disappear in reality.

Yes, they disappeared directly as a whole, instead of leaving corpses after death.

Afterwards, weird legends about the castle spread, and some people who were not afraid of death came to verify it, but in the end they just added bricks and tiles to the legend.

Over time, the horror legends here have affected this ancient salt railway, no caravan passed here, and the Kingdom of Savile and the Kingdom of Maris opened up a newer and wider commercial road in the flat area to the south, so The ancient castle and business roads were completely abandoned, and only legends about the castle were circulated.

Later, because of interests and other reasons, the smugglers of Maris and Saville began to use the ancient salt railway to smuggle contraband from the two countries.

Although thousands of years have passed, when this castle surrounded by various things appeared in the eyes of everyone, everyone still couldn't help but feel a little fear. Influenced by the story in the book, he shuddered in addition to fear.

The wooden part of the castle had already been burned in the fire thousands of years ago, and the remaining ones were decayed. Most of the buildings in the castle have collapsed, some of which collapsed in the fire thousands of years ago. But more is caused by the extrusion of some vines.

Now, except for a few buildings built with stones that rely on the mountain wall, the other buildings of the castle are almost ruined.

The caravan detoured from the castle on the lower level, passed a slope with gate defenses, and entered the large square of the castle on the middle level.

Back then, because this was an extremely prosperous commercial road, when the castle was built, the designer specially built a large square that could accommodate a large number of caravans. The square is larger than the temporary market that we left yesterday. A large number of taverns, shops, warehouses, and hotels were originally built around the square to serve caravans. However, most of the buildings with wooden structures were burned out a thousand years ago, leaving only neatly planned foundations. It is proving that something once existed here.

After arriving at the square, the people of the caravan quickly cleared an open space from the vines all over the ground, and then lit some bonfires around the open space, and followed the guards, holding long swords and shields, around the open space, vigorously Knocking, making a lot of noise.

As the knocking sound came out, there were some rustling noises from the shadows in various parts of the castle, accompanied by some threatening beasts roaring, and soon all kinds of beasts hiding in the castle were all Under the gentleness of this metallic noise, he was overwhelmed and escaped from the castle.

After cleaning up the surrounding beasts, the caravan began to formally set up the camp. Tents were erected one after another. Some people, accompanied by guards, began to search for some burning wood in the castle. Although they came The wood has been prepared at that time, but because it needs to be repaired for a day and a night, the prepared wood is not enough.

It was early in the morning, and everyone was extremely sleepy, but they still pulled up the camp with strong spirits. After eating a little food, except for the group of guards who were in charge of the security of the barracks, they were still sitting by the campfire to stay awake. Other than that, everyone else got into the tent and fell asleep.

However, Leo didn't fall asleep, but opened his mental net to check the situation inside and outside the castle.

Before the caravan had decided to rest in the castle for a day and a night, Leo had already discovered the abnormality of the castle, because at that time he just took out the survey instrument and was about to check the changes on the map above, but unexpectedly found this The ancient city and its surrounding areas cannot be displayed on the map, as if some force is interfering.

However, because he didn't want to be troublesome, he didn't intend to enter the castle alone to explore the secrets here, but later when he learned that the caravan was going to be stationed in the castle, his previous thoughts resurfaced, and he planned to rest in the caravan. Time to see if you can find anything in the castle.

In addition, while searching the ancient castle, Spirit Net also searched carefully in the caravan. He did this mainly to know whether the caravan secretly transported the page of knowledge from the madman thirteen ancient gods. pages of the book.

However, before the investigation, he already knew the result, because whether he just joined the caravan or when the caravan was stationed in the Little Gus Desert halfway, he had repeatedly checked the situation of the caravan with the spirit net. It is impossible for him to find the pages of the ancient gods' knowledge, so it is obvious that the transported pages are not in this caravan, but in other caravans.

Just as there was nothing unusual about his inspection of the caravan, there was no abnormality in this nearly destroyed castle under his mental network inspection.

For this reason, he took out the surveying instrument again and checked the map. This area on the map was still blank, and there was also the top of Quinsis Snow Mountain in the same blank area.

Leo was not in a hurry to explore the castle now. He was resting in the tent while carefully recalling the past legends about the castle that Sans had mentioned to him before.

Although there are many people in the legends who have accidents because of staying overnight in the ancient castle, there is a loophole in these legends, that is, if all the people who stayed overnight in the ancient castle have accidents, how do these legends spread? What about? This is also why many people think that these legends are all rumors made by smugglers, in order to keep others away from here, so as to monopolize the benefits of this ancient salt railway.