A sneeze destroys a magical civilization

There is no doubt that for a world like Innistrad that is full of gothic horror, the best place to get information is undoubtedly the tavern.

So after entering the town, Zuo Si took Nisha straight to the only building that was still brightly lit.

As soon as he arrived at the door, he could hear all kinds of complaints, curses and rude laughter coming from inside.

As a young elf, Nissa was obviously quite uncomfortable with this atmosphere, and the pungent smell of alcohol, tobacco, and sweat made her frown even before she entered.

Zuo Si undoubtedly noticed this and immediately said: "If you don't want to go in, just wait for me at the door. Don't worry, generally speaking, there won't be any important information in remote towns like this. I'll give it in about ten minutes at most." It should be able to come out.”

"Okay, then I'll wait for you outside. The bad smell here makes me want to vomit."

Nisha pinched her nose and hid in the dark corner next to her.

After all, she has lived in the wilderness and forest since she was a child, breathing Zendikar's air full of natural energy and high oxygen content. Innistrad's environment rich in black negative energy has made her feel very uncomfortable. , not to mention smoky places like pubs.

After Zuo Si blessed himself with an air filtering spell, he opened the door and walked in.

As expected, this is a small tavern that specifically serves local residents. There are only six or seven tables and a long bar, and there are about a dozen people drinking and chatting.

Two-thirds of them are men and one-third are women.

A man who looked to be in his thirties and had a full beard was standing at the bar, refilling drinks for customers who came over with empty glasses from time to time.

Of course, what is added is basically the cheapest and cheapest rye beer.

After all, Innistrad is a world where the nights are always longer than the days and are filled with twisted mana. The growth rate of crops is actually slower than those in normal worlds, and the yield is relatively low. Therefore, although the level of agricultural technology gives people It feels like the seventeenth or even eighteenth century on earth, but people's lives are generally not rich.

Most of the reasons why they like to drink one or two drinks at night are so that they can sleep well and avoid some terrible nightmares.

After all, under the multiple threats of vampires, werewolves and the undead, the people here live in a state of extreme mental stress every day. For them, alcoholic beverages are not only a hobby, but also a necessity of life.

But when Zuo Si walked in, everyone in the tavern stopped talking and stared at this young man who looked very strange.

You must know that in this small town with a small flow of people, outsiders are very conspicuous.

Except for businessmen, Skitarii (holy warriors who believe in the Church of Archangel Avacyn and protect humans from monster threats), vampires and werewolf hunters, almost no one would risk their lives to leave the safety of a big city and wander around. In a wilderness filled with monsters.

"Welcome to Sweetwater, what would you like to drink?"

The boss standing at the bar was the first to break the silence and asked a fairly friendly question.

"Give everyone a glass of the best wine here, my treat."

Zuo Si casually put a gold bar on the table and directly used the big coin throwing skill.

moment!

The guests, who were a little wary and hostile to him one second, let out deafening cheers the next second.

"Hahahaha! To the generous stranger!"

"I wish you good health! Never meet those damn werewolves!"

"Bogos, take out that barrel of black plum wine you treasured. I've been wanting to taste the taste of fine wine for five silver coins a cup."

"That's right! The rye beer is so bitter that I can't taste anything when I eat it."

Looking at this group of people making noises, the tavern owner known as Boges couldn't help but smile and shook his head. He picked up the gold bar and bit it in his mouth to confirm that it was not a fake made with gold powder coated with heavy metals such as lead. After picking up the gold bars, he immediately turned around and took out an oak barrel half a man's height from the wine cellar.

Then, with everyone's expectations, he used an ax to cut a hole in the top of the barrel, scooped out the black-purple liquid inside with a large wooden spoon, and first filled a cup for Zuo Si, and then gave it to those who were eager to try it one by one. Regular customers pour two or three spoonfuls.

Soon, the entire tavern became quiet, and everyone was using an extremely pious attitude to taste this expensive alcoholic beverage that they might not be able to afford in their lifetime.

About half a minute later, when one-third of the wine in the glass was gone, they returned to the lively chatting atmosphere before.

Of course, what is inevitable is praise for the taste and taste of this blackberry wine, as well as speculation about Zuo Si's identity.

A drunken man sat down next to the latter, grinned with big yellow teeth and asked: "Brother, I think you are a vampire and a werewolf hunter, right?" "

"Oh? How do you know?" Zuo Si asked calmly.

"Do you even need to ask? Look at the weapons you carry and your lavish hospitality style. Apart from hunters who can earn huge rewards, there can be no one else." The drunkard said proudly own inference.

Zuo Si lowered his head and took a look at his outfit and the weapons fixed on his belt. It really gave people the illusion that he looked like a vampire or werewolf hunter in this world. He simply nodded and admitted: "Okay, I am indeed a person who relies on acceptance." A hunter who is commissioned to hunt vampires and werewolves to survive. Are there any commissions in this regard in your town or other surrounding villages?"

The drunk man burped, touched the thick hair on his chest and shook his head with a wry smile: "No. The werewolf activities here have been so frequent recently that most towns and villages can't afford much money. Hire excellent hunters. And there seems to be some problem with the Skitarii. It is said that their prayers cannot be answered by Archangel Avacyn, which has led to the frequency of proactive attacks to clean up monsters being much slower."

"Yes! The world has really become more and more difficult recently." Boss Bogos couldn't help but sigh.

The Skitarii's prayers go unanswered by Archangel Avacyn?

With this piece of information, Zuo Si immediately realized the timeline Innistrad was currently on.

At present, Archangel Avacyn should be sealed into the hell cellar together with Demon Thornze.

In addition to the two of them, the Lithomancer Nahiri was also sealed in it by Sorin Markov a long time ago.

If there is no external intervention, it should be another planeswalker who is proficient in necromancy magic, Liliana Weiss, who took the initiative to destroy the hell cellar in order to kill the demon Thornze who had signed a contract with her and regain the right to own the soul, and finally destroyed the hell cellar. The three were released together, and in a nearly crushing manner, they killed the demon lord Thornzee who had been making trouble in Innistrad for thousands of years.

Thinking of this, Zuo Si quickly located the location of the prison cellar, the largest church in the holy city of Serban, and asked directly: "No major changes happened in the holy city of Serban, right?"

"How could there be any major changes in the holy city of Serban. It is the headquarters of the Skitarii, with countless elite knights and monks who can use holy power. If the city of Serban is as helpless as we are against the growing dark power, then Humanity is really going to perish.”

The drunkard was obviously full of confidence in Thraben City.

After all, in the hundreds of years since Archangel Avacyn was created, Thraben City has always played the role of a protective umbrella for human civilization.

No matter what methods the leaders of the vampire families and werewolf tribes used, they were never able to get any benefits from the Skitarii led by them.

Therefore, in the eyes of most ordinary people in Innistrad, Thraben City is no longer as simple as a large city, but closer to a place of hope and faith.

As long as the city of Thraben remains standing, it proves that humans can still survive and thrive in this crisis-ridden world.

"Yeah, that's really reassuring."

When saying these words, a trace of unnoticeable pity flashed in Zuo Si's eyes.

Because as far as he knew, the holy city of Thraban would be captured at least twice in the near future.

One of them was about two siblings, Kisha and Kirav, who were born into a noble family in Serban City, but fell in love with necromancy.

These two insane lunatics actually tried to take advantage of Serban City's weakness and seize the huge tombs there, transforming all the corpses into undead creatures, or dismantled and reorganized into corpse-embedded creatures.

The second time was because Emrakul, the boss of the three Eldrazi Titans, was summoned to this world. As a result, the entire Innistrad environment was distorted by the energy of the dark void, and the difficulty of survival directly escalated from harsh to desperate. live.

In short, after getting the information he wanted, Zuo Si chatted with these drunkards for a while and then stood up and left.

Of course, that glass of so-called expensive black plum wine was never touched.

After he left, the drunk man who had seized the vantage point immediately grabbed the wine glass in his hand and began to squint his eyes to enjoy what was probably the best wine he had ever drunk in his life.

Seeing Zuo Si walking out of the tavern, Nessa, who was hiding in the dark, immediately stepped forward and asked, "How's it going? Did you get any useful information?"

"Well, our next stop is the holy city of Thraben. If nothing else happens, Sorin Markov should show up there."

After that, Zuo Si directly summoned two griffins that were good at long-distance flying.

Through the conversation just now, he already roughly knew the location of Serban City, so he just had to fly along the road to the west, and he would reach his destination in a short time.

Because compared to Zendikar and Faerûn, the area of ​​Innistrad's space-time is relatively smaller, and the range of human activities threatened by a large number of external factors is not large, and they are basically surrounded by the radiation range of the holy city of Thraban.

If you go any further, you will lose the protection of the Skitarii and eventually be swallowed up by the twisted dark power.

Soon, Zuo Si and Nisha rode into the sky on griffins and left this town full of depression and tension.

When they left the scope of human activities and entered the wilderness, swamps and forests, they saw a large number of rotting corpses wandering aimlessly, as well as ghosts and banshees exuding maliciousness, as well as giant monsters twisted and strengthened by dark forces. monster.

Especially some small plantations standing in the edge areas often build masonry walls up to ten meters high, and there are always groups of werewolves wandering around the walls.

Once some unlucky guy loses his footing and falls from a high place, the werewolves will swarm him, tear him into pieces, and then devour him alive.

The extremely cruel and bloody scene made Nisha unable to help showing an expression of intolerance several times.

In contrast, Zuo Si acted much calmer and had no intention of interfering at all.

Because he knows that all of this is the impact of Innistrad's unique environment and black negative energy, which originates from the most fundamental power.

Unless you have the powerful ability to reshape the entire world, no matter what you do, it will be in vain.

Even ancient planeswalkers like Sorin Markov could only create the archangel Avacyn to barely maintain the fragile ecosystem.

Fortunately, this miserable situation began to improve as we got closer to the holy city of Thraban.

There were even patrolling soldiers on horses and swords around some towns.

Whenever they find undead creatures and werewolves approaching villages or towns, they will immediately summon their companions to strangle them.

Under this strict defense, many towns seemed to have prosperous trade, instead of looking deserted like the previous town.

When they saw the majestic city walls of the holy city of Serban appearing on the horizon, the two quickly lowered their height to the ground, and their mounts were changed from griffins to ordinary horses.

After all, flying creatures are very rare in Innistrad, and Zuo Si didn't want to attract the attention of the guards and skitarii.

Moreover, the guards in Serban City are also very strict in checking, and they will even use some kind of magic to confirm whether the people entering the city are evil creatures such as vampires and werewolves.

But this is not a big problem for Zuo Si and Nisha.

After paying the city entry tax, the two walked through the heavily guarded city gate and entered the bustling streets of the city.

Unlike the residents of other towns, who are mostly nervous and wary of strangers, the residents of Thraban City seem to be very friendly and enthusiastic, and have no worries about safety.

Because in the hundreds of years since the emergence of Archangel Avacyn, this place has almost never received any threat from evil forces, and even none of the corpses buried in the surrounding cemeteries have been able to crawl out.

The long-term peace and security have even made many people forget that they are living in the crisis-ridden Innistrad, and enjoy all this with peace of mind, without caring whether other compatriots outside the Holy City are in dire straits.

"How do you feel about this city?" Zuo Si asked the elf planeswalker beside him with a smile.

Nissa shrugged her shoulders and replied: "Positive, optimistic, uplifting, and overall I feel pretty good. You know, there are very few large gathering places in Zendikar, so I am still very curious about places like the city. ."

"In that case, then you should take a stroll here and experience the different customs. Here, here is a bag of coins that allows you to purchase various goods and services." Zuo Si directly filled a bag with gold coins The bag was handed over.

These coins were exchanged for gold bars and gold nuggets that he had just passed through a gold shop. For most ordinary people, they were already considered a huge sum of money.

Staring at the money bag in front of her, Nisha was stunned for a moment, and then asked in an uncertain tone: "Is it really okay for me to wander aimlessly like this?"

"It doesn't matter. When we arrive at Serban City, we have achieved half of the purpose of our trip. The rest is to wait patiently." Zuo Si responded with a smile.

Looking at the heavy gold coins and the numerous shops on the street and the various goods sold in the market, Nisha, who had almost no experience living in a big city, soon couldn't resist the temptation, took the purse and started to buy like crazy what she was interested in. Everything.

Zuo Si, on the other hand, after watching the Elf Planeswalker get into the first shop, turned around and went straight to the largest church in Serban City.