One Sneeze Destroys A Magical Civilization

Chapter 314 The Holy City Thraben

Without a doubt, in a gothic-horror world like Innistrad, the best place to find information is the tavern.

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

As soon as I came to the door, I could hear all kinds of complaints, curses and rude laughter from inside.

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

Zuo Si undoubtedly noticed this, and immediately said: "If you don't want to go in, just wait for me at the door for a while. Don't worry, there is usually no important information in a remote town like this, about ten minutes at most I should be able to come out."

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

Nissa pinched her nose and hid in a dark corner next to her.

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

After Zuo Si blessed himself with an air filter spell, he pushed open the door and walked in.

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

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

A bearded man who looked to be in his thirties was standing at the bar, refilling drinks for guests 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, nights are always longer than days in Innistrad, and the world is full of distorted mana. The growth rate of crops is actually slower than those in normal worlds, and the yield is relatively low, so although the level of agricultural technology is impressive. It feels like the 17th or 18th century of the earth, but people's lives are generally not rich.

The reason why they like to drink one or two glasses at night is mostly to be able to sleep peacefully and avoid some terrible nightmares.

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

However, the moment Zuo Si walked in, everyone in the tavern stopped talking at the same time, and stared at this young man who looked very strange.

You must know that outsiders are very eye-catching in this small town with not a lot of people.

Except for merchants, cathars (the holy warriors who believe in the church of the archangel Avacyn and protect mankind from monsters), vampires and werewolf hunters, hardly anyone would risk their lives to leave the safety of a big city and wander in the world. In the wilderness full of monsters.

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

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

"Give everyone a glass of the best wine you have here, and I'll treat you."

Zuo Si casually left a gold bar on the table, and directly used the skill of throwing coins.

moment!

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

"Hahahaha! To the generous stranger!"

"Wishing you good health! Never meet those goddamn werewolves!"

"Boggs, quickly take out that barrel of black plum wine you have treasured. I have long wanted to taste the taste of high-quality wine for five silver coins a glass."

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

Seeing this group of booing people, the tavern owner known as Boggs couldn't help but shook his head with a smile, picked up the gold bar, put it in his mouth and bit it, to confirm that it wasn't fake gold powder coated with heavy metals such as lead. After the gold bar, he immediately turned around and took out an oak barrel half a person's height from the wine cellar.

Then, in anticipation of everyone, he used an ax to split a hole on the top of the wooden barrel, scooped out the black-purple liquid inside with a large wooden spoon, first filled a cup for Zuo Si, and then gave them one by one Old customers who are eager to try pour two or three spoonfuls.

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

After about half a minute, when the wine in the glass went down by a third, they returned to the previous lively chatting atmosphere again.

Inevitably, of course, there were praises for the taste and taste of the blackberry wine, as well as speculation about Zuo Si's identity.

A man who was seven or eight percent drunk sat down directly next to the latter, grinning and showing his big yellow teeth, and asked with a smile: "Brother, I think you should be a vampire and werewolf hunter, right? "

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

"Is there any need to ask? Look at the weapons you carry, and this kind of extravagant hospitality style. Apart from hunters who can earn a lot of money, there is no one else." The drunk said triumphantly. own inference.

Zuo Si lowered his head and glanced at his attire and the weapons fixed on his belt, which indeed gave people the illusion that he was a vampire and werewolf hunter in this world, and simply nodded and admitted: "Well, I am indeed a relying on Accept the commission to hunt down vampires and werewolf hunters. Do you have any commissions in this regard in your town or other surrounding villages?"

The drunk hiccupped, touched the thick hair on his chest and shook his head with a wry smile: "No. The werewolf activities here are so frequent recently that most towns and villages can't afford much money." Hire excellent hunters. Moreover, there seems to be something wrong with the cathars. It is said that their prayers cannot be answered by the archangel Avacyn, which has slowed down the frequency of taking the initiative to clean up monsters."

"That's right! The world has really become more and more difficult recently." Boss Boggs couldn't help but sigh with emotion.

The cathars' prayers were not answered by the Archangel Avacyn?

With this information alone, Zuo Si was immediately aware of the timeline Innistrad was currently in.

Right now, Archangel Avacyn should have been sealed into the Helvault together with the demon Grisel.

Besides the two of them, Nahiri, the boulder warlock, was also sealed inside by Sorin Markov long ago.

If there is no external intervention, it should be Liliana Weiss, another planeswalker who is proficient in necromantic magic, who took the initiative to destroy the Hell Vault in order to kill the demon Grisel who had signed a contract with her and regain the ownership of the soul. The three of them were released together, and they killed the demon lord Grisel who had been making waves in Innistrad for thousands of years with a nearly crushing attitude.

Thinking of this, Zuo Si quickly locked the location of the Hell Vault, which is the largest church in the holy city of Thraben, and asked bluntly, "Has there been any major changes in the holy city of Thraben?"

"How can there be any major changes in the holy city of Thraben. It is the base camp of the cathars, with countless elite knights and monks who can use holy power. If Thraben is also helpless against the growing dark forces like ours, then Humanity is really going to perish.”

The drunk was obviously full of confidence in Thraben City.

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

No matter what methods the leaders of the vampire and werewolf tribes used, they were still unable to obtain any benefits from the cathars 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 can stand for a day, it proves that human beings can still survive and thrive in this dangerous world.

"Yeah, that's really reassuring."

While saying these words, Zuo Si's eyes flashed an imperceptible pity.

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

One of them was two siblings Kisha and Kirav who were born in aristocratic families in Thraben City but fell in love with necromancer magic.

These two mentally insane lunatics actually tried to take advantage of the weakness of Thraben City to seize the huge group of tombs there, and transform all the corpses into undead creatures, or corpse-embedded creatures after dismantling and reorganizing.

The second time was because Emrakul, the boss of the three Eldrazi titans, was summoned to this world, causing the entire environment of Innistrad to be distorted by the energy of the dark void, and the difficulty of survival was directly upgraded from bad to desperate. live.

In short, after getting the information she wanted, Zuo Si chatted with these drunks for a while, then got up and left.

Of course, the so-called expensive black plum wine was never touched from the beginning to the end.

After he left, the drunk who had seized the vantage point immediately snatched the wine glass in his hands and began to squint his eyes to enjoy what might be the best wine he had ever drank in his life.

Seeing Zuo Si coming out of the tavern, Nissa who was hiding in the dark immediately stepped forward and asked, "How, have you found any useful information?"

"Well, our next stop is the holy city of Thraben. If there is no accident, Sorin Markov should show up there."

After all, Zuo Si directly summoned two griffins who are good at long-distance flying.

Through the conversation just now, he has roughly known the location of Thraben City, so he just needs to fly westward along the road, and he will arrive at his destination in a short time.

Because compared to Zendikar and Faerun, 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, basically surrounding the radiation range of the holy city of Thraben.

If it is farther away, it will be swallowed up by the distorted dark power because of losing the protection of the cathars.

Soon, Zuo Si and Nisha rode the griffin into the air, leaving this depressive and tense town.

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

Especially for some small plantations standing in the fringe areas, masonry walls with a height of ten meters are often built, and there are always groups of werewolves wandering around the walls.

Once some unlucky ones fail to stand firmly and fall from a high place to the bottom, the werewolves will swarm up and tear them into pieces, and then devour them alive.

The extremely cruel and bloody scene made Nisha couldn't help showing an expression of intolerance several times.

In contrast, Zuo Si was much calmer and had no intention of intervening at all.

Because he knows that all these are the influence of Innistrad's unique environment and black negative energy, and they are derived from the most rooted power.

Unless you have the powerful ability to reshape the entire world, everything you do is futile.

Even an ancient planeswalker like Sorin Markov could only create the archangel Avacyn to barely maintain the fragile ecology.

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

There are even soldiers patrolling around some towns on horseback with swords in hand.

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

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

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

After all, such things as flying creatures are very rare in Innistrad, and Zuo Si didn't want to draw the attention of the guards and cathars.

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

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

After paying an entry tax, the two walked through the heavily guarded city gate to the bustling streets in the city.

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

Because in the hundreds of years since the appearance of the Archangel Avacyn, there has been almost no threat from any evil forces here, and even the corpses buried in the surrounding cemetery have not been able to crawl out.

The long-term peace and security have even made many people forget that they are living in Innistrad, which is full of dangers, 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, the overall feeling is not bad. You know, there are very few large gathering places in Zendikar, so I am still very curious about places like cities. .”

"In this case, then you should take a good look here and enjoy the different styles. Here, here is a bag of coins, which allows you to buy a variety of goods and services." Zuo Si directly filled one The bag of gold coins was handed over.

These coins were exchanged by him for gold bars and nuggets at the gold shop just now, and for most ordinary people, they were considered a huge sum of money.

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

"It doesn't matter. Arriving in Thraben City, half of the purpose of our trip has been achieved, and 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 various commodities sold in the market, Nisha, who has almost no experience in living in a big city, soon couldn't stand the temptation, took the money bag and started buying things she was interested in frantically. everything.

Zuo Si, on the other hand, after watching the Elven Planeswalker enter the first shop, turned around and went straight to the largest church in Thraben City.

(end of this chapter)