The Death Knell

If the emotion is shallow, give it a lick, if the emotion is deep, take a mouthful.

This is a saying that has been circulating on the wine table in China for a long time, and in Faerun, I don’t know if they have the same saying, but at least Elminster is willing to drink wine, and he feels that he has feelings for everyone. Very deep look.

If you ask which mage looks like a halfling when stealing and a dwarf when drinking, it's Elminster.

After toasting, the old mage raised his neck and blew, drank a bottle of strong wine, put down the bottle, wiped his mouth boldly, and laughed.

"Well, Master Deathstroke, you are indeed very courageous. You know that I am Mystra's chosen one, but you still come to talk to me about overthrowing the rule of the gods."

Su Ming did not finish the drink, but kept shaking it in his hand: "Why not? Mystra is now the third generation. If Mystra or the mysterious lady were in office, maybe I wouldn't come here. You, but now Mystra is 'Midnight', she was once a mortal, and she still has humanity. People always have a way to understand each other, as long as they want to."

"Ah, yes, I am the chosen one of the mysterious lady, and she is already dead." Elminster picked up the long pipe with some emotion, put it on his knees and smoked: "She is not from the world of Faerûn. She was a human being, and when she was about to leave, she was killed by the guard god Heim in the crystal wall system, alas."

The second-generation Mystra doesn't even have a name, she's just called Mysterious Lady. She behaves more like a human in every aspect and has all kinds of bad habits.

During her tenure, she developed the most constituencies, such as Elminster, the Black Staff of Kelburn, the Seven Silver Hand Sisters, etc., to help her deal with human affairs.

And what about herself? He prefers to send down various incarnations of divine power to find men to hang out with.

That's right, unlike other gods or demon kings who descend incarnations for various big plans, she expends her divine power and descends incarnations just to find handsome men to sleep with...

After the death of the mysterious lady, during the "Year of Turbulence" event, "Midnight" inherited the priesthood of the goddess of magic and became the new Mystra. She seemed a little unable to play with the gods, or she had not changed herself from it. switch to human roles.

As the goddess of magic, although she also inherited the voters of the previous generation of goddesses, she did not have much contact with them.

"Okay, master, we will have plenty of time to reminisce about the past, but now we still have a plan on how to use this network."

Su Ming knew about those bullshit things among the gods, but he had no intention of reminiscing about it with the old mage. Faerun was not a very safe place. It would be better to get Elminster and leave, and come back to get whatever you want in the future. .

"Young man just can't hold his breath." Elminster stood up, patted his robes, turned his head from side to side, and shouted to his apprentice loudly. The shout was like an orc's war cry: "Leo, Don’t sleep! Why haven’t you poured tea for the guests yet?!”

His poor scribe was shaken by the sound waves, yawned and got out from under the pile of scrolls on the side, saluted to the master in a daze, and then staggered downstairs to boil water.

Some of the decaying stairs made creaking sounds, which was normal in Shadow Valley, a humid place near the sea.

Elminster walked towards the huge bookshelf behind him, taking down books one after another from the top, flipping through them and then putting them back to their original places.

"I remember where I saw it, but I can't remember it. People get confused easily when they get old. Do you know Faerun writing? Come and help me look for it."

The first time Su Ming came to Faerûn, he learned the language and writing here in Waterdeep City. Although he was not proficient in it, he could at least help.

"What are you looking for?" He put down the bottle and walked towards the master.

"This bookshelf, that bookshelf, and that one are all catalogs of the Book of Thousand Laws." The old mage took off his pointed hat and picked at his bald head: "What we are looking for is the twelfth-level arcane spell." , Karsus's Avatar."

In ancient times, there was a magic empire in Faerûn called Netheril. The mages in it were all very good, and every city used magic to float in the sky.

One of them, a great arcanist named Karsus, invented an arcane magic and planned to swallow the power of the magic network to make himself a god. This magic is the "incarnation of Karsus", also called the art of Karsus' apotheosis.

He wanted to replace Mystra as the God of Magic, but this magic naturally failed. It was a good idea to use someone else's magic net to replace someone else, but there were too many problems in its implementation.

It's like using a ten-meter ladder to climb a hundred-meter-high building. The plan is to keep inverting the ladder back and forth and climb to the top ten times.

However, he forgot to think about how to flip the ladder in mid-air, and where to stand when he took the ladder away...

He actually became a god, a demi-god, and became the god of stupidity in Faerûn.

The first generation Mystra sacrificed herself in order to repair the damaged magic network, blocking most of the magic network functions, and its power dropped to level nine, which also led to the fall of magic civilization.

The floating cities of the Nether Empire crashed one after another, and the surviving archmages had to transform themselves into lichs. The art of Karthus' apotheosis became a taboo and a joke in the magic world.

According to legend, the book recording this spell was found by a mysterious lady in a ruins of the Nether Empire. The book was sent to the depths of the endless void outside the crystal wall system.

It's just that Su Ming didn't expect that Elminster actually has such an unpopular and failed ancient magic. It seems that he really has an affair with the mysterious lady...

However, the current nine-ring magic network cannot support level 12 arcane spells at all, and it is useless to find this arcane spell. Moreover, the casting materials require an ancient golden dragon gizzard filled with diamonds and the pituitary gland capsule of the evil doomsday destroying beast. , where can I find this?

While flipping through the books on the bookshelf, Su Ming asked the old mage this question.

"Just for reference, I don't intend to copy it exactly. Magic is an art, and art is allowed to be borrowed." Elminster held his pipe in his mouth and put out a red book made of suspicious material that looked like demon skin. The big book was stuffed back into the bookshelf: "Now the magic network is open to mortals only to the ninth level. This is the limit for mortals to use magic. And because I am a legendary mage and a chosen one of the goddess of magic, I can use level ten. Legendary spells seem to be still far away from level 12 arcane spells.”

"But?" Su Ming knew there must be a twist in this sentence.

"But the nine-ring magic network, plus the nine-ring shadow magic network, doesn't this have 18 levels? It is only two levels lower than the god's 20-level spell, which is enough to achieve our purpose." Ilmings Te showed a sly smile, like an old fox preparing to steal a chicken.

Su Ming took a breath and lowered his head to think: "But Shar will not allow you to use the Shadow Magic Network. The two magic networks are mutually exclusive and the two goddesses are enemies."

"Pfft, don't be stupid. When did I say that I would cast the spell myself?" Elminster smiled and shook his head. Casting Karsus's incarnation spell would definitely lead to death. He had never thought about replacing any god in the spider web. : "We just need to trick the bad guy into using this magic to open the channel. If that doesn't work, I have other ways as long as I can determine how the spider totem is connected to Faerun."

Su Ming understood the old man's plan. It turned out that it was still a lie, which was the most common method used by the great mage.

So he smiled and shook his head: "Dark, too dark."

Elminster blew his long beard and said unconvincedly like an old child:

"It's not a bad thing to lie to the bad guy to die. On the contrary, my plan may have saved people. So our goal now is to find magic, transform it, and then go to the Underdark to find a high priestess of Lolth and lie to her. It is said that this totem is the passage to the Kingdom of the Spider Queen. You know, those drow worship Rose and are going crazy. They will try their best to overcome all difficulties just to see Rose. We only need to eat and drink beside her. Just stay on."

Su Ming smacked his lips and touched his beard:

"So the drow will prepare the archmage, or even a legendary mage, to use the Shadow Demonic Network and the Demonic Network to launch the modified God-Apothesizing Magic. The purpose is not to replace Rose, but to meet her."

"That's it. When the time comes, I will notify my goddess to let them use the three-layer magic network. This is also one of our bargaining chips, so that they can make up the three-layer and nine-layer shadow magic network to reach 12 layers. Of course, it will take some time to transform the magic and implement the plan."

Elminster put on his own hat, his red pointed hat falling limply on his forehead.

"I'm not sure whether the Shadow Demonic Network and the Demonic Network can be used at the same time. Do you think addition operations are used between the two?" Su Ming nodded and continued to flip through the book. The writing inside was very illegible, as is usually the case in magic books. Codex.

Elminster shrugged and replied lightly: "Not sure, but the test subjects are not ourselves, right?"

Sure enough, no mage doesn't like to do experiments, it's the same in any world...

The work of transforming magic took nearly a year even for a top mage like Elminster. Then the two of them left Shadow Valley together and crossed the ocean to Icewind Valley further north, looking for A guide to the Underdark.

The Underdark is the collective name for the underground world of Faerûn, also known as the Lightless Land. There is a large maze under the crust of the entire planet. There are powerful monsters or madmen everywhere. Entering without a guide will only waste more time.

Fortunately, as one of the former leaders of the Harper Alliance, Elminster knew many people.

And he knew that there was a legendary dark elf ranger who lived a secluded life in the ten towns of Icewind Dale with his big cat after his retirement.