Whispering Verse

After leaving the club, Shade returned to the House of the Blind and inquired from Ms. Michelle about the location of the local black market. Then he took the travel map of Fort Midhill and walked around the city while heading towards the black market.

It is conceivable that Shade still needs to go on many adventures in this city before actually rescuing Priest Augustus. Therefore, he wanted to become familiar with this place as soon as possible, or at least know which roads were convenient for him to escape.

Different from Tobesk and Coldwater Port, which Shade is more familiar with, as an inland city in the Old World near the mountains, the urban style of Fort Midhill is more modern and industrial. It does not have the long history and political role of the royal capital, nor is it constrained by maritime trade like the cold water port, so urban development is biased towards the docks.

After the advent of the steam industry, Fort Midhill was able to develop industrialization wholeheartedly. Relying on its important transportation position and the rich mineral resources at the northern foot of the Sikal Mountain, this mountain city has become larger and larger in recent years, and its economy It's getting better and better, but correspondingly, even though it's close to the mountainous area, the air pollution level is only slightly better than Tobesk.

Most of the tall yellow-walled buildings facing the street are no more than a hundred years old, and the further you move toward the north away from the mountains, the more you can see that the municipal infrastructure is becoming more and more new. This is highlighted by the unified steam and gas meters at the street entrance, and most of the metal pipes climbing on the walls are not rusty.

After all, Fort Midhill City does not have the conditions to expand the city towards the Rommel Mountains in the south. Therefore, although the steam factory and the traditional city center are in the south city, the living conditions in the north city are actually better.

Black smoke puffs into the sky, making the noisy city look gray, but this is also the norm in this era. This city is one of the most important transportation hubs in the central and eastern parts of the Old World. In addition to hearing various languages ​​​​communicating on the streets, there are also many local ring warlocks and ring warlocks passing by. From this, a huge number of ring warlocks were born. underground black market.

Similar to the situation in Cold Water Port, among the large and small black markets, there are always some that have a good reputation because of their good reputation. The one Ms. Michelle introduced to Shade is one of them.

The black market in Shade's impression is usually a tavern or hotel, to cover up the strange phenomenon of strangers often coming in and out. The one that Ms. Michelle introduced to Shade was inside the Fort Midhill Railway Station.

Shade followed the map and turned at the corner of Hankwood Street. At this time, he could already hear the train whistle coming from inside the station. The Fort Midhill Steam Railway Station has an extremely large transportation capacity. The trains that come and go go south through the Rommel Mountains and enter the United Kingdom of Kasenlik on the southern plains of the Old World, and go north through the northern part of the Old World. The interior of the Kingdom of Rayon.

When the stranger appeared at the station door with his head lowered and holding a newspaper, no one paid attention to him, who was ordinary.

“It’s actually bigger than Tobesk train station”

Shade sighed softly, and then entered the station together with the passengers carrying suitcases or backpacks.

Fort Midhill Railway Station is located in the southeast of the city and handles both freight and passenger traffic. The station was extremely noisy and crowded, the buzzing sound was particularly disturbing, and there was a strong, choking smell in the air caused by burning coal.

Amidst the noise in his ears, Shade first found the ticket office and bought a second-class ticket for steam train No. B823 based on the information provided by Ms. Michelle.

After waiting for twenty minutes, Shade got on the bus at the station entrance while holding a newspaper to read the news about the Big City Players Championship.

His ticket was for carriage No. 2, but when the train started moving, Shade walked towards the front of the train. The first three carriages of the entire train are for freight, and the following carriages are for passengers. There is a metal fence gate and a wooden gate between freight and passenger transportation to prevent passengers from wandering around.

Shade held the ticket, the newspaper and the map, crossed the gap in the iron fence and knocked on the wooden door. Three short and one long, then three long and one short.

Then the wooden door was opened a crack:

"Who introduced you here?"

asked the voice from behind the door.

This train is a short-distance train that takes one hour between Fort Midhill and a rural town. Only trusted ring wizards and organizations in the city can obtain information, so the introducer must be named:

"The nun at the Home for the Blind, she also asked me to tell you, don't forget to deliver the goods you ordered last time to her."

"Won't forget it."

The voice behind the door replied, then held out a mask.

After Shade put it on, another key was handed out from behind the door. Shade used the key to open the fence door. He pushed the fence door to one side with a harsh sound of metal friction. After returning the key to the gatekeeper, he officially entered the station's black market.

The first three carriages are all the black market area of ​​the station. The No. 1 carriage closest to the front of the train is the location for large transactions and requires permission to enter. Cars No. 2 and 3 are arranged like a pub, with a bartender in each car responsible for maintaining order and updating the transaction contents on the small blackboards hung on both sides of the car.

Of course, if you don’t want the transaction details to be made public, you can spend a large sum of money to have the bartender keep the transaction information alone and wait for a suitable transaction partner to appear.

Shade walked around the carriage and saw no one selling coins or other relics, and he was not interested in other information. So, he first found the bartender in Car No. 3 and explained his long-term request for a reward to buy coin-like relics. Then he asked him whether there had been any other unusual events in the local area in the past half month since autumn.

The bald bartender charged Shade 3 shillings for the information, and then said:

"Does the anomaly of the Righteous God Church count? They seem to be planning some big action in the autumn or winter. They have been preparing for it since last year. If you are a foreign magician, don't provoke the church locally recently, otherwise you will definitely be unlucky. .”

"I also heard that the church in the local area is abnormal. What exactly do they want to do?"

But the bartender just shook his head:

"In addition to the anomalies in the church, since the end of this summer, there has been a sudden increase in strange disappearance cases in the local area. I don't know the cause, and I can't investigate it at all. It's like an urban legend in a tabloid."

"Has this kind of thing happened locally before?"

The bartender glanced at Shade:

"Yes, but the frequency is very low and it doesn't attract much attention. This kind of thing mostly happens to ordinary people. I have never heard of it happening to ring magicians."

It seemed that Priest August was in bad luck this time.

"Also, do you have any commissions to sell special coins? There's nothing on the blackboard over there."

"Indeed."

The bartender nodded, and a smile appeared on Shade's face behind the mask. Sure enough, in a city like this that he had never been to, the possibility of finding special coins was higher:

"Where are the traders?"

He suddenly thought that when he bought coins at the Seven Broomsticks Tavern in Coldwater Port, he met Darkness for the first time, and the two even played a game of Rhodes. Therefore, Shade suddenly became nervous at this time:

"Wait a minute, isn't the trader here?"

"Yes, I am the person doing the transaction."

The bartender pointed lazily at himself:

"In addition to being a broker, we also purchase some less dangerous relics ourselves to sell. I only have this here. If you want to buy it, you can trade it now."

Amidst the shaking of the train, he pulled out a stack of documents from under the counter and rummaged for a long time before pulling out one and handing it to Shade.

After Xia De thanked him, he took this piece of paper and found a round table by the window to sit down and read the introduction of the new relic carefully:

[Poet-level relic - an upright coin that looks like a copper coin slightly larger than a one-shilling coin. One side has a pattern of purple flowers, which is regarded as the reverse side; the other side has the alphabetical character "一" written in characters that appear to be from the Quaternary Period, which is regarded as the front side.

Characteristics: No matter what the circumstances, if this coin is thrown away, it will always remain vertical when it lands. If there is no concept of "below" in the space, the thrown coin will flip infinitely; the holding of the coin Or, when tossing other coins, it will greatly increase the probability that the coin will remain upright when it lands. 】

"What characteristic is this?"

Behind the mask, Shade thought suspiciously, and then noticed two strangers sitting down across the table, chatting quietly together.

[Containment method: stand the coin upright on a plane with an angle of no more than 12 degrees from the ground. A slight vibration will not cause the coin to tip over.

Negative characteristics, if one side of the coin is pressed on a plane with an angle of no more than 12 degrees from the ground, or the above problems are caused by strong vibrations, if the coin is facing up, the coin needs to be traded within 24 hours. Pass it on, and the trader who gets the coin will definitely fall from a height and die within 8 hours of touching the coin; if the transaction is not completed, the holder of the coin will be forced to vomit out one-third of his internal organs 24 hours later. .

If the coin lands tail-side up, you need to swallow at least 10 pounds of dried amaranth flower petals (approximately 4.53kg) within 4 hours, and then the coin must be passed to others through trade. If any of the conditions are not fulfilled, the coin holder will disappear into a field of violet flowers within 24 hours. 】

"This is probably the relic with the weakest characteristics that I have encountered."

Shade looked through the documents in his hand, then looked at the final price:

"Fifteen pounds three shillings?"

Although it was a bit higher than he expected, it was just below the highest price he could bear mentally:

"should be no problem."

He stood up and returned to the counter, telling the bartender that he wanted to buy the coin. The bartender has to go to the front car to pick up the order. So Shade was asked to find a place to rest first.

It happened that someone was talking about "Big City Player 1853" in Tobesk City, so Shade also came over. Later, after getting the coin, he even played a few games of Rhodes with a stranger to pass the time before the train returned to Fort Midhill.

Although everyone didn't know each other, it was still fun to play cards, and Shade could also learn more about the city from the conversation.

By the time Shade passed through the dense forest of Sikal Mountain and returned to No. 6 Saint Teresa Square through the ruined tower, it was already dark outside. Dorothy and Luvia were both still there, the former writing in the study and the latter adjusting her stargazing equipment on the third floor.