Chapter 571 Slave, Hero (7K)

Drow are a very open race.

Even people who have never been to Menzoberranzan will hear this.

Just as Varro has been looking forward to visiting Menzoberranzan, speculations about various chaotic banquets among the drow always occupy a large proportion in people's drunken chats.

However, Tang Sen didn't think that these drow elves could open up to this extent - after all, this was outdoors.

"They are followers of Eilistraee."

Tang Sen explained to Xue Xue: "You can think of this as a ritual. Eilistraee's believers prefer to line up in a 'ring of singing' in a forest glade bathed in moonlight, and take turns to dance in order to express their feelings to the goddess. Moods and thoughts throughout the day - of course, the less clothing you wear during such a ceremony, the better.”

"It seems that these believers are very devout."

"Eilistraee?" Xue Xue thought: "Isn't Menzoberranzan Lolth's territory?"

"Eilistraee protects all kind drow elves." Tang Sen said: "In such a large city, it is impossible for every drow to believe in Rose. After all, intelligent creatures are diverse. Of course, I think if If these people are found to believe in Eilistraee, the results may not be good, which is why they came to such a remote place to hold the ceremony."

Xue Xue nodded in understanding: "I don't believe in Eilistraee."

"So you don't need to be like them." Tang Sen said casually: "Of course, if you think this is good, you have your freedom."

"I prefer wearing clothes." Xue Xue lifted up her ill-fitting red robe.

Tang Sen had no opinion on this, and he was even less interested in watching the drow rituals—although Varro might be interested in this scene.

He said: "Obviously there is no need to disturb them, let us get out of here."

It is still daytime for the city of Menzoberranzan, and the streets are quite lively. Many drows are coming and going. The two of them are walking on the streets. Except for Xue Xue's dress, which is a bit eye-catching, there is no other person. What a sense of dissonance.

Tang Sen's purpose was clear, and he soon came to a more chaotic neighborhood. In addition to the drow, other races finally began to appear on the road, including gray dwarves, humans, and halflings--of course, most of them were iron-clad. The chain locked his neck and limbs, and was pulled like an animal by the gorgeously dressed drow.

"Are you interested in the newly captured slave?"

A drow struck up a conversation with Tang Sen and noticed Tang Sen's gaze. He pulled the chain in his hand and showed a long list of slaves lined up on the street.

Tang Sen stopped.

His eyes fell on one of the slaves.

He was a tall human male. Although his messy blond hair covered most of his face, you could still see the sharp facial features carved by a knife and an axe. His naked upper body was a little dirty, but it couldn't be covered up at all. A perfect figure like a sculpture.

"This is a good thing." The drow introduced quickly: "You rarely see the human race grow like this. Believe me, this guy will definitely shine in Menzoberranzan. Even if he No need, buying it as a gift to those nobles will definitely make them favored."

With that said, the drow walked up to the male and scolded: "Raise your head and let the guest take a good look."

The man then raised his head.

Only then did Tang Sen see the other person's facial features clearly.

A face that looks as if it was created by the gods himself, a face that satisfies any race's expectations for male masculinity.

It's a pity that the owner of this face is wearing a fearful and slightly flattering expression, and his tall back is also stooped, looking very humble and timid.

"How is it?" The drow patted the man's cheek, pinched his arm, and said: "I have been in the industry for so many years, and I have never experienced such a good thing. The most important thing is that he looks strong. But he is actually very soft-tempered and weak, so he is very easy to train.”

Tang Sen narrowed his eyes: "He doesn't look like a coward. If I buy him, I won't get into any trouble, right?"

"How could it be?" Seeing Tang Sen's agitated expression, the drow quickly said, "Believe me, this guy is safer than a little sheep. To be honest, even if I untied the chain, he wouldn't dare to move a step. "

As if to show off, the drow shouted at the man: "Don't you hear what I'm saying? Kneel down!"

The man suddenly trembled and knelt down on the dirty ground.

"Guest, please come here." The drow guided Tang Sen closer, and then kicked the man. The man quickly crawled on the ground, came to Tang Sen, hugged Tang Sen's boots, and asked Stick out your tongue and lick.

"Isn't he very good?" The drow then showed a proud look: "He is very adaptable to the status of a slave. Believe me, he will not resist no matter how you play with him. You can buy it for only five thousand gold coins. he."

Tang Sen frowned and took a step back to avoid the man's licking.

He has no habit of bullying others to gain a sense of superiority.

"Five thousand gold coins? Just for a slave?" Tang Sen looked dissatisfied: "Why don't you just grab it?"

"Hey, there are cheap ones too!" The drow pulled a halfling over: "Fifty gold coins are enough for this guy."

“I always get what you pay for in business.”

"Too expensive." Tang Sen just shook his head, ignored the drow's chatting, and left directly.

Xue Xue silently glanced at the man who was still kneeling on the ground, and then followed Tang Sen's footsteps.

Tang Sen stopped until he turned into a hidden alley.

"That person just now was interesting." He looked thoughtful: "Xue Xue, how do you feel about him?"

"Feeling?" Xue Xue was a little confused.

"I'm talking about his appearance." Tang Sen narrowed his eyes: "It's just the appearance of a perfect hero template, isn't it?"

"Hero?" Xue Xue couldn't understand.

Tang Sen didn't expect Xue Xue's answer. He seemed to be talking to himself: "Enduring the humiliation, waiting for the opportunity, and leading the slaves to escape from the devil's cave. Isn't this a hero?"

"He doesn't look like he is bearing the humiliation, more like he is cowardly." Xue Xue said seriously.

"It doesn't matter what kind of person he is." Tang Sen shook his head: "The important thing is that I think he is very suitable."

"When darkness falls in this world, people in despair will need a lighthouse to light the way forward for them." Townsend said: "False darkness goes well with false lighthouses."

"I don't understand." Xue Xue shook his head.

Townsend did not explain, just said: "Let's go talk to the future hero."

The light of the huge stone pillar in the center of the cave disappeared, which meant that Menzoberranzan had entered night time.

The drow began the happiest time of the day. They had countless activities for them to spend the night, while the slaves were locked in a place belonging to slaves and could only fear in the faint light of the luminous fungi. own future.

Tang Sen successfully found the residence of the previous drow slave trader, and as expected, found the blond man in the cell in the basement.

It's actually a single cell.

At this time, the man was squatting in the corner, with a plate that had been licked clean next to him.

At this time, he suddenly heard a slight creaking sound from the cell door. He raised his head and saw that the door was opened a crack.

The man was startled, stood up in panic, and looked outside.

There wasn't any figure.

It's as if the door was never closed in the first place.

But this is impossible. The man knows that he is being closely guarded. Not only is he in a cell, but his hands and feet are also tightly bound with iron chains - wait a minute!

He lowered his head and found that the chains on his body had disappeared at some point.

He swallowed.

Although he didn't know what happened, he seemed to have a chance to escape.

He took a few tentative steps towards the door, but soon stopped, with a look of fear on his face. After struggling for a moment, he retracted into the corner again and buried his head between his knees.

At this time, a voice suddenly sounded: "Why don't you run away?"

The man trembled all over and raised his head suddenly, but saw nothing, so he became even more frightened and shouted: "No, I will never run away again. Don't hit me."

"Have you no sense of resistance at all?"

Whispers sounded, and then, the man was horrified to find that a hole was suddenly opened in his chest, and a heart wrapped in crystal floated out and floated in front of him.

The heart is still beating.

"Choose."

The voice said: "Choose death, or choose to walk out of this door."

The man quickly touched his chest. There were no wounds on it, but he could clearly feel that it was empty and there was no beating heart.

This weird scene almost broke through the man's psychological endurance. He burst into tears and collapsed to the ground in fear.

"Choose."

That voice was still echoing, and it was accompanied by severe heart angina.

The man watched helplessly as his heart floating in mid-air seemed to be compressed by some invisible force.

"Let me go!" He rolled over and crawled towards the door.

Then he saw the drow guarding outside.

The other party was sleeping soundly on the table, and he didn't know why he wasn't awakened by his movements just now.

The man then stood there hesitantly, at a loss.

The heart floated over again, and a voice sounded: "Kill this drow elf and escape."

The man suddenly trembled: "No, I can't beat him. If I wake him up, I will definitely die. If I die, it will be even more terrible. He will torture me!"

Severe heart cramps came again, causing the man to curl up on the ground, trembling all over and sweating profusely.

I don't know how long it took for the colic to end. There was a clang and a dagger fell in front of the man.

"Take the dagger and kill him."

The man gasped for air and picked up the dagger with trembling hands.

He raised his head and saw that the drow was still unresponsive.

So, he swallowed, and under the strong tendency of fear, he wandered up to the man's back, raised the dagger in his hand and pointed it at the man's back.

The sound of violent breathing resounded in the dim space. The man's eyes widened to the extreme, and his marble sculpture-like face looked particularly ferocious and twisted.

"Ah!" He roared wildly and thrust the dagger straight down.

The dagger was stuck on the table along the arm of the drow, leaving only a minor scar. The drow still didn't react at all, as if the pain was not enough to wake him up from his sleep.

The man's behavior was more like the one who was injured. He took a few steps back suddenly, his golden hair was soaked with sweat and stuck to his cheeks, and his eyes were full of bloodshot eyes. Whispering: "No, I can't do what I dare not do."

He knelt down directly on the ground and kowtowed crazily to his floating heart: "Please stop playing tricks on me."

"Do it or die."

The tone of the voice was still cold and without any fluctuation.

Following the sound, the heart was squeezed again, but this time it was no longer a strong colic that started directly. The man could clearly feel that the heart began to be slowly squeezed, and the suffocation feeling became more and more serious. .

This should be the last advice given by the other party.

But the man did not stand up again. He just buried his head directly on the ground and kept shouting: "No, I can't do it. Even if I kill him, I can't escape Menzoberranzan." , as a slave, I killed my master. If I am caught, I will definitely not be qualified to die."

"I will definitely be caught"

His voice became smaller and smaller, and the pressure on his heart made him almost unable to breathe. However, he just knelt on the ground and gave up struggling.

Suddenly, the pain in my heart disappeared.

The man then fainted and fell to the ground.

The basement fell into silence. After a long time, two figures appeared next to the man.

"He's a pure waste." Tang Sen squatted down, turned the man over, and looked at the other man's face with squinted eyes: "Even death can't give him courage?"

"I really can't understand this behavior of choosing to wait for death even though there is a chance." Xue Xue said seriously: "He is not a lich. You only have one life, isn't it bad to choose to live?"

"Not everyone has a mind like yours." Tang Sen shook his head.

At this point, he really admired Xue Xue - in such a long time, even her memory has been worn away by time, but she is still persistent in living itself.

"Compared to death, this man is more afraid of what he imagines will be the fear of being caught after failing to escape." He said: "It seems that this is not the first time he has become a slave. That drow The elf is right, he is indeed easily trained, or in other words, his mind and thoughts are already slaves."

Tang Sen suddenly laughed: "That's not bad."

"Not bad?" Xue Xue tilted his head in confusion.

"After all, what I need is not a real hero." Tang Sen squinted his eyes and said, "The lighthouse that the world worships is actually a rotten coward inside. Isn't it interesting?"

"However, it may be necessary to change to a slightly more troublesome method of operation."

He snapped his fingers, and a bunch of magic power was injected into the man's body. Then, the two figures disappeared into the air again.

The next moment, the blond man suddenly opened his eyes.

He slowly got up from the ground and stood up straight.

"This is the first time I have used the surgical ability of the surgical fruit in mind exchange."

He lowered his head, looked at his dirty hands, and relaxed again: "The body is still strong, but he does not have any extraordinary power and is just an ordinary person."

"But it's enough."

He first carefully combed the messy blond hair back of his head with his fingers, completely exposing his facial features.

At this time, there was no trace of fear on his face, only as deep as a mountain.

He walked behind the drow, picked up the dagger, and easily inserted the blade into the opponent's body.

The drow twitched a few times and suddenly became silent.

After touching the elf's waist, a key was found. The man walked to the door of another cell. Through the fence, he could see the slaves crowded inside.

At the same time, someone finally noticed the man's existence.

"Wait, why is he outside?"

Someone whispered: "Besides, it seems a little different?"

Most of the slaves knew the blond man.

Although the slaves barely interacted with him, the slave traders regarded him very seriously.

However, the other party's appearance is too eye-catching, as if he was born to be an extraordinary person.

Many new slaves had even harbored hopes for him, thinking that such a figure would never be willing to become a slave and must endure the humiliation and look for opportunities to escape.

Unfortunately, as time goes by, these hopes disappear.

What people saw was just the slave merchant's constant sales, and this man kept groveling, doing extremely humiliating things without caring.

People gradually realized that in the dark land far away from the sun, in the city of Menzoberranzan full of evil beings, there was no hope at all. The only fate was to die in an unknown place after the value was used up. , the corpse becomes food for the luminous fungi.

Click——

The sound of a key being inserted into the keyhole sounded. The man opened the cell door and scanned the entire cell with his sharp eyes.

In his hand, he still held the blood-stained dagger.

"I have killed the slave traders." His voice was extremely magnetic. "Those who want to leave here can leave on their own."

After saying this, he said no more, just threw a bunch of keys over, and then turned around.

The slaves suddenly looked at each other.

"Dead? Is the drow dead?"

"Do we have a chance to escape?"

"But. This is Menzoberranzan. Even if we escape from the cell, where can we go?"

"It's better than waiting to die here!"

A slave grabbed the key, untied the chains on his body, and rushed out of the cell quickly.

At first glance, he saw the drow and the blond man walking up the stairs.

The slave quickly followed and shouted: "Wait. Please take me with you!"

Menzoberranzan, in the highest temple.

“Fear is a tool more powerful than steel, love and respect are weak and useless.”

The hoarse voice echoed in the hall, and the drow priestess holding a heavy book stood on the high platform.

Wearing a black robe trimmed with dark red and a gorgeous helmet carved with many twisted spiders, she solemnly read out the teachings of Lolth: "You shall cause other pagan drows to come and believe in Lolth-Nothing." Those who can be saved will be destroyed.”

"You should eliminate those weak and double-minded people, and destroy those sinners who dare to blaspheme the Spider God Queen."

"You shall sacrifice to the Spider Queen all men, slaves, and people of other races who disobey the orders of the Spider Queen and her priestesses."

Below, all the worshipers were prostrate, paying homage to the great symbol of Lolth.

It was a large holy statue carved from black rock.

"You should respect all kinds of spiders. Anyone who dares to kill or abuse spiders will die."

The daily prayers were finally completed, and the drow raised their heads again. The priestess closed the book in her hand and said: "Praise the Spider Queen."

"Praise the Spider Queen!" all the believers shouted.

"The priests of each family stay, and others can leave." The priestess said this, and the hall quickly became empty, with only a few similarly slender figures wearing black robes remaining.

This is the daily routine after prayer.

"Traces of illithids were found not far from Menzoberranzan." A priest spoke first: "These guys seem to be getting more and more ready to make moves recently."

"Don't worry about them." The priestess just said: "Spread their news to the surface, and those self-righteous adventurers will naturally solve it."

"At that time, let the slave-catching team lurk nearby, and when it's over, capture them all in Menzoberranzan. Recently, the number of slaves in the city has been somewhat insufficient -" At this point, she paused: " Especially the male slaves in their prime. Let the people below take it easy. I heard that last night, ten slaves were tortured to death in just a banquet?"

"Maybe they were too excited." A priest said, "I will tell them."

"Counting the time, this year's Legend Award Ceremony of Neverwinter City is about to begin again, right?" the high priest said.

"Yes, there is only more than a month left." The priest replied in a low voice: "We have opened the road from Menzoberranzan to the boundary of Neverwinter. We don't need to go to the surface. We can catch up in the Dark Territory. To the vicinity of Neverwinter."

"Very good." The high priest nodded: "You need to prepare more supplies. This is a rare exchange opportunity. Many things that Menzoberranzan lacks need to be purchased in Neverwinter City, especially during the award ceremony. You can find almost all the goods in Faerûn.”

"The legendary award ceremony -" another priest showed an unhappy look: "It's just a trick of those sanctimonious guys."

"Even if it is just a trick, it is the most grand event in the entire continent." The high priest said: "The most important thing is that in Neverwinter City, we can sell our products at will and sell them at high prices. This is better than waiting for those merchants It’s much more cost-effective to come to Menzoberranzan.”

This is enough for the priests to agree that the safety of Neverwinter City has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people after more than ten years.

"It would be great if we could control Neverwinter City." A greedy look flashed on the face of a priest: "That is almost equivalent to controlling the wealth of the entire continent. I heard that even a small shop in Neverwinter City is enough. Buying an entire street in another city.”

"Everyone thinks so." The high priest simply said: "But the city lord of Neverwinter is still the dwarf Barn."

"We all know that there must be gods standing behind Neverwinter City to maintain order there."

"God? No god can be greater than the Spider Queen. If the great Spider Queen comes to Faerûn, the drow will definitely be able to occupy the city of Neverwinter. It is best to drag the city to the Underdark. Our people will not Like the sun."

The high priest just remained silent.

She knew that when Neverwinter City first appeared, Ms. Rose had actually tried to plot against Neverwinter City. She didn't know the specific situation, but what was certain was that Ms. Rose failed.

Of course she didn't dare to speak out about this kind of thing, nor did she dare to ask about it. Ms. Rose didn't have a good temper, and it was even more impossible for her to forgive herself because she was the high priest. She would take back the divine power she was given and give it to others. The drow elves are really too easy for Ms. Rose.

The existence behind Neverwinter City is much more powerful than the tribesmen imagined.

"Anyway, if there is nothing else to discuss, let's stop here today."

The high priest was already looking forward to the banquet that followed. Although she just said to let the tribesmen take it easy, she really wanted to go back and take a look at the newly purchased slaves. When she thought of those slaves who suddenly suffered the most painful torture when they were at their happiest, her My heart was already starting to get excited.

At this time, an extremely powerful will suddenly descended into the hall.

All the priests suddenly stiffened, and then turned to Rose's large icon.

The black rock sculpture suddenly seemed to come alive, exuding an extremely evil and powerful aura.

"I sense. The Betrayer has returned to Menzoberranzan."

A voice sounded directly in the minds of all the priests.

"Find her, catch her."

An image suddenly appeared in their memories.

He is a thin, rather petite figure. Like all drow elves, he has gray skin and long silver-white hair, which falls like tassels down to his ankles.

The high priest lowered his head deeply until the powerful aura disappeared from the icon, and then raised his head again.

"It's actually a divine metaphor."

All the priests were a little surprised: "The Spider God Queen has not given such a clear oracle for a long time."

"A drow traitor?"

Waves of magic power surged through the high priest's body, injecting the image into the image stone.

"Let's get everyone moving."

"For the will of the Spider Queen!"