Chapter 1381 Notch

The ancient observatory is not far from the frontline base, and Philip's legion has established a firm foothold in this area for several days. While erecting purification devices and sentry turrets, the engineers also leveled a temporary road between the observatory and the base. Gawain, Amber, Diana, and several technical experts from both Typhon and Cecil quickly arrived near the highland where the observatory was located, and saw this building from the ancient Gondor era. A large building that stands today.

The entire facility has been sealed off by the army at this moment, and a "fence" formed of alloy and cement piles has been erected within a hundred meters near the observatory. On the top of the fence is a simple shield generator and lightning rune array. A thin shield surrounds the entire area, and jumping electric sparks are constantly wandering around the outer layer of the shield. A team of soldiers has been stationed near the observatory for the past three days, and has set up two cross-blockade highlands here. The firepower point towards the wasteland side - although in the past three days, no aberrations or other monsters have ever approached this area.

"Those monsters seem to take the initiative to avoid here," Philip explained, "at least the 'wild' ones have never been within half a kilometer of this highland, and we have not found traces of monsters invading or destroying the observatory. , experts suspect that the low-frequency energy continuously released from the depths of the observatory may have the effect of 'dispelling monsters', but they can't analyze the specific principle. Of course, I still set up these defenses here for safety."

Gawain nodded slightly, and turned his head to look at Ms. Diana who got out of the car with him. This "iron soldier" who used to be a guard at the Viplandon Observatory was looking at the direction of the observatory in a daze. The eyes made of high-precision man-made crystals and bionic shells did not reveal any emotion, but her gaze was very serious—did she remember something?

Gao Wen didn't know how to judge the expression on the face of "Machine Girl", after all, he was not Rosetta Augustus, so he asked casually: "Ms. Diana, did you think of anything after seeing the observatory?" ?”

"...I still vaguely remember what it used to look like. When I left, it stood here like this. It's just that the disaster hadn't spread to this side at that time. There was a small forest and a lush hillside nearby," Diana said softly, as if she was nostalgic, "My memory... there are many breaks, especially the part about seven hundred years ago, only sporadic fragments emerged, but only the scene of the observatory standing under the blue sky, I remember It is very clear that at that time..."

She hesitated for a moment, as if she was identifying something, and then she pointed to a place near the observatory: "At that time, I would wait for the sunset at that location every day, and then start patrolling near the main building until the sun rises the next day." Get up and go back to that position, and hand over shifts with the colleagues who are in charge of daytime inspections. But in fact, there is nothing dangerous near the observatory. At that time, there were no robbers or monsters in the empire. The nearby humans are extinct, but there must be guards near important facilities, so 'we', who are cheap and durable, are the best candidates for this 'necessary quota'..."

Gawain listened to the iron soldier's emotional memories,

Looking at the other party's expression that remained calm throughout the whole process, I couldn't help but say in a somewhat surprised tone: "It sounds like you miss those days... I thought the magisters didn't know when they set up your minds. To give you such complicated thinking—the 'Iron Man' in my impression has a cold and hard character."

"My personality has been adjusted over the past few hundred years to better adapt to the acceptance and aesthetic tendencies of ordinary people in the current environment," Diana said calmly, "and I am a model who serves in the non-military sector like me." There is a more flexible personality template, which can generate richer and normal emotions to reduce the resistance of ordinary people to us. After all, human beings are creatures with delicate emotions and complex thinking. It's easy to get nervous when you're a humanized individual..."

Gawain understood in an instant. He knew this—the uncanny valley theory, but he didn't expect that the engineers of the Iron Man of Gondor would have specially studied this aspect when designing the Iron Man...

As soon as he was distracted in his mind, he heard Diana continue to say: "...so I was really shocked when I saw your soldiers getting along so happily with a tentacle that came out of the ground just now, and even I felt a sense of awe…”

Gao Wen: "..."

He immediately felt that this was not the same thing at all, but he always felt that if he opened his mouth to correct it, the topic would develop in an infinitely weird direction, so he immediately turned the topic to the real thing: "Emotion and nostalgia are both We can talk about it later, let’s go to this ancient facility now—General Philip has sent someone to check its internal structure, and the entire facility is still very strong, so we can go in with confidence.”

Diana nodded and walked straight towards the entrance gate of the Observatory. The steps were light and familiar, as if the short distance had been deeply imprinted in her artificial muscle bundles. Gawain and Amber led the others Follow up quickly—they quickly walked into the interior of this ancient observatory, and saw the wide hall that had been abandoned for many years.

The previous explorers had left emergency lighting lights in the hall. The bright magic spar lamps made this ancient place no longer shrouded in darkness like it was back then, but Amber was obviously not used to the bright environment here. , she followed Gao Wen and murmured softly: "Shouldn't it be dark to explore such ancient facilities...I'm really not used to such bright halls..."

"Does this remind you of your professional memory?" Gawain glanced at the half-elf, "Will you have to put a coffin in the room before you can enter the state?"

"...That's not necessary, the moment you got up from the coffin gave me too much psychological shadow..."

The two chatted half-seriously and half-jokingly, but their eyes kept scanning the ancient abandoned devices in the hall and any traces of value on the corner roof. Philip, who came in together, talked about the situation: " The items that can be transferred here have been properly handled and temporarily stored in the safe warehouse of the base, but there are still many traces that cannot be moved, such as the characters on the wall and those fragments that are too fragile. For such items, technical experts They just left video data or magic rubbings, and then left them in place as they were... Ms. Diana? Did you find anything?"

Philip suddenly noticed that Diana didn't listen to his introduction to the situation, but started to walk around after entering the hall, looking around in a state of thinking and falling into memories. At this moment, she suddenly stopped at Standing in front of a wall, he raised his head and stared blankly at the mottled marks on the wall, as if he was "sinking" deeply into it.

Gao Wen also noticed Diana's abnormal changes. He originally planned to take a quick look in the hall before going directly to the blocked upper observatory, but at this moment his heart suddenly moved: "What do you recall?"

"There are marks on this wall." Diana didn't answer Gawain's question, but just pointed to the wall thoughtfully, "Have you found them? These marks..."

Philip took a closer look, nodded after a little hesitation: "Yes, we noticed some engravings on it earlier, but they are not any words, but more like a part of a pattern. Experts believe that this should be some kind of decorative relief. part of..."

"No, this is not a relief." Diana shook her head, and suddenly stretched out her hand to rub lightly on the wall. This action even made a certain scholar who came in with her exclaim in a low voice: "Please be careful, they are very fragile. I'm afraid I can't stand it..."

Diana, however, turned a deaf ear to the exclamation behind her. She just stroked those ancient mottled marks with her fingers, and then seemed to unconsciously draw on the weathered and peeled-off wall next to the marks. Supplementing the missing structure of this picture, Amber's sight was involuntarily attracted by it. She opened her eyes and carefully looked at the traces left on the wall and the trajectory of Diana's fingers, and gradually distinguished several crucial points. the dots, the lines connecting those dots radially, the rings outside the pattern...

She reacted suddenly, bumped Gao Wen's arm with her elbow, and muttered in a voice that only the two of them could hear: "It's that pattern!"

Gao Wen was stunned, and then realized what Amber was referring to—this was a piece of information secretly sent from the Typhon Empire, but in fact, it was not considered a secret among the top Typhon—the Augustus family The head maid, Ms. Diana, has a strange habit. She always unconsciously draws a mysterious pattern repeatedly, no matter where it is, whether it is on the wall or the ground of the palace room, or even on the clothes of the passing servants. As long as she thinks about it, she will draw this pattern subconsciously. The content of the pattern is many dots, the line segments connecting the dots radially, and a ring representing the "boundary"...

Now Diana is sketching this figure—and this figure is engraved on the wall of Viplandon Observatory!

Of course, Gao Wen couldn't show that he was very familiar with this matter. After all, this was a trivial matter that only people in the Typhon Palace knew, so he asked seemingly casually: "Ms. Diana? What are you doing? You seem to have drawn a pattern ...What is the special meaning of this pattern?"

"I don't know... I only know that this pattern has been deeply imprinted in the core of my mind, and an ancient command is still strengthening its impression. Sometimes I will fall into a trance, and when I wake up, I will find myself in Some places left these traces, which even caused some troubles to the people around me, I didn't expect...it came from here..."

While speaking, the black-haired head maid stroked the marks on the wall with a strange expression, "And these marks were even engraved after I left the Viplandon Observatory!"

Gao Wen was stunned for a moment, and immediately realized the amount of information in this sentence: "Wait, you said that the things on this wall were engraved after you left Viplandon!? In other words, it was when the demon tide broke out After that? Someone survived here and left these traces?"

"Not necessarily," Amber next to him said immediately, "After all, when Diana left here, the magic tide hadn't arrived yet, maybe she left on her front foot, and those who stayed here and didn't run away should hurry up and slap on the wall With such a pattern carved, it was before the outbreak of the demon tide..."

I have to say that although Amber is talking bluff and sometimes her thoughts seem very weird, what she said at the moment is really a little possible, but Diana shook her head after hearing it: "That's impossible, the wall on this wall The traces should indeed be left after the outbreak of the demonic tide, and it should be between fifteen and twenty-five years after the outbreak of the demonic tide, because..."

While Diana was talking, one of her eyes suddenly changed. A certain microstructure inside the eyeball seemed to be activated, and a structure like a crystal grid opened in the fundus. A few seconds later, the eyeball returned Restored to the original state - this seems to be just deliberately showing off a special ability of oneself.

"I can analyze the time difference of peeling and damage of paint and building materials in various areas of the wall. Within a thousand years, the accuracy deviation is very small."

"...Mom," Amber was taken aback, "Your Gondor-era stuff is really awesome..."

Immediately afterwards, she widened her eyes and turned her head to look at the marks on the wall: "So that means, more than ten years after the demon tide completely destroyed the Gondor Empire, there are still people active in this observatory, and they are still on the wall. Leave such a 'mark'!?"

"I don't know... but I can be sure that this is definitely not something that a mutant who loses his mind can do," Diana said in a serious tone, "but I don't believe that anyone can survive in that situation... Viplandon Observatory There are not strong enough protective facilities nearby, and the scholars and officials in the observatory are not strong enough to resist the magic tide, and..."

She said, with a sudden hesitation in her tone: "And if this pattern was engraved here more than ten years after I left, why would I know it, and it is deeply engraved in the core of my mind?"

"The pattern was indeed carved after you left, but before that, you and the people in this observatory should have known the pattern," Gao Wen said aside, "this pattern must be of great significance to you, so that you Memory glitches still hold it so firmly that survivors in the observatory - let's assume there are survivors - would choose this pattern as the last one they had left after being trapped for more than a dozen years. information. "

"Can someone really survive the outbreak of the demon tide, and live in an isolated and helpless observatory for more than ten or twenty years?" Amber next to him couldn't help but whispered.

At this moment, Philip's voice suddenly sounded: "It's not impossible - the dark priests of the Death of All Things Society have survived in the wasteland to this day? Although they paid the price of not being human, it shows that as long as there is Under certain conditions, it is also possible for normal creatures to survive in the wasteland without relying on purification devices, let alone this observatory... It seems to be protected by some kind of power, its main body is intact, and it is not like other just The Duo facility was also melted down by the dark blue magic power, and there is even an observatory operating on the upper floor."

"The upper floor is still in operation..." Gawain frowned. At this moment, he suddenly paid more attention and a little bit of vigilance to the observatory that was still in operation. Then he turned his head and looked at the observatory. Diana, "Looks like we should go up and have a look."

(Everyone, do you know about the co-creation of novels in the glory of the king? The short story "Sea of ​​​​Storm" I am in charge of is online! It will be updated in the project of co-creating novels in the glory of the king. You can see it on the Miaobi project of the glory of the king. Iron" story - though I've never won with him...)