Chapter 678 Amber

Hearing Pittman's words, Amber glanced at Gawain subconsciously, and the latter took the initiative to say, "I can avoid it—if you don't want others to hear it."

"No, I don't care," Amber shook his head. "You have a good mind, and there are always unexpected insights. I want you to be present, and this notebook... You can also look at it."

Gawain glanced at Amber silently, did not shirk, just nodded slightly.

The fountain was not suitable for digging up these hidden memories. The three of them left the overcrowded courtyard. In a lounge on the first floor of Silver Fort, Amber solemnly placed the notebook on the table, in front of Gawain. and Pittman's face, carefully opening its worn and flimsy cover.

There are no patterns or coats of arms on the inner pages, and there are no various patterns that are common in most aristocratic handwritten books of this era. On the yellowed paper, only a simple sentence is written:

"To my daughter - hopefully by the time you see it, you've grown up happy and safe."

"There's still so much nonsense..." Amber pursed her lips, but her movements were more careful than before, and she slowly opened the first page.

Here is a diary, a diary written under special circumstances:

"...the third day into the Shadowkeep.

"As a royal shadow guard, I should not leave any written information in the process of performing classified tasks. This is a violation of confidentiality rules, but the current situation is special, and I may not be able to leave here safely. People left warnings and experiences, and I decided to document part of my trip.

"My name is Surrey Randolph, a Royal Shadow Guard, and I have been ordered to travel to the Dark Mountains of the South to search for ancient heritage in this deserted land.

"I am unfortunate enough to be trapped in this place called 'Shadow Fortress', which I believe is where the ancient heritage is buried...

"...According to the information obtained in advance, the Shadow Fortress is not located in the real world we know well. It is a territory opened up in the Shadow Realm by the ancient Gondor Empire through superb lost technology. It floats outside the world, but There is also no stable connection with the Shadow Realm, it is a free space that can only be entered through specific gates and rituals...

"Part of my information is correct. There is indeed a space node leading to the Shadow Fortress in the Dark Mountains. I started the ceremony at this node and successfully entered here, but the information is wrong because the 'Shadow Seal' used to open the gate. The Ring' is a one-off - or rather, I can't find a way to recharge it.

"His Majesty the King gave me one of the two rings in his hand. Obviously, he didn't expect this ring to be used only once when opening the Shadow Fortress."

After just reading these few paragraphs, Amber couldn't help but raised his head and looked at Gao Wen, who also raised his head.

"Shadow Seal..." Amber subconsciously held a thin chain hanging around his neck. There were two simple rings hanging on the necklace. One of them still had magical brilliance, while the other was dim. Light.

The ring with the magical brilliance was obtained from Francis II, and the dull ring was carried by Amber since childhood. Now, the origins of the two rings have finally been explained.

She lowered her head and continued to look at the follow-up content of the diary:

"...Despite being trapped in it, I have to admire the great technology of the ancient Gondor Empire. The Shadowkeep is an unimaginable place - including the process of entering the fortress is incredible. I stand on the right magic of the Dark Mountains. At the intersection, you only need to inject magic into the ring, and you can open a door to the shadow world in normal time and space. I suspect that the ring just sent a signal in the process, and the real opening process is some kind of facility in the shadow fortress. Done, but I haven't found a clue yet...

"…This magnificent building is cast from some man-made material, stronger than rock, it floats in nothingness, and there is no land around it. There are no luminous celestial bodies in the sky here, which is similar to the realm of shadows. Consistent with the scenario described in the monograph…

"My current position should be in the vestibule of this ancient facility. I can see that there is a gate, but outside the gate is pure darkness, which makes it inevitable to doubt the meaning of this gate - but I am at the gate. Strange uprights have been found on the front limited platform, and I suspect they were used to hold some kind of vehicle, or some kind of mount that could travel through the Shadowlands, where the ancient Gondorians might have been able to. Deep exploration in the darkness of nothingness, after all, they are the omnipotent Gondor...

"On the other side of the courtyard is the main body of the building, a vast palace or fortress. I have explored the small area of ​​its entrance and I am struck by its scale, with countless corridors and rooms, and empty halls. and warehouses...I can't imagine how many people were working and living in this otherworldly facility...it's so large that I doubt many people could live here for the rest of their lives if a new baby was born In this, as long as no one instills correct knowledge on him, he may not even know the existence of the outside world...

"Ah, my rich associative ability can only be used to relieve boredom, and can't let me get out of this damn place."

Amber flipped the pages of paper, and for a while in the quiet lounge, only the sound of paper flipping and the gentle breathing of the three people remained.

"...the fourth day of being trapped.

"I've spent the last three days thinking about whether I should go deeper into the fortress, which may mean additional risks: the defense mechanisms in the ancient facility may still be functioning, and it's more likely that a sleeping ruin guard will be awakened by me.

"It is said that the golem guards of the Violet Kingdom can continue to operate for 600 years after the death of their masters, and those legendary Ironmen of Gondor may be able to operate even longer...

"But maybe I should take some risks - I have been looking for three days in the courtyard and the outer corridor, there is no device that can open the space door, and my food and drinking water have reached a very dangerous situation, I am dying of thirst and starvation. Between death and being decapitated by an ancient guard, the latter may be more merciful.

"I'm going into the inner corridor.

"...On the sixth day, still trapped.

"Why is this damn fortress so big!! How many corridors, how many rooms, how many halls does it have! Did the Gondorians throw all the people of a city into the Shadow Realm?

"How superb the technology of the Gondor Empire is, they can build such a fortress in the shadow world, they can let thousands of people live in this different space for a long time, and I, a man from thousands of years later It is ironic that the Royal Shadow Guard can only drill around in this ancient facility and can't find a clue.

"By the way, I ran out of water and ran out of food.

"On the seventh day, I found an empty room, which may have been some kind of research facility before, I saw some platforms with runes and pipes and containers that didn't seem to work. Sadly, all the There is no water in the pipes and containers.

"I have to start thinking about the funeral.

"On the eighth day, the key word for today is moss.

"Yes, moss! In this fortress that has been isolated from the world for thousands of years, there is moss! In places like the Shadow Realm, there is moss!

"They grow in a room like a laboratory, there are many large tubular containers fixed to the ground, the containers are all empty, but the outer wall of one of the containers and the nearby walls and ground are covered with this lovely The little plants. Like everything else in the Shadowlands, the mosses are so black in color that I almost confused them with normal smudges at first, thank goodness I stayed in this room for a little longer meeting……

"The presence of moss means dampness, and dampness means water.

"The moss has a bit of a bitter taste and a weird gummy-like texture, and they're probably not good for my health, but I can't take care of that much, and without the moss, I'm afraid I'll never have to care in a few days. own health problems.

"The moss gave me some energy, and they contained enough water to lift my spirits, but it was clearly not enough for long-term survival. I collected all the moss from a nearby pipe, squeezed the juice out and put it in After getting the kettle, I'm going to take this little sustenance and start exploring the surrounding rooms with this room as the center.

"On the ninth day, I didn't find water, but I... saw a figure!

"I can't put into words the shock of that moment, I saw a figure, but it flashed across the corner of the room...I'm not sure if that's real.

"Does that moss contain hallucinogenic ingredients? But I have to live on them...

"On the tenth day, I found water! In a place where many people are dining, there is still water flowing out of one of the pipes! And it's clear water! I think I can live here for a long time!

"Does the presence of this clean water mean that some kind of purification device is still running here? Are there more devices running?"

Amber looked at every line of written records on it seriously, biting his lip unconsciously, as if watching his adoptive father struggling to explore and survive in such an isolated ancient fortress. After Surrey Randolph found the water source, she couldn't help but sighed softly: "He may have found a working canteen..."

Gawain nodded slightly beside him, and said in a low voice, "I'm more curious about the figure he saw."

"He mentioned--" Amber turned a page, glanced at it, and pointed to the content on it:

"...I saw the figure again, and there was more than one, this time I can confirm that it was not a hallucination, but what happened next made me even more stunned and confused.

"Those figures are 'shadow dwellers'.

"They were as described in the monograph, ghostly and incorporeal, wrapped in some sort of tattered 'shroud' and turned into human figures, they traveled freely in the Shadow Realm, and apparently noticed me as an intruder.

"I was ready to fight, but it didn't happen - all the academic records say that the Shadowdwellers will attack all material creatures that break into the Shadowlands, and yet those Shadowdwellers just stared at me indifferently, I'm sure they Is watching, though there is only empty darkness in those 'Shrouds'...

"After the excruciating confrontation, the Shadowdwellers all left, and there was no communication between us.

"I have absolutely no idea what happened."

Amber frowned. She also felt that the shadow residents she met with her adoptive father were a little weird, but she couldn't explain it, so she had to keep these doubts in her heart and continue to look down——

On a new page, Surrey Randolph's text continues his experience in Shadowkeep:

"...On the fourteenth day, I found a room where certain devices...are still working.

"It is difficult for me to describe exactly what I saw, it was beyond my knowledge - around a huge pillar I saw a large number of yellowish translucent egg-shaped vessels fastened to brackets Above, those egg-shaped vessels are roughly the size of a full-grown cow...

"There are a lot of conduits extending out from within that large strut, connecting to the surrounding egg-like vessel.

"Almost all the containers were broken, cracked, skewed, dropped to the ground, and their contents had dried up, and inside those damaged containers, I saw many small corpses.

"It makes me shudder - as a royal shadow guard, I've seen a lot of tragic sights, I've seen a lot of death scenes, but those little corpses in containers are weirder than those I've ever seen. Horror, it made me wonder, what the hell were the Gondorians doing here?

"I checked the room with shock and nervousness and found her.

"The only complete vessel, the only living individual.

"She was curled up in some kind of liquid, floating in a translucent crystal container, and it all looked like a piece of amber.

"I can't describe my mood at this moment, and what makes me even more at a loss is that these crystal containers are exactly the same as the target items described in the mission, which means... the 'thing' in the container is what I want to bring back. 'Ancient Heritage'.

"My mission can be completed, but the premise is that I have to find a way to get out, and I have to go out with this unwieldy container - if I open it rashly, will the little girl inside die directly? This is A very tricky thing.”

Amber's eyes were fixed on the page in front of her. Even though she had read the contents of this page, she never turned to the next page. It was not until a minute later that Gawain patted her on the shoulder.

Amber woke up, took a deep breath, and turned the page—

"...On the fifteenth day, I hadn't figured out what to do, but I suddenly realized that what I thought was useless: I'm still stuck here.

"A person who can't even go out alive, but thinking about what to do to complete the task is really wishful thinking.

"I put aside the unsolvable problems for now, and refocused my attention on finding a way out.

"Considering that I am afraid that for a long time to come, the only person who can accompany me is this little guy in Amber, I named her Amber.

"But I'm guessing she's got another name - every ovoid container here has a line of letters carved into the base, each with a slightly different letter, and maybe they're the real names (though I doubt that too). Did the Gondor scholars who worked here actually name a batch of experiments), but that was the ancient Gondor script of a thousand years ago, very different from today's universal alphabet, and mine Knowledge of ancient writing happens to be a weak point.

"I can only trace these letters. If one day I can really go out alive, maybe the scholars in the capital can answer my doubts and let me understand the real name of this little guy, or at least understand those Gondor back then. How do people call her."

At the end of the page, Surrey Randolph left a large blank where he traced in bold a line of letters that few in this day and age could understand .

Amber stared at the line of letters, and then raised his head after a while, looking into Gawain's eyes: "What do these letters... mean? What was my original name?"

Gawain retracted his gaze from those letters. He stared at Amber for four or five seconds in silence, before finally exhaling softly and said slowly:

"The Thirty-Sixth Cyborg."

(Double period +. + ask for a monthly pass!!!)