Age of Empires From Scratch

  Chapter 15 Ancient Altar

  Laura wondered what David meant by that look: "You want me to stay outside?"

"if you can…"

   "Don't worry, I have more experience in this situation than you." Laura thought that David was worried about his own safety, but Laura, who had an adventure experience, didn't feel that such an ordinary cave could threaten her at all.

She had no idea that what David was worried about was not Laura's safety at all, but the safety of this cave—after all, the so-called Tomb Destroyer, he was very worried that after entering the cave with Laura, he would go down. In a second the cave collapsed.

   There was no way to explain such an outrageous reason to Laura, so I had to light a torch and walk into the cave.

  Laura also pulled out the flashlight hanging on her belt, and followed David into the cave.

  The temperature in the cave was a little lower than outside, which made David feel a bit cooler. Other than that, after the two walked in the cave for a while, they didn't find anything unusual.

  Although the cave has obvious downward and circling, the two of them reached the end of the cave not long after walking.

   "That's it?" Looking at the cave that had come to an end, Laura looked at the various ores on the surrounding cave walls, and could only express helplessly: "It seems that this is a very ordinary natural mine."

"Well, and the mining difficulty is not high." This kind of open-pit mine is the easiest type to mine. He has no way to judge the reserves now. Even if the reserves are not high, it is enough for the current cold winter village. , and have to recruit a few miners.”

  Reaching out his hand to brush the metallic ore on the wall, David thought to himself that if this was a farming and development game, his birthplace would be quite good.

  Although the location is a bit remote, it also has the advantage of being remote, that is, it will not be encircled and suppressed by "various forces".

   "It seems that this is an ordinary natural mine, let's go."

   "Wait." David was about to turn around and leave when Laura, who was squatting in the corner and didn't know what to study, stopped him: "It seems to be windy here."

"ah?"

  David watched Laura squatting there with her palms outstretched to feel something, then groped on the wall for a while, and finally stopped at a place and tapped a few times with a climbing pick.

   "There's a cave here."

   "So?" It's normal that there are some smaller caves and gaps in this kind of cave, right?

"I just want to see if I can go deeper." Standing up, he picked up the climbing pick, and smashed it hard at the place that was judged just now. Laura, who thought it would take some effort to break the stone wall, unexpectedly just After hitting it twice, the stone wall was smashed into pieces by myself.

But this is not the most important point. The key point is that when the stone wall was broken, a chain reaction occurred. Even the place where Laura stepped on was shattered. Laura only felt that her feet were empty, and the whole person fell down. .

David's reaction was very fast. When Laura screamed and the place under his feet cracked and fell, he rushed out and wanted to catch Laura, but he was still half a beat behind, watching Laura fall in front of his eyes... Then, a pickaxe was nailed to the stone wall in front of him in mid-air, and it hung steadily less than one meter in front of David's eyes.

   "..."

"Huh~ Fortunately, I reacted quickly enough." After speaking, I raised my head and glanced at David, who was one meter above him, leaned out half of his body while doing the 'crape myrtle hand': "How, are you scared? Jump."

  Laura, who has experienced the Himiko incident, is no longer the ordinary girl when she first met. Now she is a top adventurer with rich experience in distress and can always make the most correct judgment in the shortest time.

  She has experienced similar scenes too many times, and she is very familiar with how to deal with them. This time the movements are considered slow.

   "Do you want to pull you up?" David has already withdrawn his hand, and he has already seen that even if he doesn't help, Laura can climb up with a climbing pick.

  She was still hanging there without moving, she just didn't want to come up.

   "Wait, there seems to be something down there." Laura took a few more lighting sticks, lit them up and threw them down.

The moment I dropped the lighting stick, it fell to the ground. Laura was not far below, and it could even be said to be very close. Even if you are correct, you will not die.

   "I'll go down and have a look!"

  Using two climbing picks to slide down for a while, and finally jumped directly, Laura reached the bottom skillfully. She found that the space here was not very big, only about a hundred square meters in size, and she could see the entire location of the place clearly with a flashlight.

   So she quickly noticed something special.

   "This is..." Located in the center of the hollow is a stele-like thing, which is obviously a man-made product, with words engraved on it: "It's the Common Language!"

  During these days, in addition to Fording working hard to learn English, Laura and Mark are also learning the lingua franca of the world—in fact, Fording is also learning.

   "Thanks for...blessing, here to offer...the fruits of hard work...hope..."

The writing on it was incomplete, and most of it could not be read clearly. Only a short paragraph could be read. Following Laura's movements, she quickly found the base of the stele, and more man-made objects covered by dust. trace.

   "The bottom here is a stone slab that has been treated with precision."

  The footsteps behind her had already let her know that David had arrived beside her.

  At this time, David also squatted down, and lightly poked a few times with his hands, and saw the slate carved with various patterns underneath: "This area seems to be paved with slate."

  As for the stele in front of him, he had already observed it just now, and the few things that could be discerned had been read out by Laura.

   "This is an altar." Turning back and forth a few times, Laura quickly figured out what it was: "It's used to thank the gods for blessing and let people have a good harvest...er..."

  Laura suddenly remembered that when David introduced this world to her before, he mentioned that the common language is the language used by humans in this world, which means that this altar should be built by humans.

   "Was this place once the territory of which human kingdom?"

"According to the historical knowledge I know, the human kingdom has never ruled such a northern region. The Kingdom of Tilan is the northernmost kingdom in human history." The history and various "glory" of the Kingdom of Tilan are often used as stories It was recited all over the kingdom, so David would say so with certainty.

   But now he is also puzzled, is this the altar of the elves? But the elves seem unwilling to live in such a cold place: "Maybe a small number of humans have lived here?"

  It is not uncommon for people to live in isolation. The fact that the human kingdom has not ruled this area does not mean that no one has been here. Maybe the people who once lived here failed to survive due to environmental and other reasons.

  Of course, there is another possibility: the altar did not actually exist, but when Laura appeared, it appeared.

  David can’t help but think about it. After all, there are examples of Mark Watney and potatoes, and Laura and ancient altars are very logical.

   "If that's the case, what's the use of this thing?"

  Looking at the only words that could be read on the stone tablet, David guessed that this thing was hoping to offer some harvested food? Then shelter yourself to continue the harvest?

   "Maybe try?"

David stood there thinking about various possibilities. Laura had roughly explored the entire altar, and after confirming that the patterns on the stone slabs on the ground had no special meaning, she lost interest in it—the only thing worth studying was Only that stone tablet, the content on it is pitifully small.

"There seems to be nothing else." Laura tried to search for gaps in the surrounding stone walls again, but found nothing more: "Although I don't know why, this ancient altar and mine veins are mixed together, maybe it is Caused by the movement of the earth's crust..."

  With nothing to explore, Laura lost interest in this place, and was going to return to the ground along the rope (the upper end was fixed with iron nails) that David used when he came down.

  David didn't continue to waste time here, and left here after Laura climbed up, and then put the rope away and walked out of the cave together.

   "Continue to search for the wolves... what is that?" Laura, who returned to the sunlight, was startled by the huge creature in sight just as she was speaking.

   It was an ugly creature nearly three meters tall, with unusually thick arms, covered in dirty white hair, and holding a huge wooden stick in its hand.

   When Laura was surprised by the other party, the giant monster also found Laura and David.

   There was no communication at all. After the eyes of the two sides met for a second, the monster roared and rushed towards the two with a wooden stick.

   There was no shout to remind them to be careful. The moment the monster launched its attack, Laura and David had already launched the attack first. In the blink of an eye, two arrows had already shot towards the eyes and throat respectively.

  The monster's reaction was quick, and it stopped and turned sideways to avoid the arrows. Although the monster could not be dealt with immediately, the two arrows also bought some time for David and Laura.

He raised his hand and released a piece of golden holy light. Laura and David were successively protected by golden shields. Then David stretched out his left hand and aimed at the huge monster. Before the monster could react, Suddenly, a holy light appeared and exploded in front of the monster's eyes.

  Although the holy light did not cause much damage to the monster, it successfully interfered with the monster's line of sight and once again delayed the monster's action.

   Seeing that the arrows shot by Laura took the opportunity to do little damage to the monster, David also dropped the bow and arrow, and rushed over with great strides.

At the same time, a golden flame burned on David's right hand. When David rushed to the monster, the suddenly expanded holy light shield also blocked the wooden stick in the troll's hand in midair, and the golden flame in David's hand The flames became more intense and fierce.

  Accompanied by a flash of bright light, the sacred fire thrown out by David's wave instantly turned the monster into a giant bonfire.

  (end of this chapter)