The Forge Temple is a building very close to the lava river. It has a typical dwarven architectural style, square and like a big box. However, in terms of scale, it is not inferior to human palaces.
The pillars of dwarf buildings are different from those of humans. There are few round pillars, and most of them are built with huge square bricks. Here, the lava reflects a slightly flashing bright red, giving the whole building a fiery feeling.
Xiao Chen stood in front of the eight pillars in front of the temple, and still felt a very majestic momentum. Beside him were Luo Ling, Mei Tiantian, Evelin, and Ansaldo who brought them here.
A middle-aged priest opened the side door of the temple. The dwarf priest of the Forge Temple wore a fiery red robe that only reached the knees and had no sleeves, revealing the dwarf's strong arms. In contrast to the long robes of the Nature Temple, the priest robes of the Forge Temple were more like short clothes for manual labor. However, the gems inlaid on the robe and the priest's seven strands of beard fully demonstrated his noble status.
The middle-aged priest saw Ansaldo and nodded to him and said, "Ansaldo, are these your human friends?"
"Yes, Borat, they have been waiting in the capital for two days. I received your message yesterday saying that the high priest was willing to meet with them for a talk, so I sent them here." Ansaldo said.
"The high priest read your father's secret letter and asked me to inform you. He should attach great importance to this matter and even prepare an altar for it." Priest Borat said in a low voice.
"That means he might need to pray to the oracle at any time?" Ansaldo's eyes widened.
"Yes. The high priest asked you to tell your father that your father has made a crucial choice. The temple's subsequent actions will still require the support of your family. Please prepare as soon as possible."
"Of course," Ansaldo said.
"Follow me." Priest Borat led a group of people into the side door. Behind the door was a courtyard inside the temple. The courtyard was quite empty, with stone tablets erected around it. Xiao Chen glanced at it as he walked by. Most of them were the names of believers who had made great contributions to the temple, but they were basically members of the royal family and the six major families.
Borat led everyone to the door of a hall, looked back at the elite dwarf team behind Xiao Chen and said, "Not too many people should come to see the high priest, only three people are allowed. The others can stay in this courtyard and wait."
Ansaldo said, "Sir Xiao Chen, I will not go in. You can choose three people to go in together."
Finally, Xiao Chen, Luo Ling and Mei Tiantian followed the priest into the hall as representatives, but no one noticed that the earring on Luo Ling's ear was actually another great magician Glade. Evelyn and the dwarf elite warriors waited in the yard with Ansaldo.
Xiao Chen looked around the hall and found that most of it was embedded in the mountain wall. The hall itself was still in the simple and neat dwarven style, but compared to the outside, various reliefs began to appear on the walls on both sides.
These reliefs are delicate and vivid, telling the historical stories of the dwarves. In the first few reliefs, there are no gods. In the first two reliefs, the dwarves live a simple and primitive life. In the grasslands and forests, they hunt with sticks, fight wild beasts with their bare hands, and collect fruits and food on the ground, which seems very ignorant. In the third relief, there are many dwarves gathered together. They planted flags on the hilltops and established a dwarf country. A dwarf wore a crown and became the king. He led the dwarves to build a city, work together, live together, and resist enemies together.
Later, two groups of people appeared in the kingdom of the dwarves. One group appeared noble and great in the picture, while the other group appeared short and vulgar. The former were naturally dwarf nobles, while the latter were commoners and slaves. The nobles began to use writing and build palaces, while the commoners and slaves worked hard and presented their products to the king and nobles.
In later reliefs, the dwarves began to wear different beards, and were divided into different classes according to the number of beard strands.
At this time, the Dwarf Kingdom was divided into more groups of people. In addition to the king, nobles, civilians and slaves, there were also soldiers holding guns, craftsmen holding hammers and scholars holding books.
But at this time, the Dwarf Kingdom was still very weak, they started later than other races, and their enemies always had more powerful weapons and more powerful magic. Therefore, they always suffered defeat in wars with other races and were slowly driven from the plains into the mountains.
The living environment of the dwarves became worse and worse. In order to avoid the pursuit of the enemy, they hid in the caves and learned various skills of digging tunnels. But this did not give them the means to defeat the enemy.
At this time, a group of dwarves appeared, looking up to the sky.
These people raised their hammers high and prayed to the sky for the help of the gods. Finally, a god responded to their request. It was a huge, blurry figure, but he also held the same forging hammer as the dwarves. So he was called the God of Forge by the dwarves.
In the reliefs after the appearance of the God of Forge, the lives of the dwarves were greatly changed. The God of Forge taught them how to mine various minerals, how to smelt hard metals, and then create the best tools and weapons.
After the dwarves were granted knowledge by the God of Forging, they began to arm themselves with sophisticated armor and weapons, and finally defeated the enemy on the battlefield and protected their last remaining territory. From then on, they established a stable kingdom in the west of the continent.
The God of Forge became the only god worshipped by the dwarves.
When Xiao Chen and his companions finished looking at these reliefs, they had unknowingly walked to the bottom of the front hall of the hall.
"Is this group of reliefs meant to record how the God of Forge taught the dwarves the forging technique?" Mei Tiantian stopped in front of the last relief. On the relief, there was a tall but blurry figure looking at a canyon from a high place, and countless dwarves stood on both sides of the canyon with their forging hammers held high.
"Yes. The great God of Forge led us dwarves out of our ignorant days and taught us how to master the power of iron and fire." Priest Borat said, "These reliefs are to remind people who enter this temple what the God of Forge has done for us. During the annual celebration, the temple will select representatives from all walks of life to visit here. At this time, we priests will tell them the history of the dwarves."
At this time, Xiao Chen was staring at a relief of a war and observing it carefully. He asked: "Who are the enemies depicted in these wars?" (To be continued)