Kalinger stepped forward, but the man in the gray-blue cloak took a step back.
He only took a step back, and then stabilized his figure. The reaction just now was like a subconscious action.
Kalinge didn't get too close, he stopped at a decent distance, moved the hand holding the knife behind him, and bowed slightly: "Bounty hunter Kalinge, I would like to serve you."
The person opposite raised his hand, as if he was detecting something with the pendulum hanging under his palm.
The man was wearing dark soft leather gloves, and a small slender arm was exposed between the gloves and the wide cuffs. Under the faint blue lighting in the forest, his skin looked extremely pale.
After hesitating for a while, he finally put away his pendulum and slowly took off his hood.
Long pale golden hair, light green eyes, small pointed ears at the sideburns, refreshing and soft facial lines... It turned out to be really an elf, and the resident bard of Black Tree Village was not mistaken.
The elf nodded slightly in return. Kalinger stared at him, but he didn't dare to look at him, he just looked at the grass beside Kalinger.
"You..." the elf spoke in a very low voice, "Hello."
"Are you a mage?" Kalinger asked.
The elf nodded.
"what should I call you?"
The elf whispered, "Rime."
Kalinger looked around: "How can there be rime? It's spring now."
"No... I'm Rime."
How strange... Kalinger pondered.
Originally, he was mentally prepared. Judging from the letters and phone calls, the mage was obviously extremely irritable. After meeting him, he would definitely be insulted face to face... He didn't mind being insulted, and was even a little curious.
Now the situation is different from what I imagined... The elf named Wusong is very polite, even a little timid, and it is not at all likely to say "your wife and your mother will sew you for three days and three nights".
Kalinger suddenly thought of a possibility: Maybe there is more than one elf living in the mountain? The people in Heishu Village also said that they also communicated with the elves in the mountains a long time ago. The old letter and the insulting letter have different tone and font.
To confirm, Kalinger asked, "Were you talking to me just now?"
Rime just nodded. I didn't say anything.
"You use a golem to send a message?" Kalinger still didn't believe it, so he confirmed to him again, "Did you use magic to speak to a certain medium, and then the golem passed it on?"
Rime nodded again. Still no sound. At this moment, the thin-legged spherical construct didn't know where it went, probably the mage had sent it to patrol elsewhere.
Kalinger asked again: "I saw a letter in Heishu Village, which said..." He recalled the content of the letter, and thought that the curse words should be omitted, "Well, the main purpose of the letter is to persuade people in the village not to Go up the hill, don't take any risks. Did you hand it over to the village sheriff?"
Rime nodded first, then asked softly, "How are Marlowe and those young people?"
"Who is Marlowe?" Kalinger asked.
"It's the sheriff..."
"Oh. Everyone else is fine. I haven't seen the sheriff. His family said that his injury is not serious, but then it seems that he fell ill again or something, so he is still recuperating."
Rime just nodded again. Kalinge secretly found it interesting, this elf is too amazing! When writing letters and summons, it can be said that there are witty words, but now when talking face to face, why don't you even dare to look people in the eye
Kalinge took a few steps forward. Judging from the elf's body movements, he obviously wanted to back away, but he was probably afraid of impoliteness, so he stood there stiffly.
After getting closer, Kalinger lowered his voice and said with a smile on his face: "Your Excellency Wusong, I am very glad to meet you. You see, I have said my suggestion before. I am here to work. You I'm also busy dealing with troubles in this place, so let's cooperate, shall we?"
"But..." Wu Rime frowned, apparently still disagreeing with the proposal.
Kalinger continued: "By the way, I want to clarify one thing first. I don't have a mother, nor a wife. If I was really torn into three hundred pieces by monsters, I'm afraid I can only ask you to help me sew them. But you don't have to Worry, if I dare to come, it means that I have a solid foundation in my heart, and I won't be torn into three hundred pieces to drag you down."
Kalinger deliberately repeated the elf's "good words and sentences", but the elf remained silent, with an embarrassed smirk on his face.
Oh, and the tips of the elf's ears are a little red.
Even in the dim light, Kalinger noticed this keenly.
At this time, a long howl came from deep in the forest. The sound came from far away, like a mountain lion, and sharper than the mountain lion's voice.
Rime looked up at the distance, and said to himself: "I should go back."
The expression on his face changed subtly, as if he was making some kind of difficult decision. After a while, he turned slightly to the woodland behind him, and looked back at Kalinger: "Follow me."
Kalinger followed obediently. "where are we going?"
"Just... go to the place where I live. It's already time, it's not safe outside, you'd better go down the mountain tomorrow."
Who said I was going down the mountain... Kalinger walked a few steps quickly, trying to get in front of the elves. He had a weapon with him, and he could take on the work of pushing aside the weeds that got in the way.
When he got close to the elf, looking over the elf's shoulder, he realized that the elf didn't need his help at all. In front of the elf is a path made of faint warm light, as long as you walk along it, you can move forward without hindrance in the dense forest. The pendulum in the elf's hand is also emitting light of the same color. If you look carefully, there are still things as small as dewdrops constantly dripping.
So, they walked in the dense forest one after the other like this, Kalinger looked left and right, and the elf lowered his eyes slightly, only looking at the little road in front of him.
Kalinger asked, "You live in the mountains?"
"Yes."
"you alone?"
The elf sighed. "I used to be here with the teacher."
Judging by his tone, the teacher either died or left him behind... Kalinger asked again: "Where is your hometown? Is it the Southwest Forest? Or Isle of Yoll? You look like the Southwest side spirit."
"Probably." The elf spoke concisely and ambiguously.
No matter what Kalinger asked, the elf always had this attitude of rejecting people thousands of miles away. Kalinger looked at his back, thinking all the way how to make him talk more.
On the way, they encountered another black monster attack. That thing was huge, like a mixture of a boar and a carnivore. It ran rampant in the forest, crushing a lot of trees. When it saw elves and humans, it rushed over like a madman.
Before Wurime raised his hand to cast a spell, Kalinger drew his sword and jumped out. This time he did not use a scimitar, but drew out the broad-edged sword on his back.
At first Wu Ri wanted to stop him, but when he saw the precision and swiftness of Kalinger's every attack, he didn't make a sound, just stood there and waited quietly.
When the monster's blood sprayed over, the elf nimbly took a few steps back. Kalinger drew the sword from the corpse, swung his arm, and walked back to the elf with a smile on his face.
Rime did not make any comments on this battle, but quietly took out a cloth towel and handed it to Kalinger.
Kalinger froze for a moment before realizing that he wanted him to wipe the blade clean.
"No, thank you for your kindness." Kalinger directly put the blood-stained sword into the sheath, "This is a relatively special weapon. It will not rust or become duller. If you use it to kill alien creatures, the more you kill, the better the sword will be."
Rime retracted the cloth towel: "Oh, I understand. Advanced Arcane Aid enchantments, dragon bite weapons."
"Yes, that's the name. You mages are knowledgeable."
The elf showed a faint smile: "I can also do this kind of enchantment. It's just that the technique is too troublesome, and I haven't done it for a long time."
After speaking, he continued to turn around and lead the way.
Kalinger has been observing the rime, and he vaguely noticed that the expression of rime is more relaxed than before.
The mage saw the hunter deliberately displaying force and saw the bloody scene of killing the target with a melee weapon, but he was more relaxed
Did he feel safer? Or...he finally believed that "this person is really capable and won't die easily", so he felt relieved
After walking for a while, the terrain in front suddenly rose up, forming a cliff standing on the mountain forest.
The cliff was bare, without any plants, let alone any buildings attached to it. The elf continued to walk towards the cliff, with no intention of going around it at all.
When they were close enough to the cliff, Wu Ri chanted a spell, and a magic circle pattern flowing with silver light gradually emerged on the cliff.
Wurime pressed his palm to the lowest part of the pattern, and murmured a few more syllables, and a bronze arched double door appeared in front of them.
Kalinger whistled. It turns out that there really is a mage's tower here, and the poet in Heishu Village didn't get it wrong.
Rime walked into the gate first, and turned back to motion for Kalinger to follow.
After Kalinger also walked in, the gate disappeared in the blink of an eye, and the exterior of the cliff wall returned to bare rocks.
The hall after entering the door is extremely empty, with a wide vault above it, the walls and floor are made of exposed bricks and stones, there is no carpet, and there is almost no furniture, only things like consumables are packed in wooden boxes or sacks, piled up randomly every corner.
There is a downward patio in the center of the hall. The patio has no guardrails, and standing next to it can directly see the various floors deep below. The floors are connected by a spiral staircase, and there are also no guardrails on the edge of the staircase. In the center of the spiral, there is a stone floating disc engraved with magic runes.
The rime steps up the floating disc. Without waiting for his reminder, Kalinger followed up consciously.
As the floating disc slowly descended, Kalinger asked, "Is this really an upside-down mage tower? The bottom is the top of the tower?"
Wu Ri asked: "The people in Heishi Village said so?"
"Otherwise who else could it be?"
Wusong said: "Actually, this is a relic left from ancient times, not a tower. They have dug holes down, so why do you have to call it a tower... But my teacher did call this place the 'Moon Falling Tower', so he said I would like to call it that. Everyone in Black Tree Village was misled by him."
"The Falling Moon Tower?"
"Oh... that's right. If you look from the direction of the city and nearby villages, most of the year, when the moon sets, it disappears behind this mountain. Inspired by this, the teacher took this This ruin is called the 'Moon Falling Tower'." Speaking of this, Wu Ri shook his head lightly, "My teacher is different from ordinary mages, he is quite romantic."
When it comes to teachers, there seem to be more words about rime. Kalinger asked, "What's your teacher's name?"
"Xaller Jinghu." When reading the teacher's name, Wu Rime's speech slowed down, and his tone was extremely solemn, "He is basically a hermit, and you probably haven't heard of him."
Kalinger had never heard of this name, but from the style of the name, he could tell that it came from the southwest forest. The southwestern forest is more respectful of divine arts, and few elves become mages.
Elves in different regions have different naming habits. People who are adventurous like Kalinger can basically tell where the other party's hometown is from the name.
The floating disc stops at the fifth floor down. Just as the elves came down with Kalinger, the door to the room at the corner of the hall opened automatically. A round long-legged golem came out of the room, with a freshly replaced quilt still on its "head".
"You rest here tonight." The elf stood by the door and made a "please" gesture.
There is a newly made bed in one corner of the room, as well as soft chairs, clothes hangers, and a desk. There is a magic light ball on the head of the bed and on the wall, and a jug of water and a rusk are prepared on the desk.
It seems very intimate, but this room is obviously not a guest room. As a guest room, it is too big and too spacious. The size of the room is very large, enough to fit ten beds loosely. It is estimated that this place used to be a large study or warehouse, and the things were vacated later for people to rest temporarily.
From this point, it can be seen that this "falling moon tower" did not have the function of welcoming guests.
Kalinger walked into the room, and Rime followed behind him, and roughly explained to him the usage of the light ball on the wall. It is a ready-made magic item, and it can be used without knowing how to cast spells. In fact, Kalinger has already used it. After all, he has cooperated with other mages before, but he did not interrupt Wu Rime, but smiled quietly. Listen to him finish.
After finishing speaking, Wu Ri turned to the door and was about to leave when Kalinge suddenly reached out and grabbed his wrist.
Wu Ri was stunned for a moment, and turned back slowly: "Sir, next time, don't grab the mage suddenly like this. Not only me, but also other mages..."
"Sorry, sorry, I have something to say."
"I'm not blaming you," Wu Ri said, "mainly because it's too dangerous. Mages usually have protective spells on them, and it may be dangerous for you to come into physical contact with them rashly."
While he was talking, Kalinger slowly let go of his hand. Kalinger secretly confirmed one thing: rime is very slow to respond.
He's even duller than those pedantic pedantic human mages.
It was the same when in the forest... Kalinge went ahead to attack the monster, while Rime stood quietly aside.
There is nothing wrong with this in itself, but based on Kalinger's experience, Rime's reaction speed is obviously much slower than other spellcasters.
Kalinger is an experienced bounty hunter, of course he knows not to touch the mage casually. There are quite a few neurotic mages, some who hide passive paralysis spells on their bodies, and some more crazy people who hide instant curse spells.
After what happened just now, Kalinger was able to confirm that this elf mage did not have any protective spells preset.
She doesn't want to meet people, doesn't like to cooperate with people, moves a little slowly, and doesn't have passive protection on her body... For an elf mage, this is really a bit strange.
But Rime is indeed a spellcaster, and he casts other spells. So... why on earth is he doing this? Do you think the protective technique is unnecessary? There are dangers in this mountain forest, so he shouldn't be so lax.
"Don't go yet," Kalinger deliberately blocked the elf with his body, "I still have something to talk to you about."
Wu Ri sighed: "What about this mountain? No need..."
"In the forest, you mentioned a word, 'outsider infection'," Kalinger said, "I know what an outsider infection is. Obviously, this mountain has power from the plane of the abyss. Animals are being eroded and are slowly being transformed into true abyssal creatures. If left alone, this infection will spread to humans sooner or later."
Rime looked at him in surprise. Kalinger shrugged: "Why? I'm a bounty hunter, of course I know the plane of the abyss."
Rime lowered his head again and walked around Kalinger.
"I have no plans to cooperate with you. I have to go, please rest."
Kalinge followed him: "I heard that there is a half-dead ancient demon at the bottom of the Falling Moon Tower. Is it true?"
To this question, Rime answered simply: "No."
"There are no demons? Or are there no 'ancient' demons? Or are there demons, but not under the Moonfall Tower?"
Rime did not answer. He walked out of the room and bowed slightly in greeting: "The golem will wake you up tomorrow morning, and then I will send you down the mountain."
Kalinger supported the door frame with one hand: "Wait! You haven't told me where the latrine is yet?"
The vulgar word made the elf frown. He pointed a direction to the end of the corridor, stepped on the floating disc, and slowly descended into the depths.
TBC