The size of the Hulan caravan is not large, and it is loaded with luxury goods and precious metal jewelry, so the goods are only three cars, and most of them are some local products that the old housekeeper reminded the noble youth to buy along the way out of caution. Otherwise, there is only one big suitcase, and everyone knows that you only have valuables, which is too noticeable.
After discussions between Robin and the two employers, it was decided that the team should go overland instead of going west along the Esmere River. This season, the Esmeer River is very busy, with hundreds of sculls and thousands of sails on the river, bustling with flat-bottomed cargo ships.
If you take the river transport, it is safe and fast, and you can reach Askatla two days earlier than the land route. However, the Hulan caravan didn't have much cargo, so even if they joined other caravans, the shipping fee would be very high. Although it took two more days to travel by land, the carriages were ready-made, and the rations of the mercenaries and caravan guys were also very cheap. Staying in tents for two more days could save a lot of shipping costs.
In fact, it is relatively safe to reach the Mesopotamia of Amn, whether by water or land. No band of thieves in this area would dare to attack the caravan at the risk of the world. After all, Amn ruled the country by business, and the bandits who would do this have long been besieged and wiped out.
Qin Lun wobbled on a poor horse, raised his head slightly, and stared at the scenery on both sides of the avenue with interest from under the hood. He didn't know how to ride a horse, but the Moonlight Elf's story of the high elves allowed him to communicate with the old horse under his crotch, which saved him a lot of trouble.
The traffic in the two river basins of Amn is very developed. The avenue they are currently taking is not a main road, but a branch road. The main road is too busy, except for those large caravans with many trucks, generally small and medium-sized caravans will choose other branch roads.
The gravel road made of brown soil and gravel is about ten meters wide, the road is slightly higher than the ground, and there is a canal on each side. There is a small and exquisite wooden barrel every other section of the road. Qin Lun looked it over carefully and found that it was actually a trash can.
The road is lined with oak and cypress trees, and the road managers seem to have consciously trimmed the foliage so that the canopy forms a simple canopy over the road. Even at noon, the road with a large shade of trees still looks cool and pleasant.
On the branches of some not-so-high oak trees by the roadside, there is a bamboo cage the size of a jar, in which some off-white stones are placed. Qin Lun didn't know what it was at first, but after asking the guys in the caravan, he found out that it was a fluorescent stone.
Fluorite does not emit light, but it attracts mosquitoes at night, especially glowworms in fields and woods. A large number of fluorescent bugs surround the fluorescent stone, forming an interesting outdoor street lamp.
Of course, this can only be used in the wild. There are not so many fluorescent bugs in cities and residential areas, so naturally they cannot be used as lights. Due to too many restrictions, the value of fluorescent stones is not great, so you don't have to worry about being stolen at night. It is completely different from the luminous gemstones used in Iron Star Castle.
The more they learned, the deeper the surprise in the hearts of the apostles. It seems that although this world has not developed technology due to the relationship between magic and gods, all aspects of social life seem to have been relatively developed.
Not to mention Amn, which already has convenient transportation, even the Iron Star Fort built by the dwarves thousands of years ago, the world tree fortress of the Jondal elves and the Ank elves all showed superb construction technology and scientific structure .
As they walked with the caravan, the apostles did not give up their instinct of gathering information. Ignoring the caravan staff's secret look at the bumpkin, they asked the people next to them for various information.
Of course, as the old profession of the apostles, even the least apostle who is not good at communication knows what to do at this time.
Their questions are very broad and do not focus on one aspect. And among the many topics that are equivalent to gossip, the apostles will very keenly select valuable information, and then summarize it in the team channel, which has almost become their instinct.
Qin Lun felt that he had benefited a lot from the various technical questions that were no less than psychological counseling. Thinking back, this is also a matter of course. An apostle who doesn't know how to collect information in the quest world can't change his job at all. It is estimated that he has been eliminated by the cruel world quest.
Among the many apostles who deliberately flattered the plot characters, the one who interested Qin Lun the most was the hot-tempered Philip. The magician of the fortress team actually chatted with the Angelo mage in the caravan, which made everyone's glasses shattered.
"Angelo, are you a red-robed mage?" After some conversation, Philip found that Angelo was knowledgeable and talkative, so he immediately asked curiously.
"You mean why I'm not bald with tattoos all over my body?" Angelo looked at Philip with a half-smile.
"Oh..." Philip's heart trembled, and the conversation became cautious. He didn't understand what Angelo was talking about. Fortunately, Angelo quickly explained himself.
"I understand what you mean, but I'm not those academic red-robed tyrants, I'm just an ordinary red-robed mage." Angelo looked at the cautious Philip and said with some amusement.
Through the conversation with Angelo, Philip quickly understood. In fact, in the southwestern region of Faerun Continent, the red-robed mage has two meanings. If you say something wrong, it is easy to cause misunderstanding.
According to the most ancient legend of Faerun Continent, at the beginning of creation, this world was a period of eternal nothingness. Light and darkness were two isolated things, and there was a misty shadow field between each other. Ultimately the fusion of the essences of the shadows gave birth to twin goddesses of beauty, opposite each other, one light and the other dark.
The two goddesses created the heavenly body and brought to life the manifestation of the world of Toril, brightened by the radiance of the goddess Selun and darkened by the embrace of the goddess Shar.
The goddess Sulun came to the plane of fire above the world, and used the pure fire to ignite the body of heaven, bringing warmth to Toril, and gradually being able to cultivate life and creatures by herself. However, the goddess Shar held a different view on this, and the two began to fight, and from their divinity came the gods of war, disease, assassination, death, etc., and some corrupt powers were born.
Goddess Sulun tore off the sacred essence of magic from her body and threw it at her sisters. This energy tore apart the body of Goddess Shar, and part of the light and dark energy merged into one, becoming Mystra, the goddess of magic. Mystra, made up of both light and dark, but preferring her first mother, balances the battle and creates an uneasy truce between the two sisters of the Goddess.
Mystra had to sacrifice herself to save the magic net in Netheril, when humans abused magic. This also caused the fall of Netheril's floating city, ending the first and greatest war in human history. The most glorious human empire and magical civilization.
Although the goddess of magic was soon reborn as Mystra again, this time, the goddess of magic restricted the abuse of the magic net by all intelligent races, and limited the height and destructive power of magic power. Priests of Mystra were told that Netheril's fall was a warning, so that it might never happen again.
Today, it is impossible for a magician to become a demigod by stealing the power of the magic net. So the magicians on the mainland began to turn to the magic recorded on the scrolls of Nether, some of which did not borrow the magic net and only relied on their own magic power.
In the long history of magic, magicians are classified into three categories. The first type of magician takes Mystra's priests as the core and foundation, advocates the use of magic to improve the life of intelligent races, use magic energy peacefully, and use magic to fight against darkness. Since most of these magicians were priests of Mystra at the beginning and wore holy white robes, they were also called white robe mages.
In contrast, another part of magicians pursue pure power. Whether it's stealing magical powers from the Weave, or using magic from Nether scrolls, they believe that the ultimate goal of a mage is to become a god. Any means can be used for this, even the magic of death and darkness.
Because of the unscrupulousness of these mages for the sake of power, their paranoid personality is not understood by the world. Therefore, in order to distinguish themselves from the concept of the white-robed mage, they simply began to wear black robes in the post-Netheril era, also known as black-robed mages.
The last part of mages tends to be neutral. They think that it is hypocritical and naive for the white-robed mage to borrow the name of the goddess of magic. in a swing state. In order to distinguish them from white-robed and black-robed mages, they wear red robes, so they are called red-robed mages.
However, the broad concept of a red-robed mage does not apply to the southwestern region of Faerun Continent. Because in Tethyr, Amn and Baldur's Gate area, there is an academic mage organization called the Red Robe Mage Association.
The red-robed mage will have great ambitions, and he is biased towards the black robe in his actions, but he also claims that the organization is neutral. Generally speaking, they are particularly paranoid academics among mages, and most members concentrate on studying a certain school of magic, making them masters of a certain school.
However, people in Faerun regard them as evil and cruel tyrants, and some local residents will leave the country because of this, to avoid the threat of political conspiracy and slave uprising.
Prospective members of the Red Robe Mage Association must choose a specialized school of magic, and then obtain professional magic runes, which are tattoos in the eyes of outsiders, before they can become full members.
All red-robed mages have the skills of specialized academic mages, and they also devote most of their energy to researching specialized schools, and of course they also dabble in other spells. The leading body of the Red Robe Mage Association is an eight-member council, with one representative from each school.
In fact, in the eyes of real red-robed mages, the red-robed mages will be mages who are not doing their jobs properly. Magicians themselves are knowledgeable and wise men, and it seems snobbish and stupid to specialize in a certain school, but it is just a partial choice made in order to quickly improve their combat strength.
Orthodox mages, people like Angelo, don't think that the red-robed mage would do this. Therefore, when Philip asked questions in a daze, he immediately clarified his relationship with the Red Robe Mage Association.