"We can't go through the front, we have to detour, the trolls built a dam on the river!" Lago said out of breath.
Because the message sent by the gargoyle in the air was not very clear, the thieves had to go ashore in advance to explore the way ahead. It's just that he didn't expect that he would see a shocking scene, so he immediately ran back to report the news without caring about further investigation.
"The trolls built a dam?!" Hearing the news on the first day of the junior high school, everyone thought that there was something wrong with their ears. It was only after seeing the indescribable wry smile on the thief's face that he realized he wasn't joking.
At this time, nearly two days had passed since everyone rescued the three of Elistine in the troll village. This journey is a rare leisure time for everyone, but now it seems that their luck has run out.
At the beginning, the small stream where the raft was launched gradually converged with other streams to the north, and it has completely become a big river. According to Mustasia's judgment, although this river is not a meandering river, it is also very close to the main waterway.
The river is currently more than 30 meters wide and more than ten meters deep, but the water flow has become gentler, and it is not as fast as the previous small stream. Everyone thought they would be able to follow the river into the Winding River, thus completely getting rid of the threat of the trolls, but they didn't expect to be blocked by a dam at the last moment.
Building a dam on a river channel with a width of more than 30 meters and a water depth of more than ten meters is definitely not a small measure. Although everyone knows that trolls are not beasts, but also a kind of intelligent race, they never thought that the race that is still in the form of primitive tribes would build such a large project as a dam, which completely overturned the trolls in everyone's mind. image.
"Let's go and have a look!" Qin Lun patted Lago on the shoulder, motioning for him to take him there.
"I'll go too!" Mustasia frowned and followed the two of them.
As soon as she stood up, Elisine followed up without admitting defeat, which gave Qin Lun a headache. Ever since she found out that the highland elves were following Qin Lun, Elistine felt a sense of insecurity. As the injuries on his body healed, he often competed with Mustasha unconsciously.
However, as an elf druid, Elistine also has experience in wild survival, so she wouldn't be a burden to them, so I had to let her go.
Following the thieves sneaking through the bushes on both sides of the river for about 30 minutes, the four of them came to a high slope on the bank. Looking down from here, you can see the river surface more than ten kilometers away.
"It's really a dam!" Looking at the 30-meter-wide and 10-meter-high dam in the distance, Qin Lun and the others also felt the thieves' previous shock.
"How could this be? Trolls can actually build dams!" Mustasia murmured in disbelief.
Qin Lun's eyes flickered, and he fell into deep thought. He had already fed back the scene he saw to the team channel, so that Hill and Rand could also see it.
This wood-stone structure dam is about three meters thick, the main body is a square rock, and the front and back sides are covered with two layers of neatly arranged wooden piles, just like a city wall with a wooden skin and a stone core.
At the waterline of the dam, some wooden posts have been soaked and rotted by the river water, but there are also some wooden posts with tender green branches and leaves on them. Obviously, the trolls often repair this dam.
Apart from the shock brought by the dam itself, Qin Lun and the others were also quite surprised by another scene that the thieves hadn't observed before. At the same time, they also realized why the trolls built such a dam.
In the upper part of the dam, the trolls relied on the solid platform built by the boulders below to build a row of fences similar to parapets, with leather ropes made of monster furs tied to them.
After carefully observing the river surface, Qin Lun and the others suddenly realized that the name of this dam was a bit misleading, because the river water flowing down the river arrived here, and many small eddies were formed at the waterline of the dam body, which showed that the water flow was not blocked. Completely blocked, it can still be missed.
"I understand. The bottom of this dam built by the troll is not neat, and the water can flow through the gaps between the boulders and wooden piles below." Qin Lun said with a fist and a smile, "Look at those dams that extend all the way to the Underwater leather rope, I think there should be something like a fishing net or a fish basket under the water."
"You mean the trolls built this dam to obtain aquatic products!"
The remaining three were thoughtful, and what Qin Lun said might have been taken as a joke if they had seen the dam before. But after seeing this dam, they no longer regarded trolls as a stupid and low-intelligence race.
"The river can get through, but our raft can't!" Lago smiled wryly and shook his head, "We probably have to make a detour, so let's go back and prepare!"
"No, wait a minute!" Qin Lun stretched out his hand to grab the thief, and shook his head seriously, "We can't just go back like this, we have to go to the front and continue to investigate."
Lago only frowned and understood, "Are you worried about the scale of this troll village?"
"Filar's worry is justified!" Mustaxia nodded slowly. "According to our past experience, most troll tribes have a population of only a few dozen to two hundred people. Because of the troll's appetite It is very large, and the population of the village is too large, which will affect the surrounding ecological environment, making it impossible to maintain their survival and reproduction in the end.
But this place is already deep in the Troll's Claw Mountains, and outsiders know very little about it. We don't know how big a troll tribe can be sustained by the ecological environment here. If the scale of this village exceeds our common sense, then it may occupy a very large area. It is best to check in advance, so as not to accidentally fall into a tight siege later. "
Qin Lun and Mustasha were right to be worried. After the four of them walked forward for a few kilometers, they finally saw the typical wooden pile fence of the troll tribe.
However, unlike the troll village they saw on the outskirts of Troll's Claw, this fence wall was not only tall and strong, but also could hardly see the edge at a glance, perhaps several kilometers long.
Through the few door openings in the fence, they even observed that there were other shorter fences deep inside, which completely covered the buildings inside the village, making it difficult for people to see the specific situation.
"I think we should go to a higher place to have a better look!" Mustasia pointed to a low hill on the right side of the fence.
This short mountain seemed to be higher than the gentle slopes that Qin Lun and the others passed along the way. The upper part of the mountain had already exposed rugged and ferocious rocks, forming a steep mountain wall.
"You guys wait here, I'll fly up to have a look!" Elistine was eager to try, after nearly two days of rest, her injury has improved greatly, and she can already become a giant eagle again.
"No, let's climb up. There may be a cockscomb eagle's nest on the short mountain. It's too dangerous for you to fly up like this." Qin Lun reached out his hand to stop Elistin.
Because the situation in front of them was somewhat unexpected, the four of them appeared very cautious. When climbing the mountain, try to choose the side that is shaded, so as not to be accidentally seen by the trolls at the bottom of the mountain.
After climbing to a cliff platform near the top of the mountain, they finally saw the whole picture of the troll tribe at the bottom of the mountain, and the faces of the four of them became extremely ugly.
The troll tribe that unfolded in front of them straddled both sides of the river in an oval shape, with a span of nearly tens of kilometers from east to west, and more than ten kilometers from north to south. There are various forms of architecture inside, not limited to a stilt house, they even saw a huge stone altar with a circumference of hundreds of meters.
There are hundreds of young trolls chasing and playing scattered in the central open space. This is not a troll village at all, but a troll town!
The most surprising thing is that in this troll town, apart from creatures like trolls, there is actually a giant jackal that resembles a wolf dog. These canids with sharp fangs seem to be hunting assistants raised by trolls, and they can be seen at the gate of the village and the core area of the town.
"I've heard from other harpers that some trolls raise three-eyed jackals as hunting companions, but I didn't expect it to be true." Mastacia mused, "There are at least a thousand trolls in this town. Once we are discovered by them, with the tracking ability of the three-eyed jackal, we will definitely not be able to escape very far."
"Then let's go around a little farther, and bypass this troll town. I don't believe that the canyon is so big that we can't find a gap to slip through." Lago scratched his head and said optimistically.
"Hey, look, what is that?" Elistin suddenly twitched her delicate nose and looked up at the top of the mountain.
Everyone followed her slender fingers to look, and saw a wisp of white smoke emerging from the mountain not far above them, gathering in the air without dispersing.
"There are people up there!" Everyone was shocked, this smoke was obviously not from nature, but man-made.
"Lago, go up and have a look!" Qin Lun raised his chin towards the thief. Before he knew the situation, he had to rely on Lago's stealth ability. Now is not the time to show off.
"There are three troll sentries above, they are grilling meat!" After a while, Lago brought back a news that made the four of them break out in cold sweat.
Even though they have realized that these trolls have extremely high intelligence, they are still somewhat careless. If it wasn't for the laziness of the troll sentinels, and if it wasn't for the time when they were eating, their actions would have been discovered long ago.
However, the existence of these three troll sentinels also made Lago's proposal come to an end. The woods in the Troll's Claw Mountains are not dense. Looking down from the top of the mountain, the scenery below is clearly identifiable.
The troll town in front of us occupies a huge area. If the team really detours down the mountain, it will take at least two or three hours to really go around. For such a long time, no matter how lazy these troll sentinels are, they will probably observe the behavior of the group, and then the fun will be much more.