"You want me to go ahead and scout?" The thief looked at Qin Lun in confusion, "Did you run into a creature's lair again?"
"It's not a biological nest, it seems to be a man-made building with a high level of craftsmanship!" Qin Lun told the discovery of the dwarves, "This is what I have been worried about for a long time."
"Did the gray dwarves build it?" The thief's eyes lit up, and he asked quickly, "If it was a checkpoint built by the gray dwarves, wouldn't it mean that we are about to complete the task?"
"I also hope that it is the checkpoint built by the gray dwarves in the dark region, so I don't have to worry about it!" Qin Lun shook his head with a wry smile, and said to the apostles who surrounded him, "I don't know if you have paid attention to this branch of Starry Sky all this time. How much stay time has been added to the plot?"
"A natural month... Is there a problem?" Shield guard Newton frowned and asked, while Weiss and Hill were lost in thought.
"Of course there is a problem. This time... is too long!" Qin Lun sighed, and then explained his views in detail.
Judging from the message that the apostles had just entered the world of Toril, Broken Starry Sky had just started developing the world of the besieged peak.
When Qin Lun entered the world of Toril last time, he ran into other apostle teams in various places one after another. For example, in the Jondal Elven Court, we met the Lost Newcomer Group, and in the Ank Elf, a similar apostle team appeared, and when we rescued Lorraine and other Xuefeng dwarves in Iron Star Fort, it was equivalent to robbing another apostle team. Story mission.
In just over a month, they encountered three teams of apostles one after another. This does not count the apostles from other corners of the world, which shows how much human resources Broken Starry Sky has invested in this world. The team of Qin Lun and Weiss entered the world of Toril this time with the help of world tokens, which also shows that Broken Starry Sky attaches great importance to the development of the world of Toril.
Since it is a full-scale invasion, the Underdark is an important part of Toril's world, and Broken Starry Sky will naturally arrange an apostle team, not knowing nothing about this area.
In this case, here comes the problem!
Broken Starry Sky usually assigns plot missions to the apostles, and there will be two hidden reminders, one is the difficulty of the mission, and the other is the duration of the mission.
In terms of mission difficulty, if Broken Starry Sky has a clear calculation, then it will definitely give a corresponding difficulty. For example: Starry Sky is very accurate in the early guidance tasks of the team, and most of the guidance tasks will have accurate difficulty display.
For some large plot tasks, due to the long execution time and the interaction between the apostles and the plot characters, the tasks are prone to many unexpected twists and turns, so there may be a prompt of unknown difficulty for the task difficulty.
On the other hand, regarding the duration of stay, the missions that the apostles are receiving now usually have a duration of stay indicated. This is because Broken Starry Sky is very clear about the written history of the other world, so it can accurately estimate the approximate period from the beginning to the end of a plot.
However, there are also things that are not clear about the Broken Starry Sky, such as: the side plot triggered by Qin Lun and others in the Land of the Dead and the Troll's Claw - Bo De'an's trace!
The Land of the Dead and the Claw of the Trolls are inaccessible, and there are no detailed written records at all. The Broken Starry Sky knows nothing about that area, so it naturally has no way to give an accurate mission time.
At that time, Broken Starry Sky started with Qin Lun and others entering the land of death, and ended with leaving the troll's claws, as the end point of the entire mission.
After understanding this point, the stay time of the mission of the apostles to assist the dwarf exploration team seems rather strange!
It took less than a week for Qin Lun and others to trigger the pre-branch of the epic plot and find the Mithral Hall mining area. Even with the return time later, it was only half a month.
At the same time, Broken Starry Sky has long stated that it will not increase the time for everyone to stay, and the remaining half a month is naturally not the time for them to find the hidden plot again.
This means that when Broken Starry Sky calculated this plot mission, it estimated that it would take almost a month for the apostles to complete the mission. So excluding half a month of going back and forth, what is the remaining half a month spent on
There was only one answer. Before the apostles actually arrived at the Mithral Hall mining area, they must encounter some kind of difficulty and had to spend about half a month. Either this difficulty is consumed in finding the correct route, or it is consumed in combat.
It was because of this that Qin Lun asked Lorraine why they were inferring the direction of progress. However, Lorraine's question and answer obviously cut off the first possibility, and the dwarves have found the right route this time.
Therefore, there was only one last possibility left. Before they reached the Mithral Hall mining area, they would encounter a protracted battle that would take about half a month.
"I didn't tell you before because I was still not sure." Qin Lun said with a wry smile, "But now it seems that what I was worried about is becoming a reality."
"Hehe, isn't this just right?" The apostles looked at each other and smiled, and the shield guard Newton squeezed his fists and said with a cheerful smile, "I've been bored for the past few days, I thought this task would be boring until the end, Now it’s finally interesting. I’ve been climbing mountains and caves for the past few days, and my bones are almost crisp, so I just take this opportunity to heal.”
"Qin Lun, this is not like your style. What's the matter, are you afraid of fighting when you have a few more beauties around you?" Rand teased with a smile.
…
Not to mention the apostles and dwarves with high fighting spirit, the thief Biba quickly sneaked to the entrance of the tunnel and began to report the observed situation to the team channel.
The man-made buildings, which Qin Lun called highly crafted, appeared on the team channel of the apostles. This is a building similar to a bastion. The outer wall is pentagonal and made of large stones. The center of each wall is slightly concave inward, protruding the arrow towers at the corners.
However, ordinary bastions only have the city wall, and there is no roof in the center. But this building has a huge top, which covers the entire fort tightly, and looks like a steamer with a special shape.
Fortunately, the radius of this building is only less than two kilometers, otherwise, it is estimated that the dwarves would regard it as a dungeon. If a dungeon really stood in the way of the exploration team, they would have no choice but to declare the operation a failure, and they would need to find other cracks on the surface leading to the Mithral Hall mining area.
"This building is obviously man-made. Could it be a fortress built by the gray dwarves? However, why did the gray dwarves build a fortress in this kind of place? Did they expect the shield dwarves to attack from the Underdark?" Rogue He was very puzzled by what he saw, so he couldn't help asking.
"I guess it's unlikely. If the gray dwarves are taking measures to deal with the enemy, they can completely guard the entrance of Mithral Hall leading to the Underdark. The mining area here is a bit too far from Mithral Hall City, so it's not necessary!" Hill pondered for a while, and then expressed his opinion.
"Monkey, can you sneak in and take a look?" Weiss asked the thief cautiously.
"I'll try my best. It may take some time. I don't know its entrance and exit yet." The thief seemed a little excited, which was a good challenge for him. Noisy dwarves, don't let them startle each other!"
…
After notifying Gilliam, the dwarf exploration team quickly backed away for a distance and kept quiet.
Dwarves are not good at stealth reconnaissance, and almost no one in their race has changed their profession to thieves or assassins, which does not conform to the aesthetics of dwarves. They advocate the aesthetics of violence, and their fighting skills are simple and direct. Even if they are best at forging and smelting, most dwarves like to create rough and atmospheric equipment.
However, although the dwarves are stubborn and violent, they can still maintain considerable respect for the strong in other professions. They at least understand that every combat profession has its strengths, especially in areas that they are not good at, and the dwarves can also listen to other people's suggestions.
"Huh..." After the thief approached the building for a certain distance, he couldn't help but let out a small cry of surprise.
"Monkey, did you find anything?" Weiss asked cautiously.
"This building doesn't seem to be what we imagined... this, how should I put it, you can see for yourself!" The thief didn't know how to describe the mirror image he saw for a while, so he simply fed back the observed image to the team channel again .
The thieves ran around the building for half a circle, and everyone was surprised to see that under close observation, this building that looked like a fortress was actually surrounded by entrances and exits, almost every hundred meters There is a passage without a gate .
These passages without doors have the same stone walls behind them, and it seems that they have to turn continuously as soon as they enter the door. The internal structure is weird and peculiar.
"This structure seems to be..." Just as the others in the team were puzzled, Rand suddenly frowned and said, "Could it be a maze?"
Rand was originally a firefighter. Although he was not an architect, among the apostles at the scene, he could be regarded as the person most familiar with the structure of buildings.
"It's really a bit like it!" After Rand's reminder, the others also came to their senses.
Although other possibilities have not been ruled out, the combined fortress has a roof and numerous entrances and exits. Then you need to turn immediately after entering the door, it really looks like a huge maze.
"If it's a maze, this area seems to be complicated enough. If there are traps inside..." Weiss glanced at the others, frowned and said, "Qin Lun, it seems that your deduction is correct, this maze will be wasted We have a long time!"
The maze is located on the only way for the exploration team. The dwarves must figure out the situation inside, otherwise they will not be able to move forward with confidence.
"There is no other way, let Biba come back!" Qin Lun said helplessly, "We can't let him go in and take risks alone. Let's go and inform Gilliam that everyone's strength must be gathered here."