"Huh!" The gray-brown mist slowly dissipated from before his eyes, and after flying halfway through the deep ditch in the ground, Gilliam saw the black mine entrance from the back of the giant eagle.
The three-meter-high and three-meter-wide square tunnel looked like a pocket-sized black hole from this distance.
The old dwarf stood up from the back of Elisten's changed giant eagle, his blood boiling in his heart already made him a little impatient. He jumped lightly from the back of the giant eagle, and although there was still some distance to go, for a legendary warrior, his jumping skills were enough to throw himself into the mouth of the tunnel that seemed to be only the size of a pocket.
Sensing the old dwarf jumping away, Elisten turned and flew away without hesitation. The two sides have fought side by side, and she believes in the strength of the old dwarf.
Seeing the giant eagle disappear into the mist again, Gilliam turned his head and began to look at the mine tunnel in front of him.
There were some large pieces of mineral rubble scattered at the entrance of the tunnel, and two rails half buried in the ground extended out of the entrance and hung down towards the bottom of the cliff.
Perhaps it was this section of railroad track extending out of the pothole that made Elistine discover the unusualness here.
About a few meters away from the entrance of the tunnel, a dilapidated ore truck was dumped. The surface of the mineral car is covered with a thick layer of dust, which looks gray and inconspicuous.
The old dwarf took out a sackcloth for wiping sweat from his pocket, and stepped forward to wipe off the dust on the side wall of the mine cart. Yellow-brown rust grows on the surface of the mineral car like wildflowers. One of its four wheels was missing, and the other three were rusted.
Gilliam wiped a little harder, and he pressed a hole in the side wall of the mine cart. After a long time, this ore car has completely decayed.
The old dwarf stared at the "bubbling beer mug" emblem on the ore cart, the Warhammer kingdom's crest. His piercing eyes slowly blurred, with tears shining.
Hundreds of years! When he fled Mithral Hall in a panic, he was a beardless dwarf child. After struggling to survive in Icewind Dale, and how many cold and hungry nights he spent, he finally returned to the home of his fathers in his lifetime!
"We will, we will take back Mithral Hall!" Gilliam raised his double-edged battle ax and roared loudly towards the dark pit, as if yelling out all the emotions that had been suppressed in his heart for hundreds of years.
The roar echoed in the distance along the dark tunnel, and the old dwarf looked resolute, clutching the battle ax in his hand tightly and waiting for it. However, this tunnel didn't seem to be as dangerous as imagined, and after a long while, nothing jumped out, allowing him to vent.
The members of the exploration team were picked up by Elistine one by one. Except for the three beauties, the apostle and Elistine, the eyes of every dwarf who returned here were full of feelings and bitterness that only they could understand.
The apostles were surprised to find that a firm and tragic momentum spread among the dwarves. They had no doubt that if any underground creature came out now, it would definitely be torn to pieces by these dwarves.
The dwarves walked towards the depths of the mine in silence, without touching anything at the entrance of the mine.
In fact, even the predecessors of the dwarves hundreds of years ago could not have imagined that the abandoned mine cart that was inadvertently left at the entrance of this mine would become a battle flag for the shield dwarves in the battle to regain Mithral Hall.
Later, every shield dwarf who came to this pothole from the outpost camp carved the same oath in his heart after seeing this historic minecart. Whether to regain Mithral Hall, or die here, there is no third option.
As members of the exploration team, Gilliam and the others were supposed to investigate here, find the main road of the mine, and report it to the shield dwarf headquarters.
Hill and Rand gradually went deeper into the mine with the team, and they found that the mine of the dwarves was different from the mines seen in the earth film and television works.
The dwarves did not use a lot of support structures such as wood in the mine, and the mine tunnels also appeared to be very tortuous and untidy. Hill even saw a stone pillar in the center that looked like a twisted vine in a certain section of the road.
The two really couldn't imagine how this twisted stone pillar with an inclination of almost 30 degrees supported the top of the mine.
After some curious inquiries, a dwarf beside Hill told him proudly. Dwarves have a natural ability to recognize the structure of rock formations from the texture of underground rock formations. They cut these support pillars along the grain of the rock formation to look like this.
Just like stacking building blocks, sometimes the building blocks seem to be crookedly stacked, but in fact the chassis is extremely stable and can support the huge pressure and load-bearing on the top.
When the dwarves are mining, they will never destroy important support points. Only in some road sections that lack bearing points, they will use auxiliary wooden pillars. Although the winding tunnels are more difficult to transport ore, the rails and ore carts laid on the ground generally solve this problem.
The mines dug by the dwarves rarely collapse, which is their innate talent.
All members of the exploration team were asked to maintain extreme silence, occupying the Shadow Dragon in Mithral Hall, and enslaving a group of duergar.
Although the duergar are chaotic and evil, it is undeniable that the duergar are also experts in mining and smelting. They may also dig ore in the mining area. If they are discovered, this hard-won tunnel will be destroyed immediately.
They move fast, and the dwarves are at home here. They seem to know innately which way to go in order to find the main road of the mine.
"Hill, have you noticed the traces left by Qin Lun!" Along the way, Elistine kept harassing the shepherd. Because he was not good at observing details, the elf druid had to take the trouble to ask about the progress.
"In this kind of place, the dwarves are more sensitive than us. If you find something, I believe they have told you." Hill was a little helpless, but he also felt a little strange in his heart.
According to the previous clues, Qin Lun will not fail to discover this mine. If he entered here, there must be some clues left behind. If you didn't come in after you found out, it would be quite strange.
Although Qin Lun reminded him to be careful of himself before something went wrong, Hill didn't think that Qin Lun would sabotage this plot mission at the last moment, after all, he also had a personal interest in it.
"Shut up!" After walking around the tunnel for a long time, Gilliam in front suddenly gestured to the back, and he found something.
The old dwarf beckoned, and the two dwarves put down their axes lightly, and put their ears on the right stone wall of the pit.
"It's the gray dwarves!" After listening for a while, the two dwarves showed a hint of surprise on their faces, "We are very lucky, behind this wall is the mine recently dug by the gray dwarves..."
"Back back!" Gilliam waved his hand back, and the members of the exploration team held their breaths and retreated a certain distance.
"Master Gilliam, are we no longer moving forward?" Weiss asked tentatively with a flash of his eyes.
"No, no need, our mission has been completed, it's over!" Gilliam twirled his beard with a smile on his face.
The mission of the exploration team is to find the mine passage leading to Mithral Hall, but not to alarm the enemy. Although the Mithril Hall mining area extends in all directions, there are not many passages leading to the interior of the city.
Their mission is indeed over, and then the shield dwarves will send out powerful forwards to try to break through the mine passage at one time, at least to occupy a forward position inside the city. Otherwise, once they startled the enemy, the gray dwarves would block the tunnels leading to the city. That would not be easier than attacking the gate of Mithral Hall from the surface.
"But... Feral, we can't leave him here alone!" Elistine exclaimed, holding Gilliam's arm tightly.
The old dwarf patted the back of Iristen's hand and said seriously: "Don't worry, Iristen, the shield dwarf will never give up on his friends. If we don't disturb the gray dwarf, Feral will be in no danger. However, here The situation must first be reported to the surface camp..."
"We don't have much food, so we can't keep too many people here. You and Filar's followers go back first, and I will stay here and continue looking for Filar until you bring a group of dwarf warriors over."
"No, I'll stay with you!" Elistine said firmly, "Let them go back."
Gilliam finally had to compromise, and Elisten, Idriya, and Mustasia stayed here with the old dwarf, and everyone gave them all the extra food. The other dwarves and apostles had to go back. In fact, except for Hill and Rand, Weiss and the others didn't care about this.
When they return to the maze fortress and bring Lorraine back to the cave base on the surface, the conditions for completing the epic pre-plot have been met.
Calculating the entire stay, when they return to the surface, there will be about a week left.
In fact, it was thanks to those drow elves that they were able to stay for so long. If they hadn't entered the maze midway and cleared out most of the minotaurs in the maze, maybe the exploration team is still wandering in the maze.
Not to mention the Gilliam four who stayed behind, when the members of the exploration team returned, their mood became much lighter and happier. Only Hill and Rand in the team were a little unhappy. Although they knew that the guy was still alive from the list of team members, they were still a little unhappy.
Although they had been reminded by Qin Lun before, and even imagined that he would betray the team members and target the companions around him, they didn't expect him to just disappear without leaving a single word.
This gave Hill and Rand a very bad feeling, as if the other party didn't care about them at all.
"Sill, can you guess Qin Lun's intentions?" Rand asked softly, "I have a bad premonition!"
"Don't worry, he will always appear in front of us." Hill's eyes flashed, and he said slowly.