Roland quickly estimated the volume of the underground cave. The bottom was almost the size of a football field, surrounded by steep mountain walls. The fork leading to this point is right in the middle of the mountain wall, and there is a narrow stone ladder next to the entrance of the cave, which extends all the way down.
"I guess you didn't carve out this staircase," he crouched down and brought the torch close to the ground. Under the reflection of the firelight, the marks of axe and knife carvings on the stone steps are very obvious, and a lot of stone chips and dust are accumulated in the marks.
"Of course not, Your Highness, the stone steps were there when we found this place," Carter shrugged. "I guess it's been around for decades."
"Or hundreds of years," Anna said suddenly.
"I think so too," Lightning nodded. "Border Town has only been established for seventy years, and the stone ladder is unlikely to be related to the local people or the kingdom."
"Is there anyone in the Western Region hundreds of years ago?" Carter questioned, "Greycastle hasn't even been established, right?"
Roland patted the knight on the shoulder, "Four hundred and fifty years ago, there was a group of people forgotten by history." Then he raised the torch, "Let's go, let's go down and have a look."
The soldiers of the First Army had already surrounded the bottom of the cave in twos and threes. He led the knights and witches straight to the Stone of God's Punishment. Only when he stood at the foot of the stone pillar could he deeply feel the size of the stone. Open your arms, less than one-tenth of it, you have to raise your head to be able to see the top of it. The highest purple stone of punishment is nearly 30 meters, which is almost equivalent to an eight or nine-story house. .
Theoretically speaking, a stone that can emit light by itself is either a radioactive substance or a fluorescent component, but the light of the Stone of God's Punishment has nothing to do with either. , the greater the brightness. At this level of brightness, the soldiers who entered first would all die from ionizing radiation within a few minutes. The latter needs to be illuminated before it can emit light. There is no light source deep in the ground, which obviously cannot support it to emit cold light continuously.
Roland also noticed that although the divine stone was in the shape of a prism, which is common in crystals, the surface had no crystalline lines, but was as smooth as flat glass.
"A thumb-sized Stone of God's Punishment in the church can sell several golden dragons. A single piece of this size... can literally empty the treasuries of the four kingdoms." Carter couldn't help but sighed.
"Sell it to a noble to kill a witch?" Nightingale glared at him fiercely.
"Well, I didn't say that," the chief knight looked away involuntarily.
"It's the first time I've seen the Stone of God's Retaliation of this color. Isn't it supposed to be white and transparent," Lightning looked at the stone pillar curiously. "If you take one back, don't you need to light candles at night?"
"I'd rather light a dozen candles in a stuffy room than use it for lighting," Nightingale said with her arms crossed. "For witches, it's a cage, a shackle, and an accomplice to the church! The damn stone is just fine."
"Well, Sister Nightingale, you can't read at night anyway..." The little girl licked her lips, picked up a stone, and looked at Roland, "Can I take one back as a trophy for my expedition?"
Roland nodded, "If you don't dislike this kind of thing."
She picked up the stone in her hand and knocked hard on the corner of the prism, only to hear a crisp "ding" sound, and the stone shattered, leaving no scar on the prism.
The knight couldn't help but snorted, "What's the matter... Aren't all God's Stones of Retaliation fragile?"
"Perhaps this piece of light is different," Lightning slapped off the stone chips in his hand, took out a dagger from his pocket, and tossed around the prism for a while, but even if he used all the scraping, cutting and picking, it was still in vain in the end.
Roland felt something was wrong, and he motioned to Nightingale, "Come and try."
The latter nodded, pulled out the revolver, and pulled the trigger directly at the other prism. A huge roar suddenly echoed at the bottom of the cave, and a few sparks emerged from the part where the Stone of God's Retaliation was hit. After the smoke cleared, the group walked over, only to see that the bullet left only a shallow mark on the surface of the stone.
This means that in terms of light intensity, it has surpassed that of homogeneous steel.
"The musket is useless?" Carter frowned. "Then how did the church cut it off, polish it and sell it?"
No one can answer this question, and it doesn't match everyone's usual impression.
At least Roland used a brick to smash the lock of God's Punishment, such as the one tied to Anna's neck. It only takes two or three strokes to turn the crystal clear stone into a pool of white powder.
Anna, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly said, "Your Highness, do you still remember the treasure map drawn by Feline Hilt at dawn?"
"Treasure map?" Roland was stunned. He vaguely remembered that a triangle on the drawing took up most of the area, and the three pointed to the holy city of Taquila, the Stone Pagoda of the Hidden Forest, and the end of the foot of the North Slope... Wait, the foot of the North Slope? Suddenly a flash of lightning flashed across his mind, "Could it be..."
"I don't think it points to the North Slope Mine Cave, but here," Anna said slowly, "This underground cave contains a lot of God's Punishment Stones."
…
After a careful search, apart from a large pile of indestructible sacred stones, no other valuable discoveries were found in the cave.
Not to mention ancient books or remains, even the tools for chiseling the stone ladder were not left, which is very incredible. According to the current technical level, it is definitely a huge and arduous project to carve out a ladder on the steep stone wall. Things like accidental falls, lost tools, etc. should be common. But the scene was still stone except for stone, as if they had thoroughly cleaned the cave before leaving.
After Roland returned to the office, he called the scroll and reproduced the drawings of the Dawn Knight on the book of illusion.
Similar to the pattern in memory, the southernmost point does indeed fall at the foot of the northern slope.
If Ana guessed correctly, could this be the map left by the church when they were looking for a new God's Stone of Retaliation? But why did they abandon everything after spending a lot of time digging out the stone ladder to the bottom of the cave? If the church had built a frontier church 450 years ago, I am afraid that today's frontier town would be completely different. Judging from the price and use of the Stone of God's Punishment, this mine is not like it. A resource that can be discarded at will.
Now that the holy city of Taquila is an inaccessible forbidden area, perhaps these answers will only be known after going to the stone tower...or never will be known. (., Your support is my biggest motivation.)