Hearing Pittman's words, Amber subconsciously glanced at Gao Wen, who then took the initiative to say, "I can avoid it—if you don't want others to hear it."
"No, I don't care," Amber shook her head. "You have a good brain, and you always have unexpected insights. I want you to be there, and this notebook... you can also read it."
Gao Wen silently glanced at Amber, without evading it, just nodded slightly.
The fountain was not suitable for excavating these hidden memories. The three of them left the overly busy courtyard. In a lounge on the first floor of Silver Castle, Amber solemnly placed the notebook on the table, and in front of Gao Wen And Pittman's face, carefully opened its worn and fragile cover.
There are no patterns and coats of arms on the inner pages, and there are no various patterns that are common in most aristocratic handwritten books in this era. On the yellowed paper, there is only a simple sentence:
"To my daughter - hope that by the time you see it, you've grown up happily and safely."
"There's still so much nonsense..." Amber pursed her lips, but her hands were more careful than before, and she slowly turned the first page.
Here is a diary, a diary written under special circumstances:
"...day three into Shadowkeep.
"As a royal shadow guard, I shouldn't leave any textual information in the process of performing a confidential mission. This is a violation of the confidentiality rules, but the current situation is special, and I may not be able to leave here safely. Leaving warnings and experiences, I have decided to document a portion of my trip.
"My name is Sally Randolph, a royal shadow guard, and I was ordered to come to the dark mountains in the south to search for ancient heritage in this land abandoned by both men and gods.
"I'm unfortunately trapped in this place called 'Shadowkeep', which I believe is where the ancient legacy is buried...
"...According to the information obtained in advance, the Shadow Fortress is not located in the real world as we know it. It is a territory opened up in the Shadow Realm by the ancient Gondor Empire through superb lost technology. Without a stable connection to the Shadowlands, it is a free space that can only be entered through certain gates and rituals...
"Part of my information is correct. There is indeed a space node leading to the Shadow Fortress in the Dark Mountains. I started the ceremony at this node and successfully entered here, but the error in the information is that the 'Shadow Seal' used to open the gate Ring' is disposable—or rather, I couldn't find a way to recharge it.
"His Majesty the King gave me one of the two rings in his hand. Obviously, he didn't expect that this ring can only be used once when opening the Shadow Fortress."
After just reading these few paragraphs, Amber couldn't help but raised her head, and looked at Gao Wen who also looked up.
"The Signet of Shadow..." Amber subconsciously grasped a thin chain hanging around her neck. There were two quaint rings hanging on the necklace. One of them still had magical radiance, while the other was dim. .
The ring with magical brilliance was obtained from Francis II, and the dull ring was carried by Amber since childhood. Now, the origin of these two rings has finally been explained.
She lowered her head and continued to look at the subsequent content of the diary:
"...despite being trapped within, I have to marvel at the superior technology of the ancient Empire of Gondor. The Shadowkeep is an unimaginable place - including the process of entering the fortress. I stand at the right intersection of magic in the Dark Mountains , as long as you inject magic into the ring, you can open a door to the shadow world in normal time and space. I suspect that the ring is just sending out a signal in this process. The real door opening process is completed by some kind of facility in the shadow fortress , but I haven't found a clue so far...
"... This magnificent building is cast from some artificial material, stronger than rock, floating in nothingness, without any land connection around it. There are no luminous celestial bodies in the sky here, which is similar to that of the Shadow Realm. The scene described in the monograph is consistent with...
"My current location should be in the vestibule of this ancient facility. I can see a gate, but outside the gate is pure nothingness and darkness. It is inevitable to doubt the meaning of this gate—but I am in front of the gate. Odd pillars have been found on the limited platforms, and I suspect they were used to secure some sort of vehicle, or some sort of mount capable of traveling through the Shadowlands. Explore deep in the dark, after all, they are the omnipotent Gondorians...
"At the other end of the courtyard is the main body of the building, a vast palace or fortress. I have explored a small area of its entrance, and I am struck by its size, with its countless corridors and rooms, and empty halls And the warehouse... I can't imagine how many people worked and lived in this facility in a different space... Its scale is so large that I doubt that many people can live here for a lifetime, if a newborn is born here Inside, as long as no one instills the correct knowledge in him, he may not even know the existence of the outside world...
"Ah, my rich associative ability can only be used to relieve boredom, not to get me out of this damn place."
Amber flipped the pages, and for a while in the quiet lounge, only the sound of flipping papers and the gentle breathing of the three people remained.
"...day four of being trapped.
"In the past three days, I have been thinking about whether I should go deeper into the fortress, which may mean additional risks: the defense mechanism in the ancient facilities may still be working, and it is more likely that the sleeping relic guards will be awakened by me.
"It is said that the puppet guards of the Violet Kingdom can continue to operate for six hundred years after the death of their masters, and those legendary Gondor iron soldiers may last longer...
"But maybe I should take some risks—I've been searching for three days in the courtyard and the outer corridor, and there is no device that can open the space door, and my food and drinking water have reached a very dangerous situation, dying of thirst and starvation. Between being beheaded by ancient guards, the latter may be more merciful.
"I'm going into the inner corridor.
"... day six, still trapped.
"This damn fortress, why is it so big!! How many corridors, rooms, and halls does it have! Did the people of Gondor throw all the people in a city into the shadow world
"How superb the technology of the Gondor Empire is, they can build such a fortress in the shadow world, they can allow thousands of people to live in this different space for a long time, and I, a person from thousands of years later The Royal Shadow Guard can only dig around in this ancient facility, but can't find any clues. This is really ironic.
"By the way, I'm out of water and out of food.
"On the seventh day, I found an empty room. It may have been some kind of research facility before. I saw some platforms with runes and pipes and containers that didn't work. Regrettably, all There is no water in the pipes or containers.
"I have to start thinking about my future.
"Day eight, today's key word is moss.
"Yes, moss! In this fortress that has been isolated from the world for thousands of years, there are mosses! In places like the Shadow Realm, there are mosses!
"They grow in a room like a laboratory, where there are many large tubular containers fixed on the ground, the containers are all empty, but the outer wall of one of the containers and the nearby walls and ground are covered with this lovely Like everything else in the Shadowlands, these mosses were gray-black in color, so much so that I almost confused them with normal smudges at first, thank goodness I stayed in this room for an extra hour meeting…
"The presence of moss means dampness, and dampness means water.
"The moss tastes a little bit bitter and has a weird, gelatinous taste. They probably don't do me much good for my health, but I don't care that much. Without the moss, I'm afraid I'll never care in a few days. own health problems.
"The mosses gave me back some strength, and they contained enough water to lift my spirits, but obviously not enough water for long-term survival. I collected all the moss from a nearby pipe, squeezed out the juice and put it in After picking up the kettle, I will take this small supply and start exploring the surrounding rooms with this room as the center.
"On the ninth day, I didn't find any water, but I... saw a figure!
"I can't put into words the shock of that moment, I saw the figure, but the figure flashed from the corner of the room... I'm not sure if it's real.
"Does that moss have hallucinogenic ingredients? But I have to live on them to survive...
"On the tenth day, I found water! In a place where many people were dining, one of the pipes still had water! And it was clear water! I think I can live here for a long time!
"The appearance of these clear waters, does it mean that some kind of purification device here is still in operation? Are there more devices in operation?"
Amber looked at every line of written records on it seriously, biting her lips unconsciously, as if watching her adoptive father struggling to explore and survive in such an isolated ancient fortress. After Surrey Randolph found the water source, she couldn't help letting out a soft breath: "He may have found a working cafeteria..."
Gawain nodded slightly beside him, and said in a low voice, "I'm more curious about the figure he saw."
"He mentioned here—" Amber turned a page, glanced at it and pointed to the content:
"... I saw figures again, and more than one. This time I can confirm that it was not a hallucination, but what happened next made me even more astonished and confused.
"Those figures are 'shadow dwellers.'
"They are the same as described in the monograph. They seem to have no form like ghosts, and they are wrapped in some kind of tattered 'shroud' to take the shape of a human. They shuttle freely in the shadow world, and they obviously noticed me, the uninvited guest who broke in.
"I was ready to fight, but the battle didn't happen—all academic records say that the shadow dwellers will attack all material creatures that enter the shadow realm, but those shadow dwellers just stared at me indifferently. I can be sure that they are Watching, though those 'shrouds' contain only hollow darkness...
"After an unbearable confrontation, the shadow dwellers all left, and there was no communication between us.
"I have absolutely no idea what's going on."
Amber frowned. She also felt that the shadow dwellers her adoptive father encountered were a bit weird, but she couldn't explain it, so she could only keep these questions in her heart and continue to look down—
On a new page, Surrey Randolph's text continues to record his experience in Shadowkeep:
"... On the fourteenth day, I discovered a room in which certain devices... were still functioning.
"It's hard for me to describe exactly what I saw, it was beyond my knowledge - Around a huge pillar, I saw a large number of pale yellow translucent egg-shaped containers fixed on the brackets , those egg-shaped containers are roughly the size of a full-grown cow...
"There are a lot of pipes extending from that large pillar, connecting to the surrounding egg-shaped container.
"Almost all of the containers were broken, cracked, askew, falling to the ground, their contents dried out, and inside those damaged containers I saw many small bones.
"This makes me shudder—as a royal shadow guard, I have seen many miserable scenes and many death scenes, but the small bones in those containers are more weird and terrifying than those scenes I have ever seen , which makes me wonder, what were the Gondorians doing here
"I checked the room with shock and nervousness and found her.
"The only complete container, the only living entity.
"She was curled up in some kind of liquid, floating in a translucent crystal container, which looked like a piece of amber.
"I can't describe my mood at this moment, and what makes me even more at a loss is that these crystal containers are exactly the same as the target items described in the mission, which means... the 'things' in the containers are what I want to bring back" Ancient Legacy'.
"My task can be completed, but the premise is that I have to find a way to get out, and I have to take this unhandy container out - if I open it rashly, will the little girl inside die directly? This is a matter Tough stuff."
Amber's eyes were fixed on the page in front of her. Even though she had finished reading the content of this page, she never turned to the next page. It was not until a minute later that Gao Wen patted her on the shoulder lightly.
Amber woke up with a start, then took a deep breath, turned the page—
"...On the fifteenth day, I hadn't figured out what to do, but suddenly I realized that it was useless to think: I was still stuck here.
"A person who can't even get out alive, but thinks about completing the task, is really wishful thinking too much.
"I put aside the unsolvable problems at the moment and refocused on finding a way out.
"Considering that for a long time to come, only this little guy in Amber will be left with me, so I named her Amber.
"But I guess she has another name—there is a line of letters carved into the base of each egg-shaped container here, each with a slightly different letter, and they may be the real name (although I also doubt that the original name was the same as the original name). Will the Gondorian scholars working here really name a batch of experiments), but that is the ancient Gondor script of a thousand years ago, which is very different from today's universal alphabet, and my ancient Literal knowledge happens to be a weak point.
"I can only trace these letters down. If one day I can really get out alive, maybe the scholars in the capital can answer my doubts and let me figure out the real name of this little guy, or at least figure out those Gondors back then. what people call her."
At the end of the page, Surrey Randolph left a large blank space, and in that blank space, he traced in bold letters a line of letters that few people in this era can understand .
Amber stared at the line of letters, and raised her head after a while, looking into Gawain's eyes: "What do these letters... mean? What was my original name?"
Gao Wen withdrew his gaze from those letters, and looked at Amber silently for four or five seconds, finally exhaled softly, and spoke slowly:
"Android No. 36."
(Double period na +. + asking for a monthly ticket!!!)