The night is getting darker. Burris and Lott finally walked to the beach, but found that it was a jagged reef beach, and it was impossible to moor a boat at all.
Boris has a spell that can cross water, but he dare not use it easily on the sea. The ocean is too vast, and the spell time may not last that long at all.
He was tired and hungry and didn't know what to do next. He is the kind of research-oriented mage who doesn't like outdoor exploration at all. When he was young, the barbarians of the Frost Plains taught him a little field knowledge. After so many years, he has almost forgotten it... It is useless even if he remembers. The northern forest and the The island jungle is completely two worlds.
At this time, Lott noticed movement in the jungle behind him. He whispered a reminder to Boris, and suddenly changed his appearance back to its original form-with curved black horns, a scaled skull, and eyes burning with ghostly fire.
"What are you doing?" Burris asked softly.
"To scare people." Lott replied bluntly.
The jungle rustled, and a pair of yellow-green beast eyes appeared in the darkness. These eyes certainly did not belong to beasts, their position was too high, higher than the average height of human beings.
The creature stared at the two on the rocky beach for a while, then suddenly let out a sharp call. Soon, more than a dozen pairs of these eyes appeared in the jungle, and Burris could clearly hear their heavy breathing.
However, Burris was not nervous, but was a little surprised: "There are gray mountain spirits here!"
"Grey mountain spirit?" Lott wanted to maintain the sense of terror on his face, so he could only speak in a low voice, "Isn't it an ogre?"
"It's an ogre, and it's also a gray mountain spirit." Boris said as he lit up a small light ball, let it fly to a high place, and let out a cone-shaped cold light, "ogre is a scornful name. Have you always Call them ogres?"
Out of the jungle came a gray mountain spirit, or ogre. She has gray skin, long hair that is slightly lighter than her skin tone, and her broad and strong body is basically naked, with only animal skins and coarse cloth covering her lower body, and a chain made of shells and nuts hangs around her thick neck. Her arms fell to her knees, and she carried a cane with a coconut shell attached to it.
Gray mountain elves have somewhat orc-like features, but the differences are more pronounced: their eyes are larger, they lack tusks, and their noses are more human-shaped. The female gray mountain spirit with a cane has painted her nose white, which shows that she is the mistress of this group.
It is not difficult to communicate with the Gray Mountain Elves. They all speak the common language, but their accents and word habits are not the same as humans. When Boris was about to say hello, the female gray mountain spirit spoke first: "The wind is on the top! My lord, the undead demon dragon!"
What? Burris looked at Lot beside him in disbelief.
Lot scratched the currently hairless skull, and the fire in his eyes trembled wildly. Burris read a hint of embarrassment from this expressionless face. It turned out that he would be embarrassed too.
Following the call of the matriarch, a large group of gray mountain elves emerged from the forest. They first screamed in surprise, then bent their knees and bowed their heads in a half-squat position—this is the etiquette of gray mountain spirits when they meet high-ranking people.
"I haven't seen her..." Lott said to himself. The average lifespan of a gray mountain spirit is only 30 to 40 years, and the longest-lived one can't live to be 50 years old. The last time Lott "let the wind" was more than 60 years ago, and he was in the north that time.
Of course, he had been to the island earlier. Like a hundred and sixty years ago...but that's too long...
The ghostly fire in Lott's eyes suddenly extinguished, and instantly changed back to a human appearance.
"Hello," he took a step forward, looking down at his clothes, "I'm not an undead demon dragon, I'm a...mage. I'm practicing magic, and what you see is an illusion."
The gray mountain spirits looked at each other, their eyes full of disappointment. The matriarch sighed: "Human."
"Yes, I am a human being. What is this place? Could it be Quentilia?"
"Quintilla, here." Gray Mountain Spirit said, "Where are you mages from, Pilot Island? Sea Tower? Where did you come here?"
Hearing Quintilla, Boris put his hand on his forehead again. Those three young mages sent him so far by mistake...
Quintilla is located in the sea south of the land, and is composed of thousands of islands of different sizes. The port closest to the land faces Black Cliff Fort at the southernmost tip of Sargo. The "pilot island" mentioned by Huishan Jing refers to a small island facing the ocean at the southeast end, on which there are several human barbarian tribes; and the "sea tower" is the only mage tower in this archipelago country, located in the country of sea elves Su Greek Island.
Burris has never been to the island, but he has met the gray mountain spirits in the south of the land, and he knows the trick to talking with them: the language should be concise and exaggerated, so that they can understand it immediately. The island gray mountain spirit and the southern gray mountain spirit should be similar.
So, he saluted the matriarch: "I am a Sago, I am a mage, the magic exploded, my friend and I exploded here, lost our way, good mother-in-law, help us."
Lott looked at the mage beside him in shock, he had never heard Burris speak like this.
"Terrible..." The matriarch nodded with a smile in her eyes. Burris' words made her very happy. Gray mountain women like to be called "good mother-in-law" the most. They will be very happy when they hear this title. My Miss" "My Little Princess"...
The patriarch of the good mother-in-law said with kindness in his eyes, "Save you, yes, yes. You don't have a boat? Well, we have a boat. Let's lead the island?"
"Don't go to Pilot Island, go to Sushi Island, go to the mage," Burris replied, "Thank you for the good wind, thank you for your good mother-in-law."
The gray mountain spirit's boat is very simple and can only sail for short distances, and cannot directly send them back to land, so Boris hopes that they can send him to Sushi Island. He planned to ask the mage of the Tower of the Abyss for help, or hire a fast boat from the elf sailors.
The matriarch agreed. Because of the danger of going to sea at night, Burris and Lott had to go to the Gray Mountain Elves to make do for a night. The harbor is on the other side of the island, and the settlement of the Gray Mountain Elves is hidden deep in the jungle.
The patriarch of the good mother-in-law called some young gray mountain elves to come forward, and chatted about the plan to send two humans to sea tomorrow. After talking, the gray mountain elves divided into two teams, and asked "two mages" to walk in the middle , This is their escort formation for distinguished guests.
Along the way, the good mother-in-law and Burris chatted enthusiastically, from the horror of magic explosions to the undead devil dragon. Only then did Burris understand that there is a legend handed down from generation to generation by the gray mountain spirits on the island. The ancestors left engravings on the stone slabs, and the image on the paintings is the original appearance of the Skeleton Lord.
The story of the gray mountain spirit is very simple and sincere. For example, the ancestor defeated the sea monster with the help of the undead demon dragon, the ancestor saw the undead demon dragon commanding the swordfish army when sailing, the ancestor witnessed the undead demon dragon fighting the vortex in the storm...
After arriving at the settlement, Boris and Lott were arranged in the largest shack. It was the matriarch's own hut, and tonight she gave it up to her guests to sleep with her sons and daughters. The master of the gray mountain spirit has always entertained important guests in this way.
The shack is built of wood, the bottom is higher than the ground, and the interior is covered with layers of moxa and golden finger petals. There are only one or two small clay pots in the room as decorations. Gray mountain elves are different from races such as orcs. Although their dwellings are primitive, they are not dirty, and they also know how to use off-the-ground structures and plants with special smells to avoid insects and snakes.
Even so, it was the crudest place Burris had ever lived. After the gray mountain elves left, his happy face immediately turned into a sad face.
Lotter picked up a golden finger petal and sniffed it, then wrinkled his nose and threw it aside. The insect repellent effect of this thing must be very good, and people's noses can't bear it if they get too close.
"My lord, is that all true?" Burris looked at him.
"What is true?"
"Just... commanding a swordfish, flopping in a storm and all that." For Burris, those stories were the only fun of the night.
Lott shook his head: "I have indeed been to the island before, and I have seen gray mountain spirits... Everyone called them ogres at that time. But I have never fought sea monsters, nor commanded swordfish? Their ancestors may be Seeing me act with my original appearance, and then fantasizing about me doing all kinds of things that fit their aesthetics... "
Burris smiled wearily: "The gray mountain spirits are like this. They especially like to make up stories, and they believe that all the stories of their ancestors are true."
"By the way, you always called them gray mountain spirits." The shack is not big, and Lott can justifiably squeeze into Burris' side this time. ' is an insult?"
"Yes," Boris said, "not only Quentilia, there are traces of gray mountain spirits all over the world. The name 'ogre' is a complete misunderstanding. In fact, they don't eat people. A long time ago, they and the West The barren people have been expelled and slaughtered by the orc settlements. When fleeing the famine, some gray mountain spirits seem to have eaten the corpses of the refugees from the western barren... Since then, human society has generally begun to call them 'ogre'. About a year A hundred years ago, some organizations that defended the interests of rare races suggested that this name was inappropriate, and after various efforts, we have now changed to the name 'Grey Mountain Spirit'. This is the name that the elves came up with."
"What did the elves think? So what do the gray mountain elves call themselves?"
"They didn't give their race a name, they didn't take a name." Boris looked out through the cracks in the wood, not far away was the shack of the matriarch and her daughter, "My lord, you should have noticed that, I didn't ask her name, and she didn't care what my name was."
Only then did Lott realize the novelty: "No names at all? How do they call each other?"
"They have 'mother', 'children', 'sisters', 'brothers', and other things, they use pronunciation, eyes, and gestures to communicate. They don't like to name things and places, just now The place names mentioned by the matriarch were all called by outsiders, and they followed suit."
At this time, a young gray mountain spirit came to the shack and respectfully handed over a small package wrapped in banana leaves, which contained two coconuts with holes punched and hollow stalks inserted, and a bunch of coconuts with unknown names. Earth-coloured objects.
Coconuts are good, as for the earthy lump that seems to be food... Neither Lotter nor Burris dare eat it. They sat side by side in the dark and damp shack, chatting about all kinds of interesting things about the Gray Mountain Elves, and about the other races of Quintilia.
"Are we going to the Tower of the Abyss tomorrow?" Lott asked, sucking on a coconut, "Why don't we just ask the Coast Guard of Sushi Island for help? I don't recommend going to the Tower of the Abyss... I heard that there is a man living there." Elven mage?"
Burris yawned: "Well, there lives an elf mage there. We call him Master Movia. Even if we want to find the Coast Guard, we must first obtain his consent... No matter what we do, we must go through he."
Lot hesitated for a while: "Maybe we can go directly to the Coast Guard? Or go to ordinary sailors to rent a boat? Let other elves apply to the master for permission. Maybe we don't need to visit him... This is also more economical." time."
"It depends..." Boris' upper and lower eyelids began to fight, "It's okay, not all elf mages are like black pine..."
After speaking, he curled up to a corner of the shack, leaning on the cushion filled with soft grass and wood, and closed his eyes. Because of fatigue and sleepiness, he didn't notice Lot's weird attitude towards the Tower of the Abyss at all.
The small ball of light floating in the air dimmed, leaving only a glimmer of light. Lott brought the ball of light to his hand, carelessly playing with it.
"Master Morvia" on the Tower of the Abyss
Not surprising when you think about it. Over a hundred and sixty years in the past, that goofy young elf was also known as the "Master."
Lot also closed his eyes, and a distant sea storm appeared in front of his eyes.