There was a shrine at the end of the passage, and there were a few candles in it, which could only light a small area of the ground under the wall. A few dirty and worn blankets were spread on the floor, and a thin woman was sitting on the blankets.
She is old and scruffy, with gray hair hanging all over the floor, and her whole body is gray. She looks no different from those living corpses in the hall, but when the candlelight shines on her cheeks, her eyes will overflow with gold like brilliance.
She holds a book in her arms. The book was one cubit long and half a stile thick, and the cover was covered with black iron, with a mirror embedded in it.
The underground temple has been abandoned for too many years, and it would be great if it didn't collapse. It is not suitable for people to live in, but some people can live here for decades, accompanied by disgusting living corpses every day.
Estee asked Naylor with her eyes: Is it her
Naylor thinks so. This woman should be his mother Lisa. He could feel the call of that blood.
But he wasn't too sure. Is this emaciated scavenger... really Lisa? In his vague memory, his mother is as beautiful as a dream: she has silky black curly hair, lake-like emerald green eyes, and her snow-white fingers can flexibly pluck the strings and play light and beautiful music , or you can gently hold his hand, and slowly pat him on the shoulder to make him fall asleep...
When he thought of this, he happened to turn his eyes away and saw the lute in the corner. It was indeed Lisa's violin, and there was a scratch on the violin, which was left unintentionally by her young self.
Naylor took a step forward, and Estee stopped him: "Be careful, don't touch her yet."
The knight's eyes were hot: "She is my mother, she will not hurt me."
Estee said: "Of course she doesn't want to hurt you, but the premise is... she has to know you."
Saying that, she drove the ball of light closer to Lisa. A trace of confusion flashed in Lisa's eyes, she slowly raised her head and looked at the four people walking into the passage.
Her gaze was weird, as if she couldn't see clearly what was a few steps away. If it wasn't for the ball of light, she wouldn't even notice that someone came in.
"I don't want to say this, but..." Estee shook her head, "It seems that her spirit is not normal."
Naylor asked, "How did this happen? Is she sick? Or is it some kind of magic?"
Estee looked back at Burris. After walking in, Boris has already made a preliminary judgment: there is no magic in this small space, and the only abnormality is the book in the woman's arms.
Whether it is the woman's abnormal state or the large number of recovered corpses in the temple, it should be caused by the power of this book.
Burris walked over and squatted in front of Lisa at a distance. He made the ball of light move according to a certain pattern, so as to observe the reaction of Lisa's eyes, snapped his fingers a few more times, and asked a few random words... Lisa has never communicated with him directly, she is very dull and confused, even the simplest Unable to respond to inquiries.
Burris took out a long strip of tinfoil from his pocket, folded it into a simple scissors shape, and threw it in mid-air. The tinfoil floated up, followed the movement of the mage's fingers and slowly moved to Lisa's side, picked up a small lock from her dry gray hair, cut it off with a click, and it rose to a high place with the hair, and melted into a There was a flame.
Ashes fell from the flames, and all fell into the white handkerchief Boris had prepared. Boris pulled out a tear crystal, wrapped it in a handkerchief stained with ashes from his hair, and began to chant the incantation.
Lisa turned a blind eye to the strange spells, but Naylor and Lott stood on both sides of Estee, asking "What is he doing?", "What kind of spell is this?" What?", "Is this harmful?", "Why did he take out the lollipop?"…
Estee felt that she had become a commentator in the arena, and she had to constantly explain Burris's spell-casting movements to the VIP audience... So she recited the spell description to them: "What he cast is to reproduce the afterimage, which belongs to the high-level It is a kind of high-level visual illusion. The spell used in this spell is very complicated, it is difficult to cast, and the probability of failure is very high. It is a test of the experience and perception of the caster. The spell can reproduce what happened to the subject in the same place. Action, which plays an important role in the field of detective cases or nature exploration."
The description is from "Teaching You to Understand the Effects of Advanced Spells". This is a popular book. It cannot teach you how to cast spells, nor can it help you understand the real principles. It can only give you a general understanding of what mages can do. This book was written by Burris when he was in his fifties. He mainly wanted to let those who don't know magic and don't want to learn magic understand the mage community.
Seeing Burris closing his eyes and chanting a spell, Lot folded his arms against the wall, frowning and thinking.
Boris can evoke high-level spells, which means that his asynchronous soul symptoms have basically healed. The recovery speed was about the same as Lott expected, and it was relatively smooth.
But Lott's own deterioration problem still exists, and his condition has not improved. He is still in a state of losing all spellcasting ability, and he can only use his mouth to cast spells. According to the original estimate, his ability should also slowly recover over time...
At this point, Burris finished his spell and stood back against the wall, leaving plenty of room for the phantom effect.
"The effect of the spell will take a while to appear," he explained to everyone. "This lady's state is not normal, and we can't communicate with her in a normal way for the time being, so I think it's better to use spells to restore it." Now."
While waiting for the spell to take effect, Lot leaned close to Boris' ear: "Actually, I can heal her directly."
Burris pointed to his lips, Lott nodded, and Burris quickly shook his head with serious eyes. Maybe the demigod can really cure Lisa's disorder, even if it can be cured, he can't do it on the spot. Anyway, this is Sir Naylor's mother, and it's too scary for him to go to the family's house...
Soon, the magic effect began to appear. With Lisa sitting on the ground as the center, several translucent silver threads emerged in the air. The silk thread spread out like a spider web, one end was connected to Lisa, the other end stretched out of the temple, and the other end fell into Boris' hands.
A vague shadow appeared at the entrance of the passage. As the shadow got closer, the outline became clearer. Gradually, a young woman with black hair and green eyes appeared in front of everyone.
This is Lisa when she was young, holding a square cloth bag in her arms, wearing the dress of an aristocratic woman, her long black hair hanging around her side, and the dew in the forest hanging on her cloak.
Naylor marveled under his breath, and couldn't help reaching out to touch her. Not surprisingly, his fingers passed through the woman's shoulder. Living people cannot touch phantoms from decades ago.
The young Lisa stood in the passage and looked around, then slowly walked into a door on the right. She simply tidied up the ground, lit the lantern she carried with her, took out a thick ancient book from her cloth bag, turned the book to a page in the middle, and sat on the stone floor to read.
Next, she didn't do anything else, she just kept reading here.
She read very slowly, and couldn't turn a page for a long time. The phantom couldn't reconstruct the text of the book, so the onlookers didn't know what she was reading.
Burris manipulated the thread, speeding up the image. After speeding up, Lisa left and came back again, each time she just came here to read books. Apart from reading books, she also faced the main hall to pray several times, and brought some candles and other daily necessities, hoarding them in some In the corner of the room...
The video accelerated faster and faster, and Lisa entered and exited the passage again and again. Until at one point things seemed to change: she was haggard and slovenly, in a simple house gown and house shoes, and had brought nothing but the book.
After this time, she never left the underground temple for a long time. Occasionally she would leave to bring back some food or worn-out blankets. There seemed to be a well somewhere in the temple. She fetched water regularly. A bucket of water would last a long, long time...
Images are accelerated faster. The following content is very boring and monotonous. Basically, she is reading, reading, and reading... Her skin is gradually dry and dull, and her hair changes from black to gray. Sometimes, she is so weak that she can't even sit up, but she has to lean on Facing the book in the corner.
She was aging, and the unread side of the book was thinning. When she was as haggard as today, there was only the last page left in the book.
Finally, she finished reading the book. She moved her body with difficulty, leaned slightly towards the direction of the hall, and spoke hoarsely for the first time: I have finished reading, I have no regrets.
Then the phantom disappeared. All the transparent threads returned to Burris and escaped into the crystal.
Sir Naylor stared blankly at the place where the phantom disappeared, and then at Lisa who was still slumped on the ground. Suddenly his eyes turned red and he strode towards his mother.
Estee stopped him again: "Didn't I tell you, her condition is wrong, don't touch her casually!"
"She can talk!" Naylor grabbed Esther's shoulder, "You heard me, she can talk! After seeing those pictures, I understood one thing... that book tortured her like this! That It must be a cult of false gods, I can't let it continue to control her... "
Estee insisted and refused to let go: "If the book is a cult, you can't touch it! Have you forgotten what I taught you, when you encounter antiques and ancient books you don't understand, you can't touch them directly!"
Naylor made a firm gesture of prayer: "I am not afraid of the curse of false gods! My Lord Otarot will help me!"
After finishing speaking, he hugged Estee who was blocking him, turned around and put her behind him. Estee reached out to pull him, but he had already bowed close to Lisa.
Perhaps because he was so close, even if Lisa was out of her mind, she could feel someone was there. She twisted her body with the book and tried to dodge it. Naylor only touched her shoulder.
Suddenly, a strong hand grabbed Naylor's wrist and pulled him aside. Lot grabbed him with a miserable expression on his face.
Naylor struggled, but didn't break free. He was secretly surprised. He heard that this Lott was a scholar. How could a scholar have such great strength
Lott took a step forward, and Naylor refused to back down... Behind the two of them, Boris frowned and lowered his head, fully understanding what was going to happen next; The amount of help.
Naylor thinks Lott is going to lecture him, maybe even defend the cult... Or, on a brighter note, maybe Lott is trying to help him get the book out together
He never imagined that Lott would lean forward at the speed of a close-up assassination, still grabbing his wrist with one hand, and strangling his throat with the other... Then he kissed his lips in horror.
Under the joint blow of shock and spell, Naylor fainted instantly. The tall body in armor fell to the ground, making a loud bang.
Estee looked at the knight under her feet, and then at Boris: "Teacher, I feel very complicated now..."
I'm also in a complicated mood... Burris thought bitterly.
Lott explained even worse: "It's not a big deal. I have to find a chance to kiss him again later, instill some false memories in him, so that he doesn't remember what we did to him. This spell is more complicated. I It may take a long time to kiss!"
Estee squatted beside Naylor, looking at his sleeping face apologetically. Burris patted her on the shoulder: "If he's awake, I can't take the book away. He'll stop it."
The princess sighed: "In fact, his main purpose is to find his mother, not books."
Burris said: "But he will definitely ask me what I am doing with the book, and he will also propose to take the book back to the temple. How can we reason with the temple knights? There is no way, we can only lie to him."
"But he remembers that Lisa has a book since he was a child. How can we make him ignore it?"
"Find a fake book to lie to him."
Estee said with emotion: "I really don't want to lie to him anymore...but there seems to be no other way."
She just said it casually, and Luo Te was listening, but there was a stabbing feeling in her heart. He shook his head and walked towards the dazed Lisa.
Just as she was about to touch the book in her arms, the book flew up by itself. It circumvented Lisa and Lot cautiously and swiftly, and flew to Burris.
A black square scarf was spread out under the mage's feet, the inside was embroidered with mantras, and silver pendants were attached to the four corners. The book was placed in the center of the kerchief, and the kerchief was folded inward immediately, wrapping the book tightly.
Burris put on leather gloves and touched the black bundle, which suddenly shrank to the size of a sewing kit. The mage put it alone in an empty cloth bag, and added a few protective spells on the mouth of the bag.
After doing this, Burris breathed a sigh of relief. He looked at Lot and the princess seriously: "Before we understand this book, it's best for none of us to touch it."
Lott nodded on the surface, but there was a fleeting regret in his eyes.
"Okay, we'll study that book later," he knelt down and held Lisa's shoulders, "Now I'll see if I can cure her."