Arcane Journey

Chapter 140 Resolving hidden dangers
After exchanging pleasantries with the commander of the Purple Dragon Legion and the captain of the Battle Mage, Brian found a familiar knight walking beside Albert Jinyu.

"My lord, do you still remember me?" The young knight tucked his helmet under his arm and said to Brian with a smile, "I didn't expect you to hide so deeply."

"Let me re-introduce, I'm Alek, and I'm very happy to serve under the lord's command." The young knight took off the iron gauntlet and stretched out his right hand to him.

"You are welcome to join." Brian stared at this handsome young paladin, responded with a smile, and reached out to shake him.

This person was a Tom paladin who had reached the third level by accident when he, Graal and the others were dealing with the ghost man at the banquet.

As the god of truth, one of the three gods of justice, Tom is a stern, upright and unyielding god, and also the most active good god against evil forces.

Brian took a quick glance and found that among these purple dragon knights, at least five knights exuded a unique sacred aura.

Even if he didn't cast the detection spell, he could still feel that they were all based on paladins, and then advanced to become a purple dragon knight.

Among their player groups, paladins who became purple dragon knights can continue to improve the level of paladins without stopping there.

Although the Purple Dragon Knight, who was advanced from a paladin, can be said to be a model of discipline and high martial arts, while inheriting the professional ability of a paladin, he has also obtained advanced abilities.

But when Brian first established his territory, he didn't want to have too much contact with this group of lawful and kind paladins.

Otherwise, when he saw this paladin for the first time, he would immediately feel attracted to him.

Then, Brian led the group of men towards the rock bunker.

The Rock Bunker is located on a hill overlooking the entire town. There is a garrison barracks in the castle courtyard, and there is no problem in arranging these more than 500 people.

And in the courtyard there are stables, an armory, a blacksmith's shop, storerooms, and even a Bane's chapel.

However, this chapel has been demolished by someone he sent, and it can just be set up as a prayer room for these paladins.

The reason why he arranged this way was mainly because the castle was not that attractive to him, it was just a temporary place to stay.

Because when he built the wizard tower, he would live in the tower, and at worst, there would be a manor more luxurious than a castle in another dimension.

Therefore, he originally planned to leave this castle to the Purple Dragon Legion and Battle Mage.

In this way, they can still have time to train as many fighters as possible.

If you think about it in the worst way, even if Mokou Town is breached, he still has the strongest internal defense line of the Rock Bunker to resist even stubbornly.

In the world's major kingdoms and many territories, many siege wars failed because after taking the city, they found that the lord's castle inside was more difficult than they imagined, and they were eventually pinched back and forth by the reinforcements who came and besieged. lethal.

At the beginning, if he hadn't allowed Graal to pretend to surrender to the Zhentarim Society, and let the Dragon Skeleton Mercenary Group act as an internal response to help them open the gate of the castle, that is, no matter how many people were given to him, as long as the castle soldiers and food were sufficient, It is also impossible for him to occupy it quickly.

Looking at the team behind him, Brian knew that with the addition of more than 500 new troops, the shortage of manpower in the town was finally relieved.
After all, he occupied Mokou Town for only a few days. During this period, he also restored nearly 2000 slaves to freedom in an unprecedented way.

In this case, the most serious problem is how to manage them and let them complete their work honestly according to the established plan.

At this time, in addition to arranging the town's defense and internal patrols, he also spent most of his manpower to manage them.

Now, he can completely let the Zilong Legion take over the work of city defense and patrol outside the town, while the mercenaries of Salo, the former head of the Dragon Skeleton Mercenary Corps, and the newly recruited adventurers are responsible for the defense of the city.

Graal's caravan will also free up a lot of manpower to keep the trade in Mokou Town going.

When a group of people walked through the central street of Mokou Town, Brian suddenly found a group of more than 20 people walking towards them.

The leading man was very strong, with a golden body and a lot of gold accessories on his body, he looked like a nouveau riche who got rich overnight.

At the same time, out of his keenness for magic, Brian also discovered that six of the ten fingers of this burly man were wearing magic rings.

This made him immediately recognize the identity of this person: Philip, the president of the Eagle Chamber of Commerce, and a confidant of Prince Serant who belonged to Cormyr and placed in Mokou Town.

Then he pondered for a moment, and guessed the purpose of the other party's coming here.

The Dead Rat Gang, a sewer force secretly controlled by the Eagle Chamber of Commerce, was uprooted by him yesterday.

The next day, he sent someone to notify the president of the Chamber of Commerce, and asked him to release all the slaves in the manors and mines under his name within three days, and then hand over all the land and mines he owned in Mokou Town. After resources, get out of Mokou Town with your own people.

He had long expected that the other party would never agree to this seemingly unreasonable but reasonable condition.

He is the ruler of Mokou, a town he has recovered from the Zhentarim.

Under such circumstances, everything in the entire town belongs to his property. If the merchants and slave owners who settle here refuse to submit to him, they will be greeted with ruthless butcher knives.

That's exactly what happened.

During the process of Brian's recovery of land and resources, anyone who tried to resist, their bodies were all hung on wooden racks in the punishment square, and crows were allowed to eat them.

It was his tough and ruthless attitude that made the surviving merchants and slave owners in the entire town reluctantly hand over their territories and occupied resources.

Because in essence, these people also belong to his spoils.

But only the Eagle Chamber of Commerce has been indifferent.

Bryan knew the forces behind this chamber of commerce, so he chose to wait for the superficial order of the town to stabilize temporarily, and then chose to use him as an example to scare the chickens and monkeys, telling everyone who was convinced and not convinced what the end of resistance would be.

And the dead rat gang that wiped out the sewer was the first warning he gave Philip.

He could only choose to do this. After all, this town has been ruled by the evil forces headed by the Zhentarim for ten years, and it can be said to be rotten to the root.

It is impossible for him and he does not have the time and patience to rely on his personal charm to make these people reform like Graal and follow him one after another.

In this case, it is natural that cutting the mess quickly is the most efficient way.

Brian noticed that the smiling president of the chamber of commerce was walking straight towards Purple Dragon Knight Albert Jinyu.

Seriously speaking, Philip belongs to Prince Serrante, and his Mokou Town and these purple dragon knights and battle mages are under the jurisdiction of Duke Raul of Araby City.

He knew the conflict between Prince Celant and the Raul family, so when he saw the president showing favor to the commander of the Purple Dragon Knight, he guessed that the other party was probably preparing to reveal his identity.

In this case, no matter how he said it, it would be impossible for him to deal with the Eagle Chamber of Commerce and confiscate all his property and land.

Because they all belong to the Kingdom of Cormyr, doing so is undoubtedly tantamount to provoking the authority of Prince Serant.

If Brian's expectations were correct, the prince hadn't completely revealed his desire to usurp the throne at this time, and he should still be helping King Yazen V, who was on an expedition to the Dragon Coast, manage the internal affairs of the kingdom.

At this time, his wings hadn't hardened yet, and if he wanted to fight against the City of Shadows, he needed to rely on the Kingdom of Cormyr behind him in many places.

And it is impossible for him to solve this hidden danger cleanly.

The Eagle Chamber of Commerce will be like flies, constantly breeding maggots from dead bodies, and then flies will be born from maggots.

It was even possible to stab him in the back when he was dealing with Shadow City.

After thinking about this question, Brian's eyes turned cold.

A question that Philip ignored was that although a few people in Mokou Town knew that he was a member of Prince Serrante, the other party had never disclosed this identity to the public.

Brian can just pretend that he doesn't know.

"People from the Eagle Chamber of Commerce refused to surrender and tried to resist."

Just when Philip was about to approach the crowd, Brian shouted coldly and ordered to the crowd: "Now, in the name of the lord of Mokou Town, I will kill this group of rebels on the spot!"

"Purple Dragon Guard!" Obert Jin Yu drew out his sword without hesitation and shouted loudly.

Fifty Zilong guards lowered their long spears and approached more than 20 people from the Eagle Chamber of Commerce in unison, surrounding them.

"What are you trying to do?! I am." The smile on Philip's face froze suddenly, turning into unbelievable shock.

"Pfft!"

Before he finished speaking, with a sharp thrust, a guard of the chamber of commerce closest to him was stabbed into the back by Zilong Guard's spear, and the sword that the guard had just drawn slipped from his limp hand, blood dripping The point of the spear protruded from under the ribs, piercing the leather vest and the armor.

Before the sword hits the ground, the person is dead.

Alek, the purple dragon knight, swung his sword and slit the throat of another guard.

A stream of blood splattered.

The other guards were also caught off guard and were beheaded on the spot by the Zilong guards.

Seeing the sudden change, Philip, the president of the Eagle Chamber of Commerce, immediately drew out his weapon, turned around and swung his sword, bursting into a flash of sword light, forcing back the two Zilong guards who were stabbing at him.

Immediately afterwards, he activated the teleportation spell on the ring without hesitation, and with the emergence of magical aura, he seemed to be about to break out of the encirclement in an instant.

However, at the moment when he was about to disappear, a battle mage in a purple cloak pointed out a finger, and a lightning whip hooked Philip's ankle.

The battle mage pulled hard, and waves of lightning burst out from the crackling lightning. Philip exclaimed, his body convulsed and shook, and he lost his balance and fell to the ground on his back.

Alek took the opportunity to strike in front of him. His first sword cut off Philip's subconsciously raised right wrist, and his second sword split him alive from shoulder to sternum.

Philip wailed and died on the spot.

"Detain his soul." Brian, who had been watching coldly from the beginning to the end, gave an order.

When meeting with the battle mages, he noticed that one of these spellcasters was a battle mage who was proficient in the necromancy school.

Detaining a soul is as simple as eating and drinking for necromancers.

Hearing Brian's order, the battle mage captain Marek winked at a battle mage who was proficient in necromancy behind him.

The latter immediately took out a gray gem, muttered a spell, and pointed.

A nearly invisible gray spirit was forcibly pulled from the corpse, screaming and burrowing into the battle mage's gemstone.

Brian took the gem, nodded slightly, and put it away.

From this efficient battle, we can see how strong the executive power of this group of people is.

This made him very satisfied. After all, what he liked most was this kind of disciplined and powerful army, which was easy to deploy and saves worry and effort.

And the reason why he chose to detain the soul of the president of the Eagle Chamber of Commerce was mainly to confirm one thing.

If he expected it right, at this time Prince Celant had already begun to contact followers of Bane, the god of tyranny.

Therefore, he was very curious whether Philip, who was the confidant of Prince Celant, knew about it.

If he really knew, then he could use some means to extract a confession from him, and then use this as evidence to remind Duke Raul of Araby City to take precautions in advance.

In this case, it might be possible to avoid the Cormyr Kingdom being divided into a divided kingdom after being captured by the pseudo-king Serante, the capital city of Suzal, after the Dragon Rebellion.

As a reborn, Brian naturally did not want the Kingdom of Cormyr to suffer the same fate again.

After all, since he returned to the surface from the Underdark, he has been receiving the favor of Cormyr, without the seal of the purple dragon and the trust in him that Hesaiah gave him.

Leaving aside his inability to occupy Mokou Town, even Duke Raul of Arabe City couldn't possibly get in touch with him so easily, let alone gain the support and loyalty of Purple Dragon Knight and Battle Mage.

If his power really grows, Cormyr will also become his help and cooperative ally in conquering the Ennook Desert.

Even though he knew that the Dragon Worshipers were studying at the Dragon's Well in the Sunset Mountains, he was still self-aware and knew very well that with his current abilities, it was best not to provoke or influence this group of cultists.

The reason why the current situation on the mainland seems to be calm is mainly because the various forces check and balance each other.

If he reveals the conspiracy about the Dragon Worship Cult intentionally or unintentionally, many forces from the good camp are likely to flock to him.

In this case, the balance of mutual restraint may be broken, causing the future timeline to completely exceed his expectations, and there will be unknowable accidents and disasters.

For Brian, the biggest hidden danger in Mokou Town has been solved by him.

He must seize the time to prepare for the counterattack of the City of Shadows, and he must not just run out to make waves.

(End of this chapter)