landbeastnovel #344 - Stormwind Rebellion
#344 - Stormwind Rebellion
The summer night was hot, with only the crickets stubbornly chirping in the heat.
Amidst the chirping in the wilderness, a camp stood on the plains outside of Gale Keep.
The hot wind from the Emerald Sea billowed the knight's pennants, the castle and eagle emblems fluttering on the hanging banners.
Between the charred wooden fences and spiked stakes were guards dozing with spears and rows of hitching posts, several riding horses with their heads lowered, snorting.
Looking north from the camp, they could see the brightly lit Gale Keep, where knights and nobles reveled.
In the southeastern corner of the camp, in the lowest-lying area, was a smaller, distinct camp, or rather, a prison.
Compared to the brightly lit Gale Keep, this small camp was frighteningly dark, for it was the camp of the wizards.
More precisely, it was not just a camp for captured wizards, but also for the wizard slaves kept by the sand-sculpting knight Niddersal.
Their numbers reached as high as two hundred and fifty. They usually stayed in a small castle near the Red Copper Fortress, responsible for producing alchemical potions for Niddersal to sell on the black market.
This time, Niddersal brought the wizards to Goldstream Township, not only to have them imitate the clockwork guns, but more importantly, to prevent them from escaping.
After all, he hadn't left many people near the Red Copper Fortress. If the Arcane Brotherhood were to stage a raid, all the wizard slaves he had painstakingly captured for nearly ten years would be gone.
The reason Niddersal engaged in black market smuggling was not only due to the locational advantage of labor, but also the locational advantage of natural resources.
The Black Serpent Bay bordered the Green Dragon Forest to the south, and the forest was a production area for various sugars and spices.
The wealth of the Frankish royal family largely relied on the spice trade.
The Black Serpent Bay, bordering the forest, could obtain large quantities of spices and precious medicinal herbs, which were precisely the materials for alchemical potions.
Ironically, the nobles did not allow ordinary people to use cheaper and more effective alchemical potions to save lives, but allowed themselves to use alchemical potions to enhance virility and beauty.
Coming from the royal court, he could take advantage of this. He didn't have the same psychological taboo against magic as the Imperial Knights.
Through the trade of alchemical potions, Niddersal had earned a considerable fortune.
However, out of the insecurity innate to desert nomads, he spent most of this money on the Niggersacks.
He forcibly raised the Niggersack knights to the level of sixth-stage breathing techniques, making them all banner knights.
But in order to clean up the mess for Heilwind, Niddersal had to leave with the Niggersacks, not having time to manage these wizard slaves.
Beside the bonfire, several guards were listlessly munching on fruit, monitoring the wizard slaves as they prepared alchemical materials under the moonlight.
These special alchemical materials could only be made at night, otherwise they would have hidden in their houses and slept soundly.
"Hurry up, you waste!" a guard shouted impatiently, striking a wizard slave heavily on the back with his whip.
The wizard slave named Mormont staggered from the blow, and was only kept from falling by several companions.
"What are you looking at?" Seeing the surrounding wizard slaves look up, the guard glared and roared, "Do you want to be whipped too!"
The slaves and prisoners of war lowered their heads, hunched over, and silently continued to work, without a word of complaint.
The wizards' food was laced with secret medicines that suppressed their magic, essentially turning them into alchemists without magic.
Otherwise, these usually proud wizards would never have suffered such humiliation.
The guard laughed loudly, walked to the side, picked up a wine jug, and began to drink heavily.
The guard captain said loudly, "You slaves are always causing us trouble. Can't you wait until that unclean Kushite is on duty tomorrow to do alchemy?"
"Anyway, those Kushites are in the same gang as you, hahaha."
"They are all relatives of the devil!"
"Hahaha--cough cough cough"
The guards' laughter echoed in the camp, but unknowingly their laughter gradually became hoarse, and their vision began to blur.
"What's going on?" A guard squinted at his surroundings, trying to see the scene in front of him clearly.
"Is tonight's wine so strong? Cough cough cough--" The guard captain rubbed his temples, shaking his head.
Perhaps the wine was too strong, or perhaps other things in the alcohol paralyzed the guards' nerves, they did not notice—
Those wizard slaves who were originally hunching over, gradually straightened their bodies.
Suddenly, a silent scream broke the silence. The guard who was cut looked in horror at the ritual knife stuck in his neck, and slowly fell to the ground.
Mormont pulled out the ritual knife, coldly watching the panicked guards.
Another guard stood up unsteadily, pointed at the slaves, and only realized when he opened his mouth that his throat was so hoarse that he could hardly speak, let alone shout loudly.
"You... what do you want to do, go back!"
Several wizard slaves silently blocked the way.
"Want to die?" The guard tried his best to swing his whip, but his arm trembled, his strength was weak, and the whip limply dragged through the air.
He looked down at his palm, took a few steps back, his steps faltering, his eyes full of horror and disbelief.
A dozen wizard slaves had already surrounded him.
They roared in low voices until these guards were beaten beyond recognition, then they waved their hands.
Mormont, the wizard who had been beaten earlier, pulled out a short knife from the guard's waist: "Send a signal, you go open the door of the barracks and let those bastards out, I'll go to the warehouse to find the awakening potion."
"Okay."
This small group that launched the riot was clearly led by Mormont, and his orders were quickly passed down.
A burst of rapid bird calls cut through the night sky. The monks gathered together playing cards twitched their ears, and told the monk by the window to close the window.
Old Grandmother Arco held a banquet tonight, inviting high-ranking monks, leaving only these low-ranking monks to guard the camp at night.
Through the window, they could see the carnival night banquet, and naturally they couldn't balance their hearts and couldn't sleep, so they had to get up and play cards.
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"Knock knock!"
The door of the hut was knocked, and a monk frowned, put down his cards, stood up, and walked to the door and asked, "Who is it?"
A timid voice came from outside the door, "Sir, someone is fighting and injured."
The monk impatiently asked through the door, "Where are the guards?"
The wizard slave replied in an almost inaudible voice, "The guards are too drunk to wake up. And... those wizards are using magic to fight each other, they have clearly drunk the sleeping potion..."
"What?!" This time, even the monks playing cards were alarmed, and they stood up in shock and anger, not even playing cards.
The monk leader slammed the wooden牌 in his hand heavily on the table: "These wastes! Open the door, take all the holy oil!"
Unlocking the complicated lock, the heavy iron-clad door slowly opened.
"You..." The monk just wanted to ask about the process in detail, but he heard a strange buzzing sound.
It felt like someone was shooting an arrow?
Before he could figure it out, the arrow had already protruded from the back of his head, and the arrow was still sticky with brain matter and blood.
"Crap! Block the gate!"
The monks panicked and rushed to the weapon rack on the wall, frantically pulling out long swords and rummaging for suitable armor.
Another monk tore off the tapestry on the wall, trying to block the crossbow bolts, his face full of panic.
Some even picked up the chairs on the table as shields, staggering backwards.
Only one elderly monk anxiously shouted: "Quick, get the holy oil!"
These panicked monks woke up as if from a dream, rushed to the storage cabinet, their fingers trembling as they opened the cabinet door, eagerly rummaging through the bottles and jars.
However, before they could prepare, several wizard slaves had already rushed in.
They waved heavy iron hammers and slammed them at the nearest monk.
A monk panicked and raised his sword to block, but was shaken back by the huge force, retreating several steps, hitting the wall, and letting out a painful groan.
"Stop them!" The panicked elderly monk shouted loudly, but the words were interrupted by a heavy hammer.
The hammer slammed on his head, the skull collapsed directly, and the brain was squeezed out by the huge pressure.
The wizard slaves were unstoppable. A wizard waved an iron hammer and slammed it hard on a monk's chest, white bones splattering and hanging on a monk's hair.
The next second, a wizard grabbed the monk's hair, grabbed his head, and used all his strength to hit the wall, and the monk immediately fainted.
A moment later, only corpses were left on the floor.
These wizards were old hands who were used to killing and arson. After killing people, they tore off the precious tapestries, tore off the monks' robes, and soaked them in grease.
Under the bright candles, they lit them and threw them at the tents, stables, and firewood piles. The fire spread rapidly in the hands of the wizards who knew how to play with fire best.
Thick smoke and bright flames, running crowds, coughing and the terrified neighing of warhorses continued to sound, and even the music in the castle became a little quieter.
After a sudden silence, the camp instantly fell into chaos.
Panicked people running around filled the roads, trying to put out the fire, but were choked by the smoke and kept coughing.
But what they didn't see was that one wizard after another had walked out of the barracks where they were held, their eyes showing hatred as they cast their gazes on them.