Surviving The Fourth Calamity

Chapter 768: Chapter 567: The Teleportation Ring of Windsong Tower

The place where the Thieves’ Guild was located had no magic to repel dust, let alone inside that bookstore.

Hill merely glanced at them to tell the thieves inside that he knew they were there and was not pleased, so they better understand what was happening before getting retaliated against.

”Respected Archmage sir,” Somer cleverly changed the subject, ”there are quite a few books today. Many people have only come back as the deadline approaches.

Moreover, there are more duplicates this time than in the past few days.”

Hill nodded, ”No matter.” He of course knew that many duplicates would appear, but without doing so, most ordinary adventurers who were illiterate wouldn’t be so eager to procure books.

And their peculiar behavior, of course, would attract a lot of attention; there would always be some scions of wealthy families with abundant collections willing to sell their books.

The prices Hill offered were unprecedentedly high within the Ten Towns of Icewind Valley.

Somer smiled happily; he knew that an Archmage holding an endless moneybag would not quibble over such a small amount of money.

He triumphantly picked up his pipe and took a satisfying puff before continuing, ”Archmage sir, this naive young man beside me went to Burlin Sand Town and collected a few small items with magical reactions aside from books.

That place used to have many Red Robe Mages, and most people neither understand nor dare to use what they left behind.

But the locals of Burlin Sand have gathered them all up.

Otherwise, even mere fragments could cause big trouble.

Beishmit’s father is the sheriff there, and they had him bring them over, hoping the Archmage sir would at least kindly tell us what these broken things are, even if you don’t buy them.

If not, we wouldn’t dare to throw them away for fear of causing serious issues if some reckless fellows picked them up.

But keeping them in the warehouse is not an option either; it’s only been a few years and Burlin Sand’s warehouse has exploded several times.”

Hill looked at the giant opened box, each item wrapped in thick fish skin, and couldn’t help twitching at the corner of his eye.

This old man was really up to no good, dealing with the safety of a whole town, an Archmage of Hill’s renowned kind alignment could not completely disregard it.

If Hill weren’t afraid of Valkin and the Thieves’ Guild and was willing to open them one by one, they wouldn’t lose out. Even if the good items were bought up by Hill, they could still learn a lot, at least they wouldn’t be clueless and confused about magic-related items in the future.

If Hill didn’t want to waste time and chose to buy everything, with the generous display of wealth Hill had shown, he naturally wouldn’t underpay.

Hill looked at the old man’s calm face and the hand holding the pipe trying its best not to tremble, and decisively bought everything for 1000 gold.

He briefly looked at the number of items in the box, which should be around a hundred or so. The fish skin only served to prevent vibrations and provided very rudimentary isolation; these items would surely explode en route if truly sent back.

But with some subtle mana operations, Hill was indeed interested, and at an average price of less than 10 gold each, it would be quite normal on the mainland.

Only in Icewind Valley, which has some aversions to mages, would such items remain unsold.

Hill suddenly smiled. Considering the sheriff and the mayor who didn’t cheaply handle these items to merchants, Burlin Sand Town was not an easy target for followers of Valkin.

They are currently tolerating these fellows wreaking havoc on their land likely for their substantial possessions.

Hill cheerfully packed away all the items. There’s no telling what other amusements Icewind Valley might hold! He hoped his little bell could last longer, not letting the fierce winter snowstorms blow it away.

A place that allows a barbarian who worships Tampas to be sheriff could hardly be so lenient toward followers of Valkin.

Ignoring the few lavishly dressed little merchants standing outside the grocery store, Hill flew straight back above the clouds.

There are fools everywhere.

These guys probably thought their goods were of high quality and of interest to Hill, daring to stand outside hoping Hill would initiate an inquiry into their affairs.

That way, they wouldn’t be breaking the tradition.

In Toril, or most fantasy worlds, it’s actually rare for Archmages and Great Nobility to directly deal with merchants. They usually find a middleman to handle sundry matters.

For Hill to deal directly already made him quite approachable; most Archmages would have an apprentice or a steward speak with these little merchants.

Since Hill had appointed Somer in this place, anyone else who wanted to sell something to him should better ask Somer if Hill would be interested.

Even officials like mayors with real power wouldn’t break this tradition.

But for some merchants who aren’t even willing to offer a tip, if they are confident enough in their merchandise, they can also try to intercept the deal by setting up a stall next to a place Hill is sure to pass by. Hill would certainly check it out if he’s interested.

These rules bind the merchants, not the noble and magic-based profession holders.

But these merchants, who wanted to sell their items to Hill and yet did not want to lower their dignity by setting up stalls themselves, led Hill to truly believe that they must be followers of Valkin. Only because they had been revered for too long on the continent could they utterly forget that in the world of Toril, possessing immense power was the only true capital for arrogance.

However, Hill wondered what good items the followers of Valkin really had to tempt him!

Hill was indeed a bit tempted, but he controlled himself.

The Goddess of Wealth should come to find him herself!

If Valkin truly dared to come out of her sealed Divine Kingdom to kill him, Hill would actually have to admire this lady!

To completely kill him, the incarnation’s level must be nearly as high as her true form, and if this were to be destroyed, Valkin might even see her Divine Kingdom collapse.

Hill was confident that he could certainly show her what a world of Faint Divine Power was really like.

As he flew in the air, he still wondered why these people thought he would give them the opportunity to mark him.

Mages are not without greed, but true mages can always suppress their greed with reason.

He sat in the Cloud House, directly set the route back to his Floating Castle, and began to pack up the big chest, sorting all the items at the very least, as some were about to explode.

Evil Curio Fragments next to Holy Item Fragments—if it wasn’t the Evil items getting purified, then the Holy items couldn’t stand it and would self-destruct.

Hill truly believed this was the reason their warehouse would explode.

Surely there were no trustworthy Magic-based professions in Burlin Sand Town, otherwise, these two types of items would never be stacked together.

Hill first placed all the suspicious items into a box woven from the branches and leaves of the Teraxil Sunflower, then put the whole box into a small pool filled with Holy Water.

He had no interest in seeing if there were any powerful Relic Fragments.

Hill was actually quite concerned about his own luck; although artifacts from the Evil Faction were tricky, they were indeed powerful.

Luck can sometimes be a double-edged sword; just because something is powerful doesn’t mean it is good, and Hill did not want to test his willpower.

The reason Icewind Valley was nearly completely destroyed by that Red Robe Mage Apprentice was mainly due to the Shard of the Shadow Stone.

Hill was actually worried that Burlin Sand Town might still have a piece; that thing was actually quite common.

Thus, when he saw all the purple crystal shards, he didn’t care whether they had an aura of Darkness or not, he threw them all into the Holy Water Pool.

Shaer’s items are best left untouched by ordinary people.

Before the Shadow Stone was shattered, it could even trick powerful Deities to death.

Hill looked at the other items in the box and took out an old canvas with some paint on it, approximately two inches wide and eighteen inches long, looking just like it had been torn from an old oil painting.

Hill suspected it was something the Mayor had just collected; he revealed a curious smile.

The Holy Power of the Goddess of Magic, the scent of the Weave.

Holding it in his hand, Hill soon sensed what he wanted to see—it was indeed what he had thought, a fragment of an oil painting that Archmage Elminster had painted for the former incarnation of Mystra, Magala Black Eyes.

This painting, before Mis Zhunuo fell, had been hung by Elminster in the Elder room of Windsong Tower.

And its destruction came at the hands of the undead from Shade Soul City.

The current Mystra could always observe Windsong Tower and Mis Zhunuo through this radiating painting until Shadow realized the connection between the painting and Mystra and directly tore it up.

This piece of the painting counts as a Sacred Artifact; it can add one of several effects—increased spell distance, delayed spell timing, fixed spellcasting, silent spellcasting, or broadened spellcasting—to the spells cast by Mystra’s followers.

For Hill, it was not of much use, what really mattered to him was that the appearance of this object meant that some shadows had chosen to hide in Icewind Valley but ended up losing their lives unknowably.

The Arcanists among these shadows were not the type anyone could just kill; it was very likely that they had done it themselves.

Hill couldn’t help but squint his eyes: Has someone already got their hands on the Nyscroll?

He flipped through the remaining Strange Objects again and found a clue on a torn bag; it was a bronze button sewn to the opening of the bag: the design featured a harp surrounded by swirling breezes.

Hill carefully removed it, and sure enough, it was a ring.

He carefully examined the Windsong Ring. If the Nyscroll had indeed been taken, perhaps he should check out that Magician’s Tower, right?