Chapter 393

'Unfortunately, I'm not here to build up Faerûn either.' Anser sighed.

He had no intention of pretending otherwise. His own path to leveling up had been drenched in blood from the start.

As he was reflecting on this, a Sending from Graham popped up in the Spirit Net work group:

[President, two letters have arrived from Paros. Both are addressed to you...]

Two fairly long messages followed. One was signed by Adrie Silverleaf of Paros, while the other was from... Grand Duke Ravengard!

'Huh?'

Anser's interest was immediately piqued.

Adrie Silverleaf was the head of Paros's independent council. She was said to be a moon elf, but she kept a low profile and rarely appeared in public.

Her letter was fairly formal. It mainly congratulated him on the establishment of the Holrewen city-state and acknowledged its legitimacy, while also thanking him for everything he had done to protect the crew of the Quesser and the moon elves of Moonshadow Quelin.

'News travels fast.' Anser chuckled.

Plenty of people knew that he had caused a huge commotion in Waterdeep, but few knew the backgrounds or origins of Gwyneth, Salian, and the others.

Adrie had previously refrained from taking a position, yet after learning about Gwyneth and the others, she had sent him a letter. That showed she genuinely cared about her own people.

Grand Duke Ravengard's letter, on the other hand, was personal. He opened by reminiscing about how prosperous and lively Baldur's Gate had once been, while also mentioning his friendship with Fabian. He was clearly trying to establish a closer connection with Anser.

'But... I don't think Fabian and I were ever particularly close.' Anser shook his head slightly.

The original Anser had little talent, and his family had no money. Fabian had never paid him any attention. Even if they passed each other on the street, Fabian might not have recognized him.

Grand Duke Ravengard knew none of this. After briefly reminiscing about the past, he sincerely invited Anser to visit Paros so they could discuss the possibility of retaking Baldur's Gate.

Anser liked his approach. There was no beating around the bush; he went straight to the point.

At the very least, there was nothing to criticize about the man's manner of doing things or his bearing.

'Looks like things aren't going well for him in Paros.'

Paros might appear to be under Baldur's Gate's protection, but their relationship was nowhere near as good as one might imagine.

Paros was home to many different races, and a large portion of its population had once been slaves. Baldur's Gate, meanwhile, explicitly prohibited the slave trade, but enforcement had always been lacking.

Baldur's Gate had also contributed nothing to Paros's development. Instead, it had swooped in to reap the benefits after the city rose to prominence.

It was called protection, but in essence, it amounted to collecting protection money.

Under those circumstances, there was no way the people of Paros would devote everything they had to helping Ravengard. Paying their taxes ahead of schedule was already generous enough.

In fact, the two letters arriving almost simultaneously yet containing completely different messages already revealed quite a bit.

'I wonder if the other two Grand Dukes are still alive?' Anser rubbed his chin, staring absently at the distant plains.

Baldur's Gate's greatest attraction to him was its underground creatures, but Cormyr's orcs were awfully tempting too.

The orc threat was imminent, and it also involved Sehanine Moonbow's mission, so that was ultimately more important.

If Grand Duke Ravengard offered sufficiently generous terms, Anser wasn't opposed to helping him.

But he didn't want to be bound by a contract because of it.

Right now, he could go wherever he wanted. He could harvest experience while helping others, and regardless of the outcome, they would still be immensely grateful to him.

But the moment he signed a cooperation agreement, the nature of the situation would change. The pressure and responsibilities he would shoulder would be completely different.

"Don't respond for now," he instructed Graham.

The orc war was only just beginning. Chosen were stirring things up behind the scenes, and chaos was starting to spread. There was no reason for him to rush to the forefront.

Better to wait and see.

The negative effects of Wish were still lingering. He didn't want to go anywhere—not even to bed with Iris.

Even his arrangement with the Magic Research Society had to be adjusted. Since he couldn't personally go pick them up, he could only send the rune sequence for the Viheral teleportation circle to President Gordon and have them teleport to the dungeon themselves.

Researching and modifying a teleportation circle wasn't something that could be completed in a day or two, so there was no need to rush. They could send a few people over first to familiarize themselves with the situation.

...

As it turned out, Anser's decision was the right one.

Three days quickly passed.

The number of Spirit Net members surpassed three hundred thousand. Every new development was immediately gathered on the Spirit Net, giving him a fairly thorough understanding of what was happening across Faerûn.

Nowhere was peaceful. The situation was becoming increasingly chaotic.

The Chosen of Bane and his army hadn't even reached the Moonshae Isles before they ended up fighting a tribe of beastfolk who followed the dinosaur path.

The beastfolk had never submitted to the Green Dragon Queen's rule in the first place. With the vast Dinosaur Forest and its dinosaur herds at their backs, they didn't even take the Wyvern Guard seriously.

Emmanuel had no way of knowing any of this. As a result, his campaign had gone awry before it had even truly begun, leaving him trapped in the middle of a war and unable to decide what to do.

Fight? The beastfolk were stubborn to the bone and formidable fighters. It simply wasn't worth the cost.

Run? The little prestige he'd worked so hard to build would be gone. How was he supposed to command those other races to seize the Moonshae Isles after that?

At the same time, things were no calmer on the continent of Laerakond, where the Emerald Kingdom was located.

The long-dormant Cult of the Dragon had set its sights on Abeir's rulers: dragons!

At some point, they had taken advantage of the merging of the realms to enter Abeir, where they sought out an ancient black dragon nearing the end of its lifespan and successfully transformed it into a dracolich.

That crossed a line for certain dragons, and once word got out, it caused quite a stir.

Founded in Faerûn, the Cult of the Dragon was based on a mistranslated prophecy: "Dead dragons shall rule the world."

For most of its history, the cult had focused on creating dracoliches in order to fulfill that prophecy.

Later, a prophet named Severin corrected the prophecy and attempted to bring an avatar of Tiamat into this world to wreak havoc. He nearly succeeded.

From then on, the Cult of the Dragon gradually split into two factions. The old faction continued its efforts to create dracoliches, while the new faction remained devoted to Severin's new vision.

'Even dragons as powerful as they are still fear death.' Anser sighed.

Dragons already possessed astonishingly long lifespans, but they weren't truly immortal.

In fact, dragons that genuinely died of old age were exceedingly rare. Even if they avoided violence and accidents, they entered a twilight period as they grew old, and few lived beyond two thousand years.

Among all dragonkind, gold dragons had the longest lifespans, reportedly reaching four or five thousand years.

As long as there were dragons unwilling to die, the Cult of the Dragon could persuade—or deceive—them into accepting this filthy undead ritual.

'What a mess.'

The Cult of the Dragon incident was only one among countless other chaotic developments, with major organizations or Chosen lurking behind many of them.

Each had their own agenda.

The only good news was that Sakkors's plan had gone extremely smoothly.

The demiplane containing Sehanine Moonbow's Crystal Temple successfully merged with Holrewen, with nearly all of its original properties preserved.

On the surface, Holrewen looked unchanged. Beneath the island, however, there was now an enormous inverted crystal temple. Its base was connected to the Celestial Ritual Array beneath the Black Tower, with the entire structure powered by the mythallar.

The instant the Moonlight Holy Symbol was severed from the temple, a cold snort came from the crescent pendant.

As expected, Sehanine could sense that the temple had been disconnected, but she neither stopped him nor said anything more.

'All according to plan. The Spirit Net's hidden vulnerability is basically gone. Now I can really go all out.'

Anser broke into a grin.

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I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> /TitoVillar

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