The Guards were chatting next to several piles of supplies. When they saw him walking past, they immediately stopped talking and stood at attention.
Douglas didn't have any extra greetings. He just quickly arranged for them to move all the sealed kerosene in the inventory to the open space between the wall and the trench.
Kerosene is stored in earthen jars and wooden barrels of different sizes, sealed with oilcloth and hemp rope, with labels with ink that has not yet completely dried on the surface, marking the storage date and source batch.
The members of the Guards began to move the containers more carefully than usual. They held the bottom of the jars with both hands and slowed down to avoid collisions or shaking during movement.
Several wooden barrels were rolled to designated positions on the inside of the wall, one row was placed in the shadow under the guard tower, and the other row was placed along the channel along the edge of the wall, one every few steps.
Douglas personally checked the sealing degree of each container to confirm that there was no leakage, and then asked the guards to withdraw to the standby position inside the wall, ready to set it on fire upon receiving a signal.
The preparations in the camp were carried out quietly and orderly.
After the fuel for the torches and fires was replenished, the archers on the sentry tower adjusted their stances and began to fire a rocket in the direction of the black mist at prearranged time intervals. They observed its trajectory before landing and the burning range after it hit the ground to confirm whether there were any abnormal dynamics within the field of vision.
Every once in a while, a flaming arrow will fly out from the sentry tower, draw a short and bright arc, and fall into the black fog outside the camp. The moment it touches the ground, it will make a short burning sound, illuminating a small area of ground covered by thick fog, and then quickly extinguish.
Valyrian Peninsula Deep in those abandoned mines, time is flowing in another rhythm.
The entrance to the mine is in a depression half-covered by collapsed rocks at the bottom of the mountain. From the outside, it is just a dark the Rift covered with vines and gravel. If you don't take a closer look, it is difficult to notice that it leads underground.
The rock surface on the inner wall of the entrance is covered with a thick layer of dark sediment. When you touch it, you will feel moist and rough, as if it has been repeatedly soaked by some kind of liquid and slowly dried over a long period of time.
As you go deeper, the air becomes heavier and the temperature drops significantly. The gravel accumulated under your feet is gradually covered by a layer of gray-white powder that gradually increases in thickness. Judging from the color transition of the rocks and soil, it is bone debris that has been exposed to a humid environment for a long time.
As the direction of the mine tunnel gradually slopes downward, more and more bone fragments are scattered on the ground, ranging from finger bones to ribs to entire limb bones. Some have been broken into irregular pieces and mixed with dust after being stepped on many times.
Rusty shackles and broken iron chains can also be seen at the corners on both sides of the wall. The size of the iron rings is slightly smaller than the size of normal human hands and feet, which shows that they were locked tightly when worn, and there are still traces of rust staining on some bones.
The existence of those bones and shackles are the silent remnants of a history that can no longer be heard. When the apocalyptic disaster swept across the peninsula, the slaves deep in the mines had no chance to escape.
They were indiscriminately buried underground by that natural disaster, and together with their guards, their tools, and their last breaths while working, they were sealed deep in the mine tunnel that extended downwards.
In one of the deepest mines, the altar was set in the center of the cave. It was made of black rocks stacked layer by layer. The surface was covered with mineral powder extracted from dark veins. It was almost indistinguishable from the surrounding rock walls in the dim light.
Its countertop is filled with human bones, which are not neatly arranged, as if they were randomly piled there after some kind of ceremony. It is also possible that they have been moved countless times over the long years before they became the scattered and densely packed form they are now.
Those black runes - which strictly speaking cannot be called words or patterns - are distributed on the altar's table, sides and surrounding rock faces, covering every available surface extending from the foot of the altar outwards to the cave wall.
They seem to be alive, squirming according to a slow rhythm, sometimes gathering towards the center, sometimes spreading outward, rearranging and combining along the original lines.
At this moment, it seemed as if some kind of suppression was suddenly removed, and the runes squirmed faster.
Those lines began to twist with obvious amplitude, changing from slow wandering to a fast and continuous flow, and reassembled into a new overall sequence in a few breaths.
Then the black light in the center of the altar lit up.
It does not emit from a specific point, but is more like a layer of halo that penetrates upward from the entire altar surface at the same time, forming a limited range, slowly rotating light group in the darkness.
An illusory figure appeared above the light group.
The figure was wearing black armor. The outline was clear but the texture was blurred and had no physical sense. It was like a portrait projected on the smoke.
It tried to take a step forward, trying to get out of the altar, but some invisible force blocked it in place. It stayed at the boundary of the light group for a moment, as if it was blocked by a transparent barrier.
The hem of the armor vibrated slightly, like a layer of water passing over the edge of the iron piece. Then the gaze under the helmet changed from trying to break through to evaluating and measuring.
In the end, the figure stood still and did not try to break through again.
It turned its head slightly, as if confirming some direction or target, and then slowly retreated into the dark light group, like dark ink sucked into the bottom of the water, and spread along the lines on the surface of the altar.
The black light also weakened, returning to the faint brightness covered by ore powder and bones.
But the altar itself did not cease activity.
After the black shadow receded, slight bulges and depressions began to appear on the surface of the altar, as if something was pushing away the stacked bones and covering powder from below, slowly squeezing out a channel.
The first group to walk out of the altar were the orcs.
Their stature is taller than that of an average adult male, and their shoulders are wider than those of an average human male.
The color of the skin varies, some are dark gray, some are dark brown, and the surface is covered with a hard, rough epidermis. In the remaining light of the altar, it glows with a dull sheen similar to that of wet rocks.
After they walked out of the aperture range of the altar, they lined up in the mine and stood facing the entrance of the cave. They moved neatly, as if they had performed similar actions many times.