Death Notice Book 8: Chapter 53: Forbidden Zone of Life

Looking at the peaceful spring scenery by Lake Esmel, the faces hidden under their hoods were full of tiredness and fatigue.

After more than three weeks of rough travel, they moved along the border between Tethyr and Sespitz and crossed the entire eastern border of Tethyr without much trouble. Even though the border legions of the two great kingdoms were stationed here, an adventure team of just over twenty people clearly didn’t catch their attention.

Apart from some careless petty thieves and a few magical beasts, Qin Lun and the others didn’t face many challenges. For this small team mainly composed of Professional Apostles, these small bands of thieves and magical beasts became a rare amusement during their boring journey.

Compared to the busy and crowded continental trade roads along the Sword Coast, the eastern borders of Tethyr and Amn seemed sparsely populated. There were basically no large towns here, only villages set up by Half-Beings and barbarians. Only these agile races with some individual combat power could survive in these chaotic areas.

At night, the distant roars of magical beasts even put the Apostles on alert. It seemed the light of human civilization never reached these ancient wild areas.

In the first few days of the journey, the members of the diplomatic mission often marveled at the bone fossils or ruined remains they encountered in the wild. But after just a short few days, even the two curious ones, Iristin and Nicole, stopped paying attention to these things, their pretty faces full of numbness.

The long history of Faerûn buried countless civilizations and nations. No one could tell whether a bone sometimes sticking out of the yellow sand or some broken wall by the roadside belonged to an unknown small village destroyed by magical beasts or was a true relic of some civilized nation.

The day after day of boring marching made the Apostles feel somewhat irritable, their hearts filled with violent emotions. This made the occasional thief bands very unlucky, usually leaving no survivors. As for those magical beasts, they generally became delicious roasted meat for everyone that evening.

In this regard, even Qin Lun felt very glad that Loier and a few other dwarves had joined the team. The dwarves living in mountainous areas were very good at brewing and roasting meat. Every time magical beasts attacked, it allowed the diplomatic mission to have a roasted meat campfire party that evening.

However, on the fourth day after the diplomatic mission entered Amn, their good luck finally ran out. Just as the diplomatic mission wanted to cross the Serpent Forest in Amn to enter the Green Fields, they found that all the roads ahead were blocked by the official Amnian Guard of the kingdom. Checkpoints were tightly guarded along nearly a hundred miles of road.

After investigation by several rogues in the team, these checkpoints had many High Rank Magicians and heavy knights. Several times, Longer and other rogues and rangers almost didn’t make it back. Forcing their way through clearly wasn’t a good option.

Lacking relevant information, everyone didn’t know the details of this blockade by the Amnian Guard or how long it would last. However, from the current situation, it seemed the kingdom wouldn’t lift the blockades for at least the next month.

So, the Sun Elf Diplomatic Mission only had two choices left. One was to go through the Cloud Peaks, which were connected to the Serpent Forest and ran east-west. The other was to follow the main road to Amn’s capital Athkatla.

Athkatla bordered the Sword Coast and, like Calimshan’s capital Calimport, was both a capital and one of the most important trading seaports along the Sword Coast. Once in Athkatla, they could take a sea ship along the Sword Coast to Baldur’s Gate.

Baldur’s Gate happened to be the next stop from Athkatla along the entire Sword Coast sea trade route. The two giant port cities were only a few hundred kilometers apart. Moreover, this sea route was protected by official fleets and several multinational trade organizations, so they were unlikely to encounter pirates or large sea beasts. The safety factor was quite good.

However, both choices had uncertain dangers and their own pros and cons. Going to Athkatla went without saying. As an important seaport on the continental trade road, the Zhentarim, who specialized in controlling trade routes, had great influence here and were very likely to cross paths with the diplomatic mission.

If they chose to cross the Cloud Peaks, they probably wouldn’t meet the Zhentarim, and the Cloud Peaks were the border between Amn and Baldur’s Gate. Once they successfully crossed the mountains, they would directly enter the territory of Baldur’s Gate. As long as they passed through the southern Fang Forest of Baldur’s Gate, they might not encounter the Zhentarim or other organizations with ill intentions towards the Sun Elf Diplomatic Mission for the rest of the journey.

But the problem was that the Cloud Peaks themselves were extremely dangerous. Putting aside the evil Gray Dwarves and Orc tribes living inside the mountains, the Twin Towers on the southern foothills and the Tower of Durlag on the northern foothills were two famous Forbidden Zones of Life in Faerûn.

The Twin Towers on the southern foothills weren’t actually towers, but two military fortresses built by the Sannata Dwarves of the Sarnatan Empire’s Battleaxe Tribe about seven thousand years ago. At that time, the Sannata Dwarves living in Amn fought a large-scale war with the giants of the Giant Plains and Cloud Peaks.

The war lasted 25 years. The Sannata Dwarves destroyed more than half of the giant tribes in the Cloud Peaks, basically eliminating the threat of the giant race to Lake Esmel and Warm Lake in the Two Rivers Region, stabilizing the situation in the Amn area.

After the war, the Sannata Dwarves built the Battleaxe Bridge and Star Bridge in what is now Amn. These two huge stone bridges connected the Two Rivers Region. This played a decisive role not only for the dwarves at that time but also for the later rising human kingdoms.

The two military fortresses, called the Twin Towers, were built from the start to guard the exits of the Cloud Peaks and prevent remnant members of the giant tribes from causing major damage to the two Bridges of Life.

As for the Tower of Durlag on the northern foothills, it was also a relic from thousands of years ago. It was a product of the same era as the Twin Towers, even dating back to the war period between the fire genies and Air Genies.

At that time, the great Kaeldomo Forest, which covered all of Amn, Tethyr, Calimshan, and the Steaming Lake area, was divided into many small forests due to fire and the destruction of the five Crown Wars. The forest in the northern part of Amn, including the current Fang Forest, was called the Rystall Wood at that time.

The elves of Rystall Wood established the Uvaeren Elven civilization after the war, also known as the Rysallan Empire by later generations. The Uvaeren Elven civilization actually was a mix of several elven heritages, including the fallen Elven Court of Santa Osriel and some Kaeldomo Elves from the war, plus a few Sun Elves who escaped from Aryvandaar.

The Uvaeren Elven civilization was highly developed, covering almost all the documented knowledge of the Elven Race. Many aspects of it could be considered classic even in present-day Faerûn.

Legend says the Rysallan Empire, which founded the Uvaeren civilization, used many huge magic towers as Uvaeren’s library buildings.

The library buildings not only had classic works on various aspects like magic forging, social philosophy, astronomy, geography, painting, and music, but also many magic books left by great elven mages.

The Tower of Durlag in legend was not only a great mage tower but also one of Uvaeren’s library buildings. To this day, whether it’s the Twin Towers or the Tower of Durlag, the defensive setups from thousands of years ago had long failed. They were called Forbidden Zones of Life for other reasons.

These two places were now paradises for the undead: skeletons, Ghosts, Death Knights, and even Legendary Rank Liches and undead great mages. The many undead not only existed inside the Twin Towers and the Tower of Durlag but also occupied a large area centered around them.

The Cloud Peaks ran east-west. Although they spanned a large area, the core peaks were straight-up cliffs. Only the peaks where the Twin Towers and the Tower of Durlag were located had gaps that could be crossed.

This was why the Sannata Dwarves and Uwelun Elves built military fortresses and magic towers on the southern and northern foothills of this place back then. To cross the Cloud Peaks, one had to pass through the areas where the Twin Towers and the Tower of Durlag were located.

Realizing their current predicament, after some discussion, the diplomatic mission finally decided to go to Amn’s capital Athkatla. Compared to the potential threat of the Zhentarim, everyone thought the Twin Towers and the Tower of Durlag were more dangerous.

After all, no matter how powerful the Zhentarim were, they hadn’t exposed their whereabouts yet, while the Twin Towers and the Tower of Durlag were completely unavoidable Forbidden Zones of Life.

Of course, there was another important reason for choosing to go to Athkatla. Everyone in the diplomatic mission had overlooked the fatigue brought by the long journey. Perhaps because the Apostles, except for Kelly, hadn’t experienced this kind of long-distance adventure lasting over a month, by now everyone was a bit unable to hold on.

You must know that in these more than three weeks, they hadn’t entered a single human town, completely spending three weeks like savages in the wild areas. Not to mention the female Apostles and beauty-loving elves in the team, even the dwarves who cared least about their appearance couldn’t take it anymore.

“Firal, once we cross Lake Esmel, we’ll enter the prosperous area of Amn. I’m afraid we can’t hide our tracks like before.” Milleras moved close to Qin Lun, touched the stubble on his face, and said with a bitter smile, “You have more experience traveling outside. Do you have any way to continue hiding from the Zhentarim’s spies?”

“The towns in the Two Rivers Region of Amn are numerous, the population is dense, and this area belongs to the Sword Coast nations where merchant groups and religious organizations are the most complex and chaotic. We are outsiders; hiding our tracks is as difficult as climbing to the sky.”

Qin Lun shook his head faintly. “The Zhentarim are an old organization controlling trade routes and are known as the Dark Intelligence Network. It’s absolutely impossible for us to hide from their spies.”

At this point, a strange light suddenly flashed in Qin Lun’s eyes. “But… if we take proper measures, before entering Athkatla, the Zhentarim really might not be able to find us. Milleras, have you heard a saying called ‘darkness under the light’?”