Roland felt a jolt, thinking, "Why do these things sound similar to the giant demonic beast in the snow mountain?"
When he was about to raise this question, Agatha asked Pasha, "Are you the ones who entered the Devil's Town and devoured the Blackstone Pagoda?"
Pasha was confused, saying, "Devil's... Town? No, we didn't. We've only used our devouring worm to mend the ruins and build the tunnel to the City of Glow. We can't afford to use it so frequently since it eats a lot."
Roland described the witches' adventures in the Misty Forest and the Devil's Town located to the west of the Western Region. After that, he asked Scroll to take out the pictures of the scenes drawn by Soraya and explained, "this monster, much bigger than any wild beast, seemed to move toward the great snow mountain."
Seeing the vivid pictures, Pasha took a deep breath and said, "Yes, it's indeed a devouring worm. I'm afraid that there're also some ruins left by the underground civilization in the snow mountain you mentioned. According to the literatures we read here, this civilization once could be found everywhere in the Land of Dawn. This record is reliable, as now we can easily find tracks and numerous tunnels left by devouring worms in every high mountain."
"But you think the underground civilization has already perished."
"Yes, we do, but the worm was just a shell like an original carrier. A soul can get into it and then move it."
Hearing this, Roland's heart sank in a sudden. He glanced around and found all the witches in the reception hall looked solemn at this moment. Obviously, everybody guessed that the one who sent the worm to Agatha's research tower and the Devil's Town must be the unknown enemy in the Battle of Divine Will.
Roland wondered whether this enemy had happened to find the ruins and some worm shells in the snow mountain and transfer souls into those shells.
If this was the case, he believed it would not be a big problem.
However, if they had also found some magic cores and a central carrier, he believed he would have big trouble. Will these things drastically improve their magic theory and even enable them to create some Instrument of Divine Retribution against the witches?
He thought they had an excellent chance of finding some shells and even instruments in the snow mountain. Unlike the Impassible Mountain Range and the Dragonspine Mountain Range, it did not stretch very long, but its major peak was the highest mount in the Western Region. According to Pasha, such a great mountain was a perfect place to build a large underground city for the underground civilization. Given this, he decided that he must do something about it.
Celine anxiously said, "Your Majesty, please assist us in exploring the snow mountain as soon as possible, in case there're some remaining instruments."
"And the various kinds of shells recorded in the literature. If the unknown enemy gets them, I'm afraid it would cause us lots of trouble." Compared to Celine, Pasha still sounded calm, but all her tentacles were waving rapidly, showing her anxiety inside.
This news apparently caused a stir among the blobs, as it was getting noisy behind Pasha.
Roland quickly got why they were so excited.
Living in the God's Punishment Warriors' bodies for hundreds of years resembled being imprisoned in endless emptiness, which explained why they were so interested in the new carriers. However, compared with living in the bodies of God's Punishment Army, the carriers at least enabled them to have some feelings including a sense of smell, though they would not look like human beings anymore.
Roland pretended to hesitate, saying, "I see your point. I'd been planning to explore the snow mountain of the Western Region, but as I didn't have any suitable means of transport and didn't want the witches to take any risk, I had to postpone in the end. If I could get the help from your devouring worm for this exploration, I think it'll be a good opportunity..."
Pasha immediately promised, "We'll start to move as fast as we can."
Roland, who had been thinking about how to start the cooperation with the Taquila survivors, was also happy to get this chance. In fact, even if they didn't ask him to explore the mountain, he would do it sooner or later in order to eliminate potential threats around Neverwinter and satisfy his own curiosity toward the big carriers which were able to drill huge tunnels underground.
He could easily think of a long list of things these carriers could do.
He had planned to use the Impassable Mountain Range as a natural barrier against the demons, but current engineering techniques did not allow him to do so. The transportation of cement and bricks alone would be a tricky problem, as the mountain paths were rugged and sinuous and the weather condition there was very unstable. If some soldiers were garrisoned on the mountains, he would have to build barbette for them. Near the military facilities, he would also need to build barracks, roads, and necessary living facilities, which would be a big challenge for Hummingbird and Lotus.
However, if he had a devouring worm, he could solve all those problems by drilling a straight underground tunnel connecting the barbette on the mountain with Neverwinter and building underground ammunition reservoir and barracks which could keep them away from the snow storm. He could even build a railroad in the tunnel so that steam trailers could be used to transport soldiers and goods.
With reinforced concrete blockhouses on the ground and convenient transportation lines underground, that would be the natural chasm defense line he wanted.
This devouring worm could also be used to build underground utilities and sewage discharge system for the city. When that happened, he would proudly announce that in this age, Neverwinter was the first city to have an underground drainage system in which people could walk freely. He believed that this worm would be praised highly as a magic tool in the civil engineering field before the invention of tunnel boring machine and would be considered as important as the magic core and the bio-computer.
Roland rose and walked to the light curtain, extending his right hand toward Pasha. "I hope this is the beginning of building our mutual trust."
"Your Majesty, this is..."
He looked at this monster who was several meters taller than himself and calmly explained, "It's a handshake, representing a preliminary agreement between us."
After a little hesitation, Pasha dropped the thickest tentacle on her head. It moved in a spiral and touched his palm in the end.
He thought, "What a pity. Soraya isn't here to witness and record this moment worthy being memorized forever."
When the image of Pasha started to distort, he suddenly asked, "Ah... wait, you said every high mountain might have ruins left by the underground civilization. What about the mountains in the deep sea?"
Pasha was surprised, saying, "Are there mountains under the sea? According to the literature, they did not go to the sea and only lived on the Land of Dawn. I think they might not be able to move around in the sea, as most of their carriers were heavy and clumsy. Why did you ask about this?"
"Nothing, I'm just curious." Roland shook his head and lost in thoughts.
They only lived on the Land of Dawn... so the weird underwater spire and telescope have nothing to do with the underground civilization, but who owns the Giant Stone Gates that Thunder saw through the old telescope and the land which only appears during flood tide? The unknown enemy in the Battle of Divine Will?
I hope Thunder can find the answer.
At this moment, the purple light curtain distorted and then disappeared.
The reception hall got back to normal.