The space opposite the magic door—or rather this part of the hidden facility—is even larger than Gawain imagined.
There was not only the hall that everyone saw at first, but after the soldiers expanded the search area, they soon discovered that there was a surrounding corridor structure outside the hall, and a structure lined up outside the corridor. room.
The furnishings in these rooms are complete, and all kinds of living or research equipment, including tables, chairs, and equipment, are well kept in place, unlike the rooms outside that have been moved away.
“The things here have not been moved,” Hetty looked at a room that had just been opened. This room seemed to be a place for many people to gather for meals. There were long tables and Chairs and neatly arranged sinks can be seen in the corners - but there is no water flowing in the sinks. "And the preservation of these things... is much better than outside."
"The whole The facility seems to have been exerted a large-scale magical effect, and the decay rate of all items has become extremely slow." Gawain looked down at a long table at his hand. The long table was mottled with rust, but the table itself was still strong. In good condition, "...there is still a considerable degree of corrosion."
Tear walked between the long tables, her fingers brushing the dusty tabletop, as if there was something missing. Si Di said: "This place feels as if it is ready to be reactivated at any time - as long as someone comes back here, they can start living immediately."
Gawain did not say a word, but remained silent. The long tables that had begun to rust were passed by. At this moment, a group of soldiers who were exploring the front suddenly returned to this room. The leader came to Gawain: "Sir! We found a group of soldiers in front of us. It's a warehouse!"
"Take me there to take a look."
Gawain soon arrived at the warehouse where the soldiers found him, and the scene in the warehouse made him unbearable. Zhu frowned.
This is a place where materials are piled. In the warehouse, you can still see neat stacking platforms and various signs whose handwriting can no longer be seen clearly. However, what made Gawain frowned was—— The originally packed goods on the stack have been unpacked.
A large number of wooden boxes were pried open, and empty boxes and cans were piled up in various places. Some of them were neatly stacked, but some were simply scattered throughout the room. In addition to these messy Apart from the "packaging", there is no useful material here.
"This..." Heti clenched her staff immediately when she saw the scene in the warehouse. She subconsciously looked at Gawain, "Ancestor, this..."
"Someone has taken the supplies here!" Gawain said the only possibility, "Someone has been active here - at least during the initial period of time after this facility was blocked, there were still people active here!"< /p>
"How is that possible!?" Hetty was shocked, "Didn't this place be abandoned and sealed off a thousand years ago? Didn't everyone evacuate?"
"I OriginalI thought so too, but look at these materials that have been consumed - if they were consumed before the facility was closed, there is no way the logistics manager would have allowed the warehouse to become like this," Gao Wen pointed to the empty boxes stacked in disorder. and empty cans, “apparently the result of continued consumption after the facility was closed, and presumably for a long period of time. "
Hetty couldn't help but swallowed: "This... is really disturbing..."
Tear asked a question: "What if after the facility is closed? If there are still people here, where are they now? "
Gawain shook his head: "I don't know, but if all the people working here are humans... then no humans can live for a thousand years. ”
Soon, the soldiers discovered more material warehouses, and most of the contents in the warehouses had been consumed - only a few things remained, and according to the seals Judging from the thick dust on the boxes, they have been neglected for many years.
Even with the protection of magical power, these materials cannot be stored for thousands of years. Even if the packaging is intact, the contents inside have already rotted and deteriorated. , so Gawain just briefly checked these things and lost interest in them.
After checking the corridor outside the hall, the group arrived at the end of the corridor, where the roads converged. A sloping upward staircase extends from the intersection of the corridors to the upper level of this secret facility.
"It looks like there are structures on it," Hetty looked up at the dim space at the end of the stairs. The ancient facility has an amazing energy system, but no matter how advanced the energy system is, it cannot completely resist the erosion of time. The lights in the upper area are obviously dimmer than the lower ones. It seems that there is something wrong with the energy supply. The light is not only dim but also very strange. Stable, Hetty summoned a mage's eye to go up, and after a moment she nodded, "There is no danger up there. ”
The exploration team advanced along the stairs and soon reached the upper level of this secret facility. At the end of the stairs, a thick metal door blocked their way.
"The magic lock on the door has failed." Heti quickly found the magic mechanism that controlled the locked state of the door. Several dim runes were engraved in the center of the door, but these runes had no response to external magic stimulation. , “Now it is just an ordinary iron door that can be destroyed directly. ”
The two soldiers immediately stepped forward and aimed their thermal ray guns at the lock in the center of the door. After several consecutive bombardments with scorching rays, the magic mechanism in the center of the door was directly melted: without magic, After protection, the advanced ancient magic mechanism is just a piece of metal with a low melting point.
Gawain put his hand on the door, and relied on the powerful power of the legendary knight to directly open the door that was originally needed. The door that can only be pushed by a magic device slowly opens.
Creak——
With the harsh sound of metal friction, the ancient door with a history of thousands of years slowly opens. The sides are open, and a staleThe breath leaked from the space inside the door, but a slightly cool mist suddenly appeared out of thin air and surrounded everyone, blocking out all these potentially harmful breaths.
Gawain looked back and saw Tyr waving her hands nonchalantly, while the power of the water element flowed quietly between her fingers.
He did not tell Miss Siren that in fact, every soldier's armor had a long-lasting "breeze shield" effect. Instead, he smiled and thanked Tyr for his kindness, and then walked through the door.
The next second, the scene in front of him made him stunned.
There is a large semicircular room inside the gate. Rows of neat seats are arranged along the arc in the room, and on the rows of seats, there are impressively One corpse after another!
These people have obviously been dead for many years, but because the entire facility is shrouded in a magical force field that slows down the decay of things, they did not turn into bones over time, but turned into some kind of mummy. They were wearing magician robes or short robes from the ancient Gondor Empire, and these clothes were enough to illustrate their identities:
They were the people who were stranded in this ancient facility after it was closed. !
Hetty's eyes widened. The shocking scene in front of her left her speechless for a long time. It was not until more than ten seconds later that she murmured in a low voice: "They...are all here... They all died here..."
"Why are these people left here?" Tire also heard about the origin of this facility from Gawain, and she was greatly concerned about the existence of these people. Puzzled, "Could it be that there was a mistake in the evacuation and these people were forgotten inside?"
"There can be such a big mistake," Gawain frowned and shook his head, "Back then, The evacuation was obviously orderly, and there was no chance of anything going wrong, and the warehouses we discovered earlier were also clues...the supplies showed that the people stranded here were planned.”
After finishing speaking, he began to walk carefully between the semicircular seats. After passing through rows of seats, he came to the front of the semicircular hall.
Gawain turned around here. He saw the rows of seats neatly arranged in front of him. Nearly a thousand silent corpses were sitting on those chairs. Due to the arrangement of these seats, , the focus of the "sight" of the corpses was exactly where he was.
This weird feeling made him break into a cold sweat, but it also made him notice his feet: on the ground under his feet, there was an inconspicuous raised device, and Between the runes on the surface of the device, there is still some remaining magical brilliance slowly flowing.
He recognized that thing - it was the technology of the ancient Gondor Empire, a magical device used to transmit messages. With the huge power of the Deep Blue Well and the magic deflectors throughout the empire, these devices Can closely connect every inch of the empire, but with the explosion of the Deep Blue Well, this communication networkThe network has completely collapsed and is no longer possible to rebuild, and the communication spells and magical communication towers used by human nations today are just the remaining remnants of this ancient technology.
This device can still be used. Although it can no longer send or receive any messages after being separated from the "Deep Blue Magic Network", the flickering light on its surface shows that there is still a little residual energy inside. , and the information it stores is not lost.
According to the memory from seven hundred years ago, Gawain tried to inject some magic into this device, so this ancient device that had been silent for thousands of years was instantly "resurrected", and the symbols on its surface Gao Wen flashed violently, and a beam of light was emitted from the top of the device, hitting the wall behind Gao Wen.
Gawain turned around and avoided the projected beam. He saw the ancient device projecting a message on the wall, in front of the nearly a thousand corpses in the hall. It was ancient Gondor. A series of words written in Common Language, it is incredibly brief:
"You are the last survivors, stay alive and don't come back."
This is the only sentence saved in the communication device , it is obviously the content of the last communication, and other earlier contents have either been deleted or failed to survive the passage of time.
"The last survivor..." Tyr saw the message. The siren, who had lived for who knows how long, actually recognized the writing of the ancient Gondor Empire. She leaned forward with curiosity. , "What does this mean?"
"...This is the last communication sent here from the empire when the demonic tide broke out," Gawain said slowly, "I have already guessed what happened here things, but there are still many mysteries to be solved.”