Chapter 543 Bram: This is all necessary for the plot
Bram Stoker was lying leisurely on the hotel chair, holding a thick ancient book on his lap, flipping through the book casually.
There was a full glass of red wine beside him.
He read the book for a while, then closed it and put it aside. He propped himself up and sat up, raised the red wine glass and pointed it at the sun.
The wine in this red wine glass is not clear, but rather viscous.
Under the sunlight outside the window, a black substance that looked like a living thing was flowing in the transparent red wine. It was a black solid that looked like a tiny parasite.
Bram shook the wine glass with satisfaction and tapped it with his finger.
Under the stimulation of external forces, the black tentacles inside quickly danced together. Those parts that were not clear enough condensed into lumps and shrank into a red ball the size of a date, with several black tentacles pulsating like blood vessels.
"——It's not strong enough."
Bram commented.
He took out a glass test tube from his arms and dropped a few drops of blood into it. The blood floated on top of the wine, looking like a puddle of oil.
Then he slit his wrist and dripped his own blood inside.
The two kinds of blood mixed together and sank downwards. The condensed "heart" was shattered again when impacted by external forces, fainted and turned into wine.
"Okay, let's take a rest."
Bram said leisurely: "Let's have some lunch and continue later."
In the corner of the room, an old troll with his upper body naked and his back covered with runes was kneeling on the ground facing the stove.
After hearing this, he began to pack things in silence. He put the black herbs back into the herbal bag, caught the leeches and put them into the bottle. Then he added a transparent liquid like oil into it.
He stood up silently, his rickety back looking extremely oppressive.
His back and abdomen are covered with scars, and the muscles in his waist and back are tightened one by one like hemp ropes. His face is old and shriveled, and the muscles on his clenched jaw and neck are also protruding, making it look like
Sailors' forearms have average muscles.
"As for you, you have nothing to do when you are idle. First, help me lock Aiwass's position with a curse."
Bram put his arms on his knees and said with a smile, throwing a large paper bag of golden fried chicken to the old troll: "Even if you have to pay some food expenses...you eat first. I say, you listen."
.
"——Don't worry about getting into trouble. This matter has nothing to do with you. Just let me tell you...where you will go next. This will give you a little peace of mind."
He looked at the old troll devouring the fried chicken, then raised his wine glass and shook it with a smile.
"You know the ancient country of Anxi. There is a good Lord in it, named Adil. He is also known as the Generous Adil.
"He now needs a reliable spell mage...and in Rest, anyone you invite may be an undercover agent from other cities. Therefore, the troll wizards invited from the southern continent are very valuable..."
As he spoke, he suddenly stretched out his hand and drew a simple rune in the air.
The old troll suddenly turned red all over, as if a light was lighting up under his skin - like the red the back of his hand looks like when a flashlight is shined through it.
His whole body muscles twitched in pain, and at a speed visible to the naked eye, he shrank into a ball. He vomited out the fried chicken he had just eaten in one bite - not because of vomiting, but because he was worried about choking himself.
But even so, the old troll still didn't say a word... Even though his neck was straight and red, he still didn't make any sound of pain or begging for mercy.
"Tsk."
Seeing this, Bram clicked his tongue, clenched his fist in displeasure, and terminated the punishment of the old troll.
He threw the half-used bottle of red wine to the old troll and casually leaned back: "You won't be able to endure the suffering if you follow him. Although there is a shortage of supplies in Rest, the Good Lord is still better than the Theocracy.
It's not much different. Even though it's in the desert, it's not too hot - there are ice makers to keep the temperature warm.
"Although you are old, I can still give you magic potions to extend your life. If you want a woman, there are women. There are women of all races, even elves. I can't get you one. If you like animals,
Be it gryphons, pegasus, maybe even giant dragons... The Good Lord has everything there and can get it for you. Rather, it's better to say that that's the homeland of the goblins.
"Is it interesting to be soaked in the rain, bitten by bugs, and chewing tree bark every day in the southern continent? So we are not in a hostile relationship. This is called each getting what he needs - I will send you to a better place, by the way.
Earn some travel expenses. Don’t always keep a straight face...
"From another point of view, you are going to rest in peace anyway. It is far away from the Theocracy. Even if you commit something here, no one will chase you. Originally, it was also... a crime over there.
If something happens, you hide in the desert; if you put on the white turban, you hide in other cities. Anyway, the news in each city is not communicated with each other, and they can't catch anyone committing crimes there, let alone you.
.
"This is also the meaning of a curse master. If people can't be caught, there must always be a way to punish them. It doesn't matter whether it's a real curse to death, but the key is to look scary, so that it scares people..."
As he spoke, Bram looked at the taciturn old troll in front of him.
If this old guy stands upright, his body is three meters tall. Even in the Theocracy where elves are everywhere, he is undoubtedly a tall man. His body looks thin, but not thin. The dry skin is tight
The muscles make it look as dangerous as a werewolf.
"...I came here specifically to find you because you are famous in the Southern Continent."
He smiled slightly: "Kill my father, kill my uncle, kill all my brothers, and my cousins. After killing so many people, the Beast Song tribe prospered from your hands... And
The root cause of all this is that you were once a slave of the Star Antimony people."
Hearing this, the old troll suddenly raised his head, his sharp and scarlet pupils looking like a hungry wolf in the suburbs.
But Bram had no reaction at all: "Yes, I have heard about your past. You were once sold to Star Antimony, and you mastered the Star Antimony language through self-study. You worked as a ritual assistant for your master and secretly learned from him.
ritual spells and curses, and then you killed him, took a small boat, and rowed back to the southern continent by hand - twenty-eight days of drifting.
"After all, you came back from the civilized world for further study, and your knowledge is different from that of your ignorant compatriots. Now more than sixty years have passed, and you are old and have retired from the position of tribal leader... When I interviewed you before
, you also contributed good material to me. I have to say that my novel with you as the protagonist is selling very well at Iris.
"They used this novel to satirize the Star Antimony people for buying slaves, and also used this novel to insinuate the violence and untrustworthiness of the trolls. My writing style is very good at describing the dangers of your twenty-eight days at sea.
Of course, I know you spent this month catching fish. But in order to highlight the conflict between human nature and the plot, I let you run away with your companion, and then ate him out of hunger on the way.
"
"...Babimu was not killed by me."
Suddenly, the old troll said: "I didn't eat her."
This was the first time he spoke. His voice was old and hoarse: "I remember telling you that she accidentally fell into the water. The wind and waves were too strong at that time... I was too hungry and couldn't catch her."
Bram pressed his hands down: "I know, I know. But this is not very reasonable... Reality is unreasonable, but novels must pursue rationality - if an important character who has been written for a long time is changed because of the storm,
If you kill someone when something like this happens, readers will think it’s too simple.”
"But the fact is..."
"This is called serving the tension of the story - you don't understand. In short, you eat your lover..."
"She is not my wife either. I didn't know her before."
"It doesn't matter, they can be a couple for a day. In short, you ate her, it was painful and firm. This created a heroic image for you. You are quite famous in Anxi. You can even be said to be a troll.
Synonymous with wizard."
The corner of Bram's mouth raised slightly: "That's why someone came to me to buy the 'Protagonist Prototype'. That's why I had the opportunity to introduce you to work in such a good place, old friend. The benefactor saw this book
Novel, I just want to invite you to go there.
"For your own safety, it's best to cooperate. We will give each other's confessions. As for the awesome things I brag about, you have to accept them. They are all needed by the plot to express the author's emotions. Anyway, besides you and me, there is no one else
No one else knows this isn’t true…”
When he said this, he suddenly became excited and his whole person suddenly became serious.
Like a spider that was touched by a cobweb, he stood up from the sofa in a whoosh. His whole body turned into a stream of gray light and flew into the house.
But at this moment, time around him suddenly began to slow down.
The light of noon shrank, and everything in the room became dim. The vermilion wine glass also became dim, and the liquid inside seemed to turn black.
And a dim yellow light spread all around.
Bram's escaping figure was suddenly frozen in mid-air!
