An eerie and dark castle stands on the edge of a lake filled with black duckweed, with a steeple in the style of an ancient magic empire like a javelin.
Harold Steelhammer carried a bag of ore on his back and walked towards the castle's warehouse. His steps were heavy and his movements were slow.
As a dwarf who is still underage, he is not like those muscular elders who wield huge hammers like toys, so such a bag of ore is indeed a bit too heavy for him.
However, Harold had no complaints about the heavy manual labor. At least he could still survive, and at least he didn't have to become the food of the vampire master like those exquisite dwarves who were selected.
This is the castle belonging to the "Great Blood Earl" Vlad Cecil. He controls hundreds of surrounding dwarf villages, selects "pure blood and flesh" from among them as food, and drives the remaining slaves to
Working in the mines and castles, he mined and smelted the Nidham gold unique to the Night Plateau as well as the rare Karamo refined iron and mithril.
From the time they were born, the fate of the dwarves seemed to have been predetermined. They would either become food or die early after squeezing out the power in their bodies. All that remained of their life landscape was the part where they were combined for the purpose of reproducing offspring.
Although he had never left the village where he was born and Count Vlad's castle, Harold had "heard" that whether it was the desolate south where he was now, or the north where the reputation of terror spread, the dwarves in other areas of the plateau had to survive.
The situation is always like this, and the pain continues numbly.
Thinking of this, Harold raised his head and looked up at the darkness that forever shrouded the plateau, looking up at the bright and bright constellations, feeling slightly confused and sad:
"Is my life going to be miserable along such a fixed track with no hope at all? Is it possible that our dwarves will never be able to restore their ancient glory?"
Snap, sharp pain came from Harold's face, and a whip mark oozing with blood suddenly appeared on the left side of his face, extending across the dwarf's unique big nose to the right.
"Walk faster, why are you dazed!" A vicious and fierce voice came, and the shadow of the whip was still echoing in front of my eyes.
Yes, dwarves have more than just two fates. They can also turn their backs on their ancestors, please the vampires like a dog, become their blood servants, and in turn look after their companions.
How can a vampire who claims to be elegant and noble manage the dirty miners and coolies by himself? Naturally, he needs servants to do the tedious work. However, every vampire will consume his own blood source when he first embraces him. If a weak vampire develops more descendants,
, it will decay in advance, so even high-level vampires are not willing to have offspring at will.
Moreover, vampires have a very high self-esteem and regard most lives of other races as dirty and lowly lower creatures. They do not value or like them very much, and it is impossible to waste the source of blood to transform them into vampires. Therefore, the number of orthodox vampires has always remained at a level.
In a smaller area, there are a large number of blood servants who have been sucked by them but have not died, and they obey their orders like puppets.
As a blood servant, his strength is close to that of a formal knight, but it will never improve. His lifespan is only one-tenth of his master's, and he will never be able to resist his master, or even think about it.
Harold glanced at the dwarf next to him who was holding a whip and wearing gorgeous clothes. He lowered his eyes to prevent the hatred and anger in his eyes from being discovered by him: "Yes, Butler Wells."
This abominable traitor has reported and beaten to death so many of his own kind. He is obviously just a supervisor, but he likes to be called a butler. When the real vampire butler Galata appears, he wants to kneel on the ground and kiss his shoes.
tip.
The red-haired dwarf Wells shaved his proud beard cleanly because his owner Vlad hated beards, revealing his pitted face. At this time, he saw Harold's "handsome" face.
The big brown bearded man couldn't help feeling bored. He waved his right hand and gave him another whip:
"What were you thinking just now? Dwarves don't need to think! Do you understand? I ask you do you understand? Splash dirty bastard dwarves!"
He seems to have forgotten that he is also a dwarf, and completely regards himself as a noble blood servant who is only slightly worse than the orthodox vampires.
"Understood, Steward Wells." Harold's hands holding the ore bag had blue veins.
"Get out!" Wells did not dare to delay the progress, lest he be scolded by the butler, Mr. Galata.
As soon as Harold took a few steps, Wells' fierce and vicious voice became extremely flattering: "Good afternoon, Mrs. Tess, Mr. Galata, please go this way. It is full of ore powder, very dirty, and has a stench.
The dwarves will rush into you."
Even without looking back, Harold could still imagine the way Wells bent down to please, and the meticulous style of the tall vampire butler Galata - he always wore a black formal suit and a neat bow tie.
And Lady Tess must still have the same beautiful and enchanting appearance, with long golden hair, a slender figure of moderate proportions, and eyes as green as lake water, which have not changed since she was first embraced by Count Vlad and became a vampire.
Harold felt extremely heartbroken and sad when he thought of Lady Tess. She was the most beautiful female dwarf in hundreds of nearby villages and the lover of his dreams. Unfortunately, she was spotted by Count Vlad and became his wife.
The vampire bride.
The cool breeze of the plateau blew by. Harold buried his head and advanced slowly with a bag of ore on his back. A voice as crisp as a bird's song came from behind: "Work harder to smelt the ore, don't let them be lazy."
"Pay attention to the investigation. Some dwarves who escaped have formed a resistance army. We cannot let them destroy the mine."
…………
He was busy until the position of the constellations changed, and the evening came, which was no different from before. Harold ended his heavy labor and got a chance to breathe. Then he left the castle with the rations issued - two loaves of black bread and headed to a nearby village.
return home.
As he walked, Harold suddenly looked around cautiously. When he saw no one nearby, his expression immediately became excited, and he turned into a remote road, walking quickly with darkness on his back and starlight on his back.
After walking for about ten minutes, passing through several sparse black "Wind Poplar" forests, Harold saw an ordinary boulder.
He looked around again, then carefully and tiptoed behind the boulder, tapping the stone surface gently.
"Steam is supreme." Weird Dwarf words came out of his mouth, like a spell but without any mental power to match it.
Just as the sound disappeared, a gap suddenly opened in the boulder, as if a door had opened. A gray-faced dwarf stretched out his head and looked around, then waved his hand: "Come in, Harold."
Harold got in quickly, watched the dwarf close and lock the stone door, and threw a piece of black bread to him: "Uncle Warren, I'm going down first."
"Go quickly, the great elder is waiting for you, my children." Warren caught the black bread, drank some water, and bit it with his teeth, as if he had been hungry for a long time.
Harold understood that Uncle Warren and the dwarf rebels hiding underground had been short of food for a long time, which was why they were like this, so he shook his head sadly and walked deep underground along the passage.
While drinking the water he brought with him and eating black bread, he lamented the magnificence of the underground palace built by his ancestors, which was deeply shocking:
"Why was such a great ancestor defeated by a vampire?"
"Have you been abandoned by the gods?"
There are many murals carved on the stone bricks on both sides, including overwhelming airships, steam engines and ships sailing on the ocean, terrifying cannons bombarding giant dragons, and steam trains running on the plains... Harold has already seen it.
He had seen these murals many times, but he couldn't help but feel excited every time he saw them, so he loved to listen to the Great Elder Augustus Brokenheart talking about the steam age, and thought about the glorious civilization of his ancestors. It seemed that just thinking about it, life was full of things.
Gained hope and inherited glory.
At the end of the passage, there is a large hall that looks like a sacrificial hall, with rows of small rooms on both sides. The roar of steam keeps coming from inside, and strong dwarves are driving steam sledgehammers to forge weapons.
"Harold, are you here?" A dwarf with a long white beard nodded slightly at Harold, then followed his gaze and sighed softly: "It's a pity that our civilization has been lost.
We are completely unable to make complex steam engines, cannons, and rifles. We can only make sharper swords and axes. But this can only deal with blood servants, and there is nothing we can do against vampires, let alone the north where the terrifying vampires live."
His tone was vicissitudes of life and desolation.
"Great Elder..." Several "senior leaders" who were simply dressed but whose status was slightly higher than other dwarves stopped them. How could they create an atmosphere of despair within the resistance.
The great elder Augustus smiled calmly and said: "Mirna, Quiggins... We must let the people who follow us understand our situation. This is a road with no hope at all. It is a road of kneeling numbly.
You must make your own choice between living, or defending the honor of your ancestors with your blood, and dying like a real dwarf."
"Steam is supreme!" A roar suddenly sounded from the small houses on both sides, "Anyway, they are destined to die in pain!"
While sharing food, Augustus asked Harold about the recent developments in the castle. They chose Count Vlad's territory to hide because they heard that he had been traumatized by "magic" in a certain war in his early years and had never fully recovered.
, it needs to sleep frequently to keep itself from decay.
"...Mrs. Tess is instructing the Blood Servants to look for you..." After Harold reported the little information he knew, he looked at Augustus expectantly: "Great Elder, can you tell me more about ancient steam?"
A civilized thing?”
Myrna, a beautiful female dwarf who is still young, is also full of expectations. Listening to the great elder's stories about the past is a rare "light" in the difficult life of the resistance.
"... We dwarves once ruled the vast land. At the mouth of the endless ocean, on the banks of the Negnin River, and in countless prosperous places, we built giant cities... Chimneys made of steel are like forests.
Towering, spitting out billowing black smoke, sometimes it can even block the sun and turn the day into darkness..."
"...There are huge steam trains running between the cities. It only takes a few hours from here to the north...Every dwarf can get enough food and use various mechanical products, such as being able to lift people to the top of the building.
A steam elevator, such as a steam boiler that always has hot water for you to take a shower..."
"...The great dwarf warriors carry high-pressure steam bags on their backs, equipped with mechanical arms, and carry steam rifles to open up the dangerous wilderness...Steam engine ships sail on the vast ocean, and their huge barrels make the enemies surrender..."
Although they don't quite understand what daytime and sunshine are, it doesn't stop Harold, Myrna and the other dwarves from hearing it with gusto. It's the paradise of their dreams.
Combined with the murals, the city with steam machinery came to their mind so vividly.
Harold clenched his fists tightly and vowed to rebuild such a dwarf city one day.
When telling this, Augustus's expression was full of pride and yearning, and the wrinkled petals on his face seemed to be in full bloom.
"Okay, that's it for today. It's time for us to worship the God of Steam, the great master of life and death." Augustus got up and walked to the center of the hall, where there was an altar with strange patterns painted on it.
"Great Elder, is it really useful?" Milna, a girl with flaxen hair, asked doubtfully.
Augustus glared at her and said sternly: "When we excavated this ruins, didn't we find the ancestors' rituals to worship the gods? They are so powerful and smart, how could they do useless things? I
I think our civilization was destroyed because we neglected the God of Steam and was abandoned by Him, so we need to be more pious in order to regain His favor."
"Yes, Great Elder." In this desperate situation, any opportunity can let the dwarves light the torch of hope.
Therefore, all the dwarves, including Harold, gathered in front of the altar and followed the great elder in making strange gestures and movements, and dancing inexplicably.
"O great God of Steam, your devout servant prays to you." (To be continued. Please search Piaotian Literature, the novel will be better and updated faster!)