The valley entrance of the Dwarves camp was large and shaped like a gourd. The northeastern sides of the valley were steep, but to the west was a gentle slope filled with coniferous trees.

At the innermost part of the valley, there was a narrow, downward-sloping crack. It was similar to the underground cave where Qin Lun and the others had teleported from Candlekeep to the Northern Lands. The cave was filled with original stalactites and stalagmites.

Shield Dwarf intended to recapture the outpost camp of the Mithril Hall and stay in the cave.

The Silver Hall was the most famous dwarf fortress in the Northern Lands and even in Ferren. It used to belong to the glorious Warhammer Family, but now it was the nest of the Shadow Dragons and the Grey Dwarves. The main part of the dwarf fortress was located in the mountains of the World Ridge. Some of the city’s mining areas were deep into the darkness. The stone gate was located halfway up the world’s ridge, and there was only a narrow stone stairway leading there.

This position was easy to defend but difficult to attack. Without sufficient air power, it was almost impossible to break through the front door of the Secret Silver Hall. In this situation, the shield dwarves had no choice but to think of another way. They planned to enter the dark region first, and then attack and occupy the underground mining area that was originally abandoned by the Micro-Silver Hall.

However, there is also a difficulty in implementing this approach, and that is that almost no one in Shield Dwarf today remembers the underground mining routes from hundreds of years ago.

Hundreds of years ago, when the Silver Hall was occupied by the Shadow Dragon, King Bruno of Dwarves, Warhammer, was still young and his father had died in that war.

Because the catastrophe was too sudden, even though the elders of Shield Dwarf fought hard, they were unable to stop the Shadow Dragon for long. Apart from some old, weak, women, and children escaping from the entire Secret Silver Hall, the others were all buried at the entrance of the dragon’s mouth. Naturally, they were unable to bring out any city maps.

Since he couldn’t forcefully attack the castle gate at the middle of the mountain and didn’t have a road map for the underground mining area, King Dwarves could only patiently search for cracks in the ground near the foot of the hall and slowly explore the underground passageway until he could figure out the dark region before letting the main force attack the hall.

In fact, when Qin Lun first entered Toril World and met Lorraine, the work had already begun.

However, after more than four months of exploration, the Shield Dwarves were able to identify three locations from the dozens of underground caverns that could truly lead to the dark region. The other caverns were all dead ends.

Of the three locations that had been identified, a bottomless ravine was encountered at a depth of several hundred meters below the ground, preventing the exploration team from advancing any further. Along the second passage, there were several dangerous nests of creatures. If they wanted to forcefully attack, the losses would be unbearable, so they would be abandoned.

Only the karst cave where the outpost camp was currently located had the best conditions, and the passageway was in the correct direction. The underground depths were the closest to the original Miyin Hall mining area.

This did not mean that this cave was bound to the underground mining area, but the dwarves did not care about it. As long as they were heading in the right direction, even if the last part of the road was blocked by the rock strata, they were confident that they could use the mine pick in their hands to open a passage.

Of course, this underground karst cave with the best conditions was only relative to the first two. In fact, the Dwarves exploration teams that entered the dark region in front of them had suffered varying degrees of loss of personnel and had no choice but to return to the campsite in the end.

There were many dangers they encountered. Some were related to the terrain, some were associated with toxic gases from ores, and some were nests of underground creatures. In short, all sorts of strange dangers that could not be touched by the ground were only normal in the dark regions.

“Qin Lun, I haven’t received a mission notification yet!” The night they entered the camp, Apostle began to get anxious.

Especially Qin Lun and the others. There was not much time left for them to stay. They would have to return to the Shattered Star Sky by tomorrow night at the latest, if they hadn’t received the mission.

“If this particular area is unable to trigger the storyline mission, I’m afraid we’ll have to take the initiative to attack.” Hill said calmly.

There are three main types of foreign missions that Apostle performs. The first type is the guidance mission and the preset main mission that the Shattered Universe has set up in advance. The second type was the hidden side lines that Apostle had passively triggered when executing the main mission. Generally speaking, most of these missions were historical plots that were obtained only after Apostle had become active and the original calculation data of the shattered starry sky was insufficient.

The last one is that when Apostle interacts with the characters in the plot, the sudden variation of plot, mostly belongs to the original history of the plot task.

The epic plot of the Silver Hall series was the second hidden branch. There were two ways for Apostle to receive this mission. One was to trigger it in a specific region, the other was to receive it from a specific storyteller.

If Qin Lun and the others were able to encounter Shield Dwarf and Shadow Dragon or Grey Dwarves in the vicinity of the Silver Hall, then they could choose to help one of them, which naturally triggered this epic plot.

Originally, Qin Lun and the others had hoped to trigger this mission in the outpost camp in Shield Dwarf, but now, it seemed that it had been in vain. As for finding the passageway to the Secluded Banking Hall alone, it was extremely difficult and impossible.

After ruling out this option, Qin Lun and the others could only receive this mission from certain storyline characters. At this moment, there were only two storyline characters who could give Apostle this mission. One was the legendary expert of Shield Dwarf, Jillim Barbarian Hammer, and the other was Prince Lorraine of Snowpeak Dwarves.

Jillim rejected Qin Lun, Elf Prince. He probably wouldn’t allow Qin Lun and the others to join the exploration team of the Silver Hall. Lorraine was the only one who had hope left.

However, the current Lorraine was no longer the Prince of Dwarves who had been killed in the Iron Star Fort. After that adventure, the youth of Dwarves had grown a lot. Although he still treated Qin Lun as a friend, he would no longer rely on him unreservedly.

If he pushed the Dwarves youth too hard, he might even have doubts about Qin Lun’s motives.

Of course, this did not mean that Qin Lun and the others were helpless.

If they forcefully kidnapped Lorraine into the dark region, they might be able to trigger this epic plot. But that way, they would have no way out. Unless they succeed in finding the Chamber of Michigan and prove that their actions are helping Shield Dwarf, the angry dwarves will treat them as enemies instead.

This method was very undesirable. Neither Qin Lun nor Wei Si’s team dared to implement it easily. The reason was very simple. After Shield Dwarf set up the outpost camp here, he had not been able to find a breakthrough for several months. No matter how arrogant Qin Lun and the others were, they wouldn’t think that they were more suited to explore in the dark than Shield Dwarf.

“Aren’t you all too anxious? Don’t you still have an entire day of nature?” Wei Si’s calm words appeared on the guild channel.

Their team stayed a few days longer than Qin Lun and the others, but if Qin Lun returned to the starry sky, they would have to take the initiative to leave Camp Dwarves. Their identities were clearly those of mercenaries protecting Elf Prince. If Qin Lun disappeared for no reason, it would be strange for Shield Dwarf not to suspect them.

“At dusk, I asked the monkey to investigate the camp and found some clues.” Wei Si muttered. They were now grasshoppers on a rope, so they naturally wouldn’t hide any information.

“What kind of clues?” Qin Lun’s eyes lit up. This showed the importance of the Thief profession. Although Qin Lun and Hill’s strategies were not bad, their speed of obtaining information was not comparable to that of a thief due to lack of buffer time.

“Perhaps it’s different from what we imagined. Although Shield Dwarf hasn’t been able to find the Secret Bank Hall in the past few months, he should already have some clues.” Wei Si pondered for a moment and said, “The news that the monkey heard, the recent batches of Dwarves exploration team members have all mentioned a mushroom forest! Different batches of exploration team members have all mentioned the same location, you should understand what this means, right?”

“Well, that means the dwarves are always heading in the same direction, not aimlessly searching.” Qin Lun thoughtfully rubbed his chin. “It seems like that old fellow really doesn’t trust us. Maybe I should let Easten ask Lorraine about it …”

Compared to Qin Lun, Lorraine was less wary of Easten and Idrea. However, Idrea wouldn’t do “personal work” for Qin Lun, while Easten wasn’t very good at spouting nonsense, so she could only barely give it a try.

“Let’s give it a try first. If we really can’t find any clues to the mission, we’ll have to forcefully take Lorraine away.” Qin Lun shrugged helplessly. In any case, there wasn’t much time left for them to stay. At most, they would return to the starry sky while exploring. It didn’t matter if they abandoned this epic plot and didn’t offend Dwarves.

…

The night slowly faded, and the warm sunlight illuminated an area at the entrance of the cave. Most of the campfires in the camp had been extinguished, leaving behind only a few wisps of invisible smoke.

In the open space outside the camp, there were already quite a few Dwarves cultivating martial skills and eating.

Qin Lun got out of his tent and stretched, thinking about how to coax Easten. Although the elven druid liked him, the kind-hearted elven beauty was also unwilling to deceive Lorraine for him.

Perhaps she could only use Yue Elves’s righteousness to persuade her! Qin Lun had a headache, and he didn’t want to force Elistine unless he had to.

Just as Qin Lun was organizing his words in his mind, a burst of noise came from the depths of the cave. Several Dwarves guards guarding the entrance to the dark region hurriedly carried a wounded man towards the center of the camp.

“It’s the first batch of Dwarves who explored the dark region … Perhaps this is an opportunity!” Qin Lun’s eyes lit up. From the clothes of the injured man, he could immediately tell that he was a member of the expedition team.

Qin Lun greeted them on the guild channel. Without hesitation, he rushed towards the Dwarves guards and stopped them before they could report to Jillim.

“He’s seriously injured. Let me see!” Qin Lun reached out and stopped the guard. He took out an injection from his bosom and injected it into the injured man’s neck before the Dwarves guard could object.

Dwarves, who was seriously injured, blushed and slowly opened his eyes. When the Dwarves Guards saw this, they couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, and their tense expressions relaxed.

“What did the exploration team encounter? Other than you, is there anyone else alive?” Qin Lun told the guards to put down the wounded, took the water bag they were carrying, and carefully fed him a few mouthfuls of water.

The exploration team’s Dwarves had a broken arm and a large dent in his chest. He was already in the dying stages.

However, under the intense stimulation of the potion, he forcefully said, “He … they …”

As soon as Dwarves spat out a few words, his body started to spasm intensely. His eyes lost their luster and his pupils slowly dissipated. The injections Qin Lun fed him were too stimulating, and in disguise, they accelerated Dwarves’s death.

“What did you say … mm, mm!” Qin Lun lowered his body, put his ears close to Dwarves’s mouth, and nodded slightly from time to time.

“He passed away” Qin Lun pretended to sigh and said to the guards beside him with a serious expression, “They are trapped not far from the entrance. Go report to Lord Jillim and Prince Lorraine. I will go with my followers to rescue the trapped members of the exploration team first.”

Just as he finished speaking, Qin Lun did not wait for the Dwarves guards to react. He winked at Hill, Wei Si, and the others who had received the news from not far away and quickly rushed towards the entrance of the dark region in the depths of the karst cave with a few Apostle.