Chapter 411: 410. Fornac Manor
Chapter 411 410. Fornak Manor
In the early morning, facing the bitter north wind, Suldak followed Karl and his party on horseback and left the city of Hailansa.
Worried that Natasha would not be able to eat lunch and dinner at the Knight Academy these days when he was not at the Knight Academy, Suldak specially asked the two girls in the next dormitory to help him take care of Natasha last night. The two girls, Linna and Nedra, readily agreed.
Furnak Manor is located in the southern suburbs of Hailansa City. There are almost no mountains on the road from Hailansa City to Furnak Manor. At most, it is a gentle woodland. Along the way, Suldak saw several logging camps. There are some old golden oak trees on both sides. The road is not very easy to walk, and everyone walks along a trampled mark on the road.
The snow on the road has not been completely trampled, leaving the avenue and embarking on the tree-lined road to the Fonak Manor. There are only footprints left by some hunters on this road. It seems that few people come here after the heavy snow. From time to time, there are only one The pheasant flew out of the snow and plunged into the snow hole in the woodland on the hillside.
In addition to Suldak this time, Karl also transferred the first team of the support squadron to accompany him. A group of eight people left Hailansa City in the morning, and it only took about half a day to arrive at Fornak Manor.
Suldak and Karl walked side by side on the road.
Last night, Karl asked the captain of the first team, Mi Luo, to call out the information about the young Viscount Fornak from the guard camp. At this time, Mi Luo followed Karl, and seriously told the information he found last night. The captain of the first team is Karl's confidant, so I heard him say: "When many people in the city talked about the robbery of the Fornak Manor, they said that the little Viscount Fornak was a rare wimp, because he was afraid of those bandits, Therefore, he gave up the Fornac Manor and ran back to Hailansa City in despair."
Karl was riding on horseback, turned to Suldak and said, "I remember a time when a group of robbers lived in the Fornak Manor."
"Yes!" Mi Luo, the captain of the first team, also had a fresh look in his memory, and said with emotion in his tone: "That happened last summer, a group of bandits looted around the city of Hailansa. , made the nobles in Hailansa City panic, and the guard battalion sent their respective support squadrons out of the city to encircle and suppress the bandit group, only to find out that this bandit group had actually occupied the Fornak Manor, and used it as an excuse The stronghold looted the surrounding villages and towns, and it was not until the guard battalion wiped out the bandit group in one fell swoop that the Fonak manor returned to the hands of the little Viscount Fonak."
"And after Viscount Fornak took over the manor, he only sent a night watchman to guard the gate to prevent the manor from being completely abandoned. I didn't expect that the manor would still have accidents one after another in the following period of time." Mi Luo added. .
"Accidents happen one after another?" Karl asked quite unexpectedly. This kind of incident is an issue of public security outside the city, but he just doesn't know anything about it.
The first team leader Mi Luo nodded, and said: "That's right, this dead night watchman is not the first victim in this manor, in fact, counting this one, it should be the fifth one, but The four viscounts of Furnark have made some compensations to the families of the night watchmen. Even if they die, no one will say anything. Moreover, Viscount Furnark will go to the guard camp every time to file a report. However, this night watchman is not Viscount Furnark. I don’t want to make amends, but just caught up with the recent heavy snowfall, it was a little late when he received the news, the night watchman’s son reported the incident to the guard camp seven days after his father disappeared.”
Carl pondered for a while, and asked again: "It seems that there is something wrong with this manor. Have you asked the family members of the night watchmen before, and the cause of death of those night watchmen?"
Miluo said a little embarrassedly: "On the file, it is only recorded that the cause of death is unknown, because we only had to investigate this last night, and there was no time to visit the families of the victimized night watchmen."
"This is very good!" Carl said to Miluo.
When a group of people were about to arrive at the Furnac Manor, standing on the **** in the distance, they saw that the Furnak Manor was built on a small hill. This hill was only tens of meters high. A gentle slope, and on the north side of the hill is a cliff with a drop of about forty to fifty meters. The Fornac Manor is built on the cliff. Below the cliff is a lake covering an area of about ten acres. Behind the lake is a large forest.
There is a winding path leading here from the south of the manor. From a distance, the depressed exterior walls and dilapidated gates of the Fornak Manor are still covered with thick snow. Although they have been repaired, they are lifeless. The window under the observation deck is only the window frame, and it looks like a messy bird's nest on the window sill. A big ibis with black feathers flew out of the window and flew around the manor for a while. Fly away.
Carl told Miluo: "Send two people to search carefully outside the manor. Let's find a sheltered place to eat a warm meal to fill our stomachs, and then enter the manor to investigate."
Probably because he was worried that Captain Sol and his team would not be able to keep up in time, Karl led the first team and did not walk all the way fast. At this time, he set up a temporary tent next to the forest, built a bonfire and set up a large iron pot to boil the water. Break up the baked oatmeal and throw it into a large iron pot until it is soft and rotten, and eat it warmly. This type of oatmeal with salt and meat cheese is much more delicious than the marching ration.
The group of people walked into the Fornak Manor slowly after lunch. Although there was an iron lock on the dilapidated gate, the railing on the big iron gate had a big hole that even a huge bear could get through. After entering, everyone tied the horses outside the manor, leaving a member of the first team to take care of the horses, and Karl led the other five people into the manor.
After Suldak entered the Funak Manor, he realized that although the manor was too dilapidated to be inhabitable without renovation, the design pattern of the whole manor could still be seen in outline. Under the heavy snow cover, the whole The manor fits well into the surrounding mountain scenery. No wonder the manor has been abandoned to this point. When Darcy Christie recommended the knight collar to herself, she also recommended the land here to herself.
Obviously, Darcy Christie is not optimistic about the land here, but this abandoned manor. If the big lake here and the large mountain forest opposite can become his own knight leader, it is obviously a good idea to buy this dilapidated manor with money. It is an excellent plan to purchase land, but if you want to occupy such a large area of land for yourself, it is estimated that the small knight collar cannot accommodate it.
There were only a few messy footprints in the manor. Miluo walked in the front with a shield in his hand, followed by three members of the first team, followed by Suldak and Karl. Suldak, who rushed to the front, was very uncomfortable. He took out the dwarf chain shield and the blood red crescent moon from his magic pocket, and came to Miluo and walked side by side with him.
He was wearing red salamander leather armor and holding a magic weapon in his hand, which made the members of the first team very jealous.
Ordinarily, the night watchman should live in the gatehouse at the gate, but the gate of this gatehouse has disappeared without a trace, the glass of the windows has also been smashed to pieces, and the house is filled with snow. Outside, there is almost nothing, and there is no trace of inhabitation at all. On the contrary, the stable next to it looks very large. The horse trough alone is tens of meters long. The entire stable is also built with good wooden boards. There are main beams and columns every four meters inside. Snow, and some weeds and horse manure on the ground that was not covered by snow.
Pass through the arched gate at the entrance of the manor. The low wall of shrubs in the courtyard has not been pruned by the gardener, and it has grown into a shapeless shape. Go around the dry fountain in the courtyard and walk up the steps of the main house. I don't know if it was left by the night watchman, or if the night watchman's son came here to look for his father.
The main house is a four-story building, which looks extraordinarily high when it is built on the top of the rock wall. The walls are all made of green mountain stones collected locally. It is neat and regular, and there are regular flowing cloud patterns on the wall. I have to say that the foundations of the buildings in this manor are extremely solid, and all the buildings in the whole manor are made of very hard bluestone strips. The square stones, each with a wedge in the middle, must be combined with each other and then poured with concrete mortar, so that the whole building is almost integrated.
Walking into the living room of the main building, all the furniture inside has been kept, but it was once a stronghold of bandits. Although the decoration on the four walls of the room has not been damaged much, the carpet in the hall is full of dirty and dried blood. The furniture was pushed against the walls, and the empty hall was filled with long tables and benches, which seemed to be a place where robbers gathered to share the spoils.
In the front of the hall, a set of soft leather sofas were placed on a temporary high platform, which seemed to be where the leaders of the bandits sat.
There is a side door next to the main hall, and the debris at the door was cleared out. Suldak walked towards the side door first, pushed the wooden door open, and it turned out to be a fairly good bedroom with a wooden bed inside. , there is a brazier next to the wooden bed, with a burnt black support on it, and an iron pot is hung on the shelf, and the wall opposite the wooden bed is full of sawn firewood, although the room looks messy , but it has a lot of daily necessities, including half a bag of toasted wheat cakes and two dried skinless pheasants that are frozen hard. It seems that this should be the residence of the night watchman.
This night watchman is really lazy. Obviously there should be a very luxurious kitchen in this building, but he just set up a brazier and iron pot in his hut. Obviously he doesn't want to go to the kitchen. Karl is in Turning around in the room, he asked Mi Luo, the captain of the first team, "Did Knight Isaac mention that they found the whereabouts of the night watchman?"
"Probably they didn't find it. At that time they found a basement in this building. After cleaning up the sundries, they opened the door leading to the basement, and encountered evil spirits!" Mi Luo immediately replied.
"Let's look for the entrance to the basement first, go there and check it out!" Carl said, he knew that Captain Sauron had just visited this place the day before yesterday, but Captain Sauron didn't find any evil spirits here, he touched it. Touching the magic signal flare in his arms, thinking about how to send out the signal as soon as he meets the evil spirit.
However, because Captain Sauron is hiding outside the manor, Karl is quite confident in his heart, so he only wants to end this matter as soon as possible, and it is best to return to Hailansa City on the same day. Spend the night in a deserted house.
According to the building habits of Hailansa City, the entrance to the basement is often connected to the kitchen storage room. The other members of the first team are all wearing metal armor, carrying light shields and knight long swords in their hands. The good thing is that when walking, there will always be a very harsh metal friction sound.
"To be honest, I always thought that the Fornac Manor was the most scenic manor outside Hailansa City, but I didn't expect it to be abandoned like this. If the evil spirit here is solved this time, I would like to participate in an auction. If the auction price is affordable, I'll buy it! Renovate it, it's really nice." Carl walked along the corridor on the side of the living room to the kitchen at the back.
Adjacent to the hall on the first floor is a spacious dining room, the dining table inside is made of thick indigo wood, there are some exquisite reliefs on the table legs, and there are even some dusty tableware on the table , The shelves by the wall are also full of kitchen utensils, but there is no damage here, and there are even some tableware left.
In the kitchen, there is a meat case on one side, a stove on the other side, and a long square oak table in the middle. A frozen pork leg is hung on a hook in the kitchen, and there are traces of cutting with a knife and an axe on it. Looks like it's the Night's Watch's stockpile.
The storage room is just opposite the kitchen. In the passage leading to the storage room, there is a lot of debris piled up here, but most of the debris has been cleaned out. A dark basement door is in this passage. The door was open. According to Isaac, a member of the Fifth Squadron, after waking up, the investigation team found the entrance to the basement in the manor and cleaned up the debris piled up at the entrance of the basement. Just before entering the basement, they suffered To the evil spirits attack.
Everyone became tense when they came here. Everyone was holding a shield in their hands, and they almost surrounded the entrance of the basement.
Carl, as the squadron leader, was about to go into the basement first, but Suldak held his shoulders. Suldak shook the heavy dwarf chain shield in his hand, and said to Karl: "Let me..."
Karl knew that this was not a good time to be brave, so he let Suldak take the lead.
The entrance to the basement was filled with a musty smell. Miluo lit a torch and was about to pass it to Suldak, but he did not expect that Suldak himself was carrying a delicate bronze torch with him, and the whole torch looked heavy , I didn't see how he lit it, but I saw a white light cluster on the top of the torch, which was much brighter than the torch in Miluo's hand.
Everyone only thought that the torch was a kind of life-like magic lighting device, and no one paid much attention to it.
Suldak held the torch and lowered his head and walked into the narrow passage in the basement...
(end of this chapter)