Chapter 131: Frozen Valley
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
The night pa.s.sed without any events.
When travelers met others in the wilderness and both parties could communicate without obvious hostility, then it is possible for them to travel together. Just as Soran was willing to accept Aladdin, the performers of the Phantom Circus had temporarily accepted him for a night after they thought he was of no danger. In this world, faith was more effective than moral constraints. Of course, at the end of the day, it was still the unknown woman in the carriage that had called the shots. She was the real core of the circus.
As for why Soran was convinced that a woman was in the carriage, it was mainly because of the decoration and the faint scent, as well as a legend he had heard before. Legend has it that the Phantom Circus had a Sea Witch. No one knew exactly what this Sea Witch was. Some speculated that she had Siren origins. Others even thought that she was a Sea Hag. Anyway, there were many confusing guesses, but few knew the real answer. The Phantom Circus was an expensive group where even the five or six people in front were paid five or six thousand Derahls.
Among the circuses, the Phantom Circus was a well-known group, and seldom did they hear anything bad about them.
Soran did not know too much about them either. He mostly paid attention to the more well known Darkmoon Circus.
There was a mighty deity in this world called the “Highlady of Silvermoon”. The Knight in Silver who Soran encountered was her follower while the Darkmoon Circus was the organization that served her. In fact, the latter was a hidden killer organization. They would a.s.sa.s.sinate evil targets while they traveled to perform. The group represented the dark side of the moon which used ruthless means to achieve their goals. Soran once had a fight with them before he reached the realm of legend, and lost two fingers to a Battle Clown.
Until now Soran still could not believe that those cold-blooded killers believed in the High Lady of Silvermoon a good deity.
A circus group usually had members with special professions.
The green Goblin named Penny was pretty obvious, and Soran was immediately able to recognize it, but the others were not that obvious.
The only thing Soran was sure of was that most of them definitely multi-professioned as Bards.
Their Performance ability was not low, and their acting skills were also quite good. So it was difficult to judge whether they were telling the truth or acting in front of you.
For example the beautiful Elven lady.
Performance, Deception, and Intimidation, were the three basic skills a circus group needed to master. Soran had only trained his Deception ability in the past.
Back then the Drow who trained him even gave him a quote saying, “Life is like a play. It’s all about acting.”
In fact, it was very powerful to have Performance above 200 to 300!
In all honesty, Soran couldn’t help but miss the ability [Face Read] after meeting this group.
The circus group had watchmen alternating to guard their camp. The only one who did not rest at all was the green Goblin. He squatted by the campfire and roasted Ice Toads. Soran did not know how much he had eaten overnight. But, the Goblin seemed as though he was always short of food. There was even a small pile of bones there the next day. The Goblin was the true person in charge of security as he was able to detect Soran from a long-distance away. Even Soran was not sure if he could beat the Battle Clown.
Since it was possible for outstanding talents to be born from ordinary races, Soran would not despise anyone.
After the orange Sun had crept over the lands, The circus group began to prepare breakfast and also melted the ice and snow directly in the pot. The Elven lady even carried a basin of hot water into the carriage.
It seemed like something ordinary at first.
But after Soran had carefully observed for some time, he noticed something strange.
The water brought in was piping hot.
But when the Elven lady came out, the water in the basin was cold with some floating ice. Within five minutes, a basin of hot water turned into ice water.
“Interesting.”
Soran kept an expressionless face and pulled out his curved sword to shave. During this time, he traveled all night and his beard had grown a little.
Penny held a bowl of hot soup and came over. He saw the curved sword in Soran’s hand and noticed the beautiful fish scale pattern on it.
“Good sword,” Penny praised then handed Soran the soup.
The circus group soon started its journey again and the person in the carriage still did not come out. The others were busy with their own jobs and they seemed very well-trained. The burly Orc carried a whip, began to drive the Pack Beasts, and mounted them to the other two carriages. The Orc should be the trainer of the group, but there were no other animals. Maybe it was because the climate was too cold to bring them along. In any case, a skilled trainer could domesticate a beast in a day or two and ensured that they were more obedient than the Druid’s animal companions.
A row of people began to move.
Soran also followed them in a slightly slower pace. He intends to follow them until the Frozen Valley.
Since that place was evil, it was better to go through there in a group.
Everyone was silent all the way.
Since the journey was cold and miserable, no one was in a good mood.
The Elven lady was still wearing a slightly revealing dress. Her tall figure kept coming and going, shouting and directing them forward from time to time. Looking at her footsteps on the snow, Soran estimated that her Dexterity to be over 20 because there were only shallow footprints on the ground. He did not know what special profession she had advanced to, but from the rhythm and movement of her body, Soran guessed that she had very good Reflex Evasion. Her advanced profession may be similar to that of a Shadow Dancer, but she probably had advanced from a Bard.
The ice on the ground got thicker and thicker.
The group grew tense. After a valley appeared in front of them, they took a little rest and began to speed up.
The Battle Clown walked at the front of the group, looked up at the cliffs on both sides and the position of the mountaintop, and murmured: “There may be Ice Trolls here, everyone should pa.s.s quickly later and do not shout. It would be very unfortunate if an avalanche came down on us.”
There were cliffs on all sides and cliffs were covered with ice.
The Elven lady stood in the carriage and looked up at the sky. Of course, it might have just been the steep part of the mountain. But it seemed that she had noticed something; an Ice Troll.
There were many Ice Trolls around this area, especially on mountaintops.
If it were not for the fact that food was scarce here, Ice Trolls usually would not come down to attack travelers.
“Soran.”
The Elven lady gently landed next to him and gave him a wink, “It seems that you are also a learned adventurer. Since you know the legend of Arendelle, do you know why this place is called Frozen Valley?”
Is this a test?
Or is she digging for information?
Soran frowned slightly, looked at her and said, “The real Frozen Valley lies ahead and it was called the Icewind Dale a long time ago.”
“It was said that because of a legendary battle, the valley was completely frozen, where the ice thickness was very thick. The ice here never melts and the people of Frost Kingdom dared not go through here. They usually used sea trade at the beginning of spring. Druids had once tried to relieve the anomalies here, but they seem to have failed due to special energy in the Frozen Valley.
“You guys should be careful later.”
“There might be Elementals here in the winter season.”
“That’s right.”
“The real ice here is half a meter below the ground. Its hardness is almost the same as that of a diamond. If you are interested, you could test if your weapons are good or not. It is said that there were some treasures underneath, but no one could dig through the ice.”
Everyone’s face showed a shocked expression after hearing what Soran said.
The ice continued to grow thicker and thicker as they moved forward. Almost everything was covered with ice and the road was slightly slippery. The Elven lady seemed very interested in what Soran said. After whispering a few words to the Goblin clown, he quickly broke the ice with a dagger and soon dug about fifty centimeters deep. Then he saw a layer of ice that was light blue in color.
Tang!
His dagger struck the ice and created a crisp sound. The Goblin clown moved his palm, seemingly numbed by the shock, and then said, “It really has the hardness of diamonds! How come I’ve never heard of it before?”
There was only a scratch was left on the light blue colored ice.
Soran shrugged his shoulders and said, “I actually also only heard about it, but it looks like the legend is true.”
Frozen Valley.
The surface ice was not very thick and was similar to the average ice. However, below the surface was a special layer of ice which had a hardness of diamonds and that rare-grade weapons could only leave a scratch. At first, many people wanted to discover the secrets below, but no one had been able to succeed. It was said that there was something frozen below, maybe an artifact. This place remained like this for a long time, until the end of the [Battle of Ice and Snow], and then the ice here suddenly melted.
The Elven lady was obviously very interested. She reached out her finger and touched the light blue colored ice. Then she went into the carriage and said something.
As the group went on, the others also tried it curiously and found that the hardness of the ice was beyond imagination.
This was definitely left behind by something supernatural.
There seemed to whisper in the bitterly cold wind. They may be an illusion, or they may be real. In any case, these sounds had been here for hundreds of years.
The Frost Kingdom thought that a mysterious Witch lived around here.
However, some people had explored all the locations and had basically found no trace of life. Thus, the final conclusion was that these whisper-like sounds were either supernatural or because of the special environment. As long as there were strong winds in the Frozen Valley, there would be such whispering sounds.
At least the journey was not long, so it only took the group half a day to go through!
They did not encounter any monsters on the way.
Soran noticed that only one of the three carriages had left a thin layer of ice. It was the one that carried the unknown woman.
From here on, they parted ways.
Soran headed toward the Frozen Mountains near the north, while the circus group followed the road to the seaside. Arendell was an icy kingdom near the sea.
The elder Princess who was going to ascend to the throne seemed to be a legendary Fatespinner.
If Soran remembered correctly.
After the mysterious disappearance of the G.o.ddess of Winter, the Princess’s magic powers went out of control for some time. She even froze a nearby sea. Eventually, The [Battle of Ice and Snow] broke out, and the elder Princess confronted the lesser deity, [Frostmaiden].