The Amber Sword

As broken, narrow and dim as memories were, the corridors filled with holes left by years of neglect between the dusty planks and the planks, Brando came to a door with an impression and stopped to ask, “Is this it? ”

“Mm-hmm.” A voice behind him replied softly, "It was the voice of the lady of staff.

Freya followed the two of them, frowning and measuring the place, they stood on the aisle, the boards made a squeaky noise, the air smelled of choking dust, and she wanted to come, even the stables in Butch countryside were a little cleaner than here, it was hard to imagine that someone would actually live in this place.

“Looks like it's locked.” Brando wiggled the door knob and said.

“I locked it before I left.” Antitina replied softly.

“Do you have a key? ”

“Well, I've been taking it with me.” Antitina stroked and came up with a copper key. Brando had a good memory. At a glance, he recognized that the key chain was her original necklace. He remembered seeing it once or twice. There should be a beautiful crystal pendant on the necklace, but the pendant is long gone. He took the key, weighed it in his hand, and he was kind of surprised: "How could you carry this? ”

“I don't know when I'm going to use it.” Miss Clerk replied with constant seriousness.

“It does look useful, too.” Brando smiled, looked at her, and the lady of the staff smiled shallow.

He turned the key to open the door, and behind the wooden door it seemed like a giant mouth of a black hole opened by a monster, waiting for the prey to throw itself into the net. The three men stood at the door for a moment before adapting to the sudden darkening of the light. The room was as small and dusty as the impression was, but clean, apparently its owner had carefully arranged it before leaving. “Antina, have you lived here before?” Freya measured the house with some surprise, and even the militia's old warehouse was much bigger than it was in Butch. She always thought that the maid of honor was of noble descent, but didn't expect her to live in a place like this before following Brando.

“Mmm.”

“But I heard Brando say you are a nobleman's gold...”

“My lord is not wrong, he was.” Antitina replied, "But after my father disappeared, the debtors came to the door and I had to sell my property in order to pay off my foreign debt. I remember shortly after that, my mother was depressed, and life became strained, and that was something I had to do to cut back on spending. ”

“Sorry, Antina, I didn't think you had a past like this, I shouldn't have mentioned it.” Freya answered with some embarrassment.

Antitina smiled and didn't care.

Brando came to the desk and lit the remaining candles, which lit up like beans, barely illuminating the room. The house was full of dust, but Antitina walked to the side of the bed and pulled the bed apart, revealing a clean, clean wooden bed with a slight smell of mold. Brando glanced at her with some surprise and his eyes filled with praise. Freya on one side was also of low birth and not so uncomfortable in this tiny, broken house. She saw the two of them move, and she joined in silently to clean up the house. None of the three of them spoke. Since the last time she left Prague, it seemed as if there had been very little time like this. The house seemed a little quiet at one time, with only a few minor murmurs left. Soon they cleaned the house clean.

Antittina opened the window in the direction of the desk, she glanced at the window, frowned and closed it gently, then pulled the drawer open and suddenly said: "Someone has been in the house. ”

Brando whispered, “What's wrong? ”

“Someone came into the house after I left. ”

Brando's eyebrows also wrinkled: “What's going on? ”

“There should be more than one person, they came in through the window. After coming in, I checked the drawer,” She walked aside and opened the cabinet: “I should have checked my cabinet, too, and the books were turned over, and they seemed to be looking for something. ”

“Are you sure, Antina?” Brando asked with some alarm.

“Well, I put things in my own place, definitely remember, someone must have touched them. ”

“Do you want to ask the people around?” Freya asked softly.

“No, they certainly won't know anything,” the lady shook her head: "Whether it's a thief or another unintentional guest, they certainly won't let anyone find out. ”

“Any leads? ”

“It's a bit strange, as if these people came earlier, and we didn't notice footprints or anything when we were cleaning the house earlier, and the dust in the house was natural, which means they weren't there for at least a few months. ”

“A year ago?” Brando thought about it, and it seemed like they had just left Prague for a short while, and their reputation didn't stand out, and it seemed unlikely that anyone would notice them at that time. And he thought about it for a year, and he said, "If that's the time, it could just be a thief. ”

Antitina smiled slightly: "The thieves were afraid to go home empty-handed. ”

This phrase puzzles Brando that most of the people who live on the grave-digging streets are the poorest and poorest of the city, and it is unlikely that those who mix in the grey areas of the city will know that, in fact, thieves rarely visit places like this because most of them know that these places are unprofitable. He hesitated and suddenly heard Freya say, "There's only one bed here, Brando. ”

Brando suddenly realized this embarrassing thing, and he almost forgot that the house was previously inhabited by Antina alone, with only one bed in the house.

Antitina shrugged, obviously realizing this too. After all, all the furniture in this room is a desk, a small cabinet, two chairs and a bed. It's really hard to imagine how to rest at night in such a humble environment. “You two should sleep together, anyway, with my strength now, it doesn't affect me much if I can't sleep one night.” Brando thought about it, so arranged.

“That's not possible," Antitina shook her head: "You are the lord, how can the minister make the lord suffer on his behalf, and this is also because I am not thinking carefully. ”

Antittina disagrees, and Freya naturally does not agree, that her face is not yet thick enough to be enjoyed by herself.

Brando seemed to expect this, and he looked at the two of them and sighed: “We'll talk later, I'll get you something to eat. ”

Antitina nodded softly.

There are a lot of places in big cities like Pragues where you can buy food as long as you can afford it, even from a street workshop, but here, if you want to get food, you have to go to a hotel or a tavern, or a bakery in the city, a little further away, there's only a mill estate outside the city. Hotels and taverns are crowded, no one knows if they've been spotted, Brando is naturally reluctant to step in easily, and there's no bakery on the avenue near Gravedigger Avenue. But the trouble is not enough for him. The most important thing in this slum is the idle man who has nothing to do. He spent a few tolls to find a teenager who was willing to help him run errands. He showed his hand in front of the other side and stamped a nightingale on the wall with a sword, so that the guy wouldn't dare to ignore the money.

Of course, in his current position, there is no shortage of the money, but it is not possible to starve the future goddess of martial arts, Miss Bureaucrat and Eruin. He is at least a nobleman of the kingdom. How can he behave so incompetently in front of the ladies beside him?

When the young man saw the deep mark he had engraved on the stone wall, he revealed his uncertainty. Brando knew that it was not his swordsmanship he was afraid of, but the symbol he had engraved. Most of the people who grew up in places like this have dealt with the Brotherhood of Thieves walking in the grey area, and even not without their eyes, so the teenager must have recognized that the mark he left behind was the more advanced form of contact between the Brotherhood of Thieves of Goran-Elson, who had studied the knowledge between nightingales in a rough way in the game, although it was only a light taste, it was completely enough to frighten this insightless teenager.

The teenager was frightened by him, and after taking his money, some shrugged their hands and stood there, watching him carefully ask, "My lord, is there anything else I can do for you? ”

“Do you live around here?” Brando asked.

The juvenile nodded.

“Do you know the guest in that room?” Brando pointed to the window of the second room next to Antina and asked.

“Yes, there's a dead old man living there, they call him Nightingale, he used to be a loan shark, but later he didn't know who to offend, so he came here to hide.” The teenager simply replied.

Brando picked his eyebrows slightly and didn't expect him to grab someone randomly. He was also a well-informed guy. But then he releases that these young people of lower social origin, who themselves have nothing to do, spend all day wandering the streets. Apart from the few who can afford to suffer, most are reluctant to be apprentices, these times of information blockage, these people are also very well informed. But in the rumors they know, nine of the ten sentences are rumours, but some of the local people are looking for them.

“What about this one?” He pointed to this room next to Antina again.

“This room has been empty for a long time, my lord. ”

“And next to it?” Brando's heart moved, pointing to Antina's room. The teenager hesitated for a moment, as if thinking about it, and replied: "The owner of this room seems to be a poor aristocratic lady, but I haven't seen her in a long time. I heard that she is not well, she is probably ill to death. ”

You're the one who died. Brando didn't have the guts to think about it, but when he saw a teenager saying it was as normal as eating and drinking water, he knew that so-called living and dying in a place like this was very common. In a slum like Gravedigger Street, where many people die of hunger every year, all of them understand that nobles do not care with their eyes closed, as they should. Brando sighed and thought at least this guy wasn't lying. He knew the place very well.

He asked some unfettered questions, and then suddenly he asked, "Do people ‘visit’ here often? ”

Naturally, his mouth will not come to visit, but the thieves, the teenager naturally understood, he couldn't help but look in awe at this very handsome gentleman, determined in his heart that this is a legendary nightingale, otherwise how can he draw the symbol that he doesn't even know very well - it must be the kind of symbol between thieves, but it is much more complicated than he knows. Now he's talking more about the blackmail between fraternities, which makes him more and more certain.

“Of course not, my lord,” the teenager replied hastily, "there's no oil or water here, and they're unlikely to see a place like this, except for poor, fallen mercenaries and elderly prostitutes. Who would be happy to live in such a place? ”

“There's always some blind guy. ”

The teenager thought about it, probably understanding what Brando meant, and he tried to think about it for a while before thinking about one thing: "My lord, a year ago, someone from the Ranger Cavalry came here. By the way, they seem to be looking for the aristocratic lady. ”

Brando remembers that they were dealing with these guys here, and for that matter, he frowned and asked some related questions, but the teenager couldn't say anything anymore, so, as Antina said, thieves and uninterrupted guests are unlikely to be happy to draw attention to their whereabouts. Finally, he shook his head and lost another silver coin to the teenager: "Okay, go ahead, go home early. I'm still hungry. ”

“Don't worry, my lord, I promise not to spend a dime.” The teenager replied in haste and panic.

“That's not necessary, you buy three servings of food, it's all yours, I don't need money, but you better not get me in trouble.” Brando deliberately chilled out and answered.

He asked the teenager's name again, and the other guy answered and ran away in a hurry. It seemed like he was angry to stay with him for a moment. Brando couldn't help but breathe. Luckily, some of the old tricks in the game had not been completely forgotten. In this world for a year, when the nobleman had become too comfortable, other than the swordsmanship of standing up for himself, all the craftsmanship was about to be neglected. In the past, Antina, Flo, or Caglis gave him a good post, and today he rarely did it himself, but found a little bit of the past.

He stopped and looked at the scenery before the evening in Pragues, the western sky was like a red, full of gold under the clouds, a scene that was no different from a year earlier. But it was at this time that he heard a sneer: “It seems the Count is truly knowledgeable, and he is not familiar with these underlying things. ”

Brando raised his head suddenly, and the house where Antitina lived was situated on the side of the Bucchi River across from Pragues, with a small yard behind it, next to the Bucchi River, which had a downward staircase leading to the river, equivalent to a small pier. Someone with slight assets will tie a boat to a column by the staircase and have the right to travel another way. But guests are naturally less luxurious, and the staircase outside the courtyard has been abandoned for years, with nearly a person's height of weed in the cracks of the stone steps, and there's an extra figure in the grass there at the moment.

He squeezed his eyes and immediately recognized each other: "Tester?” The man was Viscount Tester, who had seen him once at an auction in Prague, and although his appearance had changed dramatically, a blonde hair had somehow become pale and wrinkled like he had suddenly aged for decades, he recognized the facial contour and that unique look, and called out the other's name.

“I didn't expect the Count to recognize me.” Tester stood on the stone steps, some sentiment. He was fighting each other at the city's underground auction, and almost killed him. He didn't expect the district to grow for a year, and the other's power had grown to this point. He used to think he was a genius, but now he understands what real geniuses look like, and yet these don't make any sense to him anymore, and he's only here to seek relief.

Brando heard the dull voice of the other side and asked with some doubt, "How did you end up like this? ”

“It's a long story, and that experience is a nightmare for me," replied Tester. “But speaking of which, you have a bit of a relationship with Lord Count. ”

“What does that have to do with me?” Brando frowned. He remembered that the only person he had ever dealt with was in an underground auction. After that, there was no crossing. He had seen the other person appear before and thought he had come to avenge an arrow.

“If the Count had time to listen to this nonsense, I could tell you this story slowly, and in return, I would tell the Count some secrets about the year.” Tester answered in a dull voice.

Brando was so confused that he thought this guy was coming to himself just to tell a story. Is this guy crazy? But looking at him like this, eight out of ten may be crazy, but he's quite interested in the secrets in each other's mouths, and he has a hidden feeling they might be connected to everything, and now there's no bigger threat to him than that bloody organization. He nodded and asked, "Here? ”

“Right here, nobody left or right. It's been a long time for me. I really don't have time to find another place.” answered Tester.

Brando looked at the guy and wondered what exactly had happened to him, and Testo silenced for a moment and suddenly said: "It was the Lion's Heart Sword. ”

“Lion Heart Sword? ”

Tester nodded and slowly told the story again, starting with finding the Lion Heart Sword for all things.

……