"Have the spoils been tallied? Do you want to take a look first?" Iris raised her hand and handed a list to Anser.
Anser took it and glanced over it. Aside from dozens of firearms, there was nothing particularly noteworthy.
Although Amn was wealthy, it still couldn't field a fully standardized army of gunmen. Overall, melee troops remained the main force.
"Keep the arcane cannon emplacements for now—they might come in handy. As for the relatively intact weapons and equipment, hand them over to the Union. With some repairs and adjustments, they'll be usable. The rest, you can help dispose of," Anser said after some thought.
The Union was currently undergoing military reform, dividing into a guard corps and a defense army, and expanding slightly. This batch of standardized weapons and equipment was just what they needed.
"No problem." Iris nodded slightly.
"What's the situation over in Beregost?" Anser changed the topic.
"They've temporarily ceased fighting. The wyvern squadron has also withdrawn. It's strange," Iris said, finding it somewhat abnormal.
From the previous battles, the Emerald Kingdom's offensives had shown no real strategy—they simply relied on numbers, launching relentless waves of attacks until the opponent collapsed.
After a moment of thought, Anser analyzed, "It's normal that they're not fighting. The Emerald Kingdom is vast and sparsely populated—they don't lack territory. They also don't lack people; there are plenty of dragonborn. Their motivation for invasion isn't that high."
"And to the west, there's Candlekeep standing there—that's the real threat."
Candlekeep never took the initiative to attack others, but the people of Abeir didn't know that. Naturally, they were wary of it.
"Makes sense. Then we can have a few quiet days," Iris said, not even wanting to deal with Durlag, only thinking about developing her innate magic and restoring her spellcasting ability as soon as possible.
"Not necessarily." Anser waved his hand dismissively. "The green dragon queen might not be interested, but other races might not stay quiet. The beastmen are ambitious and arrogant."
"Kobolds lack discipline—they go wherever there's food. If they start roaming around, that could be troublesome."
"That's not really a big problem." Iris didn't care much.
Post a few bounties, and the adventurers would handle it.
Anser's lips twitched. This was the difference in mindset between old nobility and ordinary professionals.
The former were used to allocating resources to solve problems, while the latter earned resources by solving problems for others.
After chatting a bit, the two returned to the castle.
Anser borrowed a set of tarot cards and two bundles of incense from the steward, and also asked him to purchase four ivory plates.
It was always good to keep some materials on hand—they would eventually come in useful.
Back in his room, he once again checked the contents of his dragonhide pouch: a chest of gems, a chest of gold coins, magical items… nothing was missing.
Then he took out the maple-leaf-shaped Traveler's Badge, thought for a moment, set it aside, and drew out an adamantine short sword, beginning divination once more.
As for why he didn't use tarot cards? It was a bit complicated—he hadn't learned how yet.
Beside him, Iris rested her chin on her hand, watching with interest. She had seen divination before, but such a crude method was a first.
With a strange fluctuation, the adamantine short sword stood upright, then toppled weakly, its tip roughly pointing to the right.
The blade fell of its own accord—indeterminate. Failure!
"What does that mean?" Iris asked curiously.
Outsiders couldn't interpret the result of divination from its outward form—only the diviner could read the omen.
"It means no result at all," Anser said, puzzled.
Each additional casting of Augury accumulated a 25% chance of failure, but failure and null results were two different things, with distinct manifestations and feedback.
"That's normal. My mother liked divination—failure was common. Even when you get a result, you can't fully trust it," Iris said wistfully.
If divination were truly that reliable, how could her mother have died?
"True enough." Anser put away the short sword and stopped dwelling on it.
The Astral Plane was extremely distant, and the Traveler's Rest was a legendary inn. Using a 2nd-circle Augury to divine it failing was completely normal.
"I'm going to begin."
He nodded to Iris, picked up the Traveler's Badge, and began reciting a long command phrase.
The badge emitted a faint glow, the magical fluctuations growing stronger until they peaked after a minute.
A flash of arcane light—
Anser felt the world spin, his five senses vanish, time stretching infinitely.
At some point, his body suddenly felt light, his senses returned, and when he opened his eyes—
Before him lay an endless silver void, without up or down, dotted with flickering points of light. In the distance, white and gray clouds and luminous bands slowly swirled.
'The Astral Plane…'
His eyes were filled with shock. An indescribable complexity of emotions surged through him—like an ant, small and insignificant.
After a long silence, he took a deep breath, then noticed his lungs filled with a certain "sweet" energy substance—denser than air, yet it didn't cause suffocation or coughing. His body adapted completely, even finding it somewhat pleasant.
'Calm down… this is the Astral Plane.'
The Astral Plane was a realm of thought and dreams. Here, creatures did not age, nor feel hunger or thirst, nor need to breathe.
The physical laws of the material world had no meaning here.
Anser looked around and found himself inside a spherical chamber about four to five meters in diameter. Beneath his feet was a circular platform inscribed with an unknown material, behind him a door, and in front of him a hemispherical floor-to-ceiling window. When he raised his hand, he could touch a transparent energy barrier.
He stepped forward and looked sideways through the barrier, seeing a row of protruding spherical chambers. Through the barrier, silhouettes of people occasionally flickered inside.
When he turned to the other side, his body tensed instantly, his scalp going numb.
It was a colossal creature.
He couldn't see its full form, only that its entire body was covered in thick, spiked armor, with massive blade-like claws, and a long armored tail winding through the silver void.
And he—was inside this enormous creature's body!
'Impressive… they actually turned the corpse of some Astral dreadnought a hotel.'
Anser clicked his tongue inwardly. He seemed to be near the edge of the creature's head; from the window, he could see part of its body.
'Meow… there's an Antimagic Field set up here.' Maeve crouched atop the fallen Book of Castella, her little paws pressing on the elemental orb, her cat face full of frustration.
'That makes it safer, doesn't it?' Anser chuckled, picking Maeve up and placing her on his shoulder, while the spellbook and elemental orb were stored in the dragonhide pouch.
'Meow, I hate it.' Maeve curled up, feeling very insecure.
Anser took a deep breath and turned to push the door.
It didn't move.
He pulled—still completely unmoving.
Click, click.
The strange bird relief on the door suddenly came to life. Its body remained embedded in the door, but its neck stretched out, its head poking outward. Its gem-like eyes sized up Anser.
"First time here, huh? Let me teach you the rules. Pay the entry fee first. No money? Then go back where you came from."
"How much?" Anser hadn't expected the Traveler's Rest to be so straightforward—no money, no entry.
The strange bird glanced at the array on the ground. "Realmspace, huh? Gold, platinum, gems, mithral—anything valuable works."
"How do you know I came from Realmspace? Are there many people from there?" Anser asked curiously.
Realmspace refers to the Wildspace system where Toril is located, within the Forgotten Realms setting.
A Wildspace system is a region of the Material Plane containing a star, planets, and other celestial bodies; each one encompasses an entire world system.
If the Astral Plane were an ocean, then Wildspace systems would be like isolated regions within it—no one knows how many there are.
As astral travelers approach a Wildspace system, the silvery void of the Astral Plane gradually gives way to the system's space. Soon, its star comes into view, usually millions of miles away, surrounded by gas clouds, planets, moons, and other celestial bodies.
Anser also knew several well-known Wildspace systems, such as Eberron, Krynn, Abeir-Toril, and Greyspace.
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