On the other hand, in the castle Lord''s mansion of Moonport City.
"Duke Murray, how are the preparations now? Why haven''t I got the three hundred pieces of
steel armor I asked for? '' The speaker was an old man in a silver knight''s armour, with a dragon,
a griffin, a python and a lion carved on his chest. Pale hair hung thinly from his head, and as
he spoke the wrinkles on his face quivered as deep as the scar over his left eye.
"I can''t help it, Mond the Dragon slayer. The sea is not calm. Perhaps something has been
delayed. '' A worried Duke Murray looked out of the window, watching the harbour beyond.
He sighed, his upturned beard trembling gently. "Give it two more days and it should be here.
There are only two things we can do now, one is to hurry up the last moment and train the
recruits well, and the other is to pray. Greafury, the god of justice, will bless us. We are waging
a just war."
"Yes, as you say, we will defend the glorious city of Moonport with the sword of justice! Let
the glory of Greafury bless us!"
Just then, one of the servants suddenly opened the door and gasped, "Sir, the ship, the ship
is back..."
Duke Murray and Knight Mond were oblivious to the servant''s faux pas, and all they could
think of now was the word "ship." Both men rushed out of the gate at once. The two ships
that arrived were all kinds of defense equipment shipped from Fenton, especially their latest
product, the honeycomb crossbow, which they said was a powerful defensive weapon. Duke
Murray bought them at great expense and with the promise of duty-free access to Moonport.
Instead of riding in a carriage, the two men seized the horses held by the servants and
galloped off to the harbour. The guards were stunned for a moment before they realized their
duties and followed them in a panic.
In the harbour, two huge freighters, particularly painted black hull and striking silver unicorn
markings, were the freighters of Grand Duke Murray.
As the war approached, many caravans, afraid of being caught in the fire and losing a lot of
money, took advantage of the temporary calm of the sea, one after another to leave the
Moon Port City. Fortunately, Grand Duke Murray blocked the port in time, allowing only entry
and no exit. Otherwise, Moonport would have lost half its stores by the mere flight of its
merchants.
There was not much unloading work, and most of the laborers gathered in small groups on
the docks, talking, exchanging gossip and dirty jokes, and occasionally breaking out into a
burst of strange laughter.
The two ships coming into the harbor were familiar to the dockworkers. Their huge hulls had
a deep draft. It looks like it''s coming home loaded! It must have taken a lot of porters. People
crowded on board and waited for the captain''s word before the day''s work began.
The captain never appeared, not even the shadow of a person, no sailors, no first and second
officers, looking up at the ship from the dock, except for the Moon Harbor City master flag
fluttering in the wind, there was only silence.
The sailors had never seen anything like it, and they talked to each other. They speculated
about the condition of the ship. They did not dare to go on board without orders, and men
had been killed as thieves before when they did not have permission to go on board.
''Make way, make way! Sir Murray and the dragon-slayer waded a path through the crowd to
get under the boat. Grand Duke Murray looked up at the condition of the boat and he, too,
noticed something unusual. "Edmund! Come out of the captain''s room, old man! I''m Murray!
There''s a man down from the boat! ''
There was no answer. Mond waved and made several gestures, and the guards following him
immediately spread out of formation, holding their spears up at a 45-degree Angle in a
guarded posture. Two other guards quickly run to the city barracks and call for reinforcements.
"Grand Duke, I think I should go up and have a look first. If I don''t come down, attack." Mond
advises Murray as he pulls out his long sword.
The Duke thinks about it, but he can''t let Mond take the risk alone. The giants were about to
attack. If anything were to happen to Knight Mond, the commander, even a slight wound
would be bad for him.
As Murray stroked his moustache, bewildered, a shadow finally appeared on the side of the
boat. Mond watches carefully, shielding his hand from the blinding sun. A fish-headed man,
about five feet tall, is peeking down the side of the boat. Its round body was covered with
thin scales and was thick with layers of fat, but it had slender arms and legs attached to huge
webbed hands and feet.
"It''s a fish-man. That''s not easy," he said. Mond whispers to Duke Murray. "They''re hard to
subdue at sea. I reckon the men on board are in dire straits."
''Hey, people down there! The fishmen on the side of the boat shouted, "Which one of you
works?" Then he looked down and thought, "I asked which one of you is in charge!"
"Me! What are you guys doing in my boat! Where''s my crew? '' Duke Murray shouted back.
''Your people are gone,'' he said. "We found two boats. Do you want them?" said the fish man.
"Don''t you know they should be returned to their original owners?" Mond exclaimed.
"We don''t want what''s on the boat. We''re trying to get you here. Pay us! '' The Fishman tilted
his head and thought, "We want Mithril, a lot of Mithril! Three tons, according to you!!"
Mond Knight''s mouth opened wide. Three tons of mithril. That''s a huge number. Even in the
dwarf kingdom of Gungan, in the mysterious mines of Mithril Spring, only one ton of mithril
can be mined in 10 years. But this ship full of cargo is not to be abandoned. Three tons of
mithril!
Duke Murray also looked surprised. It was not that he was surprised by the fishers'' high prices,
but that under his Duke''s house lay a little more than three tons of mithril. "How did they
know?" Duke Murray would never have handed over so many precious minerals to the
Fishmen. He will wait for the troops to arrive, but he will attack. The ship is already in port.
What will they do?
''We don''t have that much ore! ''shouted Sir Murray.'' That''s impossible. You''d better order
something else. ''
The Fishman turned his head and said something to the back. The Mond Knight stared hard
at the Fishman''s lips, trying to use his lip-reading skills to get some intelligence. Unfortunately,
Mond did not understand a word of the Aquarian language.
This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience."Hand over your mithril! We don''t want the rest." The Fishman turned and shouted down
again.
As Sir Murray tried to buy time with his careless eyes, a group of heavily armed soldiers came
from behind. More than 100 months of Docktown guards came running in perfect order. Sir
Murray has a calculation this time. For the evil fishmen who often plunder the sea, a bump on
your hand is bad luck.
Knight Mond looked back at his men and made a gesture with his left hand. From behind, the
order "Archers line up" is whispered. Under the guidance of each squad leader, a small
phalanx of 40 archers formed.
Sir Murray thought of the impending giant offensive, when the sea would become an
important supply line. "It is not good to offend the Fishmen, for it is not good to be at odds
with two races at the same time." At this thought, the Duke Lord shouted to the Fishmen on
board, "I cannot give you as much as you want. But I can pay for it with 30,000 gold pieces!"
Murray knew, of course, that the Fishman would have to spend the gold on land. All the
merchants on the mainland do not like the fish Man. The 30,000 gold coins will actually be
raised by the merchants'' malicious intentions, and they will not be able to buy so many things.
The Fishman turned around again, talked to someone behind him for a while, and then turned
around and said, "All right! If you can''t give us mithril, then gold will do. Thirty thousand is
not enough. We will..."
Suddenly, without warning, a black ray passed behind the guard and hit the water in the
middle of the two freighters. At the same time, a shrill cry broke out. A powerful sound wave
struck both ships, stirring even the surface of the water, and a strong gust of wind stirred the
unlowered jib and made a hula hula. The dockside clapped their ears, Sir Murray and his horse
backed away, and fine beads of sweat began to form on the Duke''s forehead.
Knight Mond stood still amid the roar. He stroked his horse''s mane, soothing him and
watching the boat. The Fishman in the boat, who was nearer to the scream, had evidently
suffered a more severe blow, and the one who had just spoken on the side of the boat,
bleeding directly from the face of the scream, had not even had time to utter a whine when
he overthrew himself and fell dead on the shore of the dock.
"Ha ha ha, in front of me, no one can take advantage of human beings!" With that utterance,
all eyes were fixed on an elderly man behind the guard. Dressed in a broad gray sorcerer''s
robe, but without a hood, a gray beard floated to his chest from beneath a shiny head. Thin
fingers brushed his prominent cheekbones, and a pair of reddish eyes flickered irregularly
behind thick lenses. Every time the wind blew, the old man had to wipe away the tears from
the corners of his eyes.
"Sir Murray and Knight Mond! You should have known I was coming. That little boy Vincent
must have been here for three days! '' The old man straightened his coat, wiped some water
marks at the corners of his arms with his handkerchief, and moved around the edge of the
tight guard. "What are you still doing? Hurry up and take over those two ships! There''s plenty
of armor to carry!"
Sir Murray and Knight Mond jumped off their horses and walked over to the old mage who
had suddenly appeared. Three days earlier, they had known from their knight in waiting,
Lambert, that the Guild was sending Thomas, one of their seven Mages, to assist in the
defense of Moonport. It was the highest level of assistance the Mages had ever sent. Sir
Murray, calculating what the temple had promised in order to invite the Great Wizard, quickly
wiped his hands dry with a handkerchief from the sweat that had been spilled by the fright of
what had happened, and reached out to the old wizard in a friendly manner.
The Archmage merely touched the Duke''s hand. "Sir Duke, may I ask where I live? When will
we begin to study the defenses of Moon Harbor? As far as I''m concerned, the current defenses
are good enough to hold off Kobolds. As for the giants..."
As if he had not heard the master''s criticism of his work in defending the city, the Mond knight
simply brushed the carvings in front of his breastplate with his hand, gave him a slight nod of
greeting, and then turned to direct the guards to unload their long-awaited new armor.
Thomas went on and on about the defenses of a city, the arcane walls, the trigger traps that
made the Duke''s head spin when he didn''t know anything about magic. As a result, the Duke
summoned his escort knight and told him to "escort" the Archmage to his palace to rest.
The guards on board the ship were also careful, for fear of jumping out of a corner another
fish man. After a long time, until it was confirmed that there was no other living thing on the
ship except the dead body of the fish man who was bleeding from seven holes, the porters
of the dock gathered around and began to work hard for their livelihood for the week.
A huge wooden box is moved to the dock, Mond knight can not help but smile at the new
armor, these armor is indeed worthy of dwarven craftsmanship, every piece of steel, every
joint is carefully carved. If his soldiers wore such armor, it would be an invaluable aid to the
war effort, if nothing else, to morale.
Sir Murray and his clerk counted the goods piece by piece. It was getting late, and the goods
on the dock were slowly being carried by the guards towards the barracks, when suddenly
the Duke''s clerk came running up: "No, my Lord. The goods have been unloaded, but there
is no sign of the giant crossbow you bought!"
Startled, the Duke immediately grabbed the list of goods in the clerk''s hand, and upon closer
inspection, there was no record of a giant crossbow. The Mond Knight was looking at the two
huge freighters, peering through the layers of masts and sails at the vast sea reflected by the
setting sun.
Appendix
Mithril: Mithril is a very rare, silver-shimmering metal that, although lighter than iron, has the
same hardness. Forged like iron, it makes an excellent material for armor, and is occasionally
used to make other items. Most mithril armor is considered a grade lighter when considering
speed of movement and other limitations. Heavy armor is considered medium armor,
medium armor is considered light armor, but light armor is still considered light armor. Mining
the metal is very difficult, and only skilled Dwarven miners can extract the purest mithril ore,
while Elven artisans are the best mithril armor makers on the continent.