Chapter 383

Anser opened his hand. A pure-white crescent pendant rested quietly in his palm, attached to a long silver chain at the top.

The die spun for a moment and detected the item's information:

[Sehanine's Moonlight Holy Symbol, Wondrous Item, Artifact (Requires Attunement)]

'So it really was Sehanine.'

This was a divine item, and it was one with the temple itself, much like the Rod of Security had been.

Their properties were also quite similar. It could place a "Moonlight Mark" on anyone, allowing those bearing the mark to freely enter and leave the temple.

It could be used to communicate privately with Sehanine, and it could also help Anser discreetly sense and locate any Chosen within sixteen kilometers without alerting them.

The Moonlight Holy Symbol had another hidden property: whenever it sensed the death of a Chosen, it would forcibly seize their divinity and divine power!

'Isn't this thing stealing my experience points?' Anser thought, somewhat displeased.

'I'll only use it to find people. Before a fight starts, I'll stuff the holy symbol into the Avaricious Dragonhide Pouch.'

He decided to pretend he knew nothing about that particular property.

As the Artifact's true body, the temple itself was naturally anything but ordinary.

It was hidden within a demiplane expanded through divine power. It had already been extremely well concealed to begin with, and now it was further protected by layer upon layer of divine magical arrays that isolated it from everything outside.

After Sehanine was injured, she had clearly gone to considerable lengths to ensure her own safety.

That meant the Viheral Ring had effectively become nothing more than decoration. It could only be modified to connect to other teleportation circles instead.

Anser returned to the second underground level with the Moonlight Holy Symbol and calmed Stoll down by lying that he had encountered a magical trap.

He had Stoll guard him while he meditated for an hour to attune himself to Sehanine's Moonlight Holy Symbol.

The process went smoothly and safely enough. Sehanine hadn't tried any tricks.

With that, the temple was completely open to him.

The temple's first property was total isolation. It formed a small world unto itself, cutting off communications, spatial teleportation, magic power, psionics, and more. It could even activate an antimagic field across the entire domain.

The only reason Sehanine hadn't activated those functions before was that she had been worried about scaring Anser away.

The temple could also instantly construct a crystalline forcecage anywhere within its interior to imprison any target.

It also had a self-cleaning function. The upper nine floors remained perpetually pristine, with all garbage automatically pulverized and corpses teleported into coffins underground.

The lower three floors were perpetually kept peaceful and restful.

Living creatures would find them exceptionally comfortable. No matter how severe their injuries or how exhausted their bodies, a good night's sleep there would allow them to recover.

It couldn't regenerate severed limbs, however.

Corpses would neither stink nor decay, nor would they turn into undead.

Some of these functions had existed before, while others had only appeared after Sehanine modified the temple.

'That's incredible.' Anser marveled inwardly.

An ordinary wizard could accomplish something on this level as well, but certainly not with the same casual ease as a deity.

He also found the death knight's place of resurrection. It was inside one of the coffins on the first underground level.

Perhaps that coffin had originally been prepared for the former king of Viheral himself.

Anser could even sense the death knight's resurrection cycle: four days!

That was much longer than before. It seemed dying once had taken quite a toll on him.

Anser had the ability to expel the death knight outright, but he chose not to.

'If he behaves, he can stay and guard the place.'

With a thought, he ordered the temple to stop blocking the Spirit Net.

The Spirit Net silently spread inside and soon covered the entire demiplane.

{Master, what is this place?} Sakkors's message carried a noticeable fluctuation in tone. With his breadth of knowledge, he could naturally tell that something about this place was unusual.

{A... half-abandoned temple. It can isolate itself from everything.} Anser hung the crescent pendant around his neck. {Any ideas?}

Sakkors fell silent. He tried to use the Spirit Net to penetrate deeper into the place, but it had no noticeable effect.

The Spirit Net had indeed gotten inside, but it remained confined to the surface.

After a long while, he proposed his solution: {I need control of the temple. Then I'll merge it with Holrewen, and after that... take complete control of it.}

{Think you can do it?}

{We can try. It's better than leaving things as they are now.}

{All right. Start moving Holrewen away from Candlekeep now and get here as soon as possible.}

{Okay.}

Sakkors and Anser were remarkably of one mind. Both were worried about the question of who truly owned the temple, so they decided to separate the Moonlight Holy Symbol from the temple itself.

The demiplane containing the temple would merge with Holrewen while retaining all of its properties.

The Moonlight Holy Symbol, meanwhile, would be used solely to locate Chosen and communicate with Sehanine.

Anser wasn't being excessively cautious. He was simply preparing for the possibility that something might go wrong.

The Moonlight Holy Symbol was a divine item, after all. Sehanine could reclaim it at any time, so he had no choice but to guard against that possibility.

Besides, the mythallar had already merged with Holrewen and couldn't conveniently be moved elsewhere.

Inside the room, Stoll was bored out of his mind. "Are you done yet?"

"Yeah. This place is ours from now on." Anser stretched.

Having reached a verbal agreement with Sehanine, he felt somewhat more at ease.

The Spirit Net now had a legitimate, officially recognized status, which would make its situation considerably better.

He had previously worried that the descent of deities would put much greater pressure on his own survival, but now it seemed that wasn't the case.

Only two proper deities had descended to Toril in total, and both were in a half-crippled state. Their impact on the overall situation wasn't particularly significant.

'I shouldn't be any worse than those Legendary figures now!'

The fact that Sehanine had sought him out was also indirect proof that his strength had already reached the top tier on Toril.

Now it was time to focus on making things happen.

Sehanine hadn't given him any specific performance targets, but that didn't mean he could slack off. She had handed him an Artifact right from the start, so he needed to show some results of his own.

Only by demonstrating his value could he ensure that their cooperation truly continued.

With that thought, he waved a hand. "Come on. Let's head back."

Light and shadow flashed, and the two appeared simultaneously at the Viheral Ring.

"Hey—" Stoll was tossed out before he could even react, leaving him somewhat reluctant to go. "We're leaving just like that?"

"You seriously wanted to chip off a few pieces of crystal, didn't you?" Anser gave him a sidelong glance. "I've already dealt with the death knight. You're the army commander, so hurry back and gather three hundred soldiers."

"Set up checkpoints and clear the roads?" Stoll immediately understood.

"Right. Secure the castle..." Anser began explaining everything to him in detail.

Troops needed to be stationed both aboveground and in the dungeon so they could bring the entire area firmly under their control.

The road between Moonscar Basin and the Viheral dungeon needed to be completely cleared, with multiple patrol posts established to control key routes.

At the same time, they would issue a public announcement formally asserting sovereignty over the area.

The mushroom forest might be poisonous, but it was also a treasure trove. It had to be protected to keep desperate adventurers from indiscriminately chopping things down or causing wanton destruction.

They also needed to send someone to negotiate with the Myconids. Ideally, they could incorporate them into Twin City and have them help manage the mushroom forest. Even putting them in charge of growing mushrooms would work.

If they simply left the Myconids to fend for themselves, adventurers would soon hunt them to extinction.

'First I'll bring Valera and her sister over. They can't just sit back and enjoy the benefits—they need to put in some work.'

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I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> /TitoVillar

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