Late at night, inside a high tower in Zhentil Castle at the westernmost end of the Moon Sea in the north-central part of Faerûn.
The legendary mage Manson is sitting on a chair, silently listening to the report of his subordinate Clarice.
As the lord of Zhentil Keep, the founder and supreme leader of the Zhentarim Order, he is not as easily angered as other evil camp guys.
Otherwise, just the important expansion operations of the Zhentarim Dark Intelligence Network, which were repeatedly sabotaged by the Harper Alliance and interfered by the Chosen of the Goddess of Magic, would piss him off to death.
What's more, more and more people in Zhentil Castle are turning to the Cyric Church. At the same time, this group of people has also shown a strong tendency to be hostile to the faction that still believes in the god of tyranny, Bane.
Just maintaining internal stability and ensuring that Zhentil Castle's basic base will not collapse due to civil strife requires a lot of energy and thought.
Similarly, Manson also needs to prevent ambitious young people from Cyric's church from snooping on the power in their hands.
After all, he had become the lord of this city through conspiracy and assassination, and he knew very well how deadly the poison-tempered dagger from the darkness was.
"Master, this guy who calls himself Soth obviously has a coldness and insidiousness that is completely inconsistent with his youthful appearance.
Moreover, he is also the chosen one of Talona, ​​the goddess of poison and disease, and is deeply loved by the gods.
I think it would be unwise to antagonize him.
Quite the opposite!
Given his evil tendencies, cooperation may be a good choice.
The most important thing is that if such an ally is won, it means that the attention from the Harper Alliance and the Northland Lords Alliance can be diverted to a certain extent.
After all, it is absolutely impossible for these self-proclaimed kind and righteous guys to ignore a terrifying existence that has the power to destroy a city in an instant.
In addition, Soth also has irreconcilable conflicts with the Cyric Church.
We can use his hand to deal with some internal instability factors."
In order to avoid punishment for failing the mission, Clarice said everything that came to her mind.
At this moment, she looked so nervous that she didn't even notice that the sweat on her back soaked the silk robe.
Mansong nodded expressionlessly: "Okay, I understand. Since too many accidents occurred during the operation, I will not pursue your responsibility. But remember, I hope this is the first and last time.
Once."
Hearing these words, Clarice's tense nerves and muscles instantly relaxed, and she almost collapsed on the ground. She quickly bent down and bowed deeply: "Thank you for your kindness. I swear, from now on,
I will never let you down again."
But just as she turned around to leave, she suddenly heard Manson's iconic cold voice coming from behind.
"Remember to deal with those two fools who provided wrong information."
Instantly!
Clarice trembled involuntarily and responded as quickly as possible: "Understood! I promise to let them taste the most painful and cruel way of death in the world."
Watching the woman rush out of the gate of the mage tower as fast as she could escape, the man with long black hair standing aside finally couldn't help but smile and said: "Teacher, you seem to have scared her a lot. But this failure is indeed true."
It's not Clarice's responsibility. Even I can barely protect myself when facing such an enemy."
"Okay, Simon, I have no intention of getting rid of Clarice, so you don't have to beat around the bush to plead for her.
What I want to know now is who is this Soth?
When did he become the chosen one of Talona, ​​the goddess of poison and plague?
Why didn’t our intelligence network get even the slightest bit of information about a guy like this before?”
Mansong crossed his hands on his chest, and his eyes shone with a dark and deep light.
Because what made him angry was not the failure of a mission, nor the destruction of the heart of Baal, the god of murder, in the box.
It's that the Zhentarim's intelligence network across the continent of Faerûn made a huge mistake.
The man called Ximanmeng always maintained an elegant manner and explained calmly: "This Lord Soth is much more cautious than I expected.
He has always given himself the blessing of [avoiding detection].
So I just used prophecy magic to detect, but didn't get much useful information.
Instead, he tried to summon the souls of people who died in his hands, and unexpectedly got some useful information."
"Oh? What is it? Tell me and listen." Mansong suddenly became interested.
Simon Meng touched the small goatee on his chin and analyzed it seriously: "First of all, we can confirm that the first appearance of Soth is the same as the information provided by the Dark Intelligence Network spies. It was in a ship located in the Racing Strait.
A desert island in the south.
There, he used poison and large-scale awakening of the undead to successfully defeat and kill all of Hallett's men.
The second time he took action was to help the leader of a thieves guild in Calimport to carry out a massacre of ratmen in the sewers.
The method is to use necromancy magic rituals to first transform the rats into zombie rats, and then inject negative energy into their bodies to turn them into a moving negative energy bomb.
It has to be said that in the use of undead, this person has shown extraordinary talent, skills and creativity.
The third attack was caused by the rebellion of one of Hallet's cronies.
In retaliation, Soth killed the rebel and all his men, and looted the rebel's wealth.
According to the information given by Mook's soul, he used some powerful magic to transform a half-elf assassin named Yelnia into a shadow creature.
And use the characteristics of shadow creatures to continuously kill living people under the cover of night and then transform them into new shadows, until the entire house is cleared.
If nothing else, Soth should now have a large shadow army in his hands.
I suspect that when he was fighting against the monster army outside the city of Mailatma, he secretly released the shadow army behind everyone's back, and transformed all the monsters he killed into new shadows.
As for the time when he became the chosen one of Talona, ​​it should be during the journey from leaving Mailatma to entering Zazesibo.
I have reason to believe that the battle that broke out near the ruins of Fort Tessel was the trigger for the entire incident.
As for what exactly happened and whether a god came to incarnate, it is still unknown.
However, I have ordered the personnel in Calimport to take action, and we should soon get confirmation from the young paladin named Aroline."
It has to be said that Mansong's most trusted disciple, who is also the core of the Zhentarim dark intelligence network responsible for daily operations, does have two skills.
Almost completely investigated Zuo Si’s experience in coming to Faerun.
Only when it comes to entangling talismans and gods does he seem a little powerless.
"So, this newly born elector seems to be a very vindictive and dangerous person?"
Manson also decisively joined in the analysis of Zuo Si's behavior and power.
Because in the continent of Faerûn, no mortal who is favored by God and given power to his chosen ones is not easy to mess with.
His childhood friend and competitor, Fuzor Chambery, a voter of Bane, the god of tyranny, is the best proof.
Even Manson, a legendary mage, cannot guarantee that he can defeat this powerful priest 100% in a head-on battle.
Xi Manmeng answered without hesitation: "He is indeed a very dangerous person. Just an hour ago, I sent someone to investigate the Dragon Worship Cult's stronghold in the Xingxuan Mountains and found that it had been completely emptied."<
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"Empty? Where is the emerald nightmare that was transformed into a dracolich?" Mansong's face changed slightly.
"Either he was killed, or his life box was taken away by the opponent and he was threatened and controlled. This is why I have been emphasizing the danger of Soth. So far, we know too little about his electorate ability and trump cards.
.Even the real power and lethality of the terrifying energy burst mentioned by Clarisse is a mystery." Ximanmeng emphasized with a serious face.
Manson nodded thoughtfully: "It seems that being an enemy of such a person is indeed not a good choice. Especially when we have no core conflicts of interest for the time being."
Ximanmeng continued to add: "Not only that. It seems that Soth has no intention of being an enemy of us. Otherwise, with his strong revenge, he would not let Clarice back. On the contrary, I think it is a very
It’s an obvious sign of reconciliation, but it’s also a warning to us not to bother him anymore.”
"You are still as good as ever in the field of intelligence collection and analysis. So, you will be responsible for contacting this new voter and taking the opportunity to find out everything about him."
Manson made a decision quickly after thinking about it for a while.
Because he has been too busy recently, if this matter did not involve the heart of Baal, the late god of murder, and the chosen people of Talona, ​​the goddess of poison and plague, he would not even personally intervene.
"Don't worry, I will find an appropriate time to visit Lord Soth."
After saying that, Xi Manmeng bowed with a very elegant movement, then cast a teleportation spell and disappeared.
Manson picked up the latest list of senior officials from Zhentil Castle and put an X behind several of them.
Just over forty minutes ago, these people secretly converted to Cyric and are no longer trustworthy.
To be continued...