Chapter 196: Cintron

It seemed as if this forest from Dunhold to Cintron was endless, and as Jace walked, he even began to wonder if Grid still recognized the direction.

Here, buried by the cloud-like canopy of trees in the forest it was impossible to see exactly which way the sunlight was coming from higher up, and the light that barely came in could only form a patchwork of light and shadows.

The view was beautiful and marvelous at first sight, but after a long time it was nothing but blurred eyes and dizziness.

Other than that, of course, it was relaxing to move through these woods.

The northern pine forests were overall very refreshing and cozy with a slight but not excessive amount of moisture.

It would even be considered a good experience hiking in the woods if there wasn’t the risk of having to get lost.

It’s not like Elwyn where there’s wet, greasy dirt everywhere, annoying weird bugs and ants, etc., and it’s a nightmare especially in the summer, not to mention the Twilight Forest further south, or the Valley of Thorns.

The rainforest of the Valley of Thorns was a place where one could be tortured to death without the presence of any beast or enemy.

The trees grew thinner and thinner, and Jace followed Grid to a high slope, looking ahead to a flat, hilly slope, and behind it another large, pristine forest far more flourishing than the one he had walked through before. Was this Cintron?

And further away, the taller and taller trees gradually became darker and darker and more and more eerie like mountains, as if they could suck one’s gaze in, making it difficult to avert one’s eyes.

The tallest of the huge trees at the end of the view, the hazy blue shadow was so tall and palpitating that even being so far away it couldn’t help but give one a feeling of being oppressed.

Jace nearly thought he’d seen the legendary World Tree.

He knew, of course, that there was no World Tree in Cintron, and that it was possible that it was Thraddan, a forbidden place guarded by the Green Dragon clan.

A brick road at the moment led to the northwest, stretching all the way to the bottom of an abrupt high cliff, on which countless stone walls, house doors and stone windows were dotted with stars, and at the highest point a giant eagle statue that looked at least sixty or seventy meters high was embedded in the mountain, looking out into the distance with its head held high.

“This, how it was fixed.” Jace asked unconsciously.

“Sometimes I think this thing is a bit silly, too.” Grid held his waist and looked up high, saying, “But it sure is pretty, isn’t it?”

“If you intend to be pragmatic in your construction, then you are no longer dwarves.” Jace said.

Grid let out a laugh and said, “I remember as a kid every time I marveled at the enormity of this eagle, Dad would smile and tell me, you should check out Grimbatori.”

“My dad originally wanted to call me Grimbaddysifers, which means Heart of Grimbato in common parlance. But my mother thought it was too long and people would make fun of me for such a weird name, so she changed it to Grediferous, and then not many people remembered the name except my dad, and everyone called me Gred.”

“Gredivus.” Jace said, “Like a Black Iron Dwarf name.”

“Ha, Jace.” Grid pointed at him, “If Dwarven culture was on the Wizard’s Sanctum exam, you’d have passed. That shitty name sounds like it came from a black iron dwarf, so I hate it!”

“Then again, I’ve always felt that I have an unspoken connection to Grimbator, don’t you think? You see, is it mere coincidence that my father wanted to name me in relation to Grimbalto, which is now ruled by the Shadow, and relatively speaking, that I’ve come to know you as my best friend, a warlock?”

Jess feels it’s time to stop making wild assertions about another culture.

He hesitated for a moment and also just said, “Who knows.”

“Yeah, who can tell.” Grid looked up into the distance and cried in a small voice, “It’s all the way up here, but I’m getting a little less daring to go up there. Why don’t we just go straight to Quel’Dani and save time.”

Jace sighed, “Either way, at least you’re sending that hammer back to where he belongs, Grid. Besides, you can’t ask me to accompany you this far and then turn around and go back, can you? Come what may, don’t worry too much about what they think.”

“You’re right, it’s not just for me anymore.” Grid said, “Then let’s go.”

Ahead of the road up the hill from the Eagle’s Nest was a small village with only a few houses, and at the gate a red-bearded dwarf in a maroon cloak was looking at the two visitors.

Underneath his cloak was a suit of thick chainmail armor, and he held a long-handled warhammer in both hands against the ground, looking a bit like a short Nordic warrior.

This guard didn’t even look at Grid, but instead stared at Jace and said, “Humans, shouldn’t come over here.”

Grid gave him a “Hey” and walked up to him with a string of gibberish in Dwarven that Jace couldn’t understand a single word of.

Then the red-bearded defender was in a flurry of garbled Dwarvish, and he jumped down the stone steps and walked over to Grid, pointing at Jace and saying something unhappily.

Grid laughed a few times and came over and grabbed Jace’s hand and held it up before patting himself on the chest and saying something else, Redbeard glared and yelled something and Grid nodded in satisfaction.

Jace could probably guess that this was an introduction of himself as his friend, no doubt it was a very rare thing for a dwarf to be friends with a human in the Crow’s Nest Mountains, which was why the red bearded man was so surprised.

Redbeard shook his head in disbelief, looked at Jace again and said, “Get over there, human, get over there.”

“Thanks.” Jess said.

Redbeard nodded and said, “Thank you, yes.”

Jace looked at the dwarf who had probably pulled out his life’s work in order to communicate with him, and had a feeling that he might be in quite a bit of trouble for the rest of the evening.

“Hey.” He asked as he followed Grid onward, “What did you just say to him?”

Grider said, “He asked me what you did for a living, and I said you followed me here.”

“Just two sentences?” Jess asked, “What do you mean you patted yourself on the back?”

The dwarf stammered for a moment and said, “That is, I said I helped the Lordaeron kill a dragon with you.”

Shocked, Jess asked, “Why are you talking about this all of a sudden?”

Grid said, “You’ll have to show them that you’re a dragon slaying hero and not just a simple human boy for them to take you in fast! I’d blow this staff of yours if they didn’t send you to the mountains to feed the griffins if they knew you were a warlock! Tell them you took it from the hands of Talon Blood Demon …… then they’ll think you’re more than qualified to climb this mountain.”

“Ah …… uh …… shouldn’t you keep your voice down then.”

“It’s not like they can understand Common anyway!!!” Grid continued on with a matter-of-fact look on his face, and Jace grabbed the warlock’s bag that was in the way, keeping his mind on the hope that these dwarves weren’t too sensitive to demons and such, and that it would be bad if there was some kind of anti-demon rune or something like that in here.