Volume 8: The Path of the Ancient Dragons Chapter 382: Landing in Northrend
After this brief episode, the fleet continued to move north. With the addition of two new warships, Murphy had to assign some sailors to the ships. Because there were too few people, the combat effectiveness could not be expected, but the carrying capacity was greatly improved and it was not as crowded as at the beginning.
The following voyage was smooth sailing. With the escort of the Storm Dragon Riders, no foolish monsters dared to provoke the fleet. On the third day, the fleet entered the icy waters of Northrend.
Before they even saw the shadow of Northrend, the weather gave the expedition fleet a warning.
The air suddenly turned cold, with snowflakes mixed in the sharp sea breeze. The sky gradually became gloomy, and the dark murky sea water was mixed with ice cubes, which were occasionally hit against the side of the ship by the waves, making a deafening crash.
The biting cold wind blew across the passengers on the fleet, bringing gusts of chills, stiff hands and feet, and some frostbite injuries.
It's okay for Alterac people like Murphy and Rachidanan, because they live in ice and snow and have 30 points of cold resistance, so they have no problem with this extremely cold weather.
Others don’t have it so easy.
Especially the Storm Dragon Knights. The Dragon Knights were trained by various types of knights, including the North Wind Knights, the Lordaeron noble knights, the feudal knights, the ranger knights, etc.
Except for the Knight of the North Wind who has his own resistance to cold, the other dragon knights all feel the same way to some extent.
Murphy glanced at the extra DEBUFF above his head.
[Biting Cold Wind: You will take 20 points of cold damage every 60 seconds and gain a layer of cold effect, reducing your movement speed and attack speed by 1%. This effect can be stacked up to 100 times. When it stacks to 100%, the unit will be frozen into an ice sculpture.
Note: The biting cold wind of Northrend can bring a terrifying chill. Those unprepared travelers will often gradually die in the cold. Only the warm flame can dispel the ice and snow and bring you hope of life. 】
This stuff is environmental damage and is almost unavoidable.
Of course, there seem to be many ways to deal with it. The simplest way is to stack ice resistance. As long as the ice resistance is above 20 points, you will not be hurt.
The elementalists on the ship had to give the "resistance to cold" buff to each other one by one.
Fortunately, this DEBUFF takes effect very slowly, and it takes at least half an hour to accumulate enough to affect actions.
And as long as you get close to the flame, this DEBUFF will be quickly cleared, so overall it is acceptable.
Morgan Lisa (Arcanist): "Oh, are we almost there? It's really cold here."
It is convenient for a mage . Morgan Lisa directly put a 'lava shield' on herself, and her whole body was covered in a layer of scorching flames. She was like a walking furnace. The three female teammates followed closely behind her to keep her warm.
Aidan (Leader of the Dragon Knights): "It is indeed very cold, but don't worry, I have prepared for this expedition. There are adventurers to refresh the buffs, and if things don't work, you can light torches. It's no problem."
"Captain, it's an iceberg!" A shout suddenly came from the lookout tower.
Sure enough, on the sea in the distance, there was a huge iceberg slowly approaching the fleet.
Captain Sandel immediately changed direction and prepared to avoid the iceberg, but the iceberg seemed to be against the fleet and was slowly approaching.
When they were only a few hundred meters away , Murphy suddenly noticed that there was a long durability bar on the top of the iceberg.
Dangerous Iceberg (Ice Element Aggregate) Durability 195000.
Damn, there is still a health bar?
There is no need to be afraid if you have a blood bar.
Aidan (Captain of the Dragon Knights): "Avoid the front! Side—prepare to fire! Heavy artillery fire!"
The gun ports were opened one after another, and a salvo of heavy artillery fire was aimed at the iceberg.
Boom! A row of shells hit the iceberg, and the huge recoil caused the Storm Dragon King to tilt violently.
-1001! -1013! -996! -999! …
One round of salvo destroyed more than 30,000 HP. It was almost impossible to miss such a large iceberg.
After a few salvos, cracks appeared on the iceberg, followed by another salvo.
Boom! The huge iceberg instantly broke and collapsed, revealing the main body inside.
But it is a 'Frost Element', just an elite monster.
Another round of volleys, the frost element was killed on the spot, but unfortunately no equipment was dropped.
Murphy couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. What made him even more speechless was that soon another iceberg appeared in the distance.
"Do you want to attack again?"
"Don't fight, just go around."
Murphy figured out that these activated icebergs were probably formed by the gradual condensation of seawater absorbed by frost elements. They were probably special life forms in the Northrend waters and were not BOSSes at all. It was better not to waste shells.
Fortunately, the iceberg moved very slowly and was soon left far away.
This thing is really a bit weird. Murphy did not dare to be careless and sent out the Dragon Patrol again. Next time he finds an iceberg, he can bypass it in advance.
Fortunately, this kind of "dangerous iceberg" is not common, and with the air warning, the fleet did not encounter danger again.
It’s convenient to have air force reconnaissance.
At night, something unusual happened again.
A reconnaissance Dragon Patrol flew back to the ship in a panic.
Dragon Rider: "Your Highness, a ship was found five nautical miles away."
Murphy thought to himself, it's just a ship, there's no need to be nervous.
Dragon Rider: "That looks like a ghost ship!"
Murphy was surprised. A ghost ship? He had never seen this thing before, but he had heard of the legend of a ghost ship. It was said that it was created by the goddess of death Hela to collect souls lost at sea. Today he wanted to see it for himself.
After thinking for a moment, Murphy decided to go and check it out himself.
He leaped forward, and the moment he landed on the sea, he transformed into a storm dragon and flew towards the ghost ship.
From afar, I could see a green ghostly light on the dark sea.
A huge warship shrouded in a eerie ghostly aura was sailing silently in the night.
Ghost Fog (Giant Ghost Ship) World-class 1st level BOSS. HP: 225,000.
Damn, how come everything in this damn place can be a monster?
A normal ship should be a vehicle template, but this thing is a BOSS template.
By the way, shouldn’t the BOSS be the captain of the ghost ship?
He moved a little closer and could vaguely see from afar that there seemed to be many ghost pirates moving around on the bed.
Maybe there really is a ghost captain boss on it.
It’s better not to mess with this thing.
Murphy didn't dare to get any closer. There would always be casualties when defeating a BOSS. Although the previous battle against the Raging Tide Plundering Fleet was a crushing one, he still lost seven Dragon Riders and twelve or thirteen adventurers. He didn't know how many more casualties would be in fighting this thing. His goal was to slay a dragon, so he could only give up on this kind of wild BOSS.
Let the Dragon Rider who followed go back and inform the captain to let the fleet bypass it.
Murphy himself continued to monitor the ghost ship in the air. The ghost ship was floating quietly on the sea, emitting a ghostly shadow, sailing calmly on the sea, without even a track. Under the sea, behind the ghost ship, there were more than a dozen iron chains hundreds of meters long, and each chain was tied with countless "lost souls".
The scene was quite strange.
Murphy watched the ghost ship disappear into the cold sea before he flew back over the fleet and landed on the Storm Dragon King.
The fleet continued to sail in the dark ocean, and at noon, it finally saw the horizon of Northrend in the distance.
Murphy took out the map and checked it. Their current location should be Howling Fjord.
Howling Fjord is a treacherous area consisting of broken reefs and cliffs overlooking the sea. The terrain is undulating and the canyons are crisscrossed. The sea water forms steep harbors in these canyons, making offshore navigation very dangerous.
Whenever the north wind blows into the stone walls of the canyon, it makes a shrill howling sound, and the Howling Fjord got its name from this.
Murphy has an old friend living here, but he doesn't plan to visit him.
Continuing to travel westward away from the coastline, the broken cliffs and canyons are gradually replaced by a frozen coast covered with snow, and large pieces of floating ice gradually appear on the sea.
You can see many penguins looking at the fleet from afar on the drifting ice. Occasionally, you can also see walruses driving unique-style fishing boats out to sea to fish. When they see the fleet approaching, they often flee quickly. Sometimes they simply abandon their boats and jump directly into the sea.
As the amount of floating ice gradually increased, Murphy had to ask the captain to slow down the speed to prevent the ship from being damaged by the floating ice.
However, collisions continued to occur inevitably, and each collision reduced the durability of the warship.
Murphy began to regret it now. After all the preparations, he still ignored the dangerous environment of Northrend and did not build an icebreaker. These ordinary warships continued to lose durability under the impact of floating ice. Fortunately, there were a lot of materials on the ship and there were craftsmen on the ship, so they could repair them while sailing.
From time to time, artillery fire is used to bombard icebergs that come too close.
When the situation was even too dangerous, Murphy had to transform into a giant dragon and fly into the sky to escort the fleet.
Breath of Thunder!
Boom! A huge piece of floating ice was directly shattered, and the scattered ice blocks would no longer pose a threat to the warship.
"Wow, Brother Aidan is so handsome." A soft and cute voice came from below.
No need to guess, you know it’s the voice of that cute girl with big breasts.
After sailing along the deserted and cold coast for a whole day, at noon , we finally found some buildings on the coast and a simple pier extending into the sea.
It's the port!
No, to be exact it should be the pier.
The pier is small, and the village above it is equally small.
But it was a stronghold after all, so Murphy prepared to land here.
The fleet had no choice but to approach directly, so he ordered the fleet to drop anchor two or three hundred meters away from the coastline.
They first sent several landing boats to transport more than a hundred adventurers and their heroes up.
I stepped onto the dock and looked around. In front of me was a small port village. The architectural style was very primitive and was built with huge logs. Some things similar to totem poles could be seen on the outskirts of the village.
Murphy didn't remember there being any Alliance settlements in Northrend. This might be a camp of monsters, Viking pirates, walrus fishermen, and the like.
To his surprise, the village was empty.
Not to mention people, there's not even a monster.
I walked all the way to a simple hall in the center of the village, but still didn't encounter any monsters or NPCs.
Murphy pushed open the door and saw an extinguished fire pit in the hall. Judging from the style and specifications, it seemed to be from the Vikus.
This is strange. Where have all the people gone? Could it be that a player had been here before them? But even if it was cleared by players, at least some bodies should have been left behind.
After checking it out and still not being able to figure out what was going on, Murphy decided to just ignore it.
"Let's land here."
This small village is at least a stronghold, and its coordinates can be shown on the map.
In the game, there will never be meaningless things designed. Generally speaking, there are always subtle connections between strongholds. Starting from here, you will definitely find more monster settlements, or copies, dungeons, ruins and the like.
At the very least, it can trigger a mission or something.
Following Murphy's order, the adventurers couldn't wait to go ashore, followed by the dragon-blooded giant warriors of the Dragon Knights.
The small village was soon filled to capacity.
Murphy sent out ten Dragon Riders to conduct reconnaissance. There was no obvious road in the cold wasteland, so he planned to confirm the intelligence before moving on.
However, by the end of the night, only seven storm dragons flew back.
The situation is not good.
Listening to the returning dragon riders reporting on the geographical conditions they had discovered, Murphy couldn't help but think as he watched the gradually darkening night.
Razidanan: "Your Highness, what should we do now? Have we encountered a monster?"
Murphy nodded. "It should be. And it's a flying monster."
The Dragon Patrol flies at high altitudes, so even ranged monsters cannot be shot down.
The only possibility is that there is a flying monster. Could it be the ancient dragon?
It feels possible. According to the information provided by the Explorers' Association, the white dragon should have established its own dragon group.
Murphy sorted out the reconnaissance map and the direction where the dragon riders disappeared. The dangerous area was mainly located in the northwest, while there were no enemies in the northeast. It was a wasteland with a large number of wild animals, such as reindeer, Arctic wolves, ice claw bears, mammoths and the like.
Although wild beasts are also a type of monster, they are the least dangerous among all monsters because wild beasts usually fight alone. Except for wolf packs that gather a certain number of beasts, they basically pose no threat to the army.
However, after hesitating for a moment, Murphy refused to move forward to the northeast, and instead looked towards the northwest on the map.
Even though there is danger, I still want to go there.
Gather the troops—and go!
