Compared to the bright eyes and envious expressions of the crowd, Danath's expression was as if he had swallowed a fly. However, in just a moment, he changed his expression to one of equal envy, jealousy, and hatred.
He had been with Galen for many years, practically watching him grow up. Everyone knew that he and Galen were the least devout of the original paladins.
Danath himself was not a believer in the Holy Light. He believed that Galen, like him, had passed the paladin trials because of steadfast beliefs. His own belief was protection, but he didn't know what Galen's unwavering belief was.
Moreover, he could see the smugness and slyness hidden in Galen's serious expression, the same expression he often had when a prank succeeded. Over the past decade, he had fallen for it countless times.
Before long, Mark McBride brought the town mayor and the sheriff over. Galen explained his intentions to them, stating that his group needed to enter the Hope Mine south of Moonbrook.
The prestige of Northshire Abbey was very effective in the Stormwind Kingdom, which believed in the Holy Light. As soon as this name was mentioned, the mayor directly led Galen and his team around the north side of the town to a room resembling a mine tower.
This was it. A very familiar building. Going down the passage inside this building would lead to the interior of the mine.
"Set up camp and rest."
The next day, Galen sought out the mayor again.
"Mayor, five months ago, did any suspicious individuals enter the mine?" After all, this was their territory, and Galen still hoped to get some information from the mayor's mouth.
"Sir, everything has been normal here during this time. However," the mayor paused, as if recalling something.
"Five months ago, some miners said they heard fighting deep in the mine, but this mine is almost exhausted, with many internal passages, and few people enter it anymore!"
Seeing that the mayor had no other clues, Galen thanked him and let him leave. Afterward, the sheriff brought over a rough map of the mine's interior that was preserved in the town. Galen had people make multiple hand-drawn copies of the map.
"According to the revelations of the Holy Light, Sir Lothar is trapped deep in this mine. We will divide the team into ten groups, each with fifty to sixty people, and then enter the mine to search!"
Danath, Uther, Saidan, Tirion, Turalyon, Omar, Varrokal, Haynie, Faldell, plus Galen, the ten leaders were thus determined. Each team, in addition to the leader, had forty knights, five priests or paladins, and wizards were randomly assigned to send signals.
Galen's team, in addition to the forty knights, also brought Hogg. Except for the priests and wizards, basically every team consisted of high-level professionals. Before entering the mine, Galen reminded the leaders:
"I am not sure who is trapping Sir Lothar inside the mine. You must be careful after you go in. If you encounter the enemy, send a magical message and let the nearby teams come to support you. Do not be reckless, understand, Kal!"
Galen emphasized Varrokal's name. This hothead was prone to losing his temper when fighting, making him the most worrisome.
"Rest assured, Your Highness, I will pay attention."
"Mm." Galen responded and glanced around. The leaders present were all elites of humanity, and a simple search mission was nothing.
At this time, Galen noticed that Turalyon was a little nervous. Galen then remembered that Turalyon was leaving Lordaeron for the first time and was still a green rookie.
"Relax, Turalyon, there's a first time for everything, don't be afraid, you'll get used to it later!" Galen jokingly said to Turalyon.
The surrounding leaders couldn't help but reveal wicked smiles. Turalyon suddenly looked up, with an expression that said, 'what did I do?'.
However, this little episode also calmed Turalyon down. It was just leading a six-man team. His strength was okay, and the knights were all high-level. Just protect the mages and be careful not to be ambushed, and there shouldn't be any problems.
After the teams were divided, Galen and the others agreed on a signal and returned to the camp at night to gather. Then, he took the lead and entered the mine's interior.
Galen chose to bring a cleric and a mage with each group to facilitate lighting, after all, he didn't have time to prepare six hundred torches.
Before long, Galen's team encountered several forks in the road. Staring at the map in his hand, Galen was faced with a choice.
"Master?"
Hogg was a little confused when the team stopped.
These days, under the guidance of a certain wizard, Hogg had learned some simple common language, which showed that Hogg's intelligence was still okay. After all, he was also a particularly gifted wolf among the gnolls, a future elite model leader, known as one of the characters who killed the most player alts.
Before long, Galen selected a route. He remembered that in his previous life, after entering the underground, the Deadmines route was to choose the right side at the first intersection and the right side at the second intersection. This was what he had summarized after getting lost for more than half an hour in his previous life.
After walking for a while, Galen once again sighed at how complex the underground environment was, full of forks and intersections everywhere, which really made one's scalp tingle.
But this was not surprising. It was said that this gold mine was explored and mined during the time of King Llane's grandfather and has been mined until now for nearly a hundred years.
The first hundred-year project, with a large number of miners mining day and night, brought huge wealth to the Stormwind Kingdom, thus excavating so many wide, winding underground tunnels was not surprising.
It was just hard on Galen and his team. The light of the Holy Light illuminated the tunnel. The environment was the same all the way: support frames made of giant wood, abandoned minecarts, and some scattered waste mines.
Along the way, Galen had Hogg mark the fork chosen by his team so that subsequent teams would know that someone had chosen this fork.
"Hogg, can you smell the scent of living people?" Galen laughed after asking. He was just a gnoll, not a police dog.
"Master, there is a smell of fresh excrement in the right passage ahead!" Hogg unexpectedly spoke.
"Cough cough!" Galen was a little caught off guard. Are you really a dog? But then he became happy again. Now that the New Year had just passed, the miners had not yet started this year's mining plan, so what were the creatures living deep in this mine during this period?
It was not the time of the Great Cataclysm more than thirty years later, and not so many homeless Stormwind refugees had fallen to the point of needing to live in the mine.
Whatever it was, he had to go and find out.