Old Siltek's roar suddenly stopped. He looked at the golden-patterned priest's robe he was wearing with the faint light of the night vision status light in Schiller's hand, as if he had seen a ghost.
"You...are you from the Inquisition?" There was fear in his voice, and he stammered: "So are you here to silence me? Why on earth do you know so much..."
Schiller was impatient to listen to his nonsense, swung the crowbar in his hand and said: "Tell me everything you know, otherwise I will throw you back to the cave where your wife is."
"No, no, no!" Old Siltek yelled: "You can't throw me back, that monster will kill me!"
"But...but since you have already chased me here, what else don't you know?" Old Siltek said, gasping for air. The injury on his ankle made him sweat all over in pain.
Just from his reaction, Schiller could tell that he was indeed a pampered rich man and had not received much training in resisting torture. What he said should have greater credibility.
"I know a lot of things, otherwise I wouldn't find you here, but I am interested in more things. If you satisfy me, maybe I can give you a chance."
Old Siltke showed a wry smile and said: "Forget it, I have long thought that such a day would come. Ever since I knew about it, I never thought that I could survive in your hands."
"Stop talking nonsense and tell me what you know."
"I'm a little impressed by your clothes. Are you a member of the Pope's bodyguard? This makes me a little confused. I don't think the Pope would send his bodyguard to deal with a little person like me, unless he actually knows...
Okay, put the crowbar down, why don’t I tell you?”
"You should know that hotel, right?"
"If you try again I will break your other leg."
"Well, it seems that you know. After all, this is not a secret. There were so many people who didn't know about it. But what you may not know is that the abnormal situation in the hotel shocked the whole world.
Religions believe this is so-called divine punishment."
"And among the first batch of cardinals sent to investigate the unusual situation in the hotel, there was a famous figure. That was Gad Berelton, one of the three saints of the church later."
"No one else found anything useful in the hotel. After returning, they only briefly described the scene of the tragedy, but Gad found something crucial in the hotel."
"What?"
"I'm not sure what it is, but that thing is the culprit of the frequent abnormal events that occurred later. Gad has a way to control it. If he takes action at the right time, he can bring great panic until the whole world is plunged into weirdness.
The incident is under threat.”
"Why did he do this?"
"Why else, of course it's for power. Without these weird events that only the church can handle, how could the church become the behemoth it is today?"
"This is too ridiculous." Schiller commented: "It is impossible to do these things with the power of one person."
"Of course it's not just the power of one person, there are many people who want to make a fortune." Old Siltke did not hide it, he said: "It was at that time that I saw the opportunity and established the
The insurance companies related to the strange events made their fortune, so to be precise, I can be considered a member of this conspiracy."
"You are quite honest."
"This is nothing. Judging from your expression, you probably didn't expect this kind of thing. Then you know that this is actually an open scam, sacrificing some ordinary people to gain more power and money for us."
"If that's the case, why did you end up like this?"
Schiller obviously asked the key, and the old Siltke sighed and said: "Because no one knows, they have opened Pandora's box."
Schiller took out the diary of Sailor Peake from his arms. Old Siltke was a little excited when he saw the book, and even reached out to grab it, but Schiller did not give him this chance.
He shook the book in his hand and said, "How much do you know about this thing?"
Schiller noticed the change in old Siltke's expression, and he knew that he should have obtained the key prop, otherwise he would not be able to get more information from him.
But after seeing this book, old Siltke couldn't calm down. He lay on the ground and panted for a while and then said: "This is one of the reasons why I came here."
"What?"
"This is not my thing originally. Do you know Jeff's family?"
Schiller nodded and said: "I am honored to know their corpses."
"It seems that they were not spared. Maybe you have heard the story of Jeff when he was young. He was a sailor, but because of a weird shipwreck, he was considered an unfortunate person. Since then, almost no one has
Hire him."
"But I saw his letter and you said you wanted to hire him."
"Originally, yes, but unfortunately he died, so forget it."
"You're just lying to him."
"No, not exactly. I did do it for the book in his hand, but I did want to hire him because I wanted to recreate the shipwreck and see if what was recorded in the book was true.
"
"So what's in this book?"
"Let's talk about the shipwreck first. For Jeff, it was a lifelong shadow. He described it as a 'terrible storm', but he told me that it was not the shipwreck on the ocean that really destroyed the fleet.
It’s not a storm, but a terrifying existence descending on the sea.”
Schiller frowned. He had a premonition, so he asked: "What was that fleet transporting back then?"
"Cultural relics." Old Silturk said: "The ship is filled with looted cultural relics, many ancient files and classics, and the final destination of the fleet is England."
"Someone touched those classics, right?"
"You are indeed a member of the Guards. You must know these things, right?" Old Siltke said sarcastically: "Yes, an ignorant sailor opened Pandora's box."
"Is this Sailor Peake?"
"No, it wasn't him. This sailor was older, but they had the same thing happen to them. Something happened."
"What is it?"
"I don't know. Even if I know, I can't say. The cause of the matter is that some sailors stole things with dirty hands and feet. The first mate wanted to investigate thoroughly. In order to find out how many things were lost, they checked all the cultural relics and classics.
Once again.”
"A sailor who was responsible for checking the classics went through them one by one to make sure there were no other things mixed with them. He found a somewhat special book in it, which recorded terrible forbidden knowledge."
"He couldn't read the contents, but he happened to remember a short spell, written in Latin, which he could probably spell out."
"And he used this spell?"
"Yes, actually he didn't intend to use it, but that damn thief blamed him for stealing. He was beaten half to death by the first mate and had two fingers chopped off. He held a grudge.
I wish all the people who bullied him would die."
Check out the correct version one by one!
"He thought it was a black magic spell, so he simply used it to curse the first mate, stuffed the note with the spell into the first mate's pocket, and carved it several times under his bed board."
"Then what?"
"Then nothing happened. The sailor suddenly went crazy, and then they encountered an unprecedented storm. Everyone in the fleet died. Only Jeff survived."
"Is he the thief?"
"How do you know?"
"I know that he is a gambler, and the market is often opened on the ocean-going fleet. Losing the bet without paying back the money in such a place with no way out can be fatal, so he will naturally take risks."
Old Siltke nodded and said: "Yes, he is the thief who framed others. The key lies in how he survived."
Schiller looked at him and said nothing. Just as Old Siltek was about to say something, Schiller shook the diary in his hand and said: "Is this the classic that Jeff stole? Did he get the method of rescue from here?
"
"I really can't hide anything from you." Old Siltek snorted and said, "That's right, this guy accidentally hit it. He can't steal those large cultural relics, they are in strange shapes and there is no place to hide them.
He can only steal some ancient books and scrolls and give them to his creditor to pay off his debt."
"After the storm came, he had no way to escape, but accidentally found a way to survive in the book he stole."
"What is it?"
"I don't know. When I got this book, it was already incomplete. I guess Jeff didn't want others to know this method."
Schiller raised the crowbar in his hand and said, "Don't let me say it a second time. Tell me what the method is?"
Old Siltek swallowed and said, "I really don't know."
"Well, it seems that you want to die with your wife." After saying this, Schiller dragged old Siltek back the same way. He let out an earth-shattering scream and finally succumbed halfway.
"He really tore those things off! I haven't seen it either! But from what he said, I can infer some clues..."
"for example?"
"He probably didn't do anything."
"Are you kidding me?"
"No, what I mean is that he may have knocked himself out before the disaster struck, or he may have been drunk. In short, he was unconscious."
Schiller knew clearly. Peake's diary recorded that they also encountered a storm at sea, but later successfully returned home according to the guidance of the lighthouse, which meant that they survived the disaster.
All the parts about the disaster have been torn out, but Peake has been complaining about the boredom of ocean sailing and said that they often drink. So it is not difficult to guess that on the night when the disaster struck, Peake drank with a few good friends.
They got very drunk, and when they woke up they found that everyone was dead, but they escaped because they were drunk.
This is also in line with the setting of the Cthulhu mythology. Neither the Old Ones nor the Outer Gods intentionally killed the sailors. It was more that the sailors brought madness to the ship after being exposed to forbidden knowledge.
The way to deal with some monsters in the Cthulhu Mythos is indeed to not listen or see or feel. As long as my intelligence is low enough and I can't read any words or understand any forbidden knowledge, my sanity value will naturally not decrease.
Schiller would like to call this genre the "Aba Aba mentally retarded school".
The chronological order of the whole thing may be:
The fleet of a sailor named Peake unfortunately encountered a disaster related to the Cthulhu Mythos. Peake and his friends escaped from the disaster by accident and recorded their experiences in this diary.
.
Later, the diary was transported to the UK as a cultural relic by Jeff's team. It happened that the fleet encountered a similar disaster. Jeff was jealous of losing money in gambling and wanted to steal the ancient books and files to pay off the debt, so he happened to get this diary.
, and at the critical moment, he speculated on how Peake could survive the disaster, and used this method to successfully survive.
After Jeff returned, because he became the only lucky man to survive the shipwreck, people thought he might be a monster resurrected from the dead or the source of misfortune. No one was willing to hire him again, leaving him impoverished.
The old Siltek, who was investigating the matter, approached Jeff as the owner of his own fleet and offered to help him solve his difficulties and rehire him, thus obtaining the diary from him.
Jeff was not stupid either. In order to have enough chips in his hand, he tore out the key contents of the diary. However, he did not expect that the cunning old Siltke had already guessed the way to survive the disaster from the conversation with him.