Chapter 3218: The Haze of Faraines (26)

This speculation appeared in Schiller's mind, and it was immediately out of control.

But he thought about it again, the characteristics of the Prowler and the Great Old One Yibb-Tstll mentioned in this book *Cthaya, the Water God* were too similar. The Prowler was more likely to be Yibb-Tstll's blood body.

Assuming that the Church is now divided into two factions, one is those who use doorplates to create anomalies for their own profit, and the other is cultists who add real cult sacrifices to controllable strange events. Which faction is the Great Prophet, and which faction am I?

Schiller didn't dare to think deeply about this question.

First of all, the Great Prophet was one of the investigators who went to investigate the hotel incident. It is very likely that he has many doorplates picked up from the hotel in his hands. This is an important item for him to maintain the status of the Church and himself.

Assuming that he thought of such a method and made the Church reach its current status, he absolutely has no hope that the Old Ones will descend, because he is an egoist.

He spent so much effort to develop the Church to its current status, just to enjoy the pleasure brought by money, power, and resources. If the Old Ones descend and all of humanity falls into madness, wouldn't he have worked in vain?

The point Schiller didn't dare to think deeply about was here. Assuming the Great Prophet is actually the anti-descent faction, then what about me?

If there are no accidents, I am the Pope's person, and judging from the attitude of the black man just now, the Great Prophet and the Pope are opposed.

So am I the descent faction?

The cultist is actually me.

But don't say, you really don't say, if you reason from this line of thinking, it really makes sense.

The Great Prophet wants to use doorplates to create strange events here, trigger social attention, and then step in to save people, enhancing the Church's prestige.

But the Pope is a cultist, the one who mixes sand into the rice. He chose this opportunity and used some means to make the door fail to open successfully, turning the monster into the blood body of Yibb-Tstll summoned over.

Think deeper, the Pope learned that the Great Prophet might come in person this time, so he replaced the originally controllable monster with a clone of a Great Old One.

And when the Great Prophet sent people to recover the doorplate, thinking everything was ready, what they had to face was not the monster that ran out of the door, but a terrible clone of a Great Old One. The ending naturally didn't need to be said.

So Faraines is a trap, essentially a product of mutual friction within the Church.

Then what role did I play?

Schiller thought somewhat helplessly that he was the last player to enter, and also the one among all players who set the simplest background story for himself. But under the wrestling of multiple background stories, the truth of this story still involved him.

Assuming I am really a cultist, then I should be the one sent by the Pope to make the doorplate fail to release, and summon the Prowler. After all this trouble, the mastermind behind the scenes is still me.

Assuming I have already betrayed the Pope and don't intend to help him, then in order to fight against the Pope, I have to help the Great Prophet. But judging from the current situation, the Great Prophet is not a good thing either. Now surrendering is definitely too late.

But fortunately, after a mess by their group of players, neither of the two unlucky masters achieved their goals.

The Prowler was caught by Greed, and it definitely had no way to assassinate the Great Prophet. The doorplate was taken by Schiller, and the Great Prophet definitely had no way to recover it.

Otherwise, why would it be said that the weak-minded are strong? After a mess of playing, they successfully dragged the two masterminds behind the scenes into a rotten battle, and the next step is to defeat them with rich experience in fighting rotten battles.

Schiller thought about it and decided to solve the captain's cabin problem first.

He opened his mouth and said, "Assuming there are monsters in every door, the Great Prophet coming over to nail the doorplate on is definitely not to confront the monsters head-on. Besides, in this situation, opening the door and entering should be a hotel room, not the captain's cabin. To enter the captain's cabin, there must be other methods."

Schiller went through all the clues in his brain again. He felt that the incantation with missing letters in the *Bible* should also be useful.

While thinking, he checked the doorplate in his hand, and suddenly found that the doorplate of the 1913 room door was normal, but the vine patterns on the outer ring of the captain's cabin doorplate and the wooden board inside were not one piece. The patterns on the outer ring could be taken down.

Schiller checked carefully and found that after taking down the patterns on the outer ring, the wooden board inside also had screw holes, and it was exactly one circle smaller than the original doorplate, and it could be perfectly nailed to the screw holes that were one circle smaller.

And there was nothing on the back of the doorplate, as if waiting for someone to carve something on it.

Schiller looked up at Batman and said, "Are there any numerical clues in the missing letters?"

"Numerical clues? Do you mean some letter codes might point to a number?"

Schiller nodded.

Batman read the *Bible* carefully again and wrote down all the missing letters, but he deliberately disrupted the order to prevent writing the real incantation.

Batman looked and looked, his brows furrowed tighter and tighter, seeming very unaccustomed to his current slow thinking speed.

"Do you want to invest in a skill?" the Beyonder said in Schiller's heart. "Your profession can invest in code breaking. You happen to have two skill points."

Schiller hesitated, feeling that letting Batman think like this didn't seem very good. Even if he could think of it, this clearly wasn't a skill he could master with his current identity, and he might not be able to say it.

He felt that there should be many places to use codes later, so he simply invested two points.

Afterward, he used the code breaking skill on these letters and rolled a die. The check passed, and some mysterious arrangement methods immediately appeared in Schiller's mind.

Schiller suddenly realized.

He took the captain's cabin doorplate he had removed earlier, placed it in front of Batman, and then said, "What about adding these letters?"

What was written on the captain's cabin doorplate was the two words "captain's cabin," but after adding these letters, it was completely different.

Batman immediately found the solution.

Latin has five declensions. The words before and after the change can show which declension they belong to. After disrupting all the letters and rearranging them, a total of eight, or four pairs of words, appeared.

According to the order of missing letters, the serial number of the four groups of word declensions is 1413.

This looks clearly like a room number.

Schiller recalled it, but had no impression of this room, but he still carved this number on the back of the captain's cabin doorplate that had been reduced by one circle.

Then he stood up, first tried it with the original screws of the captain's cabin doorplate, and found that the screws were too big, and the model didn't match at all.

He took out the screws of the hotel doorplate that Nyarlathotep gave him, and perfectly nailed the flipped captain's cabin doorplate on.

A door appeared on the wall, and this time, there was no lock on the door.

Schiller and Batman looked at each other. Batman reached out to twist the door handle, and with a creak, the door opened.

The captain's cabin was shining with dim yellow light.

"This was actually solved by you." The Beyonder's voice revealed a trace of indignation.

"Having Batman is truly amazing," Schiller said while walking into the captain's cabin.

He recalled the whole process of solving the puzzle. Actually, it wasn't very difficult, and it didn't have much to do with the hotel doorplate. It was mainly that Schiller got some inspiration from that doorplate.

Actually, it was nothing more than needing some clues to associate with the problem of the doorplate. There were roughly two ways to obtain this clue. Either investigate the hotel incident of that year, obtain clues, and associate the hotel doorplate with the captain's cabin doorplate.

Or communicate with the evil spirit and get the clue that one can enter the room without opening the lock. After a search, one should also be able to find the problem of the doorplate in the end.

Then it was needing the code breaking skill. The Beyonder's skill points were still quite generous. Basically, every encounter battle would give points, and it was not too late to invest them on the spot.

However, if the code breaking skill wasn't maxed out, one could only know that the letters in the two words "captain's cabin" needed to be integrated, and one still had to do the permutation and combination oneself.

However, there were always a few players in a team with relatively high education. Americans who had received elite education could roughly judge that this was Latin at a glance, so as long as they picked out the letters that were the same in pairs and spelled them, they could basically spell out a rough idea.

The only relatively troublesome thing was needing to be familiar with Latin declensions, but the skill of reading literature contained Latin reading, so it was also just needing to invest in a skill and pass a dice roll.

And the relatively difficult point was needing to find the hotel doorplate screws. This was a key item. Schiller didn't know where the Beyonder hid this thing. It was estimated that finding it would also take some effort, but anyway, Nyarlathotep gave the screws directly to him.

The two entered the captain's cabin and began a search. There was a bookshelf on one side and a shelf on the other. The books on the bookshelf were ordinary, but the small sculptures on the shelf were quite interesting.

Schiller found a small octopus sculpture with the same shape as the lock. It seemed to be silver, and the eyes were inlaid with a circle of gems. The gems emitted a faint luster, and this thing looked extraordinary.

"Are there any antique appraisal skills?" Schiller asked the Beyonder, and then added, "Or use Cthulhu mythos appraisal?"

"You can try." The Beyonder said.

Schiller understood that he said so, which meant this thing should have some tricks, but he also knew that it would be fine if nothing was appraised, but if something was really appraised, he would definitely lose Sanity value.

Schiller decided to hold it first, and then appraise it when he saw any clues related to this.

Then he came to the table in the captain's cabin and saw a bottle of wine placed directly in front of the chair at a glance. The wine bottle was thin and square, narrow at the bottom and wide at the top, looking a bit like the back of Batman wearing a cloak.

The upper part of the wine bottle had a silver skull, and many tentacles extended from under the skull, densely entangled together, making people's scalp numb.

The wine bottle was transparent, but the liquid inside was golden. Schiller picked it up and smelled it, confirming that this was the legendary Golden Honey Wine.

This was a mysterious liquid that could make a person's body and spirit fall into a stagnant state, and could also allow people to breathe in a vacuum environment. It could generally be used to ride a spaceship.

This was also an important prop in running a group. In some scripts, it could restore health and sanity, but Schiller felt that in this game, this seemed to be the real magic weapon to get through the disaster.

The fleet Pike was on was indeed wiped out, but judging from the situation in the captain's cabin, the captain was not an ordinary person. He was highly likely a cultist.

The opening method of this room was so complex, which meant that the disaster might not be able to invade here, which proved that the captain had anticipated the subsequent encounter of the fleet.

Or rather, the disaster was summoned by him with premeditation.

To ensure he got through the disaster, a special room might not be enough. This bottle of wine placed on his table was the key.

Old Siltek, under Jeff's misleading, believed that as long as he didn't listen, didn't look, and didn't feel, he could safely get through the disaster. But as long as a person is alive and the brain is still working, how could there be absolutely no feeling? Even a drunk or anesthetized person couldn't do it.

But this method might not be completely wrong, it just needed a little external help. Golden Honey Wine could make a person's spirit and body fall into a complete stagnant state, achieving true not listening, not looking, and not feeling.

If the Pope was a cultist like the captain, then for the Great Prophet to deal with him, he must have the means to deal with the disaster. He came here, it should be to find this Golden Honey Wine that could make people immune to mental pollution. ===== CHAPTER 3219 =====

If the Pope is a cultist like the Captain, then the Great Prophet must have a way to deal with disasters if he wants to oppose him. He came here likely to find this Golden Mead that grants immunity to mental pollution.